Eclipse squeezed her eyes shut as the light around her grew as bright as all the stars. It swirled around her, making some sort of tunnel upwards. Eclipse squinted up at it, and saw what looked like a hole at the top. She could see lush undergrowth through it. She flew up to the top of the light-tunnel, and examined the forest on the other side of what she now assumed was a portal. She tentatively reached one of her forepaws toward it, and felt herself being yanked forward.

     There was a sickening drop, and she rolled over on the ground.

     She blinked open her eyes, and saw that she was in the forest she'd seen. She looked back to where she thought the portal would be, and was just in time to see the light from the other side of the portal blink out as the portal closed.

     Eclipse took a deep breath, and thought about where she had to go.

     She flew to the tops of the trees, and scanned the environment. It looked slightly familiar, yet she didn't know where she was. She decided to go look for a place to sleep as her eyes were growing heavy. It was almost sunset.

     Eclipse landed back on the forest floor, and padded toward the sinking sun until she came to a large cluster of bushes.  She gathered leaves and moss and laid them out under the foliage, then wedged herself beneath the bushes. It was a little cramped, but after a while, Eclipse fell asleep.

     Eclipse was awakened by the sound of voices. At first she thought it was just the Drolgons in her Pacree being noisy when she was trying to sleep, but then she remembered that she wasn't home. She looked at her paws to see that more of them were faded. She peered through the leaves surrounding her, and saw shapes moving around.

     The Darkbeasts! They've found me! She thought with a jolt of fear.

     But then she looked closer, and saw that these creatures had gray, reddish-gray, and black fur. No reddish glow to them. They were smaller than Eclipse, maybe almost half her size. She shifted her wings to get a better look at the creatures through the bushes, when she realized she'd just stuck her wing through the bush for these creatures to see.

     Stupid, stupid Eclipse!

     The creatures started barking and rushing around.

     "Dragon!" They shouted. "Dragon!"

     Eclipse thought this very strange, since dragon wings had scales, and Drolgon wings – like hers – had fur. She stepped out of the bushes, and found that the creatures were wolves. Big ones.

     "Hello," Eclipse started, a little nervously. "I'm Eclipse- I'm not a dragon, I'm a Drolgon."

     The wolves looked at each other, and then whispered things.

     "What's a Drolgon?" The biggest one asked.

     Eclipse was very surprised by his question.

     Oh, right- the spirits said I'd be going back in time. I guess this is before Galaxy was born.

     "A Drolgon is- uh- just kind of... something I call myself." Eclipse stuttered. She didn't think it would be a very good idea to tell these wolves what a Drolgon was before a Drolgon was even a creature.

     "Drolgon sounds a lot like dragon..." a smaller wolf muttered. "And she looks sort-of like a big wolf-dragon..."

     "A wolf-dragon?" Another one scoffed "there'd never be a wolf-dragon, what with the war, you snail-brain!"

     The war? Eclipse thought. What war? Does she mean that there's a war between the dragons and the wolves?

     Apparently yes, because as the wolves led Eclipse back to their Alpha to decide what to do with her, she saw gruesome, bloody dragon heads on tall sticks that were stuck in the ground.

     How can that be? How can there be a war between the wolves and the dragons when Galaxy is supposed to be born? But maybe she was mistaken. Maybe the war ended at some point, and Galaxy's birth was after that.

     The wolves led Eclipse into a hole in the earth that made her have to tuck her wings in to get through because of her size. The hole led to a tunnel that went steeply downwards, and Eclipse was feeling claustrophobic. It felt like the walls were closing in on her- even though in reality the tunnel was getting wider as they neared a light source.

     The light got brighter and brighter, until Eclipse stepped out into a wide cave. The ceiling was three metres above her head, and light poured in from a giant woven patch of grass and reeds above Eclipse's head. In the cave were about forty wolves, Eclipse estimated. On one side of the cave were about forty piles of moss and leaves, and on the other side there were around forty notches in the cave wall that were filled with neatly displayed hollowed-out dragon claws and skulls.

In a huge notch in the cave wall on the far side from the tunnel and in the middle of everything was a giant pile of moss and leaves that was filled by a huge wolf (maybe even bigger than Eclipse) whose fur was pure black.

     As she peered closer, Eclipse saw that his fur wasn't really fur at all; it was wisps of shadow and darkness flowing about him as his back rose and fell as he slept. One of the wolves who'd escorted Eclipse to the cave jabbed her haunches with a long stick that had a thorn-sharp dragon claw at the end she was holding in her mouth.

     The wolves have spears! Eclipse realized, lashing her tail angrily at the wolf who'd poked her. Then she looked back at the notches in the wall with dragon skulls and claws. And armour, too, by the look of it.

     The wolf jabbed Eclipse again, and she bared her teeth at her.

     "All right, all right! I'm moving!" Eclipse growled, stepping closer to the giant shadow-wolf.

     As she and the wolves who'd escorted her reached the shadow-wolf, the wolves all bowed to him. Eclipse stood there watching them, when the one who seemed to enjoy poking her with her spear jabbed her again, so she reluctantly bowed as well.

     "Alpha," the biggest wolf that had found Eclipse said in a low voice, "we have found this strange dragon near our cave. She calls herself a 'Drolgon,' and she sort-of looks like a dragon-wolf. We would be honoured if you would decide what to do with her."

     The shadow-wolf slowly and menacingly blinked awake to reveal glowing, malevolent, pure blood-red eyes.

Eclipse shivered. This huge wolf gave her the heebie-jeebies.

     "Smaller than a dragon, the size of a Clydesdale, but looks like a wolf with dragon wings... no scales, but fur... wolf ears, horns..." the shadow-wolf mused in the most rumbly, loud, deep, ominous voice Eclipse had ever heard.

     Yup. Think I found the creature the Darkbeasts worship. It's definitely him. Hey, spirits, can I come back now?

     She didn't want to be here for a moment more.

     My darling, there is still more for you to do here, her mother's voice sounded in her head. Find out more about the war, and Galaxy's birth. And then you must prove yourself worthy of a second chance by letting go of your anger and your grudges.

     How am I supposed to do that? Eclipse demanded through her mind. Should I just think 'oh, I'm sorry for killing you, dad. Also, sorry for killing you too, Reed.'? But her mother's voice had already faded and was gone.

     "Throw her into The Pit," the shadow-wolf growled. "She could be another dragon tribe that we didn't know about."

     Eclipse gave a little start of fear. What in the name of the spirits was 'The Pit'?

     The wolves who'd escorted Eclipse there jabbed her in the haunches, and kept jabbing her toward the corner of the cave on the side with the armour. As she neared the corner, she found that there was actually another tunnel, going deeper into the ground.

     She was shoved into the tunnel, and kept being shoved, until she jolted to a halt where the tunnel dropped away abruptly and there was a very, very deep pit. At the bottom were dragon bones, and also a few wolf bones.

     No! I can't be kept here! I only have so much time, and I'm fading!

     Eclipse glanced fearfully back at the wolves behind her, as they clamped scraps of hot, bendy metal around her wings so she couldn't fly. Then with a massive shove, the wolves pushed her into The Pit. She fell and fell, and then crashed to the ground with a huge thud. She slowly heaved herself into her paws, and stared around the bone-filled pit.

     Hm. Wow. Delightful. Very homey. I could totally get used to this, Eclipse thought sarcastically.

     She put her paws on the walls, next to the smaller pawprints and larger talonprints she'd just realized were there. She looked around, her hopes dropping as she realized that the only way out was back the way she came.

     Even if I could climb my way out, I couldn't get past a cave full of forty armoured wolves with spears and a giant wolf bigger than me and probably made of pure evil.

     Even so, she tried to find a way to escape.

     Why do these wolves have to be really smart ones?

     Eclipse had no way of knowing for sure, but she assumed at last after a day of scrabbling around The Pit and trying desperately to escape that it was around sunset. It was just a guess, because she heard wolves barking and growling at each other and smelled a faint scent of prey.

     She was guessing that they ate in the evening. But then she found that she was correct, because shortly after the barking and growling and smell of prey died down, she could hear snoring and fur brushing against rock.

     I can sneak out of the cave system while they're asleep! Eclipse thought hopefully. But she knew these wolves were smart; they would leave a guard at the cave entrance in case there was an invasion during the night. Despite her reasoning, she still tried to escape.

     Eclipse scrabbled desperately at the walls, jumped as high as she could, and tried to fly out, but it was no use. She hated feeling helpless and not being able to fly. The scraps of metal folded around the tops of her wings rubbed the skin under them raw.

     Eclipse growled in frustration, and bit the metal. It was slightly bendy, and the wolves underestimated her strength. She may have looked like a giant wolf with fuzzy dragon wings, horns, and a weird tail, but she had the teeth and claws of a dragon.

     She carefully grabbed hold of the metal with her teeth, and pulled as hard as she could. It bent a little, but not much. She wondered why she couldn't bend it as much as the wolves could... then she remembered that it had been hot when they wrapped it around her wings. But how could she get the metal hot? Maybe she could rub it against the bones, or something.

     She tried that, but it didn't work. She growled deep in her throat, and felt her throat get hot. It did that whenever she got angry enough. She thought it was perfectly normal. Eclipse felt like something was making her throat tight, so she coughed, and smoke came pouring out of her mouth.

     Am I on fire from the inside, or something?! She started to panic.

     She tried it again, this time coughing directly after growling deep in her throat. A tiny plume of fire came from her mouth.