“Isn’t that the young woman from the Sphinx Tribe?” Shijen asked Yao, pointing through the window of the newly constructed tavern.

“I believe it is! She must be here for another visit,” Yao glowed.

“Since the coronation, she and the Alpha have certainly gotten cozy,” Shijen smirked over his cup.

“I hope it works out for him,” Yao nodded. “He’s been wearing his heart on his sleeve for her. I understand that they’ve dated on and off for a few years now, starting during the training exchange.”

Shijen nodded. “That’s what I heard too.”

“Do you think there will be another royal wedding this year?” Yao sounded hopeful. “I was a little disappointed that the last one took place in the Bear Tribe. I wasn’t able to personally attend that one.”

Shijen grinned. “It was pretty crowded. The wolf princess had to be paraded through most of the Leader’s Lodge just so everyone that wanted to could catch a glimpse of her.” He chuckled at the memory. “Oh, but she was a bride worth seeing.”

“Yes, yes,” Yao sulked, “don’t rub it in. Bear Tribe Leader Tragen is undeniably lucky to have such an accomplished and beautiful young wife.”

“He most certainly is,” Shijen agreed readily.

Perking up a bit, Yao returned to the more fun speculations. “So, perhaps the Alpha will take a proper Beta, assuming he can persuade the little sphinx, but I’m holding out for the happy news that Huo Lohse is with child.”

“Keep it down, Yao,” Shijen scolded. “Any passerby might misunderstand you to mean that she already is with child.”

“How do we know that she’s not?” Yao countered mischievously.

Shijen just shook his head and raised his glass, “to the potentially pregnant Bear Queen.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Yao laughed and raised his own flask.

***

“Lolo. Lolo!”

“Hm? What?”

Fortus sighed. “You fell asleep meditating again.”

“I did?” Lolo rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Fortus.”

He sat down next to her. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lolo, I know you know this already, but your training is really important right now. It’s been four months since the whole heart bond thing. You just barely recovered your ultimate a couple of weeks ago, and learning to control it is the last step.”

Lolo had to work extra hard to wake herself up in the September heat. “I know Fortus. I know. And once I do learn to control it, we can go public. You’ve all been really patient to wait for me, and I know you're feeling anxious to end this war before the dragons attack again.”

Fortus bit his lip. “Lolo, I don’t want to pry into your private life, but if Philige is keeping you up at night….”

Lolo laughed. “You know, that’s funny because just last week, Philige was up in arms, worried that you were over-training me.”

Fortus frowned. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m just tired, but I don’t think any one thing is the problem. My nightmares have recently returned with a vengeance, we are training hard, I am still getting used to using my spiritual energy regularly, and, yeah, occasionally I’m up too late with my husband. But most days, I’m actually getting more sleep than I have in a long time. I go straight home after practice to take a nap, wake up when Philige gets home so I can spend some time with him, eat dinner and meditate, and then I go back to bed. Except for when my nightmares wake me up, I sleep through the night, but then I always wake up still exhausted.”

“Have you talked to Jadu about all of this?”

“Yeah. He thinks I’m probably just stressed. Who isn’t?”

Fortus remained unconvinced.

“Either way, I’m almost there. Even you have to admit that I’ve made rapid progress. I’ve already mastered raising and lowering the shield at will, I can control how big it is, and with another week or two of practice, I should be able to control my energy flow reasonably well, at least enough to go public.”

Fortus exhaled sharply. “Alright, Lolo. I’ll let it go.”

“Thank you, captain,” she smiled endearingly at him, and Fortus grinned against his will.

“Cut that out!” He nudged her shoulder and stood up.

“Help me up then,” Lolo said, extending her hand to him, and Fortus pulled her to her feet.

***

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Lolo smiled. She’d prepared a picnic in the apple orchard for dinner. “You are now officially old enough to be the Bear Tribe leader. What do you think of that?”

Philige just laughed and kissed her. “Thank you, Lolo. Something smells delicious!”

“Apple pie. Matron had it made special with some of the apples from our trees.”

“And how was the apple crop this year? Sorry I haven't had much time to help you with the harvest.”

“Very good! So, so many apples, and they grew fat and juicy after thinning the crop. The soldiers aren’t complaining about that though. Once the lodge kitchen got overwhelmed by the apple supply, I started pawning them off to the military base. Apparently the apples have been a big hit, at least, that’s according to Fengli.”

“I’m glad they’ve been enjoyed,” Philige smiled and sat down.

“So, how are the village projects going?”

“Excellent, actually! Once people realized that we were serious about constructing homes for nearly nothing, it’s been a struggle to keep up with demand. We are up to eight completed ‘clusters’ with about fifty small homes each, and we have another fifteen planned with more in the works. We are starting to see some entrepreneurial enterprises cropping up around the homes… things like small bakeries and such. But it’s really exciting for us to see that because those are the seeds of real villages being planted, which, of course, was the whole point of this project.”

Lolo beamed at him. “I’m so happy to hear that! Good work, Tribe Leader.”

“You should get the credit, Lolo. This was your idea.”

“... But you’ve done all the work to make it happen! Tell you what, we’ll share the credit.”

“Is there a prize or something?”

“Sure!” Lolo said, and pulled the pie out of the basket to present to him.

“Hmm. That’s a lovely prize, but not what I wanted.”

“Well, more for me then,” Lolo laughed. She knew what he wanted, but she was going to make him work for it.

Philige took the pie away from her and set it back in the basket to free up her hands.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Lolo asked sweetly.

He knew she was just being coy. “Not for pie.”

***

“What’s that, Lolo?” Standig asked, looking over her shoulder at the mess of gloppy black, white, and red mud-type somethings that she was mixing.

“What? These?”

“No, something else,” Standig rolled his eyes.

Lolo ignored his sarcasm. “This is war paint,” she said cheerily.

“War paint? What for?”

“Well, for us.”

“Why?”

“Something the Silver Wolf taught me.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Haven’t I told you what she said before the Wolf Tribe battle?”

Standig shook his head.

Lolo sighed. “She said that the first battle is a battle of the mind, next is a battle of skill, and third, a battle of endurance. I figured war paint might be useful for the first battle.”

“How so?”

“Well, we’re about to declare ourselves as primordials. No one really knows exactly what a primordial is or what they are supposed to look like. I thought I’d give the dragon soldiers some fodder for their imaginations.”

“Uh-huh,” Standig rolled his eyes again and left her to it.

***

“Hey team,” Lolo said one afternoon at the tail end of September, “thank you for your patience with me. I think I’m ready.”

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“Like, ready ready?” Ulana questioned.

“Like, let’s-call-a-tribe-leader’s-meeting ready,” Lolo confirmed.

“Halle-freakin’-lujah!” Fortus surprised everyone by exclaiming, making Lolo laugh. “Lolo, you’re probably in the best position to make a tribe leader’s meeting happen.”

“I’ll take care of it. When do we want to hold the meeting? And I was assuming we’d meet everyone at the tournament grounds unless one of you thinks otherwise.”

“The sooner the better, probably,” Standig said.

“This weekend?” Fortus suggested.

“So, what, three days?!” Lolo laughed. “We’d better make it next weekend so the invitations can get to everyone and people can arrange their travel plans.”

“Fine,” Fortus grumped. “We’ve already waited this long….”

"Do we have a plan for how to declare ourselves?" Jadu asked. "People aren't going to simply believe us. They'll want proof."

"I kind of assumed we'd be showing everyone our ultimates," Ulana contributed.

"But don't we want to keep those as a surprise. Tactically speaking, we don't want to reveal our aces…. 'Element of surprise and all that," Fortus argued.

"Besides Fortus and me, have any of the rest of you tried summoning the little light orbs?" Lolo asked.

"You're thinking of giving everyone a fireworks display?" Standig was not enthusiastic about this idea.

"Well, it's non-ultimate evidence that we can present," Lolo shrugged. "The Great Owl told us that we should declare ourselves to unite everyone against the enemy."

"It occurs to me," Jadu was choosing his words carefully, "that what is most important is the unification of the tribes against the enemy rather than the announcement that we are primordials."

Standig scowled. “But then the question becomes, why would the tribes unite on our say-so? Being primordials gives us the authority to lead.” Everyone considered this idea for a moment.

“Let’s not forget,” Fortus suddenly grinned, “we have Huo Lohse Lang on our team. Tragen…. Huo Lohse Tragen,” Fortus corrected himself, but he’d made his point, and everyone seemed to understand what he meant except Lolo.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lolo was genuinely confused.

Ulana laughed. “Lolo, you have friends in high places in all of the main tribes and in many of the smaller ones as well.”

“People trust you,” Standig added.

“And you are a natural unifier,” Fortus grinned.

“We’re the proof,” Jadu ended.

Lolo was overwhelmed. “So, what…?”

Fortus flashed her his charming smile. “Lolo, if any of us have a shot at unifying the tribes, it’s you. You are the Wolf Tribe princess, the Bear Queen, a hero of the Lion Tribe coup, and the savior of the Phoenix Tribe military. Most of the smaller tribes are aware of your involvement in the refugee alliance agreement, and generally, people love and trust you. Most people know what you are capable of, and most people would be willing to follow you into battle. You are our best shot at uniting the world against the Dragon Tribe, especially if we choose to keep our primordial-ness to ourselves.”

“Just call the meeting, Lolo,” Standig smiled. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

***

“I’m home,” Philige announced as he walked through the door. “I got the most interesting letter today.” He grinned and shut the door behind him.

“You did?” Lolo pretended to be surprised. “What did it say?”

“It was an invitation to a tribe leader’s meeting next weekend.”

“Oh? Are you going to go?”

“The funny thing is, the letter was marked with the Bear Tribe leader’s seal. My seal.”

“How strange!” Lolo smiled. “So you invited yourself to attend a tribe leader’s meeting?”

“It seemed that way, until I read the signature.”

“Oh? Who had the nerve to use your seal but sign their name?”

“Only my queen would.” Philige gave her a quick ‘hello’ kiss. “I take it, then, that you are ready to go public?”

“We are still debating our exact goals for this meeting,” Lolo said, “but, in short, yes. We have completed our training as primordials, and we are ready to accept, or rather claim, our roles as leaders in this war.”

“Congratulations on graduating from your training, Lolo.” Philige smiled at her.

“Thank you!”

“However, you still haven’t shown me your ultimate, you know.”

“It’s not really the sort of thing that I can show you just anywhere,” Lolo laughed.

“Then let’s go somewhere where you can show me.”

“Alright,” Lolo said, taking his hand. “Let’s go to the courtyard.”

They followed the familiar path to The Great Hall and then northward, past the guest rooms, out of the Leader’s Lodge, and beyond. As they walked, they discussed their day and the various issues they were each dealing with.

“You said earlier that you weren’t sure what your goals are for the leader’s meeting. I thought the plan was to tell everyone that you are primordials, present your proof, and then convince everyone to join you in a fight against the dragons.”

Lolo nodded. “That was the rough goal, yes. But there’s been some debate about whether or not it’s actually necessary to tell everyone that we are primordials.”

“You don’t want to tell people?”

“It’s not that we do or don’t want to tell people. It’s more that once we do tell people, they are going to want proof that we don’t necessarily want to have to provide, but the point has always been to unite everyone against our common enemy. We’re not sure that proving that we are primordials is necessary to do that.”

Philige nodded. “But don’t you think they deserve to know?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, the primordial spirits are an ancient myth. Knowing that it’s not a myth and that they have returned is a bit of a game changer. It means that we have help in this fight, and that’s sort of comforting.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“Besides,” he continued, “there is this rumor circulating that the Wolf Tribe princess held the front gate by herself during the Wolf Tribe battle, and there’s an unexplained story about wolves summoning spiritual energy in the Bear Tribe. I think people would appreciate some explanations and clarifications about these things.”

“Philige, do you think people will accept our explanations-- accept us as primordials?”

“I mean, it might take them a while to come around, but eventually, yeah. If nothing else, there’s no way to deny that you and your team are exceptional and capable of seemingly impossible things.”

“Hm. I suppose that’s true. I’ll have to give it some thought,” Lolo pondered as they emerged through the tunnel into the courtyard. “Well, are you ready to see this thing?”

“Definitely! Fortus told me it’s a giant shield of some sort, but other than that, I have no idea what to expect.”

“Well,” Lolo laughed, “it is a giant shield. Stick close to me for the full effect.”

“You won’t hear me complain about that,” Philige chuckled and stepped behind her.

Lolo closed her eyes momentarily and seemed to explode in a giant shock wave that passed right through Philige and stopped abruptly in a fifty foot radius in all directions to form a giant, silvery, protective dome. Philige felt the force of the shield pass through him without being affected by it, which seemed impossible.

“How... how does this work? Lolo, what…? WHAT?!” Philige looked around the dome completely awestruck.

“Touch it,” Lolo laughed. “Here, I’ll make it a little smaller.” By concentrating a little harder, Lolo’s fifty foot radius shrunk to ten feet.

“You can change its size?!”

“Yeah,” Lolo grinned. “I think the smallest I’ve managed was a ten foot diameter shield, and the largest… well, we couldn’t measure it. Try touching it!”

Philige took a few steps to the edge of the dome and extended his hand. “It’s cool, like water almost.”

“Walk through it.”

Philige did as he was told. It felt almost like passing through a thick sheet of mist.

“Come back.”

Again, he stepped through it.

“Now, step through it again, only this time, when you try to re-enter, I’ll have the shield treat you like a threat.”

Philige stepped back out and Lolo closed her eyes. When Philige tried to walk back in, the shield seemed to have solidified.

“Try to get in!” Lolo grinned.

“I did!”

“Try harder.”

Philige started kicking and banging against the shield. After a few futile strikes, the dome seemed to hit back using his own force against him and knocking him over backwards. “Wow, that’s really something.”

Lolo dropped the shield and helped Philige back up to his feet. “During the initial shockwave, all threats get knocked out of the shield area. Fortus and Standig were the unfortunate guinea pigs when I made that discovery. Ulana and Jadu were on my team and Fortus and Standig were the opposing team. I got my shield up a little late, after they’d already started charging, and, yeah, they got thrown. Standig got knocked out and dislocated a shoulder, and Fortus got a concussion and broke his wrist as he fell. I’m just glad Jadu was there.” Lolo grimaced at the memory.

“That must have been the day you came home raving about Jadu’s healing ultimate last week,” Philige connected.

Lolo nodded. “Yeah. It’s a good thing we have a healer on our team, especially since we discovered our ultimates. We’ve had so many training accidents since then that, honestly, without a healer, we would probably all be dead by now.”

“You’ve never told me about being injured!” Philige said with concern.

“I think I’m the only one that hasn’t taken a major hit. Ulana has burned me a few times, but I spent most of my team's early ultimate training working to recover my ultimate. Oh, well, that’s not entirely true. Before the heart bond happened, I woke up on the ground once with Jadu sitting next to me. He told me that Standig had knocked me over by accident and, let’s just say, I don’t remember even being hit. I must have hit my head pretty hard.”

Philige was appalled. “I didn’t realize your training was so intense!”

“Well, we’ve had to practice our ultimates in order to master them, and we really only have each other to practice on.” Lolo shrugged as though it were obvious. “Like I said, we have Jadu, so our injuries serve as his practice too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?!”

“About all of our training accidents?”

“Yes! Lolo, serious injuries aren’t something to trifle with.”

“I didn’t say that they were, just that they happen, so we’re really glad that we have Jadu on our team. To answer your question, I didn’t tell you about all of our training accidents because, well, they’re kind of routine, and telling you about them would only serve to worry you.”

That was certainly true, and Philige had to admit that he was sort of glad that she hadn’t given him all of their injury reports. It had made sending her to training every day easier to be blissfully ignorant. Philige sighed and drew his anxiety-inducing, risk-taking wife in to kiss her.

“Hey! Come back here,” Lolo demanded when he released her again. “I liked that.”

He laughed and gave her a hug.