The Rophions were grouped and running through the forest, desperately looking for Samaya, who was missing for a few hours already, and nobody knew where did she go or why didn't she turn back till that moment, for it was something that never happened before.
„She said she goes to the lake, right?" Dike told his son, and Fenrir only bowed his head, not knowing what to say. He felt guilty in front of his father, for he didn't go with Samaya that day to meet Gaea at the lake, as usual.
Actually, he didn't go with Samaya that day not because going with her would have been something he hated, but because he felt tired and preferred to stay in the camp and have a nap. Or maybe he has been lazy and preferred to sleep than to spend hours and hours in her company while she was talking to Gaea or watching the water as usual. So, at her request to go with her, he drily said to her: „go alone if you want. I'm too big to stay and watch how a stupid girl talks to the water, in her language." Then, he turned his back on her and sweetly yawned.
But after finding out that she didn't come back and, more, seeing his father so preoccupied with her missing, Fenrir felt sorrow for his choice. But he also didn't know how to turn back time or what else to do but to be next to his father and listen to his scold. Also, he could only hope, with all his being, that they'll find her soon, safe, and that she'll be next to him again.
„Samaya, where are you? Princess Samaya, where are you?” was heard everywhere. But to their questions, only the wind was answering, and this was driving Dike crazy, who was so scared at that moment, shaking with all his body at the thought that he could find Samaya as he found her mother, five years ago.
Suddenly, Fenrir stopped, feeling someone sneaking behind him, through the bushes. Then, growling and showing his human fangs, Fenrir slowly approached the bush, transforming his body into a wolf. But, instead of a dangerous and fierce enemy, Fenrir measured noses with a... bunny.
„Huh?" Fenrir whispered, amazed, seeing the white fluffy bunny in that bush. But even if he seemed so small and unprotected, that bunny wasn't shy or stupid for sure, and the little wolf saw it into the bunny's eyes, which were quickly moving in circles, reminding him about the human being's intelligence.
„Eh, just a bunny," Fenrir eventually growled, after a few moments of staring at the animal and seeing nothing else special in him. But when to go, to his great surprise, Fenrir heard a pleasant sound made by the bunny.
„Are you all looking for the princess wolf?" The bunny asked, quickly blinking from his eyelashes.
„How did you know that?" Fenrir asked with a slight wave of anger in his voice."
„Just I know. That's why I'm asking you," the bunny continued, at all bothered by the little wolf's sparkling eyes.
„Maybe," said Fenrir, deciding to think twice before answering. „Anyway, even if it's so or not, there isn't something the brain of a stupid bunny can understand. So, better go in your way, find a carrot to chew, and spend your time this way than poke your nose into others'businesses," Fenrir reproachfully said. Then, he turned his back to the bunny and stepped out of the bush, intending to go.
The bunny instead followed the little wolf, still quickly moving his fluffy paws and ears. „I saw her," the bunny said again. „I saw the little she-wolf today," and a slight shake could be heard in his voice, a shake that told Fenrir that the animal was telling him the truth.
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But something else made Fenrir curious: a strange wave of energy in the bunny's voice. That's why he stopped, and turned toward the bunny again, forcing him to stop too. Then, when he was only one step from the bunny, the little wolf bowed his snout, and deeply looked into that white, fluffy animal's eyes, which right away sat down on his little tail, blinking afraid from his eyelids.
And this new way of looking at his interlocutor made Fenrir think that even if he was usual, there was something mystical and comic in him at the same time: the way how he was moving his nose, how he was blinking or quickly moving his front paws as if he wished to be believed, yes or yes. And this made Fenrir smile.
„And… where did you say you saw Samaya?” The little wolf asked this time while fighting with his inner laughter. And he was trying not to laugh for not to seem that he couldn't be serious when the situation requested it and that one was a serious situation for sure, for having such a distinguished guest in front of him was requesting his seriousness. And... to be honest, Fenrir didn't want to be impolite with the bunny because that was an unworthy action for a future leader of the wolves.
„In the Glade of Shadows,” the bunny said, and Fenrir saw his fluffy, white fur slowly shaking as if the bunny had remembered something that was scaring him so much. „But there was something weird at her today. Her glance and her face. She had red hair and eyes, and she was cunningly smiling while talking to Tarther. Brrr, only by saying his name I feel how my entire fur is shaking," the bunny said, frightened.
„Who's Tarther?” Dike's voice was heard behind Fenrir.
„Papa, you are here!” And, Fenrir took two steps back, allowing Dike to approach the bunny. Soon after, the boy recovered his human shape.
„King Wolf,” the bunny said, at all frightened, and quickly bowed his head in front of Dike, for each creature that lived in Rophion Forest knew about the Rophions and that they hadn't why to be scared of them, for those wolves never killed anyone.
And this was something known by the rabbits also, which have seen the wolves as their soul friends and they were never running seeing a Rophion wolf.
„Tarther is that malefic, black bird. Is the evil's spy, here, in this forest, and also, that bird never sleeps. She's always spying around and no other earthly creature can hide from her keen eyes," the bunny said while staring past Dike as if he was seeing that bird right behind the Titan. But nobody else except the bunny could see that bird there, even if Fenrir looked in the same direction.
„But when and why did this malefic bird show up in the Rophion Forest? And why did nobody ever tell me about this?" Dike asked the bunny and a trace of anger was felt in his voice.
Yet, when his glance and the bunny's glance met, Dike could see fear in the animal's eyes, which kept staring at him with his innocent glance: „because everybody is afraid of this bird," the bunny's eyes sent the message to Dike. „Just as everybody is trying to run away from that bird's way, for everybody knows that they shouldn't ever provoke that evil to anger and make him hunt them."
„You said something about Samaya,” said Fenrir. „Tell papa what you told me. Everything you know.”
„But there's not much to tell: only what I've told you already. I know that Samaya had red fur this time and she was easily transforming into a red fox and back," the bunny said.
„The other Samaya,” said Dike, and, not to be heard by his boy, he closed the channel of his mind, trying not to send his concern to his boy, too. Yet, Dike looked at the sky, as if he tried to talk to Lodur: „you've been right, brother. That girl is real and it seems that Samaya met her today."
„They are both in the Glade of Shadows," Dike heard his brother's voice in his head. „You must hurry up. They have already started a fight for life and death, and you are the only one who can stop that fight, Dike. If not, one of them will die today, and the Balance of Time and Space will turn upside down, and then, everything will be lost! You must stop that battle, Dike! You must stop it, no matter the cost!"
After Lodur shouted that message to his brother, from the faraway Cosmos, Dike started to run through the forest, closely followed by Fenrir and his men.
And, while running, Dike was carrying the white bunny into his arms, to show them the path toward the Glade of Shadows, where his girl was and where the evil seemed to have also been there, lurking on her and waiting for the possibility to kill her and stop the prophecy from being fulfilled.