Sorry it took so long to update... but here is the next chapter! I'm glad lots of people agree that Lutta shouldn't have been killed!

This is a flashback. Lutta is dreaming.

"You're not doing it!" Kreeth cursed, and half-hags swarmed around her head.

"I know! I know!" She whimpered. "I don't know why – I don't understand!"

But she did. Why couldn't she just be herself? Why did she have to be a half-creature, shunned by everyone else. Some pent up emotion bubbled up inside of her, making her scream. "I have a gizzard!"

"Stop!" Kreeth snarled at her angrily. "You do not have a gizzard, you fool, you idiot! I created you!"

She felt her form flickering from one shape to another. "You created me, but I created this gizzard!"

For a moment the hagsfiend stared at her. Then – "No!" A wing flashed forward and slammed into the side of her head. She stumbled back, nearly falling off of the peak. The shapeshifter rose painfully into the air, each wingbeat torturous.

"You don't understand, Kreeth! I feel pain! Real pain!"

"It's a phantom gizzard!"

Sadness overwhelmed her. "What difference does it make, being phantom or real? It's Hoole. I love him. I love him."

"You must kill him!"

Yellow light flooded over her senses, making her go yeep. Her wings hung uselessly by her sides as the fyngrot made her fall.

A soft, yet menacing voice. "Down you go, dearie. Down, down, down. Right here by my talons. Nice soft landing…"

The yellow faded, leaving darkness to replace it. The black shattered as she opened her eyes. Her feathers were brown – a Spotted Owl. So she's done it. Made me Emerilla again. Cast a spell, I suppose. But what am I really?

Nothing. She was nothing. They all hated her, wanted to destroy her. Even Pleek and Ygryk.

She stood hesitantly as the battle raged ahead of her. There was Hoole with King H'rath's scimitar; the sight of him fighting made her gizzard twinge.

Then she churred. She did have a gizzard.

She spread her wings, flew forward.

A shriek rang in her ears. "The ember, Lutta! Get the ember, or I will curse you forever!"

You already do. They all do. She wheeled around as Kreeth fell from the sky to the dire wolves. What does it matter? Hoole will never trust me. The real Emerilla is here now.

Her feathers rustled as she landed. She squeezed between chunks of rotting ice to where Hoole was perched, speaking to another owl. With a jolt of fury, she realized that the bird that the young king was staring at was a Spotted Owl – Emerilla! Oh, so he would love Emerilla, but not her?

Hoole was talking now."I was concerned that something had happened to you when you came through the Ice Narrows.

She crept behind him as Emerilla cocked her head to one side, confused. "Ice Narrows? I was never in the Ice Narrows."

"But I was."

The words were out of her before she could stop them. She flinched as the owls spun around to stare at her. Hoole blinked, uncomprehending. "Emerilla?"

"No," she whispered, and changed. Her brown feathers became black, and reluctantly they shaped to fit a crow-like hagsfiend. She skidded across the ice towards Hoole, and accidentally crashed into him. He slipped and hit the melting throne. She gasped and took a step towards him, but then another owl leaped forward and slammed into her side. She hissed in pain.

The owl was Strix Strumajen.

"Stop it, you little sneak!" A beak opened, a talon slashed. She felt herself falling, and warm liquid ran from a gash in her side. Pain streaked through her body, and she screamed.

Hoole opened his eyes.

She lay still on the ice, surrounded in a pool of red. Her half-hags were dead, like she would soon be…

"I had to kill her," Strix Strumajen growled. "She pretended to be my Emerilla. I knew from the start that something was not right about her. A blood deception she was – a hagsfiend!"

Go to Hagsmire, you pile of racdrops, she thought angrily as more blood seeped from her. After me, of course…

Suddenly something made her raise her voice. "No!"

Then Hoole was at her side, and she gazed up at him with wide eyes. "What are you?" he asked.

"I am nothing, and yet I loved…" She lifted a talon.

Hoole lurched back. Probably he thought that she wanted the ember.

"No Hoole, it is not the ember I wanted," she whispered, and she fell back into red-tinted darkness.

So... Review!!!!!