After a few minutes, Anika broke the ponderous silence.
"I don't care... I don't care about your damn prophecy. I don't care if I die. I don't care if this fight doesn't change the world. I just care about those three feeling my vengeance. I care about them paying for my mother and for my baby sister. So you can take your prophecy and shove it!" Anika's unending glare bored through Knotting Twine.
"Preach it Anika!" Melsa agreed. "He comes in here making these wild claims with nothing to validate it other than a disappearing act. C'mon everyone. You can't take this guy seriously."
Knotting Twine stood still as an oak as his eyes looked at each of them intently.
"I don't know Melsa. It may not be worth the risk. What if he's right?" Uktei questioned.
"Even if he is right we have no way of knowing. Even with evidence of past reliability, nobody knows the future." Sokei speculated. "The only thing that makes sense for us is to fight. Then we have the guarantee of death, theirs or our ours. Isn't that right old man?"
But Knotting Twine had left as stealthily as he appeared.
"Let's put it to a vote then." Uktei decided. "I think he may be right. The last few months I've seen nothing but increase in the empowerment of the people. Let us not rob them of it by circumstance. I vote we surrender."
"You're crazy Uktei! In all the years I've known you I've never known you to be a coward. I vote we fight," Melsa said, fire behind her eyes.
"I think I made my point earlier. With or without you all, I will fight." Anika stated.
"So it falls to me then. Stalemate or fight." Sokei pondered the decision that was upon him. "I say no one can know the future. And I also say that I know you all well, though short our time together may have been, and none of us would ever supplant tyranny for tyranny. I say we fight. Uktei, do you yield to the vote?"
"I do. Let us be united in vengeance and victory."