It was dark when I woke up. There was a soft buzzing hum somewhere in the distance, and there was a soft red glow coming from behind me, but aside from that my surroundings were dark and quiet.

My entire body ached. The fuzzy warmth had faded some. I felt myself flush with embarrassment at the memory of how out of it I had been then - and I was coherent enough now to feel a little worried.

Where was I?

The glass wall I remembered was in front of me, but it was much less fascinating now. Three other matching walls surrounded me, along with a glass ceiling and a glass floor, all forming a clear cage. Some sort of cloth had been draped over the cage, and the soft red glow from behind me wasn't strong enough to really overcome the material. Whatever was beyond the cage was out of sight for now.

The cage seemed to have plenty of room, and I could spot air holes along the top part of the walls. If I got desperate I could probably squeeze a claw through one of the holes and dislodge the covering, but I shelved that idea for the moment.

There was a small bowl of what smelled like water and another small bowl of what seemed like food in one corner of the cage, a small tray of some kind of reddish dirt along one of the glass walls, a soft blue blanket folded neatly to rest near the door of the cage, and the small bowl of sand that I was laying in. The door seemed to be secured by some sort of mechanism near the top, but the important parts all looked to be outside the cage beyond my reach. I didn't think I would be able to open it from inside the cage.

I glanced behind me and found the source of the red glow. An oddly shaped lamp rested just outside the rear pane of glass, radiating warmth along with the dim light. I could make out a few knobs and buttons on the side of the lamp and had the feeling it could probably get brighter or warmer, but it was comfortable enough for now. Even with it pointing up, away from the cage I was in, instead of directly at it.

I couldn't really figure that out - was somebody trying to heat up the ceiling? If the heat lamp was for me, why wasn't it pointed towards me, or maybe put on top of the cage to angle down on me? I craned my neck to try and look upwards, but I couldn't make anything out past the cloth covering the cage and the lamp.

It wasn't my den back in the park, but it wasn't exactly a bad setup for a home. The sand felt particularly nice around me. Resting on it made me feel a little sad about never coming across any out in the park.

The cloth covering the glass blocked out any view beyond the cage, but I was pretty sure it must be a Kymari building. The embarrassing memories with the medication were still fresh in my mind, and I knew it had definitely been a Kymari feeding and talking to me. The strange encyclopedia in my head had translated the meaning, but now that I was coherent I could remember that the words had definitely been spoken in the Kymari language. So it only made sense that I was in a building somewhere in their city. Maybe a zoo of some kind, where they would show off captured animals.

No, that wasn't right...

I thought back a bit more, to when I was attacked by the eagle. I had been hurt pretty badly by it. And then I had fallen to the water, and hit it hard...

I tried to focus on my body. There was still a faint tingling running through my body, but I could feel hints of pain and soreness. Both of my wings, my entire right side, my right hind leg... all of them throbbed somewhere beyond the tingling warmth.

Not a zoo. A hospital. Or rather, a veterinarian clinic - somewhere they took injured animals to help them get better.

I frowned and lifted my head up out of the sand, feeling a pain in my neck break through the tingling. How bad off was I? Either falling into the water at that speed or getting attacked by an eagle would be enough to really hurt me, but having both happen together...

I tried to tilt my head around to get a look at myself, but my neck hurt too much to bend that far. I slipped out from the bowl of sand and hobbled towards the glass, realizing as I moved that my wings and right hind leg were not responding to my attempts to shift or move them. It made it hard to balance against the smooth glass floor but I eventually made it close enough to make out my reflection.

My wings were ruined.

My eyes widened in horror as I took in the details. A series of narrow bands were wrapped around my body, holding my wings firmly in place against my side, with what seemed to be three splints pressed through the bands. I wondered for a moment why my wings weren't in a cast, since the bones must have been broken to need the rigid splints, then I took a closer look at the edges of them.

Large chunks of my left wing were simply gone. Small pieces of cloth had been stuck to parts of the jagged edges, with adhesive edges holding the cloth to my wing. It reminded me of old band-aids, but whatever the Kymari had used was clearly more flexible. Something gleamed on my scales around the edges of the bandages. I didn't think it was blood, but in the dim red light it was impossible to be sure - even my own silvery scales seemed to be almost red in the light of the heat lamp. The eagle's talons must have torn out part of my wing when it had attacked me.

There was no way I could fly on what was left of it.

I turned around, remembering the eagle biting at my shoulder and getting its other talon in my side. My right wing looked better - it was completely intact, though it was held against my body by the same bands and had its own set of splints - but that was only a silver lining to a very dark cloud. More bandages covered my side, including a particularly large one over my shoulder, and my back leg was secured in a cast with only a tiny opening at the bottom for my toes and claws to poke through.

My tail was actually the only part of me in good shape. Aside from a small splint near the base it seemed fine, and it responded to my experimental tugs back and forth of it. I felt a bit of relief at that - my long tail was actually very important for longer flights, and helped act as a rudder to let me change directions. It would be a lot harder to fly if that had been hurt.

After a second or two I realized how stupid that relief was. There was no way I would fly at all now, not with my wings like this.

I let out a low, sad warble at that realization. Not being able to fly... I had lived most of my life without that ability, but... it was so much of my life now...

It took an effort to tear my eyes away from the reflection of my wings. I glanced around the glass cage once more instead, and tried to focus instead on just how lucky I must be. If I had been left out in the forest I would be dead right now. There was no way I could survive like this on my own. The eagle would have come back to finish the job, or some other animal would have found me. Or I might have simply been carried along in the river, and died from some combination of cold, bleeding out, and being dashed against rocks by the water's current. So I had been fortunate that a Kymari had been there to rescue me.

I remembered back to which Kymari had rescued me, and tasted the oily musk in my throat that led to fire. I swallowed it down and glanced back around.

Whatever her reason for being out there had been - and as far as I knew there weren't any happy puppies in the park for her to drown, so I had no idea what those reasons could be - she had been involved in saving my life. But I doubted I would have to deal with her any longer. I was clearly in the care of a vet now, and it seemed incredibly unlikely a doctor would have been running around the parks and guarding little girls in her spare time. Susie's killer must have handed me off to someone else, probably the Kymari who had been handling and talking at me earlier, so with any luck I wouldn't have to worry about ever seeing her again.

I stared back at my reflection and tried to think. This wasn't necessarily the worst thing that could have happened to me. I could just relax here for a while until my body healed, hopefully enough that I would be able to fly once more, then I could find some way to escape back into the forest. Assuming the Kymari didn't just release me on their own.

What would be the worst that could happen? If they had gone through this much trouble to make a place for me, the Kymari probably weren't about to let anything bad happen to me. If for no other reason than to not waste their medical supplies.

I glanced back towards the bowls in the corner. My stomach rumbled to inform me I needed more food. I wobbled over to that corner and took a closer look at the bowl of food, only to frown as I saw what was in it. The bowl was a mix between chunks of fish and of dried slices of what looked to be mangos.

Who puts fruit and fish together like this? This is going to taste awful...

My stomach took the opportunity to remind me that it didn't care how the fruit tasted so long as I ate it, so I wrinkled my nose and tried not to think about it too much. I picked the fruits out from around the bits of fish and nibbled on them - the mangos probably would have been better fresh, but it still felt good to chew on them, even though it left my mouth a little dry. I dipped my head to lap up some of the water. It was warm and tepid - it had probably been there a while, and the cage was fairly warm from the heat lamp - and it also had a slight unpleasant metallic taste. After spending years out in the wild I was used to the fresh, woodland taste of the river, but I suspected the Kymari water spent a lot of time sitting in pipes and vats and other big metal things.

I swallowed down some more water until my throat stopped feeling dry. I turned back towards the bowl of food to eat some more of the mango slices... and felt a sudden light-headedness. The tingling feeling grew stronger, and everything started feeling fuzzier. It suddenly became much harder to keep my head up, and the idea of just sinking to the glass floor and zoning out grew in attractiveness.

Oh. That metallic taste... it must be more of that medication.

I wobbled a little bit and warbled in frustration. I tried to spread my wings to help keep my balance, but the bands around me kept them firmly in place. My focus started to falter, and I glanced back around the cage. I didn't think I would be able to climb back up into the bowl of sand... but the folded blanket looked appealing.

I hobbled over and slumped down into the soft fabric as the medication took more hold over me. I realized that there was a pattern in the fabric, something that looked vaguely like a cartoon character, and I stared at it in fascination. The alien design gradually grew to be the most interesting thing in the world...

Okay. The haze overtook my focus, and I felt myself start to fall asleep. Maybe there might be a few bad things that the Kymari would let happen...