CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, as well as aspects of When Nothing Remains, and much of Usurpation of the Darkness through chapter 36.

Seriously, major spoilers here.

Assuming you wish to continue, read on…

Background: Part nine of Gold's mini-series, the final episode! The big, dramatic fight scene that ends every story!

Or not. Probably not; Gold's not much of a fighter. But there will be a hugely important battle for the fate of the valley, so there is that.

The problem with having a clever, deceptive mate was that one could never be sure whether they were doing exactly what they said for that reason alone, or if they had an ulterior motive in play too.

Gold knew he wasn't one to whine about deceptive mates; he had, if anything, encouraged that in Lily, though she had played him from the start so he couldn't claim any credit for it. She had certainly supported his trickery when she liked what he was aiming for; that was how they had the only finished den as of now, a cozy hollow in the side of a hill with a nice interior not made of dirt.

But when she was plotting something, or he suspected she was, or in this case hoped she was, it was hard to tell, and he found himself wondering without any evidence either way. A tricky, manipulative Lily looked the same as an innocent Lily, at least until she was ready to reveal what she was really doing.

Pyre strolled into sight, ambling along with an easy rumble, and set himself down across the hilltop from Lily with his tail to one of the big trees he had called a 'Spruce.' "Is everyone ready?" he asked.

Lily and Crystal looked up from their private conversation. "We were just passing the time," Crystal said. She was not as good a liar as Lily, but Gold couldn't count on his ability to discern truth with her, either. She and Lily together had been proven capable of stringing him along for as long as they wanted.

"Time passes on its own," Pearl said dreamily. She was lying on her back in a ray of sunlight, and until this moment Gold had assumed she was drowsing. She was acting odder and odder as the days wore on. Lily had given him a lengthy explanation about overbearing Dams and how Pearl was finding herself now that nobody was telling her what to do, but to him it seemed simpler than that. Pearl was going through a rebellious fledgling phase, that was all. She was just having it much later than most light wings.

He might have taken advantage of her current position to admire her underside, but Pina stood between him and Pearl, and was eyeing him like she knew exactly what he was thinking. When she was looking at him, that was. Half the time she was watching Cedar and Liona, or Mist, all three of which were across from her.

"Does anyone have anything to bring up?" Pyre asked loudly. "Any problems, any grievances?"

Gold certainly didn't; his life was great. Wondering about what Lily and Crystal were talking about, whether it related to him, and whether Lily was setting something up for later, was just a side occupation. He had no complaints.

"I do not have a grievance, exactly," Pina said slowly. "But I would like to revisit what we decided about mates. We are not allowing it with underage fledglings, correct?"

"We are not mates, you know," Cedar huffed. "Just very good friends." Liona laughed at that, and he put a wing over her.

"Be that as it may…" She shook her head. "I do not feel right allowing this to go on under my nose. I know your parents, they would not let this happen in the valley. Not until you are of age."

"We really are not doing anything," Liona complained. "Why does it matter?"

"Pina says she does not feel comfortable with this," Pyre interjected. "That is fair, we left the pack specifically because we did not approve of what others were doing, in some cases. It would be foolish to pretend that does not matter now. Pina, what would you propose as a solution?"

"I do not really know," Pina huffed. "It would be rude of me to request one of them sleep in my den for the time being, so I can rest assured that there is nothing going on, and pointless besides."

"There are only nine of us, and we're living in a huge forest," Lily observed dryly. "If they want to do things, nobody is going to catch them in the act. I would even say the same of the valley, though there was always the chance of being spotted by some random person and then gossiped about."

Gold purred quietly, well aware that she spoke from copious amounts of experience when it came to mating in the forest.

"We have our own dens," Cedar huffed. "I am not giving up my independence for this. We have given our word that we are not doing anything, why is that not enough?"

"It just is not," Pina huffed. "I will live with it if I have to, but I had hoped for some sort of solution."

"Hypothetically, what if their parents did say it was okay?" Crystal asked. "Obviously they need to wait until the hot-season, but would it make you feel better to have their approval of the match for then?"

Gold eyed Crystal skeptically, wondering if this was her idea or Lily's doing. She wouldn't have had to do much if she knew this was going to come up, just plant a few ideas in Crystal's head over the course of a conversation about other things… or maybe they were both scheming together about something, and this was part of a larger plan.

"That would at least make me feel I was not letting them down," Pina said brightly. "And I did want to check in on some of my other friends."

"Wait, let's slow down," Lily said quickly. "If somebody is going back to ask that question of their parents, and to do whatever other check-ins the rest of us request, we should pick the person or people best for the task. We don't know what we'll find back there."

"I do not want to go," Pearl said loudly. She had rolled over once Pyre began their little meeting, and now looked as serious and worried as she had carefree only moments ago.

"Neither do I, but I want someone to check on my parents," Crystal huffed. "Make sure they are okay."

"Pina, you shouldn't go," Lily said firmly. "We want to send the people most able to talk their way around anything the valley throws at them, and you are the oldest person they know about who left. If anyone would be to blame for us all going, it would be you."

"Nobody is blaming me for anything," Pina objected.

"She is saying they could, if they want to blame someone," Mist supplied. "Like, who is going to blame Cedar? Nobody. He is a fledgling who was, if you want to make it sound bad, 'led astray' by the rest of us. You, on the other paw, are an older female who could be said to have tricked the rest of us."

"And it might be Cressa or Diora in charge," Gold said, seeing a way to support Lily's side in this little discussion without too much effort. "Both of them strike me as the 'angry when crossed' type."

"You have made your point," Pina huffed. "Not Pyre, obviously, they do not even know him. He is as much of a target for accusations as I am."

"I do not want to go if it is not safe," Liona said.

"We wouldn't send you either," Lily assured her. "No fledglings can go, that gives an excuse to anyone to say they do not know any better and force them to stay in the valley."

"You sound like you already know who should go," Mist observed. "Why not just cut to it and give us your solution?"

"If you insist," Lily rumbled. "I propose we send two light wings to go check the situation, talk to the parents, and check on the people we care about. Gold should go, because he's a mated male who could feasibly blame Pina for everything if need be, and is capable of talking his way out of pretty much anything."

Gold nodded, sure she was about to suggest herself too. He wasn't all that fired up about travelling and checking out the mess they had made and then left behind, but if she wanted to, he would tag along.

"And I would send Crystal with him, to provide an unattached female who can keep Gold in line, and if need be to lend her credibility where his is understandably lacking. I would go, but I would rather have my remaining here serve as a strong excuse for Gold to exploit against anyone trying to force him to remain. What cruel creatures would separate mates?" Lily purred sardonically.

Gold looked from her to Crystal, and noticed that Crystal seemed just as surprised, and more than a little unhappy about the plan.

"Well reasoned," Pyre praised. "But you will not go, even to remain outside the valley?"

"I trust my mate to handle himself without me holding his tail every step of the way," Lily said pleasantly. She phrased it as support of his independence, which he whole-heartedly approved of, but he could tell that wasn't her only reason.

She had been plotting, all right, and this was part of it. Crystal didn't seem to be in on it, but something Lily was planning involved them going together to the valley and back.

The obvious guess was hopelessly optimistic, leaving him to ponder the more realistic reasons she might have for doing such a thing.

"If it has to be me, I can do it," Crystal offered.

"I am totally up for that," Gold said, deciding to play into Lily's plan.

Some of the other light wings began proposing alternatives, and Lily responded, but Gold knew this was all but over. When Lily wanted something and put her mind to it, she got it.

O-O-O-O-O

"You did not ask why I had you sent," Lily said the next morning. Crystal was nearby, leaning against a tree and stretching her legs before the long flight ahead of them.

"It was obvious," Gold said, playing dumb for the moment. She would know he was doing so, of course, but it would still make him look good and hide that he didn't actually know what her game was. "You said most of it. I am clever and tricky and get to wiggle out of trouble while using you as an excuse to not stay. Crystal is along to make sure I actually do what I say, not just fly around and nap for a few days before returning and lying my tail off."

"That too," Lily conceded. "But I also want you to do something else on this trip."

"I am all ears," Gold hummed, wiggling his ears for emphasis.

"Show Crystal that you are not an obnoxious brat," Lily requested. "I'm getting a little tired of her attitude toward you, and she does not really want to listen to me."

"Doable," Gold hummed. "May I go to any length to achieve this?" He purred seductively just so that he knew for sure she heard the real question.

"If that part of you so much as touches her, she will rip it to pieces," Lily scoffed. "But just in case she doesn't, know that I say no. I'm not condoning that, not yet."

"Not yet," Gold whispered, seeing that Crystal was looking their way. "Thinking about it?"

"Still not saying no, more like," Lily huffed. "Right now, I just want her to not dislike you. She still remembers you being a sleazy, immature Claw-in-training. Fix that."

"Is your friendship strong enough to withstand her pining after me once I do so?" Gold asked.

"We'll manage," Lily snorted, pawing at his head until he ducked away from her. "Now get going! I expect you two," she raised her voice to include Crystal," back in ten days at most."

"It should only take a few days to fly there," Crystal offered. "We will be back in five."

"I'm a leisurely flyer," Gold supplied helpfully. "Take in the sights, enjoy the moment… No point rushing when we will just be coming back again, is there?"

"That is a lot of words to say you are lazy," Crystal growled.

"Wouldn't me using a lot of words where a few might do be proof against me being lazy?" Gold asked rhetorically. He bopped Lily's nose with his own and leaped into the air before Crystal could formulate a retort, already thinking about how to fulfil Lily's request. It was more like a challenge, really. Crystal did not hate him, but she definitely didn't think well of him outside of approving of the changes Lily claimed responsibility for.

Crystal caught up with him, visibly annoyed at being left behind, and cast him a scornful look that was laden with all of the disdain she felt he should know she felt at that moment. It was almost helpful, given he was actively plotting to correct that.

Lily had given him a challenge, not a request. He liked the sound of that. If there was one thing he could claim as his best talent among the many, it was wooing females. Sure, he had gotten off to a rocky start in the past, but results mattered too, and he was the one with the best mate now.

"No, you just are not lazy in making yourself look good," Crystal shot back.

Yes, he thought, this would definitely help make their little trip more interesting.

O-O-O-O-O

They had spent the first day's flight in silence, aside from a few exchanges of purely practical nature. Gold had used that time both to plot, and to lull Crystal into thinking he would be silent the whole way. She had a whole set of preconceived notions, most put there by his far more invested past self, and he could only assume that being more paws-off at first would help remove some of that.

That night, he forced himself to stay up late. They had set down on the shore to sleep, and Crystal was visible nearby, lying between two dunes. If she were Lily, he would long since have made something of the easily redirected mounds of sand on either side of her, but he had a feeling that pranking would not be received well.

Crystal saw him as immature, lustful, and being fixed by Lily, who she liked and respected. She had also thoroughly despised Claw, who had been pushy, obnoxious, and thoroughly selfish unless it suited him to pretend otherwise. She had apparently been into Granite, who had been simple, kind, and unassuming.

It was oddly morbid, taking cues from two dead dragons and his past self, but he did it anyway. He had two bad examples and one good one to work with, more than enough to give him a solid idea of what would help Crystal like him. Or want him, but that was fine, overshooting wasn't a problem.

He set himself up on the top of one of the dunes by Crystal, dug his paws into the sand, and sat back. His tail draped down to one side, and he hunched his wings a little more to give him a larger silhouette in the darkness. Then he looked out at the dark ocean, did his best to relax, and casually shifted a small pile of sand to the side, causing a tiny landslide that trickled across Crystal's forehead.

She shook her head and grumbled incoherently, the skin between her scales tickled by the tiny grains, and for a moment he thought he would have to try again since she hadn't noticed him. Or, he thought she hadn't; he was looking out at the water, not down at her, not even out of the corner of his eye. That would defeat the purpose, but it did mean he didn't know whether she had gone back to sleep, or was staring at his back wondering what he was doing.

He sat still, resisting the urge to move even his ears, and waited. All was silent, aside from her breathing and his and the rush of the water in the distance-

Gold let out a decidedly unflattering screech as something clamped down on the very end of his tail, the sensitive little nub between his fins. He leaped forward out of pure reflex, then tried to turn, only to find that there was nothing under his paws and his wings weren't out. He smacked into the sand pile at an angle and slid down, his tail throbbing and his pride thoroughly bruised.

Crystal glared down at him, her eyes fierce. "What were you trying to do?" she snarled.

"I was not doing anything except watching for danger!" Gold huffed, sticking to his original explanation. It was true, in a way; he hadn't been doing anything at all, and one could claim that the sea was dangerous. Anything could be down there in the depths, after all.

He waved his tail around in the air behind him, trying to be subtle about finding out whether it was bleeding or not. It throbbed hard enough that he wouldn't be surprised to find out she had bitten the very tip off in her anger. "I was not sleeping, so I decided I should watch over you. We are not in a group anymore, safe in numbers."

The anger went out of Crystal's eyes, and her teeth retreated, both very good signs in Gold's opinion. "I do not believe you," she hissed, but it was suspicion he heard, not rage.

"I saw a need, so I took it upon myself," he said simply, looking away from her. "Why is that unbelievable?"

"Because you are obnoxious and selfish, no matter what Lily is teaching you," Crystal huffed.

"If that is what you would like to believe, you may," he said, pawing at his tail and not looking her in the eye. "You can go back to sleep, I will watch from somewhere further away."

Crystal looked around, intentionally avoiding his gaze now. "Do you think we are in danger?" she asked.

"No, but I would rather be sure."

"We should have set up some sort of watch before tonight," she gruffly conceded. "You until midnight, me from then until daybreak. Got it?"

"You can sleep all night," Gold offered selflessly. "I can handle it." He couldn't, of course, the very thought of going two days and a night without sleep was anathema to everything he lived for, stress and suffering for absolutely no reason.

But he wasn't planning on actually carrying his offer out, not if he had the measure of Crystal's mood. Sure enough, she cast him an uncertain look before shaking her head. "No. That is a bad idea. We will do what I said."

"If you insist." He shrugged his wings.

"And…" She huffed and turned her back on him. "If you must watch from that close, go ahead."

Gold held in a celebratory chuff, keeping to his somewhat contrite, serious facade. Instead, he went over the traits he had intentionally displayed for Crystal.

Caring, to sit watching for her safety. Contrite, when caught at it, though he had done nothing obviously wrong. Understanding, to not obnoxiously rub her actions in her face. Caring again, to offer to take the whole night. Humble, if she had picked up on that one at all, because he wouldn't have even told her about standing watch if she hadn't 'happened' to wake up and catch him at it. And best of all, not once had he given her even the slightest leer, made even a mostly-innocent quip or stared at her.

All of which were qualities in direct opposition to who she thought he was. Some of it was over the top, not who he really was, but that wasn't as important as wiping the sand clean on the matter of his reputation. Obnoxiously lustful and lewd met humble and polite, and hopefully canceled each other out, leaving her able to like what he really was.

It was a strategy he felt Lily probably would have used, and that made him even prouder. She had tricked him in the beginning, and now he was using what he had learned from being around her to return the favor to someone else.

Gold returned to his hard-won perch with its back to Crystal and uncomfortable sandy summit, and resigned himself to staring at the water for a while longer. The sacrifices he made for his own cleverness…

O-O-O-O-O

Their next day of flying went by just as silently as the first, partially because Gold was feeling all the sleep he had missed, and partially because Crystal seemed troubled. He tried to power through the first while quietly appreciating the second. Troubled wasn't a good end goal, but it was a great start. Another character-showing moment like that one might be enough on its own, though he admittedly didn't have anything in mind yet. He was hoping another night of very obviously standing guard over her while she slept would have an effect too.

That hope was dashed when a familiar set of mountains rose in the distance. He shook off his lethargy and tried to make the most of what he was seeing by starting a conversation. "Is that it? It felt like we had walked a lot further than this."

"Walking can be misleading?" Crystal offered. "It did feel longer… But we did not pass over any mountains on the way, so that has to be the valley."

"Well… great." He looked over at the slowly setting sun. "Do we sleep on the shore, go in and try to do what we came for tonight, or what?"

"You are asking me?" Crystal asked. "I assumed we would be going our own ways while we were here."

"Not there yet," Gold pointed out. "I think we should stay away until tomorrow morning. That way, we go in with the sun and leave before it sets. No need to mess with having to sleep with our parents, or on some random rock, or leaving the valley again just to go back in the morning."

"I guess that makes sense," Crystal huffed. "But I want to at least fly over now. Camouflaged, so they don't notice me."

"That will put us close to the valley... " An idea occurred to Gold, a wonderfully entertaining one, and he couldn't help himself. "But I know a place close by for us to sleep where nobody will stumble across us, so that is good."

"That works," Crystal agreed. She fired in front of them, and Gold did the same. It seemed they were off to fly over and likely learn nothing of value.

As they approached, he noticed that there were more people than normal flying around. Pairs of two, three, and even four all flew together, and nobody flew alone. The groups rose from different parts of the valley, and there didn't seem to be any tension between them, but that they existed at all was odd enough on its own. Most seemed to be going fishing or just flying around randomly.

He and Crystal gained height, and soon they were passing over the mountains. He glanced down, picking out the almost imperceptible flat spot that used to belong to Pyre, and another rock across the mountain that he and Lily had used once on a whim, and…

"Why is it like this?" Crystal huffed. "What has gone on since we left?"

Gold looked at the valley itself, wondering what she meant. "I do not see anything different," he said. Maybe people were grouping together more, but it was hard to tell since the sun was setting and most people were going home anyway.

"Look at the pond," she replied. "See how there is a group on one side, and one on the other?"

"Yes?" All he saw was two separate groups of light wings. It was a little odd that they were all clumped together instead of spreading out, but that was the same oddity they were seeing everywhere, not something new.

"That is not normal," Crystal said.

"What is normal?" Gold asked, confused. Sure, it was a little odd to see two big groups, but in his experience people tended to group up all the time. It was probably just some sort of innocuous-

A light wing flew in to land next to one of the groups, and the other began to mill about, some slipping away and others defiantly holding their ground. The group the light wing had joined was not so disturbed, but from above it was obvious that the ones furthest from the newcomer were slinking away.

"Okay, yes, I see it now," Gold admitted.

"Good… I think coming back in the morning is a good idea." Crystal turned around so abruptly Gold almost lost track of her, and they were quickly making their way back toward the forest. "I do not want to fly into that without knowing what is going on, and the first place I can think of to catch my parents and ask them about it is out over the water tomorrow morning. My Sire always goes to the same spot to fish."

"That sounds like a solid plan," Gold praised. "Much better than my idea, I was just going to fly down and find Ash. He would tell me everything he knew, but he probably would not know much."

"No, he probably would not," Crystal snorted. "So, where is this place of yours? I want to see it."

"We should only go there once we are ready to settle down for the night," Gold chuffed. "Leaving and coming back multiple times will make it less discreet." All of which was true, though it wasn't the only reason he was putting off showing her. It would be better if she was sleepy and ready to relax when he sprang his surprise on her. She would be less motivated to waste energy chasing him down and biting him, for one thing.

O-O-O-O-O

The next morning was a grey, drab, overcast affair barely worth waking up for. Gold battled lethargy the way a more valiant light wing would battle a mortal enemy they somehow didn't really mind losing to; which was to say, slowly and unsuccessfully. He was cold, alone on a ledge.

Crystal flew by, flitting across his narrow field of vision. She didn't call out to him, which fit the silent, contemptuous way she had taken the reveal of his little joke. He had expected surprise, embarrassment, and likely anger when she realized he meant for them to spend the night on the ledges. Not a silent glare and nothing more. That wasn't quite as funny, and her taking a ledge as far from him as possible was worse.

If he was going to ascribe complicated messages to her actions - something he always did with Lily, but other light wings were rarely so thoughtful about how they conveyed their feelings in the moment - he would say she had chosen to take her own ledge as a way of saying the strategic excuse he had used for his joke was sound, but that she didn't appreciate him trying to make it into something embarrassing.

He groaned, giving up and stumbling to his paws in defiance of the half-hearted lethargy that meant to keep him lying around all day. It was too cold to enjoy lazing about, and the faster he got what he had come for done, the faster he could go back home to Lily. Maybe he would keep working on Crystal on the way back, maybe not. It wasn't like he needed to make friends with her.

One hastily-caught double-pawful of fish later, he was ready to drop down, talk to a few specific light wings in the valley, pop over to see his parents long enough that they couldn't complain he was a terrible son, and then find Crystal and go. No tricky schemes, no convoluted plans of action, just get in, deliver a few messages, show himself, and get out.

That simple, beautiful plan disintegrated the moment Cressa spotted him. "Hey, what are you doing flying over the pond?" she demanded, dropping down to fly right over him. Her voice was rough, as if she had been doing a lot of roaring recently, and she looked angry, so angry he didn't even enjoy staring up at her.

"I think you just said what I am doing," Gold responded.

"You know that is not allowed now!" Cressa barked. "Which side are you on?"

"Yours?" Gold said. "Whichever one will get you to stop barking at me like a crazy person." He dropped to land by the pond, and noticed that nobody was around, though he had definitely seen a few bystanders loitering nearby before Cressa found him. Either they had all found something else to do, or they were avoiding her. Which made sense, she was someone he would happily avoid if he could, but clearly something more than simple dislike was going on here.

Cressa landed right in front of him, spun, and bared her teeth at him. "Wrong side!" she hissed. "Get out of there! Have you been hiding under a rock this whole time?"

"I will say yes if that means you explain why I cannot land here," he offered, wondering whether she even recognized him. She certainly didn't seem to know that he'd not been in the valley for more than a moon-cycle. He hoped she didn't recognize him, since he'd sent her looking for Claw in exactly the wrong direction the last time they had interacted.

"I will say it slowly for your tiny mind," Cressa huffed, leading him around the pond. She hopped over a deep furrow in the dirt and stopped on the other side. "This," she said, patting the ground with a paw, "is the side of the valley where all of my loyal supporters live."

"Right…" Gold nodded. "And here?" he asked, indicating his side of the furrow.

"The foolish idiots who cannot see the truth in front of their face," Cressa snarled. "The ones who believe Claw will return."

"Who leads them?" he asked, despite having already guessed the answer. "Is it Claw? Does he speak to the worthy and ignore the rest?"

"Where did you hear that?" Cressa hissed.

"I mean, if I were him," Gold mused, "I would be using this as a way to weed out those most loyal to me. Just saying. Hiding and seeing who does what might be enlightening."

Cressa's eyes widened a bit before she regained control of herself and glared at him. "That is just a stupid thing Diora spreads to make sure everyone listens to her instead of me. He must be dead, there is no reason for him to stay away or pretend he is dead like you say."

"Well, it seems like something smart, and he is smart so he would do it," Gold said casually, turning away from her. "I will stick to this side of the valley, thank you very much." Mostly because if he assumed the line stretched straight across the entire valley, his parents' rock would be on this side, but Cressa didn't need to know that.

"If Claw were around, he would be taking charge and telling me so I knew not to try and usurp him," Cressa said, ignoring the hint that he was pretty much done talking to her. She seemed a little shaken…

"He is probably watching to see how deep a hole you dig for yourself," Gold said, hiding an amused purr by faking a cough. "Sorry, something tickled my throat. Anyway, maybe I am wrong. It is not like I have seen more camouflaged light wings lurking around since he disappeared… I am sure there is another explanation for that." He leaped into the air and flew away before she could respond.

Messing with Cressa was fun; he hadn't forgotten how much Lily disliked her, or how she had tried to set Claw on Pyre just to spite Lily, and Lily had ranted about her once or twice after leaving the valley, ranting he had dutifully listened to, and not just because she was especially attractive when she looked like she was going to smack someone-

He snorted and flicked his tail, intentionally sending himself into a downward spiral to force his mind off of Lily. The urge to go find her and do something fun wasn't very helpful when she was days away and thus very much not available.

Instead, he pondered Cressa and Diora. He had messed with Cressa, gotten under her scales and implanted some doubt as to what was really going on… Because it was fun, mostly. He hadn't meant to take it anywhere, and left alone she would reassure herself and forget he ever said anything.

On the other paw, if he put a little effort into it… Crystal didn't like Diora or Cressa either, as far as he knew. Maybe she would appreciate an apology in the form of a trick played on the both of them?

O-O-O-O-O

"And come back soon to visit again," his Dam said firmly. His Sire nodded in the background, always in the background… Gold suppressed a shudder. His Sire seemed happy, but happy to be marginalized and unimportant. It was all the more striking after not seeing it for a while; he almost spoke up. It was only the knowledge that his Sire was always like this that stopped him.

"I will try," he said, "but you know how it is." Leaving it vague what he meant hopefully meant they wouldn't ask-

"How is it?" his Sire asked guilelessly.

"No, you know," his Dam huffed, swiping her tail through the air dismissively. "Travel, getting past our obnoxious excuses for leaders, and then there is finding time to actually check up on us old light wings when everyone interesting has already left."

"Pretty much," Gold agreed, glad to be spared the effort of actually saying all that himself. He was less happy about his Sire being snubbed, but that wasn't his business.

A light wing flew over them, so low Gold could have reared up and tried to catch her with his claws. Diora landed on the currently unoccupied rock nearest them, and immediately leaped over, almost displacing his Sire in her rush to get right up in his face.

"You have seen him!" she barked, hurting his ears.

"Who is him and why does he need you to deafen me?" Gold muttered, feigning ignorance.

"Claw!" Diora exclaimed. Her breath, he noticed, was rank and smelled of something he didn't recognize at all. "Cressa just barked at me about sending someone to spread rumors about seeing Claw, and I did not do that, so you are telling the truth! Tell me!"

Gold wrinkled his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth. "I saw a camouflaged light wing lurking near where Cressa spends a lot of time, watching, and said it might be Claw," he recounted, thinking quickly. This was an opportunity literally dropped on him from above - both Cressa and Diora had swooped in of their own accord - and he didn't want to waste it, especially as it saved him time since he no longer needed to seek Diora out. "He might have told me to 'step up and take charge,' but I do not feel like doing that. If he is around, why should I hold power?"

"What?" Diora demanded. Her pupils were strangely large, even given her current state of excitement, and he thought he noticed her swaying a bit.

"Well, the way I see it, he wants to see who is strong enough to take over for him, and is not planning to show himself until someone does it," Gold said. "Obviously that is not me, and it is neither you nor Cressa since you both only have half the valley each. Whoever manages to get everyone under their control might win his approval…"

Diora's eyes widened even further, and Gold knew that she was going to take whatever he said as truth, no matter how far-fetched. There was something very obviously wrong with her, though he had no idea what.

He also knew that setting Diora on a path to fight Cressa and take control of the valley for Claw's favor wasn't the most entertaining thing he could do with this amazing opportunity, so he quickly kept talking. "But that is probably not it. What I think he really wants is to see something new and different. He probably left because he was bored, right? Forget plans of seeing loyalty or strength, he just wants to be entertained."

"Right, right, his mates were all boring, talentless wastes of space," Diora said urgently, nodding so hard he was surprised her ears weren't audibly slapping against her head with every jerk. "But I am-"

"Not quite interesting enough," Gold interjected. "Think about it. Come up with something alluring he has never seen before, something he wouldn't be able to resist, and make sure the whole valley sees it." His Dam was giving him a very unhappy look, but he ignored her with ease. This was going to be great.

"Like what?" Diora asked.

"Something so good Dams and Sires everywhere have to hide their fledglings' eyes," Gold suggested. "Do not involve any other males, he probably would not want to see them doing anything, but other than that, go wild."

"I can be wild and do crazy things," Diora all but panted. "Yes, yes, that could work. Yes!" She bulled past him, leaped into the air, and flew away on unsteady wings.

Gold stared up at her as she left, feeling both pleased and confused. "What has she been doing recently?" he asked curiously.

"I heard someone told her that a certain mushroom helps with memory, and that she ate a whole bunch and liked how they made her feel," his Sire volunteered. "She has been very… suggestible… since then."

"Well, that explains it," he chuffed. He wished Lily was here to see this, whatever it would be. It promised to be hilarious.

"That was…" His Dam sighed and pawed at her face in exasperation. "You are still the same old Gold, no matter how much things change."

"Stil brilliant," he quipped. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go find a good place to sit and watch whatever she comes up with."

"Me too," his Sire said. Gold left to the sound of his Dam gasping dramatically.

O-O-O-O-O

"You are a lazy waste of space," Crystal huffed as he glided in to join her on her way out the valley. "Did you do anything we came here to do?"

"I talked to my parents," Gold defended.

"Anything else?" Crystal pressed irritably.

"That we were supposed to do?" He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He had flown in, gotten ambushed by Cressa, went to see his parents, listened to his Dam's nattering, gotten ambushed by Diora, taken advantage of her mushroom-induced stupidity to set up something funny, gone for food, come back, hung around a bit, then seen Crystal…

"What were we supposed to do, again?" he asked. His mission had been to make friends with Crystal and maybe get her hot for him, just in case. And to bail her out if someone tried to blame her for something, but the valley was way too disorganized for that to have happened, so she probably wasn't mad at him for not doing that.

"Ugh," Crystal groaned. "You are terrible. I did everything else, do not worry."

"That is great," he assured her. He still didn't remember what everything else was, but it would come to him if it was important later.

"I am still mad at you for the ledge thing," she added as they passed by the ledges. She was leading him out to sea, probably for her own food, since he had already eaten. "I am going to tell Lily."

"That I had a good idea?" he said, genuinely annoyed. "If I had planned to get on top of you in the night or something, I would not have set it up like that. It was just a joke to get you flustered, not some half-hearted seduction technique." If he had been going hard for her, he would have brought fish and rubbed up against her and done half a dozen other things to sound out how she was likely to take any given approach. It was clearly just a joke.

"Jerk," she said, though he thought he detected a hint of remorse in the way she wasn't denying his reasoning. "Your jokes are terrible."

"My jokes are great," he purred, remembering what he had set up. "On that subject, we have to stay until something I did today pans out. Trust me, we cannot miss it."

"How long will it take?" Crystal asked with a huff. "I wanted to try and patch things up with my Dam tomorrow, so I was thinking we should stay another day anyway, but no longer than that."

"I do not actually know," he admitted. "It will be soon, but how soon depends on how elaborate Diora gets in planning her triumphant display."

"Display?" Crystal asked.

"Yes, I-"

A blast exploded somewhere behind them, and he cut off to spin in a tight circle and face the valley. Someone had fired up into the sky and let the bolt detonate, and that seemed like the sort of thing one would do to get the attention of somebody who could be anywhere in the valley… "It might be starting, come on!"

"You better not have started some stupid war," Crystal barked as she turned around and caught up with him. "It would not just be Diora and Cressa, they would drag others into it like they already have."

She kept ranting at him about whatever she thought he had done, but he tuned her out. Far more interesting was the plateau, where two light wings faced off. He dove to land somewhere with an unobstructed view, a rock just close enough to hear anything they said without straining, and Crystal landed next to him, going silent as she took in the scene.

Diora was swaying as she walked, circling around Cressa, who was growling and turning to keep her in sight.

"I challenged you to a fight for leadership of the pack until Claw returns," Cressa snarled at Diora. "Are you accepting, or not? Answer me?"

"Claw would not want us to fight, not like this," Diora said in a perky voice. She came a little closer in her endless circling, and Cressa growled at her. "I do not want to fight. We should do something else, compromise. If we are interesting enough, he will return."

"You are not making any sense," Cressa growled, sounding bewildered. "If this is that stupid mushroom making you strange again, you need to lay off and eat something normal for a change. And smack your mate for ever suggesting it."

"The mushroom is good, I like it, but I have not had any since… yesterday?" Diora shook her head. "I want something else now… I want to make a scene, to make Claw happy, to do something different he will like watching."

"What did you do?" Crystal hissed under her breath. "Why is Diora acting like that? And why is Cressa talking like Claw is alive, when her taking over was all about him not being alive?"

"I am good with words," Gold said smugly, his eyes stuck firmly on the unraveling debacle in front of him. There were plenty of other light wings watching from around the plateau, his Sire and Dam among them, and there was a curious lack of non-adult spectators… His Dam glared at him, and he suspected she had spread the word to save innocent young ones from whatever horribly traumatizing act Diora was about to perform…

Gold knew what he hoped Diora was thinking; Lily couldn't blame him for watching something she did in front of the whole pack, could she? If that something was leaping on top of Cressa and making like a few of the more interesting pairings he had seen in his time spying on the ledges, well he was just a very lucky male in the right place at the right time. It wasn't like he had told her to do it directly.

"I challenge you to a different test of ability!" Diora announced. Gold had to stop himself from rubbing his paws together gleefully, or rubbing something else. The knowledge that Crystal would body-check him off the boulder if he did the latter was helpful in controlling himself on that score. It was about to begin…

"What?" Cressa asked suspiciously.

O-O-O-O-O

"Yes, what?" Lily asked three days later, with what Gold considered to be an adorable scowl. Doubly so, since he knew it was completely unwarranted. A hundred different dirty thoughts had to be flying through her head right now, and every moment he failed to answer would be making her guess more and more extreme things…

"Well, Diora opened her mouth and started yowling like someone had kicked her between the legs," Gold revealed. "Cressa asked what she was doing, and Diora told her that the magic fat fish she met the other day had taught her to make beautiful noises, and that she was challenging her to a competition."

Lily rolled her eyes so hard Gold thought he might have seen the back of an eyeball, even though that was impossible. She then proceeded to glare at him. "They had a howling competition," she said flatly.

"Yes, Cressa could not back down," he said gleefully. "I saw her staggering away afterwards, I think she deafened herself. Even better, neither of them had decided on a way to see who won before they started, so once they were both too tired to keep screeching, they started arguing about it, and eventually decided they would have to do it again later with proper rules."

"Okay," Lily admitted with a small purr, "that's funny. Not exactly good for the pack that has to deal with them, but funny nonetheless."

"I know, right?" Gold said, throwing out a wing to lay it on top of her. They were lying side by side, as befitting a mated pair after one of the two had just returned from a long, arduous journey fraught with danger-

"But you were hoping for Diora to do something vile, weren't you?" Lily guessed.

"I am transparent to you, nothing I think remains private," Gold moaned dramatically. "If it is any consolation, I would have told you all about it if they did anything dirty."

"You would have, too," Lily agreed. "And Crystal would have told me. How did that go?"

"I totally failed," Gold admitted gleefully. "I think she hates me more than she did before we left." He didn't actually think that, he was pretty sure his initial efforts had made some impact on how she thought of him, but not enough to notice. The three-strike combination of annoying her with a crude joke, totally slacking off on their assigned tasks, and then arranging the beautiful mess that was two dueling alphas howling at each other and the sky… Suffice to say the trip back had not been fun at all. He didn't really care; he had Lily.

"Well, it was worth a try," Lily snorted. "Anything else interesting to report?"

"Nothing at all, but you could tell me something interesting," Gold mused, leaning in close. "When I let you wonder what Diora was about to do, what was the most interesting thing you guessed in your head?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lily said, playing coy. "I was just trying to remember who I told about the mushrooms, and how Diora heard about them."

"Cressa said Ivy told her," Gold recalled. "But really, what were you thinking? And was it anything we could try?"

Lily stretched her tail out, tapping her fins on the smooth clay that made up the interior of their den. "We were going to go meet up with the others," she said. "But… Maybe I can show you my best idea…"

"Sounds good to me," he purred as she moved. He considered his little excursion to be a success in all the ways that really mattered.

"And later," she hummed, wrapping her tail around his and shuffling around, "you can tell everyone exactly how you manipulated them into doing all of that."

"That ruins the mystique," he whined.

"If anyone wants to go back, they should know how to manipulate the local powers," Lily argued. Her tongue lapped at one of his ears, distracting him from putting his all into coming up with a counterargument.

"Why would anyone go back?" he asked instead.

Lily hesitated in her movements, seemingly giving the question some actual thought. "Seeing parents for those who want to, maybe. Pina will want to go back for her friend. Other than that, you have a point."

"Everyone is happy here," Gold said smugly, glad to have gotten one over her even through the fog of pleasant distraction her tail and tongue were inducing. "Pearl away from her Dam, Pyre safe and respected, Mist gets to do what she wants, Cedar and Liona can eye each other in peace, and we get to sit back in a pack that is not packed with idiots and bad customs." He almost mentioned Pina maybe going after Pyre - or maybe her clawing at that tree meant he had told her no in no uncertain terms, maiming inanimate objects might be a weird anger management technique - but talking about Lily's closest family members would probably have killed the mood. Especially as she would definitely have an opinion on that potential pairing.

"And mate whenever we want," Lily murmured, oblivious to his thoughts. "Though we had that before we went…" She trailed off as he gnawed toothlessly on her ear.

"We can do whatever we want," Gold concluded, pawing at her. "And I know what you want…"

"Yes, you do," Lily purred, pushing him onto his side. He pushed back, kicking his paws out to catch her and pull her close.

All was perfect. He didn't know what tomorrow would bring, but it would probably involve him lazing around, having fun with Lily in both senses of the word, and making her happy. That meant he would be happy, and that was more than enough.

Author's Note: This chapter is one part 'full circle' (what with it being about Gold trying to interest Crystal and totally failing, then going to Lily and being cool with it) and one part absurd just because I could. Fitting for an end to this little mini-series, I think.