Yellow Light (Dragonfly #5)

Hunting for Answers

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Zach
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I still didn't feel that better, Feurige was so jumpy over the next few days. He was also angry, and scared. The guy was like an open book. I was nervous when Xanthos turned me back into a claw before I knew that Zara was my sister, but this was ridiculous.

The afternoon before Feurige and Ipa's fourteenth birthday, Sierra called a meeting. Despite me being son of the chief I don't think I really had any respect without Zara next to me. Not that I really cared these days.

"Tomorrow, I'm sure we are all aware, is a very special day indeed." She started off.

"Happy birthday!" Skylark said bubbly.

Sierra smiled but went on. "You will, if we assume the prophecy is correct, grow wings, and have your powers increased by a tenfold. Tenebris, is bent on returning the earth to the ancient evils. You have been given this power to defeat him, are you willing to do that?"

Both had slightly confused expressions on their faces. I tried to put myself in their shoes. The world was dying and I had suddenly been dragged from my normal life to help a bunch of stranger fight evil, and I might die in the process just because some long dead cat and her friends said so. Huh, I can see why they might say no.

"Do we actually need them?" I asked, while everyone turned to stare at me.

"I've fought him before, and I'm not dead, what makes these four so special?" I questioned.

"But Tenebris is still alive, so you didn't secede. The Great Beasts have chosen these four for reasons we don't know, but they seem to think Feurige and Ipa will give us a fighting chance."

I sighed miserably and stalked off. I suppose I wasn't being very kind to the Feurige or Ipa. All I had done is harass him about being scared or moping about Zara.

I paused with a start. I had been kind of a bully this whole hadn't I? Feurige was looked dejectedly off into the distance, quietly chatting with Ipa while Seirra was talking with Lysander about different battle strategies used through time. Kennon was playing with his rock, Skylark was probably hiding in a bush somewhere, and Annabeth and Ocaso were chasing each others tails while rolling in the sunshine.

I was a very jealous claw right now, I never got to do that with my sister. My life was one big rollercoaster that involved various beings ruining my childhood and making my life a living Heimsmire.

Jay was staring across the clearing right at me, which looked more like right through me. I'm not even sure if he knew I was there or not, but he appeared to be deep in thought. I was still slightly angry at him for ruining my dream visit with Zara, so I was not going to talk to him right now.

I should probably apologize to Feurige, and at least try to make some sort of connection with Ipa.

I sighed inwardly and padded over to him. He saw me coming and immediately tensed up.

"What do you want?" He questioned somewhat coldly.

"I just wanted to day I'm sorry for being such a birdbrain. I really never welcomed you properly." I tried, watching his demeanor grow softer.

He was actually quite large, and I had to look up slightly to talk to him. Even though claws were not the size of normal cats, I was more young-dog, or maybe runty tiger sized myself. Ipa was lying down my shoulders reached hers when she stood.

"He's telling the truth." She announced.

Feurige seemed to trust her a lot more than he trusted me, so he nodded.

"Apology accepted."

I breathed out softly in relief. "You want to go hunting? I haven't eaten in forever and I'm starving."

"Okay, though I doubt you'll be able to match my skills, young pup." He laughed and shot off through the forest.

I smiled, a real genuine smile for once, and then started running after him. Despite his small size, wolf wise, Feurige could move. I managed to match his pace and watched as he stretched his long legs out in front of him and gripped the hard packed earth with his blunt claws. He glanced over at me as if inviting a challenge, to which I gladly accepted, forgetting all my worries and bottled up emotions I previously battled with. I pushed them out of my body and slammed them into the ground every time my paws smacked the earth.

We ran, and we ran for the pure thrill of it.

After a while, when we had come far away enough from our camp to hunt for bigger game, Feurige stopped me.

"There's a nicely sized goat feeding ahead of us." He announced, raising his nose to the wind.

My eyes bugged out. "Goat? I've never gone after anything larger than a rabbit!"

"Well I personally think a goat will not be that hard." He answered. "Follow me."

I hesitantly crept after his dissapearing form, I was thinking of the goats I had seen as a human, small with round bellies and oval shaped eyes. I was absolutely shocked at what he actually meant.

What I was stareing at could not possibly be a goat. Let's start off with the fact that it had four eyes, one set above the other. Second was that it was huge, taller than Feurige, around the size of your average picnic table. I was about to question how exactly he was attempting to do this when all of a sudden his hind legs tensed. Then Feurige launched himself at the massive creature.

I stared in awe as he landed on it's back and bit down of the back of it's neck. Then he rode it like a cowboy as the wild creature jumped, snaked, and twisted around trying to knock the red wolf off of it's back.

I shook my head, trying to clear the nervousness, then leaped into the fray. I chased the goat around, trying not to get kicked by it's powerful back legs, before shooting forward and wrapping myself around it's front hoof. The goat tripped, and I scrambled out of the way from getting crushed as Feurige held it to the ground until it stopped twitching.

I approached cautiously and found he was staring at the dead animal curiously.

"What is it?" I questioned.

He frowned. "Who should I thank for it's life? All my life I respected Lupa, now that you came along I have no idea what to believe."

"I don't know about Lupa, but where I come from we thank Glamora, and Suka, she who protects us, the wolf deity is-"

"Ignis, okay then. I thank Ignis for the life this creature has given me so that I may live, may it's hooves forever mark the earth in Glamora, the final hunting ground." He announced respectively.

I nodded my approval, together we managed to drag it's carcass  back to our clearing. There was enough meat on that thing for everyone, Ipa had already dined on the grass around so she was good.

Later when the sun had started to set, I found Feurige. He didn't look nervous anymore, he almost seemed confident about tomorrow, his day of birth and the fulfillment of the prophecy.

"You're going to make an awesome Great Beast." I told him jokingly.

He smiled a wolfish grin. "Thanks, I'm not afraid of my destiny anymore."

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Watch you think? Out of all the terribleness that is the 3 previous books, I'm actually pretty proud of this chapter, there was some good character development, it was nice and long, some interesting goats, all in all very nice by my standards.

I was looking at my demo graphs, this goes out to all the people in Australia reading this!! I think it's super cool the audience is not complete of Americans, k, that's all.