Holy Atmos! Two updates in about a week, that's absurd! Actually, I found this chapter in the depths of my laptop while writing an essay for Catcher in the Rye… It just happened to have the same title as the last chapter for some reason… (Oh, and btw, thank you guys for your reviews!)

Chapter 7- Loneliness (part 2)

Companions were impossible to find within these prison walls, yet nature held small hints that it hadn't forgotten about some of us. It allowed us to repent like no other religion permitted. With the month long rain gone, our terra revived itself. The early spring winds stirred upon my face, caressing me like a lover, with the promise that the months would soon turn hot and raise its own appreciation even more. Birds swooped up and down without the mechanical churn of the skimmer's gears, their natural wings gliding upon the caressing wind. Some feathers drifted off their feeble wings to be scattered across from the tops of the towers to the depths of the wastelands. Clouds rolled and lurched gradually below, their lines skimmed by the oppressive sun, and their underbellies glinting once in a while to reflect a lava God's eruption beneath. The endless hum and howl of the wind reminded me that there would be endless silence without it, and only brought on the burning ache of loneliness from within my heart. Loneliness was not at all uncommon to me.

That burning, lurching feeling that corrupted even the best of minds was embedded not only into my soul, but into the hearts of many more. Or at least that's what I speculated. My childhood had withered like a flower, without the nourishment of love, now an emotion I could not understood. The burning of my home by Atmosian forces did not leave a toll upon my life like it had to most of the talons here, but only what came afterward. Cyclonian forces had found me, recruited me, trained me, and thrust me into battle with the oppressive coldness and hatred a fire could cause.

Somehow, someway, my mind did not allow me to blame the now concurring forces of Atmos. They were fighting for what they believed was right, and did everything we had done to win… even if their council caught no wind of it. They destroyed, they betrayed, and most of all, they were indifferent to us like we were to them. Another blank face dawned with goggles and a spear… Or, on our account, another person with a skimmer and a bird insignia.

The loneliness out in the world was dreadfully alive and well. But in here, it became repressive and threatened to crush our souls beneath it. The young man across from me went mad a week ago and now sits with his back to me, rocking back and forth and conversing with the stone wall. His hope of existence had long left him and become useless, and now sanity was useless as well. I forbid myself to believe it, and until the moment I would ever Willet's dead body myself, I kept hoping for his future. A future none of us but a few had left. Willet was one of those choice few.

"It's getting warmer today." The orange orbed young woman commented, simply enjoying the factor of nature I cherished with my life. My windowsill was once again where I rested; the walkway their settled place.

"Yeah, soon it will be warm enough to tan… according to Finn." Said Aerrow, who smiled down at her. Piper shivered suddenly, as if nature had fooled with her senses just moments before. "You alright?" His concern was aroused, and the way his green eyes and face sharpened took my breath away. His emotion was powerful when regarding to her. The wind stirred their hair, the girl rubbing the bare portion of her arms with her gloved digits. They stopped walking forward, and the angle at which they now stood let me study their faces when they conversed.

"It just got chilly again." Piper chuckled in spite of herself, Aerrow smiling back again. She glanced back up to him when he was suddenly studying the rows of curdling clouds under them like I had. "When do you think it'll get better?"

"Well, it's almost the middle of spring, so about another month or so. I mean-"

"I wasn't talking about the weather, Aerrow." Her correction caught him off guard as his eye brows disappeared behind his bangs. I wanted to laugh at his surprise, but the look she returned to him wiped the cheer from my mind. "I need to tell you something."

"Sure. Anything." Assurance from him seemed to lighten her hesitation, but the weight of… something still hung upon her small but strong shoulders.

"Yesterday, Starling asked me if I would… Since one of our men got the flu…" Piper dragged out the sentence, but the boy hung on her words still. It made me want to laugh again… All this energy directed to her!

"She wants me to help guard the talons." Her final words startled me, as I would now see her every day, even if it was for a second or two. Aerrow's head shook, no twitched, a little when the realization hit him like a brick. I was too surprised to notice, let alone chuckle.

"You?" The young man pushed the word from his lips. "She wants you to go guard those sick, infected talons for Atmos knows how long?"

"No… just until that other guard gets better." Piper almost picked up a tone of triteness, but held it back. "And to be honest, I'd rather be doing that instead of all of these meetings… The decisions the council is making are outrageous and biased, as if they've forgotten what reconstruction is!"

Piper's sentence hung in the air like a lazy summer breeze, and her face was far turned away from him. Aerrow looked like one of our fellow talons, Robin, who had a magnificent poker face. The poor sky knight seemed to be gambling for his next words, as if the choice would either drive her away or keep her with him.

"As much as I hate to say it…" Aerrow's voice caught her face and turned it on him, "Guarding those talons does sound much easier."

He obviously hasn't met Dunlin…