Eclipse blinked open her eyes, shocked to find that she was in the middle of a terrible battle.

     Why did I fall asleep in a battle? She wondered. Did I get knocked unconscious?

     But then she stood up, and saw that she'd just stepped out of her body.

     She yelped in shock. She noticed that the necklace Sapphire had given her wasn't around her body's neck anymore. She reached for it on herself, and felt the key with the little gems on it underneath her pads.

     Weird.

     Then a horrifying realization struck her.

     I died!

     She saw a wound on the neck of her dead body that was bleeding into a growing pool around her. She saw Sapphire laying in her body's blood, crying. There were Drolgons around her, protecting her and Eclipse's body.

     "I'm sorry about snapping at you on the night we met at the border!" She howled. "Don't leave me, Eclipse! I'm sorry! Don't die on me! I love you! I love you more than anything in my life!"

     "I... Sapphire..." Eclipse whispered. "I'll never leave you, Saph! I love you too..."

     She realized that now. She'd always felt immense emotion for Sapphire, although she'd just thought it meant she was a great friend. But she saw now that it wasn't great friendship, it was love. Eclipse wanted to be with Sapphire for the rest of her life, and always be close to her, and compliment her every morning when they woke up, and give her the attention and love she deserved.

     Eclipse's wings and tail drooped as she realized that Sapphire couldn't hear her. She laid next to Sapphire and her own body, nuzzling Sapphire's shoulder. But she couldn't move Sapphire at all, and her shoulder was as cold and hard as a rock.

     "Eclipse... we have to go," a voice said from behind her.

     Eclipse turned, and saw her mother standing behind her.

     "No!" Eclipse cried. "I can't go to the spirit realm! I have to go back!"

     StarFlower dipped her head.

     "Yes, you do have to go back. But I need to take you to the spirit realm so that you can."

     Eclipse glanced back at Sapphire, and nodded.

     "Okay."

     She followed StarFlower up into the sky, until they were near the storm clouds.

     "How do we get there?" Eclipse asked.

     "I'll show you," StarFlower said.

     Just then, a bolt of lightning struck the sky in front of the two.

     StarFlower shoved Eclipse into it, and Eclipse shrieked, terrified.

     Eclipse at first was too shocked to move, thinking she was dead twice-over, but then she realized that she was in the skies of a crystal-like landscape with shimmering Drolgons padding around here and there.

     "W-what... just happened?" Eclipse asked, more confused than she'd been in her life.

     "Once you're dead," StarFlower explained, "you can travel to the other dimensions through lightning. Living Drolgons would say that lightning is just a bolt of electricity, because they're not dead, and can't pass through it. But we spirits know that it's actually a tear in the dimension you're in. If you pass through different lightning bolts, you go to different places. That's why there was a lot of lightning where the Darkbeasts came from- they were passing through the lightning bolts from their dimension to yours."

     Eclipse just nodded, unable to take in all the information.

     StarFlower guided Eclipse down to the ground where Galaxy, Reed, HailClaw, Opal, Snowfall, CloudyWing, a big cream he-Drolgon with ragged wings and one blind eye with a scar over it that Eclipse didn't recognize, and a skinny black he-Drolgon with piercing yellow eyes that Eclipse didn't recognize either. Eclipse's eyes widened as she saw that Crow was standing with the group of spirits.

     He must've died during the battle...

     As Eclipse and StarFlower landed, everyone turned toward them.

     "Eclipse," Galaxy greeted her with a nod. "We've been trying to decide what we should do with you."

     Eclipse tilted her head in confusion.

     "You see," StarFlower explained in a gentle voice, "your destiny wasn't to die saving Sapphire."

     Eclipse let her mouth hang open in shock.

     "I wasn't just going to let her die!" She exclaimed indignantly.

     "SunnyHeart would've died saving her if you didn't," StarFlower said, shaking her head. "It was her destiny to die for her daughter."

     Like you did... Eclipse thought, with a pang of grief.

     "Anyway," StarFlower went on, "I wanted to send you back right away. You deserve it, and you're the only one that can stop The Darkness."

     Eclipse felt overjoyed at the thought of going back to Sapphire and her friends.

     "But," Galaxy added, "we can't just send you back right away, seeing the horrible things you've done. We've agreed to stop time in your dimension, while you prove yourself worthy of a second chance." She glanced at Reed and Crow, who were nodding to each other.

     Eclipse let her tail droop.

     Just my luck, she thought. Reed, a Drolgon who hates me, and Crow, a Drolgon who dislikes me, get to make decisions about my future.

    "If you fail this quest, you're definitely not going back. And don't you dare lay a claw on anyone here," Reed said through bared teeth.

     Eclipse rolled her eyes.

     "Like I would!" She retorted. "I won't kill my own kind ever again, unless they're actually dangerous to others. Don't you know anything?" Then she paused, and smirked at him. "Are you jealous that I like Sapphire?"

     Reed growled at her, flattening his ears, and his hackle-spikes raising.

     "Of course not! Why would I be? You stole my chance with QuietFlower from me! Also, you killed me, but I don't know if you remember that."

     "Yeah, yeah," Eclipse said nonchalantly. "But you never did seem to be good at keeping someone's love, now, did y-"

     "Stop!" Galaxy barked commandingly "You two are bickering like Drolgonets! And I don't want a fight." She glared from Eclipse to Reed and back.

     Eclipse and Reed both forced their hackle-spikes to lie flat again, still shooting looks of hatred at each other.

     "Eclipse," Galaxy turned to face her, and she forced her voice to be even again. "Your quest is to find where your blood leads you. We spirits have noticed that both of the Darkbeasts' 'Dark Ones' – you and Opal – are related. We wonder if maybe your ancestors from very, very, very long ago might have something to do with it. Your blood could be the blood of someone that the Darkbeasts value, or worship."

     "Whoa," Eclipse whispered, wondering who her ancestors from that long ago might be.

     "You can sleep in the spirit realm for tonight, and at dawn tomorrow, you'll depart on your quest," StarFlower said. "If you stay here for too long, you won't be able to leave again. You'll be too long gone."

     Eclipse nodded, readying herself for what the next day might bring.

    "Who's going with me?" She asked, hoping it would be her mother, and maybe Opal or Snowfall so that she could get to know them better. After all, they were her kin.

     StarFlower shook her head.

     "I'm sorry to say that you'll be going alone. This is your time to prove yourself not a bad Drolgon, and to my disappointment, no one else's. I would love to come with you, darling," she added as she saw Eclipse's sad frown, "but I can't. We'll be watching over you, I promise."

     Eclipse gave a small nod.

     "Come, let's catch some prey!" StarFlower suggested, bounding into the surrounding trees.

     Eclipse followed, and caught up with her mother.

     "There's endless prey here," StarFlower explained. "We'll never go hungry!"

     Eclipse smiled as she spotted a fat squirrel nibbling on an acorn at the bottom of an oak tree near her.

StarFlower quickly crept up on it, and pounced on it, breaking its little neck.

     "Bonus!" Eclipse exclaimed cheerily, eating the acorn the squirrel had.

     StarFlower picked up her squirrel, and went with Eclipse to gather some berries. StarFlower also caught a rabbit and a fat pigeon.

     Together, they headed with their catches to where StarFlower slept.

     StarFlower beckoned Eclipse inside a den in between two huge boulders. There was a bush growing just above the entrance, and it made a sort of soft curtain covering the doorway. As Eclipse entered the den, she found that it wasn't tiny. It was just big enough for three full-sized Drolgons. Eclipse noticed a pile of fur at the back of the den, and smiled as Meadowlark's three nameless Drolgonets that hadn't survived got to their paws and bounded excitedly over to Eclipse and StarFlower.

     "Hello!" The cream she-Drolgonet with white stripes exclaimed, her tail wagging.

     The dusky brown she-Drolgonet with a cream chest sniffed at Eclipse, and looked confused. "Who are you? You smell sort of like mother and father, but also kind of different..."

     "Someone new!" The white he-Drolgonet with a dark brown tail and legs squeaked happily.

     "We've named them," StarFlower told Eclipse. "The brown-and-cream she-Drolgonet is Chestnut, the cream-and-white she-Drolgonet is DaisyFrost, and the he-Drolgonet is SparrowHeart."

     Eclipse loved those names. They fit the Drolgonets perfectly.

     "So, do you take care of them?" Eclipse asked her mother.

     "Yes," StarFlower replied with an affectionate glance at the Drolgonets, who were now play-fighting. "They're really wonderful. You'll love having Drolgonets one da- well, if... you know, uh- I guess..." StarFlower added the last bit very awkwardly.

      Eclipse smothered a laugh. She could tell her mother was thinking about how Eclipse and Sapphire could never have biological Drolgonets because they were both she-Drolgons. Eclipse had realized a while earlier why Sapphire and SkyChaser had both been acting so strange.

    "You're so dense, Eclipse!"

     Their words rang out in her head. But she knew now that Sapphire had loved her all that time. She knew that she'd been jealous of Eclipse and Reed, but she didn't want to steal Reed away, she wanted to steal Eclipse away.

     It's far more than I deserved...

     StarFlower settled down in her large nest, letting the Drolgonets cuddle at her belly. Eclipse tucked herself in between the edge of the nest and the Drolgonets to sleep. She enjoyed the comforting warmth of their fur against hers.

     Eclipse tucked her nose under her paw, and drifted into a peaceful slumber.