Well, here we are. It's been a long road but at last we are at the end. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading this little tale as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

The usual copyright BS. I don't own Animorphs and I ain't makin any money off this.

~The Last Ronin~

"Don't go far!" I call to the little girl as she races ahead of me. I groan. How in the world can such a tiny thing have so much energy? She spends most of her days running around like a nut, getting into every bit of trouble imaginable and yet she still is bouncing off the walls come bed time.

Thank God Kyle and Erica are coming over soon; I need a break. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not twenty five anymore. My child raising years should have been long behind me at this point. The only thing I should be doing at my age is sipping a drink on a beach in Florida, not taking care of a six year old.

I sigh and sniff at the small breeze stirring the trees, showering me with a few brown leaves. Fall is definitely here, if there had been any doubt in my mind before. At least the cold doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

What possessed me to move out here in the first place though I've no idea. At the time I claimed my young ward and I needed a change of scenery, though Jordan claimed it was a mid-life crisis. Then again, she said the same thing when I took on an infant as my ward in the first place. But the change was necessary; I didn't want my little one growing up where she was born. There was just too much history in that place...too much blood.

She's already going to have a strange enough life considering her odd birth, so I might as well make what I can easier for her. That's not a conversation I'm looking forward to either. It's going to require a lot of explaining with visual aids...and maybe even a couple of stiff drinks. Oh God, and then there's going to be the sex talk. I shudder. Having to do that again is something I could live without. Three times was plenty.

The sound of crunching gravel followed by a noise which reminds me of a tiger being strangled reaches my ears and I shake my head. Kyle really needs to get that truck fixed.

"They're here!" I announce to the woods around me and wait. Seconds later my little girl comes tearing out of the bushes, covered in mud, leaves in her hair and a half dozen new scrapes on her arms and legs.

"Kyyyle...!" she sings and races past me again, towards the house. I follow at a much more reasonable pace and arrive in time to see her launch herself at the young man. A look of horror registers on his face as he sees the state of her clothing but it's too late. Erica doubles over in a fit of hysterical laughter and Kyle shoots her a dirty look.

"Uh-uh," she backs away as he tries to hand her my ward and then laughs as he scowls. Turning she comes over to give me a hug and kiss.

"Hi Grandma, how are you doing?"

"Tired," I admit and return the greeting, "she's doing her best to run me into an early grave."

Erica laughs again and despite myself, so do I. Death isn't nearly as scary as it once was. Little is, actually, since I became a werewolf. Calli had offered to change me shortly after I took on my ward, after it became apparent that she was going to be a handful. Considering my little one is a wolf herself I decided it was for the best. After all, someone is going to have to teach her when her wolf blood awakens in a half dozen or so more years and I can't always rely on Calli for these things. Not when the girl's mother asked me to take care of her child.

"Alright you," I disentangle the girl from her Uncle and pluck the leaves from her hair, "you can play once you get cleaned up so strip and get in the tub."

"I'll help," Erica offers as her mate looks away. He'd changed her when they both turned eighteen and they got engaged shortly there after. Jordan hadn't been happy with the idea, even if she didn't know exactly what it all meant and I had decided it was better not to inform her.

"Has she remembered anything at all?" Kyle asks once Erica gets my now naked ward into the house for her bath. I shake my head.

"She probably won't either," I remind him and he sighs. Jake had explained to us what had happened a few days after the girl was born.

Ester had managed to upgrade the morphing technology the Animorphs had used during the war in an attempt to save her own mate, Ax. After he died anyway she gave Tobias a crystal containing that technology which he then left to Raquel. Among other things, one of the upgrades Ester had been able to add was the ability to acquire a creature that was dead.

Thus Raquel had been able to acquire and morph her own deceased child. According to my nephew, she probably abandoned herself to the baby's mind - she's still there, but after all this time her mind is so buried she probably doesn't even realize it anymore. In a weird way she gave her own life for her daughter...sorta.

"I just wish she would have talked to me first," Kyle sighs, running a hand through his hair, "I could have tried to help."

I shake my head but don't say anything. He doesn't get it...what his sister did and I don't think he ever will. I can empathize though. I would have given anything to take my daughter's place on that spaceship; to have died instead of her. Raquel had just been trying to do the same for her own child.

"There's nothing you could have done," I say at last and place my hand on his shoulder, "her heart was just too broken. Even if she hadn't done what she did, you would have never gotten your sister back...not the way you wanted."

He shakes my hand off and I can see the tears in his eyes. He's angry, though I think it's more himself he's angry with than anyone else. I get that too. With time he'll come to accept that he couldn't have saved his sister. Maybe then he'll be able to forgive himself.

x-x-x-x-x

The three of us watch my little one chasing the falling leaves in the backyard when we hear it: a car pulling up the gravel driveway. I've been listening to it for a minute now and am more than a little surprised that its turned this way. I'm not expecting anyone else and I don't exactly live off a main road. Whoever this is is seriously lost.

Kyle looks over at me and then starts stripping to change when I shrug. I call over my ward and we all make our way to the front of the house to investigate - Kyle slipping into the woods to watch from a distance. I highly doubt whoever this is means us any harm, but better to be careful.

The SUV with darkened windows, being here of all places, should have clued me in to what this person is but it isn't until the small redheaded woman opens the door and her scent reaches my nose that I get it. My lips pull back over my teeth and they sharpen slightly: this woman is a werewolf.

"Are you Naomi?" she asks, slowly stepping from behind the door with her hands up, "My name is Krystal...Calli sent me."

I relax, my teeth dulling back to human sharpness. She could easily be lying, but the first werewolf's name is not one that's thrown around lightly, especially not since Calli revealed her real identity seven years ago. No one wants to risk the wrath of the Fenris wolf.

I'd laughed when Calli told me that that was one of her names. Not a name actually, a title. Fenris was the small village she was born in many hundreds of years ago. Even so, it definitely paints a foreboding image; one of an individual not to be crossed.

"I am," I answer, "what can I do for you?"

"My mate was a friend of Calli's and he told me to find her if anything happened to him. She directed me here. Said there was a small pack that was a good place for someone looking to start over."

"And what happened to your mate?" Kyle asks, emerging from the bushes, fully clothed thankfully.

Krystal jumps and shrinks back, her own lips pulling up in a silent snarl. I smack the boy on the back of his head and glare at him.

"Forgive my grandson. He's young and lacks tact...or courtesy," I smile at the woman, "but he does raise a good question. I trust Calli with my life but we don't want any trouble here."

"Oh...oh!" comprehension crosses her face, "No, my mate was a firefighter. He died in the forest fire down in South Dakota a few weeks back. No one is after us that I know of."

"Us?" Erica asks.

"My son and I," she turns to the open door, "it's alright, you can come out. No one's going to hurt us."

A pair of small feet hit the ground and a flash of auburn hair appears briefly and then vanishes. Slowly a small boy, no older than my young ward by the looks of it, peeks out from behind his mother. He doesn't look nervous, but rather curious and his green eyes are staring. I follow his line of sight and it hits me: the reason Calli sent these two here. I may not see like the older woman does but I know exactly who this boy is as he stares at my little one.

"Momma! Momma!" the little girl tugs at my sleeve, breathless as she herself peeks shyly - shyly! her! - out from behind me, "who is that boy?!"

"Well, why don't you go say hello and introduce yourself?" I suggest, "Maybe he'll tell you."

She looks at me, wide eyed like I just told her to go wrestle a grizzly bear - though, come to think on it, she would probably try that...Still, she screws up her courage and marches purposefully forward. The boy's eyes don't leave her for a second.

"Hi," she says cheerfully, her shyness evaporating like it was never there, "my name's Rachel, wanna go catch some leaves?"

"Rachel," his face contorts as if he's thinking hard and then relaxes into a big grin, "sure. My name's Tobias."

I can't help but grin myself as Rachel grabs his hand - a very un-werewolf thing to do - and the two children race off to play.