I apologise for the long delay

I've been a bit busy with my grandpa and brother visiting. He has been using the computer quite often, and I had to type this between uses.

I hope you enjoy this chapter. As always, all characters belong to Susan Collins and her publishers.

-AeZmN

Chapter 18

They were walking back towards the hospital to check Luxa's wounds and make sure she could travel. Gregor was curious about the Lost Scouts, and had decided to ask Rowan about them.

"The Lost Scouts have only been living in this particular cave for a century. The first cave they chose fell apart when a particularly violent eruption happened." Rowan told him.

"Didn't Sandwich ever look for you?" Gregor asked.

Rowan laughed.

"Of course he did! And he came close to catching us too. But he never caught us. Except for once." he said, his face darkening.

"What happened?"

"He caught our main settlement, the only one we had at the time. We had just sent out two hundred or so settlers to start anew when he found us. Everyone was slaughtered. If we had not sent out the others, we would never have survived. If only he knew how important we'd be!" Rowan said with a bitter laugh.

"How do you know all this?" Gregor wondered aloud.

"We have always kept tight records, a habit of being scouts, who's job was to find data on the enemy and record it. We are lucky that he did not know of our settlers. He believed us dead, and so did not pursue us further." smiled Rowan, his dark mood passing.

They arrived at the hospital, and got Luxa to her room where she lied down with a sigh.

"We have arranged for you to be transported in a separate contingent, with private guards." the king told her.

"I will not be needing that. I can travel with the soldiers." she answered, deathly calm.

"I'm afraid that's too risky in your condition." the king replied back with a sigh.

"I refuse to simply hide while others have to protect me! I insist on travelling with the soldiers!" she yelled stubbornly.

King Stromn sighed. Again.

"You can't travel with the bulk of the army in your injured state." he said for the once more.

"I'm perfectly fine!" seethed Luxa through gritted teeth.

She attempted to raise herself before collapsing back on her injured arm, teeth clenched in pain.

"I won't let myself be pampered and coddled while my nation needs me. I am their queen, I can't just do nothing." she implored softly.

Longweb twitched nervously, obviously not used to the tension that Luxa was so apt at creating whenever she disagreed with someone. Sitting on the ground with small plastic animals scattered about her, Boots began to fidget as she realized something wasn't right, and Gregor knew she mights start absorbing the mood, as young children tend to do, if things didn't cheer up soon. He and Ripred looked at each other as silence crept into the room. They both had experience with Luxa's stubbornness. And they both knew that she wouldn't give up unless they could appeal to her in a way she would understand.

"You won't be doing nothing, Your Highness." said Ripred, the wash of silence breaking against his voice.

"The people need their queen. Alive. And they won't be getting her if she goes blundering into a war with broken bones and a concussion." he stated bluntly.

"What you can do is return to Regalia quickly as you can while maintaining your health." consoled Rowan. "It's the thing that Regalia needs most."

Gregor watched in admiration as Luxa's resistance crumbled. It was obvious that this wasn't the first time Ripred and Rowan had worked together. The way they cooperated showed, even though they had both uttered but a couple sentences. He began to wonder just how long they had known each other, and why Ripred had never mentioned him. Scratch that. Gregor didn't need a reason why Ripred wouldn't tell people about a man who technically shouldn't exist. That and Ripred wasn't exactly the type of person to just spew out his history. But from the way they had greeted each other, it seemed they hadn't been in contact for a long time.

King Stromn was sitting back in his chair, obviously glad Ripred and Rowan had intervened. From what Gregor had observed, Rowan was sort of an unofficial advisor to the king. Longweb had relaxed and settled back in the corner he was occupying with his legs rising about him like the turrets of a castle. Albeit a circular castle with exactly eight turrets. Now that the atmosphere had settled, Boots quickly lost interest and went back to marrying a yellow Lion to a green T-Rex.

Everyone jumped as a heavy knock sounded from the door. A man stood panting outside the doorway, a sheen of sweat shining in the light of the hospital. Gregor noticed that as well as the coat of arms, a brown bow held by a similarly colored falcon upon a background of a yellow sphere, He had an image of winged boots embroidered near the left side of his chest.

"Our scouts have reported a large mass of climbers marching towards Regalia. We predict they will be passing by in about a day, and be at Regalia in another day." he reported in a clear and concise voice that belied his exhausted state.

King Stromn frowned, his face just barely changing. Despite that, he was clearly troubled by the news.

"This leaves us little time to mobilise. I am sorry to force more work upon you, but you must go the Commanders and tell them that we will need our army as ready as possibly by the end of this day." He said apologetically to the messenger.

The man nodded, seeming as if he had already fully recovered, and began walking briskly down the hall.

King Stromn began to turn towards Rowan, but the Commander was already rising and moving towards the door.

"I shall go to ready my men." He said quickly before he too disappeared down the hallway.

"The rest of you should get some rest. We will be leaving early in the morning, before the enemy reaches our city. We will get ready to move Luxa safely." The king

"Are you sure your troops can mobilise in just a few hours?" Nike asked skeptically.

For one of the first time since his arrival, Gregor saw the king smiling

"Don't worry, a nation doesn't spent centuries hiding without learning a few things about mobilising quickly." he assured her.

A thought suddenly niggled at the back of Gregor's head, as if he'd forgotten something.

"It's probably just my imagination. I am pretty tired." he thought.

Suddenly, Boots gave a huge yawn, surprising everyone.

"You should all get some rest." said the king as he ushered them out the room.

"I will have you woken and brought to the dining hall for breakfast before we leave for Regalia." he told them while he followed them out of the room.

Gregor looked back at Luxa as he left.

"You will be travelling as part of Luxa's guard." he assured Gregor, seeing the look that had passed between them.

Gregor colored slightly as he fell into step next to Longweb.

As they left the hospital and began heading to the nursery, which like Regalia's, was in the main castle, to drop off Boots, Gregor realised he had barely even heard the spinner say a word.

"So why are you on the quest?" he inquired of Longweb.

"I have always wanted to experience one of the fabled prophecies, and after proving to be a proficient ambassador to other spinner factions, it was decided that I should go on the quest." the spinner explained.

"Wow, I didn't know spinners had factions. Are they lik-" Gregor began, before he was interrupted by Boots wailing loudly.

He dashed over to her quickly, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was just cranky from being woken up by whatever noise had interrupted her slumber. As he tried to calm her down, the thought began to nag at him again. He ignored it and they dropped a sniffling Boots off at the nursery, then bid each other farewell as they entered the guest house and headed to their respective rooms. Gregor entered his room and undressed quickly, before dropping heavily onto his bed.

Again, the nagging sensation that he was missing something began again. He thought about Larry and Angelina, and how they were doing, along with everyone in Regalia. Vikus, Howard, Narissa... Narissa! He had asked her something before they left, spurred by mere curiosity. What was it? He slowly drifted to sleep.

Gregor sat in the arena, watching Mareth teach children how to ride bats. Beside him sat Narissa, her face slightly less pale than it had been during her brief stint as Queen. Suddenly curious, he turned to her.

"Hey Narissa, when you have visions, or premonitions, do you ever know exactly what they're about, or is it always like it was with Hamnet?" he inquired of her.

She looked at him in surprise, as if she'd forgotten he was there.

"It is usually as it was with Hamnet, just a hint of an idea, rather than a full understanding of what is to come." she told him.

"We have proof however, that other seers, though Sandwich is the only real known other one, may have had stronger gifts." she continued.

"There are records where his talents told him exact data about the future, even going so far as to show him names and faces. In fact, it has been thought that he knew exactly what his prophecies and riddles were about. We believe he may have encoded them so that only those who they were meant for would fully understand them, in case enemies were to ever find them.

"But why didn't he stop the prophecies from happening then?" asked Gregor.

"Well, in most cases, the prophecies were too far in the future for him to stop them. But there was a case where a prophecy occurred in his lifetime. He apparently took a small group of questers, much like we do now, and instead of trying to figure out what the prophecy meant, he went straight to their destination, managing to lead them past all the dangers that stood in the way. He fulfilled the prophecy in less than a day, and came back with no casualties. This is why we believe he was well-informed by his visions, unlike me." she explained.

"Unfortunately, like me, he could not control what he saw, and there were many major events that he never foresaw. The Prophecy of Death was one of the first prophecies he created, thought to have been carved in a tablet, which was how he recorded prophecies before humans even created Regalia. We know this because we found one of them, the only remaining one. We do not know what happened to the rest. The prophecies in the prophecy room are estimated to be about half of what Sandwich saw, the rest being lost when the tablets disappeared." she finished off, looking breathless after speaking so much.

Gregor nodded, then jumped up in alarm as one of the children slipped off her flyer. Luckily she was close to the ground. Nevertheless, he rushed down to see what he could do, and ended up helping her to the hospital with a sprained ankle. His and Narissa's conversation was forgotten.

Gregor's eyes flew open. His heart was pounding from what he'd just dreamed. He remembered exactly what they'd spoken about, and now, knowing what he did about the Lost Scouts and Sandwich's prophecies, he realized something. If Narissa was right, Sandwich had known exactly how important the Lost Scouts would be, and he nearly drove them to extinction.