Spere tried to roll over, but couldn't. Instead, she gripped her sword, and swung it over her back dangerously. It worked, and hit the woman on top of Spere squarely. Spere pushed herself to her feet, panting, and held her sword with the arm that wasn't hurt. The woman stayed on the ground, so Spere assumed she had killed her by cutting into her spine.

Everything was happening so fast. Spere had grown dizzy. Was it getting light outside?

She fell. Or, she almost did. Windy caught her, and helped her stay on her feet.

"I caught one alive!" He said excitedly.

Spere's words slurred, "That's great..."

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"No." She said. "I'm dizzy." Spere swayed on her feet.

"I can tell," He nodded. He looked at her for a moment, then said, "You're hurt!" He held out an open hand, angled in the light of a torch nearby, to see that it was drenched with blood.

"I'm fine," Spere lied.

"You're losing blood really fast. That's why you are so dizzy, dimwit!" Windy pulled her into his arms, and dragged her across the concrete trails and dirt floors and into the medical building. He shut the door behind them. It seemed so quiet here, without the chaos of the battle outside.

Windy gently laid Spere on one of the mattresses, holding a firm hand on the wound to her ribcage. She faded in and out of consciousness. Spere could barely comprehend that he peeled her layers of shirts off and bandaged her wounds. Spere did, however, find a moment of consciousness to be thankful that he didn't take her bra off as well. She also found a moment to realize how freezing it was without a shirt on. Was this what Mayhem had felt like? Sweaty, dizzy, shivering relentlessly? Calm? Aching? She passed out with that thought.

When she completely awoke, Windy was beside her. And oddly enough, so was Stonehenge, Fallen World, and even Mayhem.

"Stonehenge?!" She asked excitedly. "Mayhem? You're okay?" Her words slurred slightly. The battle was distant. How many days had passed?

Stonehenge took her hand, "It's me." Mayhem smiled warmly.

"I thought- How are you guys here?" Spere asked. Her mind buzzed with so many questions that she grew a migraine and couldn't see quite right. "Am I dead?" The question seemed comical.

"Yes," said Stonehenge, with a smirk on his face, still holding her hand. The others glared at him.

"You're not dead," Fallen World said.

Spere groaned, "Where did you guys come from?"

Stonehenge replied, "We came back for you... when they told us you were hurt, and offered to let us see you, he had to take them up."

"They're not bad people," Spere said drowsily. "Stonehenge, you think savages are so bad but the birds are worse. I think they killed that girl."

"Birds?" He asked quizzically.

Windy nodded, "The sky people. They did this to her." He put a warm hand on Spere's face.

She flinched away, "Don't." Windy pulled his hand away, looking flushed with embarrassment while Stonehenge chuckled beneath his breath. Just for the spite of it, Spere pulled her hand away from Stonehenge's, and glared at him the best she could. Windy laughed this time. Stonehenge did not look pleased.

Instead, Spere reached for Mayhem's hand. He took it. She was so happy to see him alive and well, that she grew dizzier than she already was. Her smile faded, and she passed out again.

She awoke again. This time, she only saw Windy beside her.

"You're awake?"

"Barely," Spere mumbled. "How long has it been?"

"Just a week. We've been taking care of you. But it'd be easier if you were awake," he said earnestly.

Spere's words slurred, "My friends?"

"They're training. They decided to become soldiers. Like you."

Spere smiled, "What about the others at home?" She found it hard to believe Stonehenge would suddenly trust the savages. Her friends were probably only there because the Normals had helped Mayhem and now, Spere.

"Home?" Windy frowned.

"My old home. The used-to-be home," Spere failed at explaining. "The others. Half-Height. And... and... Dynamite. And Fairytale, and Zenshock."

"Oh. The rest of your group?" Windy asked.

Spere sighed, "Yeah, them."

Windy looked puzzled for a moment, then said, "Well, I can send out some people to pick them up. But they might fight back..."

"No! Wait for me to get better and I will go and convince them. Or Stonehenge can convince them. They don't like me."

Windy looked skeptical, "They don't like you?"

Spere shook her head, "No. Not a one. I'm too much."

"I don't think you're too much," Windy said.

"I don't care," she growled.

"Oh." A moment of silence passed. Spere couldn't think properly. Why did he say it like that?

Finally, Spere asked, "What happened with the live Bird you caught? Did you interrogate him?"

Windy scoffed, "I tried. Couldn't get a word out of him." Spere chuckled.

...

"Why do the sky folk hate us anyways?" Spere asked. She sat upright in her bed now, and the pain seemed to be a distant memory. She ate dry, crumbling meat out of a small package. She wondered how such a fragile package of freeze-dried food could last such a long time. It didn't have a lot of taste. If anything, the taste was foul. But it was edible and filling. It was food. It would have to be enough for now. Kneeled beside the rather warm mattress she sat on was, of course, her mentor Windy.

"Resources. We have fresh water, and a good supply of food. Even live animals for fresh meat for the soldiers."

"Oh."

She recovered quickly after that. It had taken a while for her blood to replenish itself, but once her wounds healed to a certain degree, it was smooth sailing from there. And, time to start training.

Spere, Stonehenge, Mayhem, and Fallen World shared a house. Several mattresses on the floor, straw, and not much else. Same as all the others. Windy mentored them all, in a way, but he still primarily focused on Spere. The others had different teachers depending on the day. They trained, both physically and mentally. Days passed quickly and ended with sore legs and arms. Spere took it easy for the first few days.

She was in charge of caring for the prisoner. She fed him, and cared for him, but never spoke to him. He always talked to her. He spoke of wanting his freedom, and he spoke angrily about his situation. But Spere never replied, and never showed my emotion in her face. She figured if she spoke, it would weaken her authority. She waited patiently and oddly excitedly for the day when she would be assigned to interrogate him. So far, nobody had spoken to the prisoner except for Windy. Windy hadn't been able to get any information.

He was a thin, older man, with deep grey hair and a gruff voice. He seemed wise, but the way he behaved was not. He acted like an infant, Spere thought, the way he complained about every little thing. It was his way of antagonizing her, she assumed.

Spere was simply wandering through the zoo, making herself useful by carrying bales of fresh straw from dorm to dorm, when she was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. As usual, it was Windy.

"Hey?" Spere asked frustratedly, readjusting the heavy bale in her hands, and glancing back to look at him. She didn't have to wear a mask anymore; she coughed a lot, but the savages had a way of cleaning the air around their campus through the snow that had piled up along the fences and walls surrounding it. The snow was pushed away from the buildings and sidewalks and kennels, and so it piled up dozens of feet high along the edges of the most unused places of camp. It cleaned the air and collected most of the ash that floated around, making the middle of the whole camp have surprisingly clean, crisp air. Still thick and hard to breathe, but better than usual, in such a way that it didn't make your eyes sting.

Windy reached out his hands, "I'll take that." Spere hesitated, then heaved the bale into his arms. Pain shot up her side, and she winced, but ignored it.

She crossed her arms, "What's going on?"

"Are you okay?" He asked, and began to walk along the wide cement sidewalk with the yellow bale of straw in his hands.

Spere almost rolled her eyes, "No. It's fine. What's wrong?"

Windy scoffed, then smirked, "How come you always assume something is wrong whenever I talk to you?"

Spere glided beside him on the pavement, "Well, you're full of bad luck, I'd say."

"You'll say? I'd say so, too," he chuckled dryly.

Spere glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, "Say again?"

"Boss wants you and me to join him. We can drop this stack off there," Windy said.

"That stack was supposed to go to a dorm farther down. And are we in trouble?"

Windy chuckled, dryly again, "Trouble? No."

"What is up with you?" Spere mumbled, mostly to herself.

"Whoever this is going to can handle, we keep our dorms clean so it's not a big deal."

Spere growled, "Yeah, well Boss won't get you in trouble whenever he finds out bales of hay haven't been put in their right places."

Windy sighed, "Calm down."

"Why does Boss want us?" Spere asked, again.

Windy grinned, "We get to interrogate the bird guy. Officially. Like, torture and stuff."

"You are way too excited about that."

"Oh yeah, I'm crazy," Windy made a googly face.

"Har-har."

The two made it to the door of Boss' home quickly. Windy didn't bother to knock, and walked right in, dropping the bale of hay on the floor.

The man in the cage on the floor beside them chuckled, and mocked, "Oh, it's the caretaker, and her white boyfriend." Windy shot Spere a surprised and rather comical glance, but Spere decided to ignore it. She needed to be seen as calm and dominant in front of the prisoner if she had any chance of breaking him. Boss, hefty and gruff as always, stood where he normally sat.

"Youth, it's time for us to break this one here."

"Yes, sir." It was Spere's voice that rang loud and clear with those words. Steady.

The prisoner laughed almost maniacally, "She speaks! She speaks!" He seemed to jump where he sat, and bumped his head against the top of the kennel, and fell back slightly, groaning in pain.

"That's what he gets," Windy murmured. Spere wanted to reply "You are so much like Stonehenge- arrogant and infant-like." But instead, she bit her tongue, and paid no mind to his words.

"Let's begin, then?" The boss asked. Spere and Windy nodded in unison.

Before they could begin the actual interrogation, they had to relocate the prisoner. They held him at sword-point as they opened his cage, and then tied his hands together in front of him with thick rope. Then, they blindfolded him, with a simple dark cloth.

They pulled him by a heavy chain hooked to the ropes his hands were bound with. Spere and Windy didn't know where they were headed, but they walked for a long while through the camp. Finally, they came across a medium-sized kennel, with double fences on the side and wire across the top. The two doors were padlocked shut. Spere noticed a sign on one of the gates:

Dingo Exhibit.

Boss opened one with a key around his neck that Spere hadn't noticed before, and pulled the prisoner into the kennel. He nodded at Windy and Spere to follow. They glanced at each other, then Windy entered the pen, and Spere followed, latching the tall, double gates shut behind her.

Boss turned to the edge of the kennel, and hooked the chain leash from the prisoner's hands to the chain link fence with a separate padlock. He huffed slightly, and finally, pulled the blindfold from the man's face.

He looked around himself with wide eyes, admiring the dirt floor and the chains he was bound to the side of the kennel with.

"Locked me up like a feral dog, eh?" He laughed. It was a dry, painful laugh. Like that of someone who hadn't drank water for a long time.

"Tell us what you know," Boss demanded, dominantly but quietly, his arms folded over his chest.

The grey-haired man thought for a moment, then laughed, and said, "No, I don't think I will." In a flash, Boss swung an arm back and punched the prisoner in the face. He toppled over and fell on his ass with a groan. Spere and Windy watched quietly, observing the rather frightening scene.

"Name?" Boss crouched down to get closer to the man's face.

The man growled quietly, "Ozwald."

"Ozwald?" Boss repeated, a bit threateningly. "See, now we're getting somewhere." Boss stood up, and stepped back. He turned to Windy and Spere, "That's how it's done. Feel free to do it however works best for you and the man."