I'm not Tamora Pierce and though I've worked hard to make my plot indistinguishable from hers, obvs I'll fail because I'm not her, and this is not her work. Clear? Crystal. Enjoy!

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Balancing on the edge of a stepstool, Numair stretched to adjust a spell equation currently taking up four chalkboards. He climbed down to rifle through a dusty tome, then turned back to read the script on the walls. Then he wiped his brow, leaving a dirty smear. A table, meticulously cleared of clutter, held a stoppered flask of wyverns' breath, a titration tube of flesh-eating unicorn saliva, and a beaker of liquefied spidren web. What was so corrosive about wyverns' breath? What made spidren silk so sticky? But he was very close to distilling an antidote for flesh-eating unicorn saliva. (The assassin George bought the saliva from was never heard from again). Having abandoned all attempt to recreate the barrier the previous week, he then focused on amplifying various protection spells, modifying early alert spells, and compiling tactical defense strategies for use against the various known immortals—a list of which was being ever built by the bevy of university students besieging the library.

Just then, Kitten galloped through the open door. She jumped onto his desk, and planted her forepaws on his chest. "Kit, what're you doing here?" Whistling, chirping, and clicking up a storm, her scales a sullen gray, she explained in her own way. Numair sat down in his chair and the dragonet promptly crawled into his lap. Cuddling, her scales regained their normal jewel-blue. Clucking her under the chin, he asked, "Where's Daine, sweet?" Kit immediately shifted down the gray-scale again, and she pressed two fingers together, wrinkling her nose. For a moment, Numair's face was blank with incomprehension, then his brows snapped together with an "Oh." The dragonet was miming kissing, never mind where she learned the gesture. He was lost to an echoing emptiness for a moment before he realized the gray dragon was of a similar sentiment. "Don't worry Kit, you'll always have me," he murmured. She rubbed her head along his jaw, remarkably like a cat. They sat quietly for a while.

Numair guessed at the depth of her discontent by how she wasn't trying to jump onto his workbench. "Would you like to hear a story?" The dragonet perked up and nodded, sitting at attention on his knee.

"Three years ago, before you were born and not long after I first met Daine, we were at Pirate's Swoop with the Riders, Alanna's family, and the Queen and Kally and Roald. All journey south, we had been spied on." His voice faltered as he saw Daine collapse again, feeling hopeless watching Alanna try to shock her heart back into rhythm. "And so, by the time we reached the Swoop, Ozorne's men set a trap. They drew out Alanna and half the men and surrounded us in the night. They sent dampening spells so no one could defend themselves and opened a portal so that stormwings would harry us. Well, what the Carthakis didn't know was that your mother was pulled through the portal also, and she was furious. They told her that I was responsible, and in her rage she attacked me. Imagine my surprise when the spell I sent at her had no effect!" Kitten chortled. "She waved it off like smoke and dove at me. But Daine knocked me over, protecting me while begging to your mother to not hurt me. Your mother broke off her attack, and Daine touched her to better communicate, but she could feel her wild magic being pulled right out of her. Then they realized it was a great healing and that you were saved. You'd almost died crossing the barrier, and your mother was so ecstatic she flew off.

"But soon after that, the Carthakis attacked from land and sea, and all hope was lost. Then your mother came to our aid—she sank several ships…but…" And Numair wavered, doubting the prudence of this tale when Kitten already so glum, but she reached for his hand and squeezed it. He wondered if the dragonet remembered her mother's last screams. "But between the stormwings and the mages, she was killed. Yet she helped the kraken destroy the fleet while Daine's friends took care of the soldiers on land. We won, and Daine and I both slept for nearly three days. The whole time, she dreamed of you, and the first thing out of her mouth when she woke up was that we needed to get to the cliffs right then. That wasn't what I wanted to let her do, there were still soldiers in the woods, but she wouldn't listen!" imagine that "And when we were along the cliffs, Daine fell right into your cave. That was how she became your ma." He poked her belly. She whistle-chirped and poked him in the chest.

He sighed and gently lifted Kitten off his lap. "I've got to get back to work, girl."

Instead, he found himself explaining the different parts of the spell. She couldn't ask questions, but he knew she understood as he described the various reactions that needed to occur and be taken into account. Most importantly, the amount of force necessary for this particular protection charm needed to be perfectly defined so that no one would attempt to cast it without enough strength. A small part of him felt foolish. For all he knew, the dragonet was just humoring him.

When Daine ran in, red faced and panting, Numair knocked a book off a shelf.

"What's wrong? Where?" He cried, nerves frayed from the constant wait.

Daine just shook her head, saying, "You're not going to believe it, but it's just wolves. Just wolves! Doing for us what we'd been watching for immortals for. Odds bobs!"

Numair deflated, all summoned energies released. Not yet, the attack still hadn't come yet. "You're going tonight to remedy the situation?"

"Yes, before…"

Before they killed again, before they were killed.

"Where, just in case?"

She met his eyes. "Obstruction, actually." She named a village a half-day's ride into the royal forest.

He knew she hated forcing her will onto the People. So he picked up the book and said, "Be careful. Hurry back."

Daine nodded and hugged Kitten, already at arm level on his desk. "You stay with Numair tonight, Kit; I might not be back til late." She trilled and waved. Then Daine swept out of the room.

Numair sat down in his chair, and Kitten tentatively crawled back into his lap. No goodbyes. He hated how she now went places he couldn't—his hawk eyes were useless in the dark. And he knew this was going to happen more and more often now.

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Daine as an owl flew to Obstruction within the hour, freed from the meandering mud track of a road. Shadowfall flew with her, and together they met with Redtuft, the screech owl so appalled by the pack's behavior.

Men upturned like an ants' nest scare my game away, with it already skin and feather time as it is. This is ridiculous. And they won't listen to anyone! Neither me nor Bear nor Lynx. This is worse than when Rabbit ate all the roses…

Redtuft vented with an echoing screech.

You're right Redtuft, Daine placated the owl. If owls could blush, Redtuft would have. I'll set this right.

Swooping through the trees, they came upon the pack feasting on a deer. Daine as an owl alit on a near branch and called, Pack-brothers! You have committed a grave offence!

Many members yelped and pulled back their ears. An owl was not pack, but she was more than that. They were already deeply uncomfortable with what they had done. But Strongjaw was proud. And who commands me? Am I to listen to a wingwalker? Two leggers are prey like this deer, no better, no less.

Daine sent images of a hunt. Strongjaw countered with images of his own hunt.

Daine showed him family, showed him society, and duty to others. She showed him how similar packs are to humans. Onua, Numair, and Kally, Roald, and Thom flashed between their minds. Still Strongjaw countered with barely remembered visuals and stories of his parents, his father was who the humans called Demon Grey, and how the hunt killed them both. This was his way, ruining families how his was ruined. The pack, leaderless, had been run out, until they were finally strong enough to take their home back. Now this was his revenge, to hunt them one by one.

She sighed and broke into his mind. She took in his pain, cast aside his explanations and wolfish rationalizations, and ordered him to let the darkness go. He had a pack to protect, not a vendetta to wage, she told him, standing over the prone belly of his psyche as he admitted her dominance.

Sliding gratefully back into her own mind, Daine took one last look at the Pike Ridge Pack to be sure that was the end of this. Finding no more opposition, she took off. She flew to the village, checking the situation within Obstruction. Candles were a luxury here—all the residents were asleep. Cats and dogs and mice reported that the village was angrily mourning the stolen infant, but they believed that nothing would be done if the pack stayed away. Such was life in the wild.

Grim but satisfied, Daine turned toward the palace. She bade Redtuft farewell, and flew on with Shadowfall.

Halfway, Daine's senses jangled with the approach of a stormwing.

"Well, well, my pretties, I don't know much about this world, but should a great grey be flying with a snowy owl?" a mocking voice called in the dark. "I think Ozorne is going to looooove this."

Set to flee, Daine landed at that name. She formed a voice, "And what's he got to do with the price of peas in Persopolis?" Human-headed and owl-winged, she looked like a kind of stormwing in the moonlight.

He took a deep breath. "Oh I do love the taste of fresh fear. It's why I so love being a scout. You, precious, have no idea how much Ozorne has to do with this. He's looking for you, and not just for you. Where's Longshanks? Is he the great grey?"

Suddenly, Shadowfall attacked from behind, his silent wings lending him surprise, but the stormwing hacked swiftly across. Daine shot forward and slashed his throat with her talons. They all fell to the ground.

"So Ozorne's not dead yet?" She squeezed. "Don't worry, I'll send him to you quick so you can tell him you saw me."

Once the stormwing was dead, Daine looked for Shadowfall. He laid cut in two.

Daine lost hold of her shape and stumbled naked in the snow. Reaching for all of her magic, she held his great body together, his blood dark against the pale drifts. Dying is a process—when stopped right at the threshold, sometimes she could reverse it. She concentrated harder than ever…and let out a sob of relief when Shadowfall became whole.

"You wonderful bird, oh you marvelous creature. No more excitement for you."

We got him! All of my chicks shall know of this. He experimentally stretched out each wing. But you're right, no more excitement for me.

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When Daine knocked on Numair's lintel, the candles were considerably lower, but he was still awake. He jumped out of his chair when she knocked, saying, "Thank the gods, you were gone so long…"

She swallowed. "I've got bad news."

~Q.

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A/N: To everyone who added this to their favs and story alerts, aww! I'm blushing. Should I apologize for letting this go so long between updates? (I'm still debating whether it's megalomania to think anyone really cares that much, but I'm a modest Minnesotan so there you go) I was having such trouble with the bridge—this has direction, I swear!—and I finally figured it out after staring at the ceiling for an hour. I hope it doesn't seem like cheating saving Shadowfall, but Daine did heal a decapitated owl in WM so, unlike zombies, they're not caput after a severed spinal cord. Anyways, I have at least a two more chapters in this set to write. I'd say they'll be uploaded soon, but I thought that about this one, and the last one, and well…it depends on how well my brain cooperates.

(and Karina Just Me, that's a big compliment! Pretty much all I took from TP was her characters, setting, and a few choice phrases that I hold near and dear. Odds bobs being one of them… ahem. But the plot is my own darned into the holes left by those dastardly editors with abysmal expectations, rrr. I can only hope that TP will publish an anthology along the lines of Charlaine Harris' short Sookie stories. Cuz I'd buy about ten.)