Prologue

Flocken ran, ran as fast as he could, the heat searing his skin. The smoke obscured all his senses. He could be running right into the warriors for all he knew. All he cared about was finding Clove and Nutmeg. They were all he had left.

Flocken felt bubbles of blistered skin already forming on his hands where the flames had first scorched. A shower of sparks crashed down from one of the ceiling beams, covering him and everything else. Each one felt like a fiery dagger raking across his back.

Through the veil of smoke, Flocken could make out a blue light. Clove! He thought. Using the force she leaped ten feet toward him just in time before a ceiling beam collapsed right where she had previously been standing. Flocken was relieved to see Nutmeg, though wailing, safely tucked underneath Clove's arm. She was wielding her brilliant ice blue lightsaber.

"Flocken, I want you to take Nutmeg while I hold off the troops." she said.

Clove handed him Nutmeg before he could say anything. "Alright! What are we waiting for!" He said to Clove.

"Flocken Octavius Juno, you get that look out of your eye!"

"Wha-"

"Don't pretend! You know that you're getting ready to blast the armor off their pathetic bodies! I'm the Jedi here!"

She knew him so well and it didn't help that she had the force. "You're not coming with me! You need to get out of here with Nutmeg while I get the troopers out of the way."

"How come you get the fun part?" asked Flocken almost jokingly to her.

Clove's beautiful, ice blue gaze softened. "Hey, you still get my favorite blaster!" She paused smirking, "Just in case".

"Yeah haha," he said smirking broadly. "Just in case!"

The two of them snuck silently down the ladder that led out of the attic. Flocken could hear the warriors talking in the living room. He almost felt jealous. At least they could breathe, without every gulp of air feeling like trying to swallow boiling fuel. A violent thought went through his head as he imagined abruptly ending that breathing with the swift blow of a blaster.

Clove made a hand signal that meant they needed to advance to the other side of the enemy. She quickly in three short jumps crossed to the other side of the house without the turn of a head. Sometimes Flocken even wondered if anyone could see. After all, it was an amazing leap.

Flocken wasn't quite as fast, though he was stealthy, so instead, silent as a star, he dodged behind anything that could conceal him from view. He quickly joined Clove, facing the backs of the troops.

He suddenly smelled the stench of burning leather, as his jacket, his beautiful, lucky jacket he had had since he was five years old, caught fire at the sleeve. Flocken, trying not to panic, quickly handed Clove Nutmeg, who, luckily for them had stopped crying, and put out the fire on his jacket. Looking relieved, he took Nutmeg back from a pissed off looking Clove.

A look of utter horror spread across Clove's face. At first, Flocken didn't see what was wrong, but then he saw Nutmeg. Don't sneeze Nutmeg! Please don't sneeze! But It was too late. A particularly large sneeze erupted from Nutmeg.

"Hey! Over there!" called a particularly high ranking looking trooper. "Blast them!" All the warriors immediately started firing blasters in every direction.

"So much for stealth!" Flocken yelled.

He and Clove charged through the troops weapons extended, Nutmeg still tucked under Flocken's arm. They cleared the squadron with ease, but they both knew that that wouldn't be the only issue. Flocken and Clove may have gotten past the troops, but they also had to get out of their burning house. They rushed quickly over to the trap door that led out of the house.

"The ladder's been completely destroyed!" Clove said disdainfully.

Sure enough, Flocken looked down the trap door opening and saw at the bottom of the hundred foot tree, a heap of broken and scorched looking wood.

"Blastit! Why is it that just as everything's going fine, something needs to happen!?"

"Don't get your lightsaber in a knot!"Clove told him, smirking. "I-"

"Let me guess!" said Flocken cutting her off. "You have a brilliant plan to save us all!" he said mockingly.

"As per usual!" Clove responded gleefully.

"Alright. What've you got?" Flocken asked.

"I want you and Nutmeg to jump and I'll slow you down on impact with the force."

"I don't know about this Clove…"

She scowled at him. "What? Do you have a better plan or would you rather get cooked alive?!" she said giving him a look, that quite clearly said, Grow yourself a backbone, will you!.

"Oh alright" he agreed reluctantly. "but only because I trust your judgment!"

Clove smirked that smirk he knew so well and said: "That's what I thought!"

Flocken slowly edged his way to the rim of the trap door opening, his feet dangling down into the cool, crisp air below. He was clutching Nutmeg tight in his arms.

"Alright now all you have to do is jump. I'll be right behind you but I need to get something out of our room first."

"Clove, I want you to understand that for someone who can't force jump, this really is quite terrifying. Maybe if you could just give me a little push, cause I don't kno-!"

Flocken suddenly received a large shove in his back side and he felt himself nearly have a heart attack as he fell forward. He heard Clove call from above,

"You're Welcome!"

Flocken felt the air rushing around him, the cool wind whipping him in the face, making his eyes tear up. Strangely enough, Nutmeg didn't seem to mind it. She even seemed to enjoy it a bit. As he was nearing the ground he felt himself slowly but surely losing momentum until he landed on the ground, with a soft thud.

His beautiful house that he and Clove had built themselves, he now saw the full extent of the damage to. The entire thing looked as if it would collapse at any moment. With a stab of cold hard fear, Flocken realized that Clove was still in there. She was getting whatever it was that she needed. Come on Clove, come on! He had a bad feeling about this.

Suddenly a horrible creaking noise that seemed to shake the jungle to its roots, ripped through the air, as the large branch supporting his home splintered off the tree. It seemed to happen in slow motion, but yet it happened so quickly. He stared, horrified as flames and debris showered everything in sight. His house was a giant fireball falling through the air. Quite possibly he might have seen an ice blue light go out.

The next thing Flocken knew he was on the ground. He felt his arms still fastened against, he guessed, a sound asleep Nutmeg. His head was pounding like a drum. He tried to open his eyes, but they seemed to be sealed shut. He pried them open to see the first of dawn's light creeping up over the horizon, and yet somehow now it seemed different. It was not the usual warm glow that brought the morning, but an almost cold steely light.

At first, Flocken didn't know why he was on the ground. He couldn't remember. He didn't know why he was covered in ash, soot, and burns, why his head felt as if the SuperNova had crashed straight into it. He didn't know why he was surrounded by the remains of his home.

But then the memories of the previous night came flooding back. They filled him with an unexplainable fear, in which he knew somehow that something had happened, something awful, that something that would change his life forever had just taken place. Flocken had only ever felt this type of fear one other time in his life and it had shortly after resulted in the death of his beloved little sister. He didn't understand it. It was just there.

Clove! He needed to find Clove! Flocken sat bolt upright, sending waves of pain through his body. She needed to be alright! What am I thinking?! He thought. Of course, she's alright! She's a Jedi! But then why was Flocken still filled with that feeling? That feeling that something would never be the same again? He tried to push it away, but the feeling wouldn't budge. The harder he tried to deny it, the more he knew that the feeling meant something, something horrible.

Flocken didn't have to look long before he spotted her. At first, she just seemed to be sleeping among the rubble as he had been, knocked out by some falling piece of debris, but the closer he got the more he saw. Each step he took, felt like another dagger piercing his heart. With each new step taken he could see another burn, another torn piece of flesh another splash of blood on Clove's olive green cloak.

Flocken collapsed down next to her, tears already soaking his cheeks. "Clove? Clove, come on we need to get out of here."

His entire body convulsed with pain, but not of the pain of his wounds, which he hardly even felt anymore, but the pain of his very heart and soul feeling as if it had been shredded.

"Clove?!" His body was racked with sobs "Clove?! Clove?! Please wake up!"

Flocken could have sworn for a moment her saw her head just barely move a millimeter, but it could easily have been in his, still pounding, head.

"Clove? Clove, please. Please, don't leave me. Not yet. Please. I need you. I need you more than anything else in the universe." Flocken's voice was at barely more than a whisper now. He prayed. He prayed with all of his slowly dying hope. Was he a fool for hoping?

Clove's eyelids fluttered open. "Flocken?" Her voice, her beautiful, soft, passionate voice, had been reduced now to nothing more than a shaky shattered rasp.

"Yes! Yes, I'm here! I'm right here!" He sobbed.

Clove smiled weakly up at him and a single tear ran down her face. Her beautiful face now covered with blood and soot. "Flocken I-"

"No Clove. Please don't talk. You need to save your strength Clove. Don't worry you're going to be fine. Everything's going to be alright." Flocken knew that he was trying to convince himself, as much as her.

She smiled weakly up at him again and took his hand. "I want you to change our daughter's name to Nutmeg Glacies to keep the family name going. I've been meaning to ask for awhile. It's been going back for centuries and I don't want it to die out with me. Please?"

Flocken felt his heart tearing at her words. "Clove- I-I- No! You're going to be alright! It's not going to die out with you! Not yet! Not yet!" he sobbed.

Flocken noticed something clasped in Clove's hand. Without taking her eyes off him she knew that he saw it and opened it. "It's what I needed to get," she explained. "I couldn't leave without it."

In the palm of her hand lay the locket that he had given her on their wedding day. Outside, it was a bronze flower with silver vines snaked around it. Inside the locket he knew was a picture of both of them standing together grinning broadly at the camera. A few more tears streamed out of his eyes at the sight.

"I want you to give it to Nutmeg when she's old enough. I won't need it anymore."

Flocken swallowed another sob. "Don't talk like that! You'll be there too! You'll be able to give it to her one day!"

Another tear streamed out of Clove's eye. "Flocken I think we both know that's not going to be possible."

"No!" he sobbed. "No, it's not too late!"

"Flocken I want you to know," Her breathing was becoming shallower. Every breath seemed to be coming as a struggle. "I know we say it all the time, but it's not as important as it is now. I need you to know that I-"

Clove never got to finish that sentence. Her last words never to be heard. Her shimmering ice blue gaze, abruptly went dull, her broken body, suddenly, limp. One last glittering tear streamed out of her unseeing eyes.

"No!" "NO!" " Clove, no please come back! Wake up! You need to wake up!" Flocken sobbed. His heart felt as if it had been blasted to a million pieces then chucked into a bottomless abyss. "I need you! I NEED YOU!"

Flocken collapsed onto her body. He sobbed into her cloak wet with blood. He cried. He cried as if every tear had a chance at bringing her back. He sobbed as if the pain that strangled his soul in it's cold embrace, would be released.

Slowly the ice that gripped him seemed to melt, replaced by a burning hot rage. It filled him up, made him feel like he could tear a person limb, from limb with his bare hands if he had the opportunity.

The Amaxines did this! No more spying! He was going to fight full on in this war. He would fight harder than any other soldier. Flocken would murder every last warrior if he could, slaughter them slowly! Make them suffer! Make them bleed until every drop of meaningless life dripped out of them! That's what he wanted to do! They deserved it! He would make them regret what they did!

Suddenly the pain of his loss came back overpowering his anger. A title wave of despair washed over him. I'll never see her again he thought. I'll never hear her soft voice in my ear. I'll never feel the warmth of her next to me, fighting by my side. Both his rage and heartbreak combined suddenly and he couldn't hold it in anymore. How can anyone be this cruel?! How can the universe be this cruel?! Abruptly Flocken's anger exploded out of him. He screamed. He screamed as if the whole galaxy could hear him.

"DO YOU HEAR ME! I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR FOR WHAT YOU DID! ILL- ILL KILL YOU! ALL OF YOU! YOU TOOK HER FROM ME! I'LL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN! YOU DID THIS! I LOVED HER! I LOVED HER!"