Many Months Later

Hard.

That was the first thing she felt.

Why did whatever she was laying on have to be so hard? And uncomfortable?

Her back was on a tightly-packed ground. Her legs were jammed between jagged slats of wood. Her arms and head were tangled in a prickly bush.

Up in the sky the timberwolf grey was lighting to a robin eggs blue, with a gentle ribbon of light pink decorating the eastmost part of the majestic atmosphere.

The sun slowly raised its head, gingerly lighting upon the young, and severely injured girl.

As the placid grey-ish periwinkle was enveloped by a brilliant blue, and the timid sun gained strength-forcefully casting the languishing stars out of their nighttime home in the sky-the bruised girl began to stir.

All of nature looked on in wonderment as the mangled little creature lifted herself up from her despairing position.

She seemed to be struggling with the sheer agony of using her strength at all.

Her arms shook and her entire body quaked, threatening to crumble at any second.

But she pushed through it. She ground her teeth tightly and managed to lift herself into a sitting position, then kneeling, then, finally, standing.

Huddling shakily, with her tangled hair and her face marred with dirt and blood, the young soldier was a sight to behold.

A small, shimmery object fell from one of the girl's eyes and landed in the dust, creating a small cloud of the sepia fragments, which quickly stuck to the object and buried it deep within its depths.

Cruel, filthy, wretched little things.

The girl raised her hand and swiftly disposed of a similar object from her other eye, glaring at it with distaste as she flung it to the ground.

They had tortured her every minute of her life in service. She was glad to be rid of them.

Her father shoved her to the ground.

"You will do as I tell you and without compliant!"

His face was turning redder by the second and she knew not to speak out at a time when his anger was at a height like this.

"I will, I understand," she mumbled quietly, speaking directly to the floor.

"It would do you good to remember that."

The girl shivered as she remembered her father's chilling words. How she had hated working for him. How she had loathed getting up in the morning while she was his servant! The others had not minded it that much. Of course they wouldn't. They were under his control. They were mindless zombies ready to attend to every whim and will of him. But she wasn't. She could think. She could hate. And now, she could be hated.

Skylar threw her hair back and looked all around her, trying to get a grasp of her surroundings, and why she had come here. The feeling holding her captive now was an all too familiar one. Loneliness. Abandonment. Trapped in the middle of a field with blood on her face—

Oh! Now she remembered! She had come here, not of her own doing, not of her own will, and not of her own desires. She had come here because her 'master' had commanded it. He had commanded them to fight; and to win. But they had lost, they had failed. And therefore, he had abandoned them. He was in hiding, but of course, they didn't know that. They of course, being, the supposed enemy. S-1 wasn't sure why she hated them; but she knew that she did. And now because they had defeated her, her master and father had both abandoned her, leaving her bruised, weakened, and alone in the middle of the field where the legendary defeat had taken place.

S-1 gingerly felt her right knee, and winced as the pain of her chipped patella reached her nervous system. How was she supposed to get anywhere like this? She could hardly walk, didn't know where she was, and had no resources to ensure her safe passage to anywhere she could make a hidden life for herself. Besides that, she didn't know what skills she had that she could use to make herself a sustainable living.

It was nearing noon, judging by the position of the now very harsh sun in the sky. The heat rays easily found their way down to the young girl sitting in the middle of the field, penetrating her jacket and surely giving her tender skin a nasty sunburn as she held her head between her injured knees, trying to think of something. She had been in this huddled position since early this morning when she finally realized that she had no idea how to help herself in this world, which presented an almost scarier front then her father had.

In was in the position that she had started her day, and it was in this pitiful position that she was found.

"Hello?"

The girl's head jolted up from her lap when she heard a strange voice calling through the warehouse field.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

This overplayed question infested Skylar with a sort of irrational fear that kept her jumpy and frozen at the same time. There was really no reason to be afraid-she highly doubted that there was anyone worse in the world then Krane had been-and they were sure to have left her to her own ideals by now.

Still, some power within her body that she could not fully understand kept her frozen to the ground in fear and silence, even as a handsome young man in a red suit came out from behind one of the falling wooden structures.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? Who are you? What happened?" A plethora of questions spurted from the striking lad as he rushed to her side, graciously offering the bruised creature his sturdy hand.

Skylar carefully observed the chivalrous figure before her. He wore a red long-sleeved shirt and pants out of some kind of armored fabric that almost looked like crocodile skin, but not quite. His chest bore a golden symbol, which she couldn't understand. His hair had a wavy and relaxed style, even though his soft face was crinkled with concern for her. His eyes were a placid brown, seeing everything with the curiosity only younger generations can posses. Something about his charismatic appearance captured Skylar directly in her throat. She would never be able to explain what precipitated her to reach for the solid hand directed to her, but something with far more power then the fear of her mind captivated her in an unmoving time, where her actions seemed effortless and her senses were numb to everything but her view of this gracious boy.

It took the creature a moment to realize the boy was talking to her.

"My name is Experion," explained the boy. Skylar did not know where her overwhelming mirth had been bottled up these past few years, but she was all to happy to let it go in a loud laugh when she heard the boy's name.

"Well, what's yours?" asked the boy, clearly offended by her outburst.

"I'm sorry," cough Skylar, quickly regaining control. "I'm Skylar."

The boy was very interested in listening to her explain her situation, and adequately alarmed when he understood her plight.

Once she had relived herself of her extensive worries, Skylar asked him to tell her a bit about himself.

"I come from a planet far from here named Caldara. If you want, you could come with me. You could live on Caldara, and escape your treacherous life here."

Another bubbling feeling of laughter was just beginning to surface when Skylar heard the name of his home planet, and when she realized he actually believed that he lived on a planet other then Earth. She eventually came to terms with the fact that he really did come from a different planet, (which really wasn't that hard, considering all the other ridicules occurrences she had observed and experienced in her life), and was overjoyed by his proposition. She was nearly in tears of gratitude as he scooped her up from her crumpled state and carried her away from the life she had always hated.

And so, this is how the mangled creature and gallant savior began their new life together.