Prologue

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A leopard looked off into the distance from his perch in the clouds. His grey cloudy mane and wings contrasted with his body which glowed and shimmered like an Aurora. An ancient sword floated above his back. He was Negaf; the spirit of the North wind, the bringer of winter, the master of all storms, and the one who vanquished monsters forgotten by mortals. Even though he was all that, he felt as powerless as a cub.

His sight always gravitated to the mangled forest hidden in Startouched Mountains. A place always cast into darkness by the contorted trees reaching with their branches ready to smother any light they could grasp. Mortals told tales of that haunted place; tales of monsters and ghosts meant to frighten cubs into obedience or scare cats round a fire. None knew why it was there, but he did, all too well he did.

His whiskers and tail twitched as he could sense his sister Te Fiti step behind him, her glowing paws trodding gently on the cloud.

"It's not your fault." She mewed musically

"If I was there she wouldn't be like this, none of it would have happened." He growled angrily at himself

"If you were there you would have been captured as well and your mate and cubs would still be in those creatures paws." Te Fiti countered. This wasn't the first time her brother had one of his brooding sessions.

Negaf's tail dropped defeatedly onto the soft cloud. "Why did this happen? Why couldn't those creatures just keep to themselves and not unleash so much chaos?"

Te Fiti layer down next to her brother, one of her wings covering his body affectionately. "I don't know, but their gone now. They can't hurt anyone else."

"Their souls aren't. Nothing bad just ends, it's claws always sink deep into the victims left behind. Even when those souls are gone, none of us will forget the pain they caused." Negaf mewed sadly with contempt as his ears bent backwards.

Negaf looked away from the forest, his eyes passing his mate's shrine, as he looked off into the distance toward the leaps.

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