Zara smiled to herself as she watched Mina play with her new pet. The joy she felt mostly came from knowing that it caused Salos' great pain. It was another thing that was taking away his precious sun.

As much as it seemed to kill him to share Mina, he was getting a little more mature about it. No, she took that back. He had just sent a plant after the rabbit when Mina's back was turned.

Zara cocked her head to the side and sighed as she watched Salos' try to place the blame on Zagan. She didn't really understand why he tried. Everyone knew that Mina could never stay mad at her brother long. She was pretty sure the world would be on the road to the end if she managed to be mad at him for more than a few hours.

Setta and Ithnan had managed to play off the camping trip as the twins just getting homesick. The only one who knew the truth besides them was Zara, and she was saving that bit of knowledge for future blackmail material. She was going to use that for a rainy day, she never did know if they were going to tick her off. Pranks could only go so far for revenge at times. It wasn't long before she lost her smile and the melancholy mood that she had been in returned.

She wasn't really sure why she was so quiet and watchful of late. Before, she would have been down there picking a fight with Salos or trying to talk Mina into learning more. But since they had come back from camping and her stalking, she just wasn't as happy go lucky. It was almost like how she had been before. She still smiled and conversed with the army but her heart just wasn't in it.

Where Zara was watching her new siblings, Solomon had been watching her. He knew that it was that time year again. It would soon be the anniversary of the start of the rebellion, the day the Niran were freed from their collars and the day that they lost Sana. He wasn't all that surprised that Zara was gloomy.

Most of the Niran were either partying in celebration or mourning those they lost all over again. It was a very difficult time for them. The older generation mourned, will the younger celebrated. For some, they were too young to remember their Queen. They had been born into slavery and had no memory of the sacrifice that she had made to try and keep them safe.

Those that had been born into Sana's generation or under her rule mourned her passing. They remember how hard she had fought to protect them. How she had lost her family and her freedom. But they also looked to the future when they remember that she had given them a new leader to look too. Granted, Zara wasn't ready,, or even sure if she wanted to that responsibility.

Solomon sighed as he watched his sister. He knew that she was confused and lonely. Not really sure why she was feeling like she was.

As he was about to make his way to her, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Adar standing behind him.

"Son, I think that I should be the one to talk to her this time. I know that you loved Sana like a mother, but..," Adar's eyes had a pained mostly guilty look as he grazed upon him. His voice cracked as he tried to finish, "Sana was my daughter and it's about time that I did right by her daughter."

Solomon's eyes widen when he took in what Adar had revealed. It made sense,, now that he thought about it. From the start Adar had taken special interest in Zara. At first, Solomon had assumed that it was because of her title.

He had conflicting feelings on the matter. For one, why did he have to wait so long before he spoke up? It had been five years since Sana had died. Solomon wasn't too happy about that. He may have been a soft spoken and calm individual, but this was his sister. The only true family he had left in the world. It was a well know fact that he had started this war to free her and her people. Zara was the one that had opened his eyes to the cruelty of his race.

But, a small part of him worried that he was only upset because he wouldn't be the only family she had anymore. All these years it had just been the two of them. Now, Zara was going to have a grandfather to help shape her into an adult. Granted, he knew that Zara considered the whole army her family, but he alone was the one who could claim a true tie to her. He just didn't want to share her in that way. She was his.

Solomon shook his head as he watched Adar make his way to her. He was more like Salos than he liked to admit.

He was seventeen, almost an adult now. He needed to be mature about this. He always knew that there was a chance that Zara was going to have Niran family out there.

Adar smiled softly as he took in his young granddaughter.

"Five years ago today we lost our Golden Queen, your mother and my only child. I was helpless to stop her from giving her own life for yours. I will not lie to you little one. There was a time that I couldn't stand to look at you." Adar looked away as he spoke, "You look so much like your mother, but as you've grown I've started to see more of Solomon."

Zara turned away from Adar, "You mean David. I know that I look a lot like him."

Adar shook his head a reached out to turn Zara's face back toward him so that he could look into her eyes, "No, little one. I mean Solomon. You could never have been like that vile man. In my eyes you look like your brother. There isn't a person here that doesn't know that it was Solomon who raised you. You are who you are today thanks to your older brother. He was the one that taught you wrong from right. He taught you how to be strong, and helped you learn to stand on your own two feet. He did his best to keep you from the horrors of this world, but never tried to hide them from you when they came knocking. He was your father, in a sense. He went above and beyond in his duty as your brother. And now it's my turn. I've kept a lot of your heritage from you. There are things that a Niran your age should know. I should have been teaching how to lead and about the responsibilities that the Queen of our people have."

Zara's face remained deadpan through all of Adar's speech. So, she was just suppose to accept that he was her grandfather and that he had been hiding it all this time. She could get over the fact that at one point he didn't much care for her. Most beings were like that at first, it was something that she had learned to live with.

But the fact that he had been lying to her for years wasn't. She knew that her mother was a queen. That had been drilled into her at a very young age. Hell, she knew about it before she had been freed from slavery.

She didn't care how many lessons or how many times that they tried she never wanted to be a queen. One of her "aunts" could be the next queen. She was sure that one of them would have a golden child at some point. She knew that having the golden flame within wasn't a requirement to rule.

Zara had been raised to be a warrior. A weapon that David could use to subdue the other races. As long as he had her and her mother, he would have had the Niran on his side. Then Solomon took her and freed her people. She then became a weapon for the rebels. Not that she thought of it that way. She believed in what Solomon wanted for the future.

Her thoughts were going around in circles at this point. Logically, she knew why Adar had made the choice that he made, but emotionally, she just couldn't see it. It was at times like this that she wished that she could just slip back into that unfeeling machine that her father had tried to mold her into.

A few short months ago, she may have been able to, but having Sheba and the twins around had changed her.

Yes, she loved the guys, Wahid and Falan but they were older and they tended to treat her like a child. Sheba respected the warrior that she was and the twins looked up to her, not that Salos would ever admit that. They were the ones who really broke down the walls that she had built around her heart.

She sighed, "Look, I understand that you want to act like my grandfather now, but you're a little late. And I really don't want to deal with all the crap that claiming my blood link will bring with it. I never want to be a queen or whatever. I'm a warrior, I end lives, I don't lead them into the future. I have no desire to be put in charge of the lives of my race."

Adar closed his eyes and just barely stopped himself from sighing. He knew that he was going to have a long hard road in front of him. Zara was a very stubborn person. It was something she had inherited from her mother.

He knew that she would make a wonderfully queen if she could just stop following her brother so blindly. If she could open her eyes to the other half of herself. She would be some much better for it. But again he had no one to blame but himself.

Sure he was training her, but that was only for battle. She really knew nothing about her people outside of how much damage they could inflict.

She knew nothing of their culture. Of how they lived their lives. He had never told her the different folklore they had. All he had done was help mold her even more into a weapon. Granted, his heart had been in the right place at the time. He had wanted to make sure that she could protect herself, but that didn't change the outcome any.

"That's fine. As much as I would love to be able to act as your grandfather. I understand that I let that bridge burn and that I may never be able to build it back up, but don't let this stop you from learning. I have so many things that I can teach you. Not about fighting and warfare. There are stories and legends about our people that you never learned. You don't understand how your flames came to be, or what fuels them. You just use them willy nilly. I think that you could be so much more than you are now. Learning about where you came from can help bring more balance."

Zara turned to look out at the sky. She was remembering some of the old stories that her mother had whispered to her at night. About the great warriors of old that were said to protect the Niran. She could remember one that told of how a young girl had giving up all her power to protect the people. They had watched as she seemed to burn as bright and as hot as the sun itself…..

She knew that there was more to the story but she really couldn't remember it.

"I would like that a lot. I always liked the stories that mother would try to tell me. David didn't like it much when she did."

Adar smiled, it was so like his daughter to try and teach her right under her captor's nose.

"How about I tell you the story of our origin?"

Zara smile and nodded it was one story that her mother had never told her.

"Once upon a time, there lived a great fox. She was the only one of her kind and she was very lonely. One day, she happened upon a young human. He was being hunted by Ogres. She took pity on the poor man and saved him from them, but not before they had managed to hurt him.

At first, the man feared the fox. Thinking her to be like the ogres. But, he soon learned that she was a kind being. Before long, the two learned much about the other.

She learned that he was the last survivor of his tribe of humans and he found out that she was the only one of her kind. The father had never made another one of her. She didn't even have a name. She had been born of the very fires of their world.

They began to travel together, and before long, the young man realized that he was beginning to fall in love with the great fox. But, he knew that they could never be together as they were. So he prayed to the great father to hear his pleas and make him as she was. But his prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears.

After months of prayers and pleas, their father finally answered his human son. He told him that the great fox had never felt love before, and so knew nothing of it's pull or power. He refused to change his son's form if his love wasn't returned.

So the man went to his love and asked her if she loved him. She asked what that meant. When he told her that it meant that she would give anything to stay by his side.

Her answer was "Haven't I already done so? I have left all that I knew behind so that I could stay with you. I no longer hunt far and wide for my game but instead chose to stay here with you. In the years that we have traveled together I have never once let my fires out to play or asked to return to fiery home deep within the world, for I know that if I did you wouldn't be safe. The only other thing that I could give for you use is my form. There is little I wouldn't give to be human, so that I could hold you in my arms."

When she spoke those words the great father heard and answered her, for he knew all along that she loved him. He wouldn't the man to know just how much. And so, he gave her a human form, though she still retained her ears, tail and her claws. And he, in turn, changed the young man to look like her. The final gift that he gave the young lovers was the ability to turn into the great fox. And from them the Niran race is descended."

Zara also loved hearing different lore about the Niran or any race really.

She thought that it was a little funny that they seemed to be descended from humans as well.

"Are we really descended from humans? If so why do they hate us so much now?" Zara asked slightly confused.

Adar smiled down at her, "Well, that's how the story goes, but no one really knows if it's true or not. But I can remember a time before the great war when our people were very close to the humans." He shook his head, "Humans tend to fear what they do not understand, and as you know, we can be very hard to understand at times. We spend our younger years wild and untamed. It's only when we reach our thousandth year that we begin to look to the future by using the wisdom of our past."

Zara knew that the Niran that made up the council were much older than they looked. They were the wisest ones in the village. Generally the oldest as well, but not always.

She remembered Adar telling her once that all Niran have a special ability that they gain when they get older. It tends to be something that they have always been able to do, but it only really fully manifests close to their thousandth year. If one had their fully manifested ability then the could be one of the council.

Adar spent the rest of the day telling Zara different stories about their people and a few about her mother as a child. She learned that she was a lot more like her than she realized. Her quick temper and easy going nature came from her. He smiled and told Zara that her bookworm side came from her brother. Her mother had hated to read and be still as a child. But Zara could sit still for hours on end with a book and be happy.

She was happy to know that she had a family, but it got her thinking about the twins. And she wonder if it was possible to add them to her little family.

So Zara found out that Solomon wasn't her only living family. Also she learned a bit more about her culture and her mother. Enjoy and please reveiw