Everyone jumped and turned to find the source of the voice.

“So who’s who?” the Great Owl asked as she studied the group. “I mean, obviously, you’re the Black Bear,” she acknowledged Standig. “Who are you?” she asked Lolo.

“I’m Huo Lohse L-”

“No, no! Not your host’s name. I’ll never remember it. Which primordial are you?”

“I, uh, I’m a wolf.”

“The Silver Wolf,” the Great Owl corrected her. “And who are you?” she asked Fortus.

“I’m from the Lion Tribe.”

“Ok. So you’re the Golden Lion. Which makes you…?” she moved to Ulana.

“The phoenix?”

“The Red Phoenix, making you the Blue Dragon. Welcome back, your majesty,” the Great Owl bowed to Jadu. “Obviously, I’m the Horned Owl, which, over time became the Brown Owl (to match the colors theme), then the Great Owl, but some records call me the generational one, which is an apt description but a lousy name.”

“Obviously,” Ulana repeated with sarcasm that was clearly lost on the Great Owl.

“So which one of you almost died this time?”

The Great Owl was met with looks of utter bewilderment.

“I assume at least one of you did…. During the destined calamity?”

“We fought a dragon mole last summer,” Lolo responded carefully. “Fortus almost died. Is that what you mean?”

“Which one of you is Fortus?” The Great Owl scanned them.

Fortus raised his hand.

“Golden Lion?! Really?! That’s practically unheard of!” The Great Owl paused to think. “No, that is a first. Have you finally learned to be a selfless teamplayer after all these millenia? What were the circumstances of your injury?”

Lolo bowed her head. “He was protecting me.”

“Oh!” The Great Owl suddenly seemed quite thrilled as she looked back and forth between Lolo and Fortus. “Have we got a little primordial romance going on? I’d love to see another heart bond work out.”

“See! It’s not just me!” Ulana couldn’t contain herself.

“What’s a heart bond?” Jadu asked.

“Oh, it happens occasionally when two hosts fall in love. They form a spiritual connection and exchange power and such,” the Great Owl waved the question off. “But a romance between the Silver Wolf and the Golden Lion, now that would be fun to watch.”

Lolo cleared her throat. “You, um, mentioned a destined calamity?”

“Yes, you fought a dragon mole, was it?”

“That’s right.”

“And then you experienced the awakening.”

“What’s ‘the awakening’?” Standig asked.

“The Golden Lion was healed, obviously, and then you had a vision that explained everything to your hosts, which brought you here to check in with me.”

“We had a weird experience, but it didn’t explain anything,” Ulana crossed her arms.

“Well, that can’t be,” the Great Owl frowned. “You’re all here, aren’t you?”

They couldn’t argue with that.

“But we are here because the ‘vision’, as you called it, created more questions than it provided answers. Frankly, we don’t remember any of it except the vague impression that we were trying to remember all of history at once,” Fortus explained.

“Hm,” the Great Owl thought. “I guess that had to happen eventually. You know, with the limits of the human mind and such. I’ll have to edit your visions to condense them for the next hosts before you go. If you couldn’t remember anything from the vision, how did you find me?”

Everyone turned to look at Lolo.

“Partner meditations between me and Stan- erm, the Black Bear.”

“You’ve already dabbled in partner meditations?!” The Great Owl was visibly tickled. “You’ve never been a great meditator, Silver Wolf. I’m surprised you are so advanced already.”

“I’m still a terrible meditator. Partner meditations are easier for me for some reason,” Lolo blushed.

The Great Owl gave this statement some thought. “Interesting, but that would make sense with you being a wolf and all. Very group minded, wolves-- you in particular.”

“So, what is going on here exactly?” Ulana asked.

“Oh! Right! I almost forgot,” the Great Owl started rummaging through a knapsack and pulled out a leather-bound book to hand to Jadu. “Here’s what you came for.”

“What is it?” Jadu asked.

“Your book, Blue Dragon, what else?”

“My book?”

“Well of course it’s your book,” the Great Owl said, rolling her eyes. “You ask me to keep that for you after every cycle.”

“Have you read it?”

“Naturally.”

“What’s in it?”

“Your records! I don’t know why you insist on keeping records like this. It’s not as though you have to report to your father still, but it does make for some nostalgic reading while I wait for you guys to show up again. You could stand to work on the entertainment value, though. It’s rather dry, like reading a collection of mission reports,” the Great Owl curled her lip as though she’d eaten something distasteful.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Jadu said tactfully.

“Great Owl, what do you believe our mission is this cycle?” Fortus asked, piecing together her own terminology in an effort to get meaningful answers.

“Always down to business, aren’t you, Golden Lion,” she chuckled. “I’d have thought your mission was fairly obvious this time. There’s a war brewing, the likes of which the humans haven’t seen in millenia. Someone is behind this war, another council dissident. Your mission is to find and destroy them before they destroy the humans.”

“How do we do that?”

“Surely, you don’t expect me to have all the answers!”

“At the moment, you are the only one with any answers. Humor us. How do we start?” Fortus scowled.

She sighed. “Start by doing what you always do. Build your spiritual power and work to connect with your hosts. Yes, Silver Wolf, that means meditating. You need to develop as a team, train, in this case for combat, discover your ultimates and learn to control them, declare yourselves to the world to unite everyone against the enemy, and kick some butt. It’s all very formulaic.”

“Ultimates?” Fortus sought clarification.

“Yes.”

“What’s an ultimate?”

“Wow. You really don’t remember anything, do you?” she frowned. “An ultimate is the special ability developed from your unique host-primordial spirit bond.”

“For example….”

“The Blue Dragon always has some sort of healing power. You already witnessed it when he saved you from dying.”

“Any other patterns to look for when we work to discover our ultimates?”

“It’s all in the Blue Dragon’s book,” she declared unhelpfully.

“What about the little lights?” Lolo asked, completely changing the subject.

“The whats?”

“The lights. Sometimes I howl, and I create these little silver-colored lights.”

The Great Owl laughed. “Those aren’t lights, dear. That’s the spiritual energy of the world.”

“Why do they show up when I howl? And why do they look different when Fort-, I mean, the Golden Lion roars?”

“That’s how we used to communicate with each other, before we developed symbiotic relationships with the humans and learned verbal communication.”

“Does it serve any purpose to call up the spiritual energy anymore?”

“It can help you develop that host-primordial spirit relationship a little, but not really. It can make for an interesting fireworks display though,” the Great Owl smiled. “Well, it’s been lovely to chat with you all again, but I must be going. You really were quite late. Let me fix those visions for you real quick. It won’t do these hosts any good at this point, but it will help the next ones.” The Great Owl approached Standig. “Kneel down, for me, please.”

Standig gave her a funny look.

“Fine, I’ll start with the Silver Wolf. She’s always been more accommodating anyway.”

Before Lolo could register what was happening, the Great Owl had hold of her face and pressed their foreheads together. Lolo’s eyes closed and her mind went completely blank. When the Great Owl released her, she nearly fell over backwards. Fortus and Standig each caught her by one arm to set her gently on the ground.

“Whoops!” the Great Owl laughed. “I forget that memory modification can have that effect on the hosts. You might feel a little dizzy for an hour or two, but you’ll be fine. So, who’s next?”

“Guys, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!” Ulana kicked off the conversation once the dizziness was no longer overwhelming.

Standig and Lolo looked at each other from their resting spots on the ground and burst into laughter, playfully nudging each other.

“I’m serious!” Ulana was feeling frenzied. “I was so sure that the Great Owl would have some sort of rational explanation for everything. But primordials?! We’re primordials!! I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean! No. No. This is absurd.”

Lolo sat up to look over Fortus at Ulana. “Believe it, Ulana! Just accept that this is real and move on. We are a team! That’s fun. We get to go around and ‘kick butt’ apparently.” Lolo laid back down as her head began to spin more wildly again.

“It’s not going to be all fun and games, Lolo,” Fortus laughed. “It’s mostly going to be a lot of work. We’ve got a pretty big mission stopping a war, finding the ‘council dissident’.... Does anybody know what that means, by the way.”

“Based on the meditation Lolo and I had yesterday, my guess is that they are the primordial animals from the council that opposed cooperation with humans. Maybe they took matters into their own hands to try and destroy the humans,” Standig guessed.

“Hey, Standig, maybe the dissidents are the ‘primordial evils’ referenced in those stories you researched,” Lolo suggested.

“I hadn’t thought of that, but that would make sense. Do you think the dissident will have a human host?”

“I don’t know how it would manage to instigate a war otherwise,” Lolo shrugged. “I kind of assumed so.”

“Who do you think it might be?”

“Sattal,” Fortus suggested aggressively, garnering some funny looks from the rest of the group.

“I was thinking of the Dragon General,” Lolo said.

“That would make sense,” Ulana agreed.

“What are your thoughts about all of this, Jadu?” Lolo asked.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he shrugged. “I’ll have to read my book.”

“Let us know what you find,” Fortus said.

“Mn.”

“So, what I want to know,” Ulana rolled onto her side to face Fortus and Lolo, “is if you two are going to have one of those heart connection thingys.”

“Heart bond,” Jadu corrected her.

“Whatever,” Ulana laughed. “It sounds dreamy, and the Great Owl certainly seemed to think it would be fun.”

Lolo laughed as Fortus shifted uncomfortably. “You know, Ulana, you really need to let that one go,” Lolo lifted her head momentarily to look Ulana in the eye. “We’re just friends.”

“Fine,” Ulana pouted. “Then can you do me a favor and fall in love with Standig or Jadu, so I can see what a heart bond looks like. That sounds fascinating!”

“You’re more than welcome to fall in love and create a heart bond yourself, Ulana,” Lolo’s amusement increased as all three of the boys blushed and squirmed around them.

The dizziness eventually wore off enough for everyone to make the walk back to the horses, and they made it to the lake before the sun started setting.

“So what’s the plan now?” Fortus asked.

Ulana laughed. “Golden Lion, you really are all business.”

Fortus glared at her. “I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question. We just found out that we are primordials with a mission to keep the human race from self-destructing, and we have a vague laundry list of things to do between now and the official start of a war. So, what’s the plan?”

“Standig, I think we should take your dad’s advice,” Lolo grinned.

“Use the courtyard?”

Lolo nodded. “Do you think Philige would mind the group of us bumming in the Bear Tribe for some unknown amount of time?”

“Nah. Philige might actually enjoy having everyone-.”

“Care to fill us in?” Fortus interrupted irritably.

“Sorry, Fortus,” Lolo laughed. “Do you want to tell them, Standig, or do you want me to?”

“Go ahead,” Standig nodded at her.

“So, there is a secret, hidden courtyard that only Standig and I know about in the Bear Tribe. His dad showed it to him a long time ago with the comment that it would be useful to him someday. Since all of this started, we’ve wondered if maybe he knew that Standig was a primordial, or at least knew something about all of this.”

“The courtyard looks like it might have been built as a training ground for an elite group of individuals from each of the main tribes,” Standig added. “We’ve wondered if maybe it was constructed for a previous primordial team.”

“It has a meditation circle and everything,” Lolo smiled. “So, I guess the question becomes, does anyone oppose the plan to train in the Bear Tribe?”

“Seems as good of a place as any, especially if things are already set up for it there,” Fortus shrugged.

“That works for me,” Ulana said.

“My home is already in the Bear Tribe now,” Jadu added.

“That settles it, then,” Lolo smiled. “'Think we can make it to the tournament grounds tomorrow, Fortus?”

“On horseback, sure,” Fortus nodded. “And then it’s less than a day on horseback to the Bear Tribe from there.”

“Standig, we should probably tell Philige about all of this,” Lolo said.

“Why?”

“Well, we did just volunteer him as our host. Don’t you think that, as a courtesy at least, we should tell him? Also, I kind of already promised to answer his questions the next time I saw him.”

Standig laughed. “That’s on you, Lolo. I don’t have a problem with you telling him everything. I just probably wouldn’t bother to tell him myself.”

“It never ceases to amaze me how little you talk to your own brother, Standig. But, actually, this brings up a good point. Who do we tell about this primordial stuff?”

The group exchanged glances.

“I don’t really have anyone to tell,” Fortus said.

“Nor I,” Ulana added.

“I might tell my dad and Shanti, but only if necessary,” Jadu said.

Standig just shrugged.

“I’m probably going to have to tell my parents, at least. They will want to know what I’m up to and why. And I’ll tell Philige,” Lolo nudged the bear sitting next to her. “Should we tell anyone from the other main tribes? King Ukhaan or King Hospes?”

Fortus shook his head. “I don’t see that telling people this early would be wise, let alone beneficial. I mean, we can’t prove anything, and we aren’t valuable as primordials yet. We have to train before being a primordial even means a whole lot.”

“I’m with Fortus on this one, Lolo,” Ulana nodded. “Besides, I’m sure the rumors will spread on their own.”

Lolo nodded. “When we get to the tournament grounds, I need to send out some letters.”

Ulana laughed. “When we get to the tournament grounds, we all need a bath and a change of clothes.”

Lolo looked around. “Yeah, all of our camping shows.”