Wilson's POV

Parry, parry, dodge, stab. Duck, dodge, stab.

The moves were sunk into my head, becoming almost second nature to me and allowing for my mind to be running numbers and schemes. The sun beat down, hot and furious. Summer couldn't be far away at all, now. It hadn't rained for the past several days, causing the air to start tasting of hot dust and ash.

On the one hand, we had been very diligent in preparing for most of the seasons, if you were to leave out the hiccups that arose here and there.

On the other hand, as the days got hotter, it became harder for us to want to go out. It wasn't warm enough yet to start causing real problems, but it definitely was hot enough to cause me and Webber to be incredibly sleepy at any given moment.

My momentary distraction was enough to give Webber the upper hand in our match. He jabbed me in the stomach with the butt of his spear, just hard enough to cause me to stumble and fall on my rump. His eyes lit up with pleasure as he saw that he won, but they turned dark a moment after and he looked away, his whiskers twitching. "Training is great, and all, but isn't it sort of useless if we're going against something fifty times our size?" He asked after a moment. "It's going to be so hot, and the Dragonfly is going to be so strong..."

"WE HAVE ELIMINATED THE MOOSE," WX pointed out. He was being the smartest of us as he was standing under the shade of a tree, his arms crossed and his ever-present scowl carved into his features. "WHAT WOULD MAKE DESTROYING THE DRAGONFLY ANY DIFFERENT?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but cringed away, pressing a finger to his temple.

"The Dragonfly is the master of fire," I explained, pressing the head of my spear into the ground and leaning against it. "Heat and flames and lava and pretty much everything else that is horrible." I grinned. "But, in case you have not met our group, we are pretty awesome at surviving. And we're a great team! If anyone can take out this beast, it's going to be us!" "You've seen the book." Webber's voice had taken on a slightly rougher tinge as if he was thinking about something completely different. "Other people were once here. The four Giants are still alive. We got lucky on the Moose, but... what makes us think that we'd be able to kill four monsters that no other group has been able to take out one of?"

WX bobbed his head slightly in a 'he-has-a-point' fashion.

"Have you met us?" I retorted. "Stop being so down in the dumps, guys. We've already beaten one of them! That's further than anyone else has gotten! Clearly, that means we're the best. Don't argue because it's true."

Webber dug a little hole in the ground with his foot, looking troubled. "Look, Wilson, we've been thinking... maybe we should just give up while we're ahead. This hasn't been too tough on us. Maybe we should just give up trying to go home and try to... make a living where we are?"

There was a moment where I found myself struggling to figure out how to respond.

"What would be the point of any of this if we weren't trying to get home?" I asked, baffled by his question. Webber looked ashamed, refusing to meet my gaze.

"Making a new home?" He asked, gingerly.

I opened my mouth but found myself turning to WX instead. "What do you think about this?"

"I HAVE NO PERSONAL CONNECTIONS TO OUR WORLD," he mused, rapping his fingers against the dirt. Before I could argue anything otherwise, though, he raised a hand in my direction. "HOWEVER, THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I AM COMFORTABLE WITH THE IDEA OF LIVING WITH YOU TWO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. IT WOULD GIVE OUR HOST QUITE A BIT OF PLEASURE."

"Webber, don't you have anyone you want to see again?"

He was silent for a long moment before slowly shaking his head.

"No family, no friends, nothing?"

He shook his head again. "Even if we weren't an only child... we have no memory of siblings or parents. Besides, no one would want to see us like this." He spread his arms.

"THEN IT IS A GOOD THING THAT I CARE VERY LITTLE FOR YOUR EMOTIONS."

Popsicle, as if noticing his owner's pain, drowsily rose to his paws and pressed himself against Webber's legs. The boy scratched around Popsicle's ears, which in turn caused the ice hound's tail to pound against the ground happily. "No, you're right. It's a dumb idea."

"That's not what I was sa-"

"IT REALLY IS."

I glared at WX, who only shrugged. I shook my head slightly, then attempted to meet Webber's gaze. "I was an only child," I said gingerly. He lifted his head slightly. "Raised by parents who wanted me to accomplish more than I could, or even cared to. I had As in every science and math class I took while flunking every single history and literature class. They wanted me to be a doctor or a mathematician. I wanted to be an inventor." I looked away, acutely aware of WX's judging gaze burning into my face.

"How did that lead you here?" Webber asked, his voice muffled as if he didn't quite care to know the answer.

I smiled slightly, trying to hide the discomfort that I felt stemming from the question. The scar on my palm seemed to burn. "We all make stupid decisions when we're desperate."

A long, painful moment of silence passed.

"I HAVE FEW MEMORIES OF LIFE BEFORE THIS." Webber and I both glanced at WX as he spoke. He was gazing into the sky through the trees, one arm grasping on to another as if he were uncomfortable. "BLANKNESS AND JUDGEMENT."
"And loneliness," Webber added solemnly. He rested his chin on his knees, closing his eyes for a long moment. I gave a small nod, and WX sighed heavily.

"AND LONELINESS."

"But what's in the past doesn't matter anymore." I shook my head fiercely, trying to bring myself back to the present. "I only brought that up because I don't want you thinking that we would leave you behind." I knelt in front of Webber, resting on hand on his cheek in an attempt to comfort him. I stood once more, facing WX. "Once we are free, we'll all stay together in a safer world. I can bring you to my lonely little home out in the woods, and we can act like a family. A very dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless."

I could see something glinting in WX's empty gaze, but he looked away and shifted his feet before I could tell what it was. His hands shook very slightly. "I DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH INFERIORS OUTSIDE OF WHEN IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY."

"It's dumb to think we could be more than any of us are." Webber gripped a rock and threw it at a tree. "Your world isn't like our world, Wilson. You were shocked to see someone like us. When-... if we ever get out of here... nobody will be okay with our presences. It's a nice thought, but nobody would let someone like us or WX live free lives. Either way, we're slaves to someone else."

"Webber, you're only seven... it's unfair for you to think that you wouldn't be accepted anywhere. You have such a long life ahead of you..."

"Two corrections. We would have had such a long life if we hadn't ended up in the situation, and we are eight, Wilson." He shifted slightly. "Our birthday is towards the middle of spring."

I felt my heart constrict. I didn't have any idea when Webber's birthday was, nor that it had already come and gone. He hadn't let on even the tiniest hint.

"THE TRUTH IS, WILSON," WX cut in. "BEING FREED FROM THIS WORLD WOULD ONLY BE THE BEGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE. BUT... THE DISCUSSION HAS GIVEN ME ENOUGH TIME TO CONSIDER MY STANCE, AND ANY SITUATION WOULD BE MORE APPEALING THAN OUR CURRENT ONE."

Webber let out a long, thin breath. "It's settled then." He looked away, making a shooing motion with his hand. "Wilson, you should probably be figuring out how we're going to keep cool during the summer. It'll be long, hard, and sweltering, probably hotter than any summer you have ever seen. So hot that all of the berries and grass will dry up and all the sensible prey will be resting underground. Nothing but the sun is required to set our entire livelihood on fire." His eyes seemed to glaze over slightly. "The savannas will be rotten with the smell of rotting rabbit meat as they journey from their burrows to eat and burn to death almost instantly." He bit at one of his claws.

"I'll get started on that," I said in response, trying to ignore everything else that he had said. "WX, I guess that leaves you to gather materials for the upcoming season. Webber, do us a favor and look through that book to find everything you possibly can about summer, okay?"

They both nodded, concern creeping into their eyes.

"This might be one of the hardest challenges yet," I added. "But that won't stop us. It can't stop us. We're better than Maxwell and any of his dumb tests."

"And if we're not?" Webber's whiskers twitched.

I replied steadily. "Then we die trying."