It had spent, like many times in the last few days, most of its time flying.

Truth be told though, there was not much to see in the barren wasteland that was the Nevermore's home. It had tried scouring the land more deeply, to see anything more than the usual ruins, but it had seen little.

There were more structures scattered throughout the land, but all of them were run-down, and there wasn't any building above 2 stories that haven't fallen. It couldn't tell what they were, but they seemed different from the grandiose castle where the light being resided.

It had landed in one of those, and it had not seen much of interest beyond dust, and debris. It had noticed though, that many of these actually had more of the dark pools where its brethren came from.

Whatever reluctance it should have felt when it approached one of the bigger (but still small) ones, didn't come up, and the midnight bird approaches it candidly.

It could see the pool, and what it was made out of; or better yet, it could describe it. It was black, a pure blackness that reflected no light, very similar to its creations' pelts. The pool looked as if it was constantly squirming in a thick ink-like structure, almost like something was coming out; and it was a few seconds later that the bird saw gleaming red eyes come out of where it was looking into.

It quickly flew away, gathering away from a giant scorpion-like creature. It knew, looking at it, that its mighty spincer was used as bait, and that it could use any of its limbs to disembowel something. The Grimm didn't look bothered to have been just born, and it didn't stretch or test any of its new limbs. It had – like many more – set out in a direction, and carried on his way.

The Grimm scorpion carried its way through the ruins, it would have destroyed anything were it be in his path, if not for its brethren from long ago already done so. It went in the skitter-skatter pattern of its limbs, but before it could get further than the Nevermore could see, it decided to catch up.

For once, it was curious. Curious on where they would go. So, it had started to follow, flying upwards behind the Grimm's back, and tagging along.

After a few hours, it had seen more and more pop up, and it had seen that they were also going into some sort of destination. It had seen many, and some new that it could identify, like the burrowing worms, the armoured top-heavy berserkers, and even others with wings, but obviously of different dimension from its usual flight-able kind.

During all of this, during the trek and the stampede of noise, it started to wonder briefly,

Where was it getting all this information? It did not have it before, but it could tell – if not what they are – then what they do. It couldn't have been logical guessing and connecting, it just wasn't capable of that yet.

It was something to entertain, to wonder. Perhaps it was something all of them had? So that they could better communicate and plan their actions?

On who, though? The light inside the castle? Why were they not storming there? Should it have attacked her?

It was at this point, that it had started to wonder if there was a quantity different between it and the Grimm.

There was one of it, and many of them. Or so, it seems like right now.

There wasn't any dread to come with that fact, it was just that. A fact. If none of them are targeting it now, they wouldn't after the realisation.

After a few longer minutes, the Nevermore had finally seen the purple-tinted ocean, this time looking like there wasn't any land directly ahead of it. And it had seen that there were waves of its kind going under, over, or swimming across. As soon as its stone-faced Grimm had reached the water and under, it stopped. Just looking at how many there were, and how many were coming.

It knew, that this was more than "many."

Taking flight the other way, it traversed backwards where it came from, past the different-sized ruins, and flew through the purple-tinted nightscape.

It was taking a while for it to arrive back to the nightscape castle, and it was just slowly delving to "boredom," another emotion it didn't feel, but knew existed.

In the long flights that it had done most of its existence, it had done just that: fly. But recently, it had started to occupy its mind with more and more things. Like counting.

It had started to wonder what "quantity" was, and how it could tell that there was more of something, but less of something in comparison.

Looking around, it saw that there wasn't much of anything. Only a rocky atmosphere that's been destroyed over eras of its kind's stampede. Flying for just a little longer, it saw something that it saw only recently – the ruins. Even though those didn't have much, either.

But still, it could tell that there was more landscape than there were ruins, but it didn't know how many there were. Was there a lot of landscape to little ruins, or many landscape to some ruins?

Finding another example, it swept its eyes over the dreaded landscape, finding nothing but said landscape; until it decided to look closer, and separate a material or 2.

It could see that in the landscape, there lay separate others it could count. It knew that there were more rocks than there were spires, more spires than there were cliffs, and more cliffs than there were its Grimm pools of darkness. But the pools of darkness were bigger than any other, so maybe it should factor into that too?

The attempt at mathematics was too much for its brain, and it quickly disregarded all of its previous thought, but not forgetting it.

Slowly, it was learning to think, to remember, and to see patterns. Most importantly, it was learning counting.

During the rest of the ride towards the palace, the bird tried playing a little more with his newfound skills, had it even known they were skills the other of its friends didn't have. It turned to the blackened sky, and saw that there were more clouds than there was sky. Amongst the sky, it also saw the various flying Grimm, and saw that its species – the Nevermores – were more than any other. Were they stronger – or weaker – by being more?

The sentient Nevermore didn't get to finish that thought on account of the scream that came through a nearby window. It had gotten close enough to the castle to hear it clearly, and close enough to almost get hit by some passing object – a chair by the looks of things.

Fortunately, the chair was the only thing that came out the room. But what came after, was the anguished tears and screams of the same light being from before.

Where before, it was just walking through to wherever it had wanted to go, now it was screaming out to the heavens with tears in her eyes. Calling desperately to whomever she might be calling to. Nothing was happening to it, so the Nevermore assumed that the light had broke.

It knew that it shouldn't have been here, and it seems it doesn't wish to be here either.

Laying on the window sill, the quiet tap of its claws against the rock called it out to the bird, and the flesh just stared at it. Unmoving and – were it to guess – embarrassed that it was caught.

It only lasted a minute before its maskless face, one of sadness, turned to one of anger, as it got into its feet and tried charging at it.

As the winged beast rushed out of the way, the other shouted. Though, like before, it was one riddled with words it could not understand.

Did one of its kind hurt it? Did one of its kind hurt one of its kind? It tried connecting an answer with the little brain power and information it had, completely missing how much more scarred her skin looked than last time.

Before it could ponder – or make the necessary connections – the light flesh being decided to slump against the hole in the wall, hand in her arms, and making some sort of quiet noise.

It was curious - if cautious - of the light's nature. So, it decided to stick around. Even if the other wouldn't be too fond of the Nevermore's decision.

AN: Actually did it. Nice.

For those of you feeling sorry for Cinder, I'll try and make some happier moments with her, she isn't yet a mastermind capable of bringing down a whole city in the span of a year, she's just a child now. And it leaves a bad taste in my mouth on what I'm insinuating was done to her... I'll keep those to a minimum for those who share my thoughts, and for those who hate it even more.

Still, didn't think the M rating'd come to play so soon.