01. Focus.
If Tobias were a human, his eyes would be narrowed with concentration, but he is a hawk, with a hawk's focus.
02. Civilization.
Rachel's losing her sense of civilization, bit by bit, and the worst part is feeling it slip away, and seeing the looks on their faces.
03. Sink.
Jake closes his eyes and sinks into the water, feeling that fear, before he lets the changes begin and the joy of the dolphin bubble up inside of him.
04. Bullet.
It’s actually weird being shot at with bullets instead of dracon beams, and Marco nearly laughs at the irony.
05. Count.
Before, Cassie couldn’t have said that she was afraid of Rachel; after, every time she’d looked at her friend and been genuinely afraid was etched on her mind.
06. Mental.
Sometimes Tobias wonders if it’s all something mental and if he’s actually locked up in a padded room somewhere, as Marco likes to say.
07. Coast.
Jake stands on the coast watching the whale swim off and thinks maybe this is one good choice he’s made.
08. Fence.
Before and after are a barrier that can’t be broken, not ever.
09. Circle.
The Hork-Bajir and the tiger circle each other, one’s eyes never leaving the other’s, until a grizzly bear coems wading in, and it’s all over.
10. Thin.
Tobias smiles a thin smile and says, “Maybe someday it’ll be okay.”
11. Room.
There isn’t room for secrets among them, not really, and that’s how everyone knows, even if they don’t see it.
12. Blaze.
In a strange sort of irony, Rachel went out with a blaze-if not a blaze of glory, at least it was a blaze.
13. Thought.
“I didn’t think,” Jake tells her, and that’s exactly why Cassie’s so worried.
14. Jealous.
Marco sometimes feels left out when he sees everyone (except Ax-there’s that whole interspecies thing) exchanging significant looks.
15. Sand.
Their time is running out, and they can all tell.
16. Doll.
“I won’t have you pulling me around anymore!” Rachel yells, and everyone sits back just a little.
17. Curl.
Jake sits watching the smoke curl away into the sky and tries thinking, but there’s nothing, and he can’t tell how he came this far.
18. Farewell.
Rachel knows that this is goodbye forever, but what can she do-she’s the one who has to be strong for everyone else.
19. Story.
Cassie looks up at the stars, some nights, and knows that one day this will all just fade away into a story because she’s the only one left who remembers.
20. Soft.
Her arms are soft around him, but this war has hardened him, and he has to try hard to make this matter at all.
21. Pool.
“So we just dive in and grab one and hope nobody notices,” Marco says with a nervous laugh, looking at the tank.
22. Serpent.
Such a small animal with such capacity for damage; some Earth animals really are amazing.
23. Prey.
He swoops down and catches the mouse and wonders if he’s just killed another small part of his humanity.
24. Friend
Rachel’s still her friend, even after all that’s changed.
25. Still.
Even knowing what happened, Rachel would still have done it.
26. Exhausted.
Each night, Jake sinks into bed exhausted and hopes that he’s washed off all the blood, before waking up to do it all over again.
27. Bold.
She goes into the battle, knocking Hork-Bajir left and right, because that’s what she has to do.
28. Hook.
As a fish, he seems to have an irrational fear of hooks.
29. Attraction.
Rachel grins up at the rafters, and he almost feels human.
30. Will.
Jake had actually thought about making a will, not anything major, just something giving some things to Marco, his parents…and Tom.
31. Bed.
Other people complain about staying up late to do homework; it’s slightly different for them.
32. Bell.
Ax never did get the hang of the bells for school.
33. Joy.
They’re in the barn, just laughing, and when Jake pulls a piece of hay out of Cassie’s hair, she smiles.
34. Decade.
The years don’t make things better-Cassie’s moved on, but she hasn’t forgotten.
35. Test.
Rachel listens to David’s voice in her head and thinks this is one more test.
36. Gentle.
A gorilla holding a wolf has never been so gentle.
37. Hunger.
“Good, I’m hungry,” Marco says, overlapping Jake’s, “So, about that mission…”
38. Mute.
Sometimes she cries at night in her room, hoping her sisters don’t hear hand that Tobias doesn’t stop by.
39. Quicken.
Those last few seconds, Rachel reveled in life.
40. Absence.
“If something big comes up, you have to act; you can’t wait for me,” Jake said before he left.
41. Maze.
A part of her would be living as that rat with David forever.
42. Close.
She had gotten so close, but it was like the Bible-maybe she had sinned too much to enter the Promised Land.
43. Reign.
Cassie wanted to tell Jake that putting Rachel in charge was bad, but there were so many things that she wanted to tell him that she couldn’t pick just one.
44. Crush.
You just had to try not to think about all that water sitting above you waiting to crush your human bones if you morphed back.
45. Run.
They ran more than once-it’s what you have to do to live to fight another day.
46. Art.
The one time they attacked a paint factory, Rachel thought maybe art would be a good idea; then she decided to forget about it.
47. Pressure.
Some days the pressure of everything got to be so much that he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t, because Tom was always there, always watching.
48. Echo.
Watching other people at school, they’d catch an echo of what their lives had been.
49. Heal.
Maybe time would heal her, but she could tell it would probably take a lot more time than she had.
50. Clear.
On clear days, Cassie would see Tobias, and on one of those days she flew up to meet him, because they both were still grieving.