A wet nose in her face woke Kira up. The wolf barked, pushing until the woman sat up. Kira moved out from under the blanket of leaves made to camouflage her and looked up at the sky. A falling star lit up the night. It was approaching the earth and fast. Kira moved to her feet, clutching the rough wood of her spear in her fist. She moved quickly and quietly through the forest, knowing exactly where the roots of trees stuck out without looking down. She whistled, once, and Fenrir picked up his pace to run beside her. As soon as Kira stood she had known it wasn't a star; it was far too big, but she wished on it anyway, wondering if her brother or the others had seen it.

The dust was still settling when Kira arrived with the wolf. In the middle of the forest, stood a hunk of metal at least six people tall. She wanted to get closer to examine the strange arrival, but a loud noise startled her. She scrambled up the nearest tree and perched on a branch, still peering down at the metal mountain. Her leather gauntlets protected her forearms from the bark that she clung to. Kira's eyes fixed on a human; a young girl, several years younger than herself with long, brown hair who stood laughing. Behind the girl emerged a man with slicked-back, black hair. People, Kira grinned to herself. And they were beautiful.

The people continued filing out of the sky-metal until Kira counted about a hundred of them. They were all children, except for the first male she saw, varying in age and size and because they kept moving around it was hard to get an exact number. Kira lost count at 83. A group of five split off from the larger group in the direction of the mountain. Goodbye, Kira whispered. She hung in that tree until nightfall, watching them and waiting for the cover of darkness to return to her only friend.

Beneath the tree, the man called Bellamy recruited followers and asserted himself as leader of the group. It was impressive the way he convinced them to listen to him and take off their metal jewelry. They believed he knew what he was doing, but the whole time he didn't notice that they were being watched.

Hours later when the sun had set, Kira didn't retreat back into the forest. Instead she inched closer to the makeshift encampment. She crouched in the ferns, nothing of herself visible, only the hood of the bear pelt she wore rose above the foliage. The sky children stood around a large bonfire, cheering. She watched with curiosity as one of the dark-skinned boys limped through the crowd, pushing his way to the center.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Kira couldn't help, but hiss. They spoke the language of the Mountain Men.

The only adult answered: "We're liberating ourselves. What does it look like?"

"It looks like you're trying to get us all killed," Wells sneered. "The communication system is dead. These wristbands are all we got; take them off and the ark will think we're dying, that it's not safe for them to follow."

Bellamy wanted to strangle the kid. That's the point. Everyone here got it but him. "We can take care of ourselves. Can't we?" he asked the kids and was answered by cheers.

"This isn't a game!" Wells tried again. "Those aren't just our parents, our friends up there. Those are our farmers, our doctors. I don't care what he tells you. We won't survive her on our own."

Bellamy tried to quickly come up with a response that would preserve his position as leader. The kid had a point, but Bellamy wanted to live. More than anything, he wanted to save himself and maybe have a real life in the process.

Kira looked up at the sky and began crawling backwards. It was going to rain and the tensions among the sky people were rising; something Kira did not want to be caught in the middle of. She made it back to her makeshift shelter just as the thunder rolled in. One of her walls was the exterior rock-face of what would open as a cave just a mile north. The other wall was also her roof that she had thatched herself. Inside the lean-to-type structure, Fenrir was sleeping with his muzzle buried in his paws. Kira joined him just in time to avoid becoming drenched and remain warm.

Only a mile away, Bellamy let the rain wash over him. He had never experienced anything like it before. He looked up at the sky as the water poured down his face and into his mouth. He didn't even mind the cold. And for the first time in his entire life, he allowed himself to feel hope.

⃝⃝⃝

Kira woke up with the sun as she always did, but instead of going to check on the sky people, she went in the opposite direction towards the Trikru. She tread lightly through the forest, sword on her back and spear grasped lightly in her right hand. Fenrir walked several paces ahead, scouting for her. He could spot a human before she could and right now anyone, a sky person or a tree person, would kill her.

The air was thick and humid although they were well into autumn and winter would be coming on. She moved as silently as she could, listening to everything. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face. The pelt was thick, heavy enough to keep her body warm although she wore no shirt. Kira walked for miles until the change in the trees told her she was at the border of what the Trikru defended as their land. The woman didn't dare take one step further. Before she could decide where to go from there, she heard sky people. They were far away still, but the careless way they trampled through the forest gave away their position and identity. Kira crouched beside the base of a tree and waited for them to pass. Four kids ran by; two girls and two boys. Kira recognized the blonde girl as one of the group that went off yesterday. Her eyes followed the blonde as they group disappeared between the trees. The group was missing a boy. Surprised that the group had only lost one of their number, Kira changed the direction of her mission. If he was still alive, they would have put him in the hunting pit. It would have been far safer and less of a distance to go back to her hut, but Kira had never been known for her good decision making. In fact Kira knew herself well enough to know she never thought about her actions enough to call them decisions. She did what she felt compelled to do and then dealt with the consequences. She growled to herself as she headed towards the hunting pit. Her impulsiveness is what had put her here in the first place, but even that didn't change her mind about finding the boy.

At the dropship, Bellamy was beginning to realize how hard it would be to maintain control when a girl screamed in pain. He cursed to himself and left Atom and Wells to see what was going on. To his disgust, Murphy was holding a girl over a fire. Wells appeared behind him and rushing past, tacked Murphy from the girl. The boy tried to fight Wells, but he was clearly outmatched. Dammit, Murphy, Bellamy growled in his head. It was then that he noticed the knife in the delinquent's hand.

"Wait," he intervened, not wanting to witness the boy be murdered in cold blood. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his own knife, tossing it at Wells's feet. "Fair fight."

Still, Murphy was outmatched. It would not do to have a kid that couldn't beat the chancellor's son as his right hand. Bellamy decided things would have to change as Wells held the knife given to him against Murphy's throat. He began to look away, not wanting to witness a kid dying, even if it was a shit head like Murphy at the hands of a shit head like Wells. Bellamy's attention was diverted though at the return of the Mount Weather task force and blondie demanding Murphy's safety. Bellamy scoffed. That would come back to bite her in the ass.

"Where's the food?" Bellamy demanded, trying to bring the attention to himself; the leader.

"We didn't make it. We were attacked," Blondie explained.

"By what?" Wells asked.

Spacewalker shook his head. "Not what. Who."

Bellamy's heart dropped into his stomach. There were people on the ground. Survivors. That would complicate things. Trying to keep a group of kids this large in line was already tough enough. How could they possibly combat an outside threat? The fuck am I gonna do? he thought, trying desperately to think of a quick, if only temporary solution.

"Where's the kid with the goggles?" Wells asked, pointing out that one of them was missing.

"Jasper was hit," Blondie explained.

This shit can't get any worse, Bellamy sighed. He waited for girl to finish her speech. Sure, she had facts, but he had charisma. They liked him.