Prologue: The Eagle and the Wolf
Blood of the Fox was the only trace left from what Xiao had just seen. It had been a long hunt and he was tired and yet there was no mistaking what she had seen with her eye.
An Eagle, larger than a horse had taken her Fox and disappeared into the clouds. It was not her own, as Sky, her own eagle was resting comfortably in front of her, on the head of her horse. Xiao looked across the grasslands in every direction, she was alone as she expected. She dismounted and walked over to where the fox used to be.
The grass had been crushed only for a brief moment and had now regained it's shape. Fox Blood remained.
Thump
The sound came suddenly, loud enough to hear but soft, like a pile of fur's impacting the ground. Xiao turned to look to find the fox, crushed from a fall high in the air. She looked around again, and still none but her horse, her own eagle and the now setting sun.
"
If you had both eyes, Perhaps you could see better" echoed from the grass around Xiao"
Once more Xiao looked around, only catching the red of her air as her head swung from left to right before it could keep pace. Her horse had noticed the sound as well and had begun to pull at Xiao clearly wishing to leave
"Who is there" she spoke, her hand tightening over her bow.
"
Just the Wind"
As the words finished the sound of air, rushing past Xiao's ears was all she could hear. The Grass all flattened, blown down. Sky had taken to the air, and her horse pulled more violently, but what the grass revealed had given Xiao pause, else she would leave just as her eagle had.
A great red wolf, twice the size any Xiao had seen stood before her, silent, eyeing her and her horse. Stranger still about this beast was the wind did not so much as affect its fur, and it simply stood, unaffected by anything like a ghost.
"
It has been difficult to speak with any of your people, So I had to enlist the aid of another, the Fox, and the Eagle, to bring you here before me"
"What do you want" Xiao replied before she could think better of herself for talking to a wolf.
The Wolf didn't move, not even when it spoke, the words themselves seems to hang on the wind and come from all directions but front.
"In many suns time one called Abaoji will ride East into the lands of the Rising Sun, and build a Kingdom of Iron, This Kingdom will Fall and it's people sent East only to once more fall and drift away from memory"
"I do not know of this Abaoji" Xiao responded, having given up on her better instincts to run away
"
He has not yet been born, and will not be until the world has earned three years"
"So why does this concern me?" Xiao lowered her bow, whatever this Animal, or Spirit wished it clearly wasn't harm.
It could be trying to trick her, in fact it almost certainly was, speaking of things that had not yet happened, and things that would happen. The Sun was gone, and the wolves eyes glowed a bright bluish white, a lesser woman, or man might have been intimidated, but Xiao had spent the last decade of her life struggling to become a leader in her clan, escaping kidnappers and now suitors who wished to find themselves in a position to become Khan when old Yelu died.
"
You do not exist, in this world I have foretold, You do in this one, And in this world, We have given you a choice, To go West, Away from the Sun, and Bring a Greatness to your people that will last until the Stars themselves go dark"
West was the Gobi desert, Suicide. Now there was no doubt, the Wolf was lying and trying to trick her.
"I am not Khan nor can I be, I am a woman"
"
We had not planned for this, Circumstance, But it does not matter, Before the Sun Rises Khan Yelu will have died, and you will bring the Hide of the Red Wolf to your Clan, They will see you as Khan, and in this your Attributes will not matter"
"I am to kill you now?" Xiao chuckled.
"
If you decide to traverse the Great Gobi, to Meet with the Khan in Karakorum for Protection until you travel far enough to reach those who call themselves the people of the plains, Together you will march into the Setting Sun.
Your people will pass the Great Mountains of Light, and the Great Deserts of the Moon, They will Cross the great blue lake and find themselves in the Land of the Two Wolves fought over by two eagles both bound to a cross
Only when your people have reached the land of the Absent Lion will they stop, for there is no land to continue, what happens beyond that, we cannot say, If you wish this fate, if you wish to become Khan, then yes, Bring this pelt to your people"
Xiao considered for a moment. Then let loose an arrow. If becoming Khan was to be her fate, she would not avoid it.
