A Note from the Author: Welcome! This is a prequel story to my story The Jaguar, and concerns Mercedes' parents and the last night they saw her. You don't need to have read The Jaguar in order to enjoy this! It'll probably only be a couple of chapters long. It's set in the days before Wall Maria was lost. Thoughts welcome! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Chapter 1: One Summer's Night
Year: 833

One after the other, Amaranta and Léon kissed the warm forehead of their sleeping daughter, curled in her bed bathed in moonlight coming through the window above her. A pleasant breeze drifted over the windowsill and brushed through her inky curls. It made the little windchime her grandfather had made her ring softly.

"Always so warm," Léon remarked with a smile as they retreated to the doorway, looking at her a moment more.

"No fever, promise," his wife said. Her hand caressed his shoulder as she left the room. "Come on. The sooner we leave, the sooner we're back with her. I'll ready the horses, you grab the rifles. I want to be back with my baby before she grows another inch."

Léon stared at Mercedes, lingering as he always did, committing to memory her apple of a face, with its pinched nose and the lips she received from his wife turned down into an endearing scowl. Every time they wished her goodnight while she slept before they left her for a night, or two, or three, on their runs or their explorations or hunts, it was like looking at a new child – familiar as his own skin but growing too quickly for his taste. How long did they have before she was riding her own horse, seeking her own stars?

"Sweet dreams, song of my heart," he whispered. "We'll be back soon."

He tore himself away, pulling the door softly to behind him. His mother, Julia, met him in the hall already dressed for the night in her robe, her graying curly hair wild about her shoulders. Her arms were folded, making her tiny frame look even more compact, and her face was stern.

Reading her thoughts, Léon said, "We'll be back as quick as we can." He passed her on his way down the hall to the stairs.

She followed more slowly on account of her limp. "I know. But you just got back. I've already lost your brothers, your father… And you're both so young, still. Running a colt or two to a Scouting Legion base camp is one thing, but going out there to hunt Titans on your own is foolish."

"We know what we're doing, madré," he said. Despite her words he waited for her and helped her down the stairs.

"Doesn't mean it's not foolish," Julia said. "Mercedes is five. What kind of example is this setting for her? How am I to answer her when she asks if you've been eaten? She's smart – too smart. She's figuring out our world."

"I trust you'd figure something out." In the foyer he found his light canvas jacket waiting for him in its usual spot slung over a chair, and tugged it on. "And let her be smart." He took four rifles out of their brackets on the wall and carried them cradled in his arms.

She walked him to the open front door that was letting in the cool night air and the distant sound of their dog barking. "What else did you think I'd do? She's the only one besides me with any sense in this house and someone will have to inherit my library when I'm dead because it won't be you or 'Mara. Idiots."

Léon stood on the threshold and smiled at her. "We'll be quick. Quick like shooting stars." He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, which she reluctantly returned. He stepped out of the house onto the cobbles he'd laid just that spring.

"Be careful, both of you."

"Remember, if in five days –"

"Shut up. Get out of my sight you hellion." Julia flailed an arm in his direction and immediately turned away back into the house.

"But I was always your favorite hellion," he called after her.

"No, shut up. Your father was. You're second. Now shoo."

Léon grinned and watched her shadow disappear into the warm light of the doorway, gaping like the window of a lantern. His gaze passed over the modest home that he, his father, four brothers and wife had built with their own hands. It was a relatively small home serving as a ranch, with twenty enclosed acres on land cleared in a forest outside the Walls and the freedom to more. Their stables could hold twenty horses, though right now after the delivery two days ago, they only had twelve adults and three foals, one of the latter being promised for Mercedes. They had a strategic location for their main patrons, the Scouting Legion, even if the safety of the Walls was several days' ride away. In his private, prouder moments, Léon referred to it as the House of Heaven.

Only in the last couple of years since Mercedes was born had they felt as though their home was finally complete. Far from being satisfying, though, it had been a curse to the personalities of his wife and himself. They liked to be kept busy. They liked projects, activities, missions. Julia often remarked that they should have channeled that energy into the military rather than raising and breeding horses, but it wasn't their calling. Their spirits were too free. Besides, the military had taken too many from their family – the three of them, and now Mercedes, were the only ones left.

"Léon," Amaranta called.

He quickened his steps to the stables, where she was riding her horse out into the yard, his in tow. Saddled and ready, it made 'Mara's height even more impressive and leant a regal bearing that suited her. His partner in crime, his better half, his beautiful wife. It made a content smile grow on his face to think how lucky he was.

"What're you looking at, you foolish handsome man?" she teased as she paced up beside him.

The horses came to a stop; he propped the rifles on the ground and held the tips of their barrels with one hand. He ran his free hand up and down her thigh and her hand caressed his in return. "Funny, my mother just called us that." They chuckled. His hand went a little higher, a little more inside. "Are you sure you don't want to work on a son tonight, instead?"

'Mara leaned over and down to him to put her lips just in front of his – so close he could almost taste her – and the strengthening summer breeze whipped her short, dark hair over her eyes like a veil. "As I said, my love, the sooner we go, the sooner we get back."

The two grinned at each other. 'Mara gave him a short kiss and then leaned back upright. Léon slotted two rifles into their holsters on her saddle, and then rounded her to his own horse to do the same. He pulled himself up into the saddle. Before leaving the yard they checked the security of their rifles and rounds, rope, and short swords.

"Ready?"

"Ready. Let's go find an ocean for 'Cee, this time," 'Mara said.

"How about a jaguar?"

"Sure, or a mountain."

"A river of stars!"

"Enough pearls to buy the capital!"

"Enough diamonds!"

"Maybe the Titans can tell us the secret to catching the sun. Let's give her the sun."

"Let's."

As they passed through the ribbon of light cast by the door into the darkness, they glanced up at their daughter's window, with its curtains waving goodbye in her stead.