She stood firm on the ground before us, muscles slightly clenched, jaw set, steel gaze piercing each of us as her words boomed “You will hold!”  This could not be!  She was as good as dead when I saw her last.  As I looked at her, I noticed that she was still recovering from some of her wounds and a weariness rested just behind her eyes.  Even so, an aura of strength seemed to emanate from her. 

What seemed like an eternity passed before I was even able to move, let alone say anything.  Finally, I managed to utter “Kilani?”

She nodded.  “It’s me, Kess.  Your eyes do not deceive you.”

Overwhelmed with emotion, I rushed to her and we embraced each other tightly.  Shie, Riah and the other simply stared in awe.  We broke the embrace and a million questions flooded into my head all at once.  How is she still alive?  Where has she been?  Why is she not a captive of our enemy?  Kilani raised her hand as I tried to ask all these questions at once and I paused.  A warm smile pursed her lips as she began to try and answer.

She told me of how my fears were well founded - she was on the verge of death.  She told me of how she had lain there in the cave as I kept a constant vigil beside her.  She explained how she had been conscious for some time, waiting for the right moment and enough strength to sneak out.  She found both in the interim between my leaving the cave to help set the trap for the hornheads and their arrival to steal her away.  She explained that she had found solace in a secret place that she had discovered once.  She wouldn’t say where, only that the place held special meaning for her, and it was there that she had spent the next month recovering her health, as well as her mind and spirit.  She had relied on the natural essences of the land to heal her.  She had discovered ways of making new tools from Zhirite and had developed new tactics that would help her find a way to end this war once and for all.

This last piqued my interest.  My sister has figured out a way to take out the scalies and end the war once and for all?  At last, maybe Kilani and I would finally see eye to eye once more, fighting side by side as we use what she had learned and earn a final victory for our kind.  Then maybe we could finally be close like we were when we were cubs.  We could finally be a family once more.

In my excitement, I started blurting out all of this to Kilani.  She stopped me the instant I mentioned wiping out the dragonkind once and for all.  Then she gave me that look, that look I’ve hated for as long as we’ve been on our own.  It was the look of disappointment… a look like I wasn’t able to understand.

She stated plainly, “My hope is not to live in their defeat, but to live with them in peace, Kess.”

Everything after that was lost on me as my blood began to boil at the blasphemous nature of such an idea.  A peace?!?  With those cold-blooded scalebacks?!?  This is what she came up with while she was recovering?!?  Everything I had done for her, all of this… so we could save her from those miserable things… and now she is defending them?!

I launched a tirade of obscenities at her, chastising her for her sudden turn of heart.  We’d had our differences before, but this was too much to handle.  She may as well have been a traitor in my eyes.

“What about that wretch that tried to kill you?”  I threw at her, “Is she worth saving as well?!”

“I believe she is,” she replied calmly, “Sometimes one follows orders blindly, not knowing the good or evil of their cause.”

Her passive demeanor was too much.  In fury I turned and stormed back to my pack-mates and our small group of followers, motioning for everyone to head back to the encampment.  As I walked away, I took one last look back at her:  “Looks like my efforts to save my sister were a waste of my time.  She’s already dead.”