Far away cries Drown out sweet lullabies The Phoenix flies As her child dies When all is said and done The battle will be won But war soon will rage As love dies in her old age Beware those closest to your heart Walk on through the dark Daylight ends and nighttime falls Will you stand or end us all A broken bond must be mended Before the war is truly ended Blood cries to blood you see And in the end love must be Warrior child rise up tall Your pain could save us all Hope is not lost in your darkest night Like the sun hope shines bright Rage cannot conquer a loving heart Though its lies are a work of art Through the dark the people see The ruler you were meant to be Warrior child rise up tall In the end you shall save us all Lead the way to victory And vanquish at last our enemy

They are shapeshifters. Once a proud, strong and independant race, they have been beaten down by humanity. The royal family, locked up in a zoo, seen only as animals. Their subjects spread across the land in zoos, labs and circuses. The few shifters left in the wild cower in fear, coming out only at night. They adapted to survive, becoming only shape-changing animals to the humans. Their own human side hidden, their ability to think like humans, to look and act like humans, put away for fear it will only make the humans see them as even more of a threat. They are humans. Seeing themselves as a proud and superior race, once viewed the shapeshifters as a threat to that. Now, though, everything they once knew about shapeshifters has been forgotten. They still view them as dangerous, but no longer understand why. They study them in labs, breed them in captivity, trying to rediscover the meaning behind this long-standing fear. But if they will ever uncover the secrets this race has buried so deep... that, is yet to be determined.