Shade felt himself expand with joy when he saw Marina with Griffin, talking and enfolding each other in their wings. Shade streamed toward them and embraced them both, flowing through Marina and Griffin, his mate and his son, and being closer to them then they could possibly comprehend. He felt all the things in their hearts and became a part of them, and so the homecoming was his as well.
"Marina, Griffin, I missed you both" Shade said, but of course, they could not hear him.
"Oh, Shade, why did you have to go and get yourself killed? I know I should have gone with you. All the times you were ever on an adventure, you would of died without me, but this time I did not go with you, and…and…" Marina wept.
"But Marina, I am here with you, I am here now, no need to worry" Shade whispered in her ear, but, of course, she could not hear him. Shade longed to be there alive with Marina, to talk to her and tell her everything was ok, but she would not be crying if he were still alive. Alive. Over the months, even after Shade followed his son on his first migration, that word echoed in the back of Shade's mind, like an old but forever lasting echo in the echo chamber. One dusk, about a half a year after he died in the underworld, Shade saw something spectacular. It was like nothing he had ever seen; Shade had ventured farther up north to see what it was like, and saw some kind of colorful glow on the horizon. Curious, Shade flew farther ahead. Strong winds that would of buffeted him in life blew carelessly pass him. Shade then felt something he had not felt in a long time, pain! Shade burst out laughing giddily. Pain was good; it was a trait of someone alive. Shade looked down and saw a body, a misty body, but a body; his body. Shade looked ahead again and saw some kind of stone producing all the colorful lights in the sky. Shade scanned it more closely; having echo vision, finally, and saw it had some kind of markings on it. It had pictures of some small cat like creatures chasing something else; bats, and if he was not mistaken, bats with fur on their wings and longer than usual hair. Shade was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to fly closer.
"No" thought Shade "It probably is not a safe idea to get any closer", but he wanted to see it just a little bit closer…when Shade tried flying away from it, it just pulled him closer and closer… then darkness, Shade panicked, he had been pulled into the stone. Shade then screamed, an array of lights had just blasted on and it burned his eyes to look at them, but the problem was that they were coming from all directions. Shade covered his eyes with his wing, but it did no good. Shade looked at his wing and saw it was clear, and becoming translucent just like Zephyr's wings, but more. Shade screamed again when a volley of sound deafened him and made his echo vision no use, then silence. Shade then saw the light had died down and he was in some kind of forest. He saw Marina up in a branch overhead, and he tried flapping to her, but he could not move his wings, he was too weak. Shade had use of his ears now and heard birds chirping and some kind of voices whispering in the bushes. Shade took one last look around before he crumpled to the ground with weakness and rested, not knowing if he would ever want to wake up.
