Thirteen days after their confrontation with Asteroth, hockey practice recommenced.

At least, Winterwing was pretty sure it was thirteen days. Time underground had become an abstraction.

Outside had become an option, and that was good, but at the same time the sensation of going out was disconcerting every time. His internal clock was scrambled, and whatever the time of day outside, it did not match how he thought it should be. He wondered if that was ever going to fix itself, or if he was just going to feel detached from time for-

Well, he did not like the phrase ‘for the rest of his life’, because that implied it was going to be either a lot longer or shorter than he wanted it to be.

Winterwing had no idea why the team seemed obsessed with early morning. Maybe the Saurians slept in so it was the only time for doing things. No one appreciated him asking. But if he was expected to be on the same schedule, he might as well roll out of bed.

The base underneath the stadium was absurd. Most of the size was to account for the necessities of existing safely—the hangar above them and the fusion generator below, and every level that existed between the two was dedicated to the shield generation lattice and its upkeep. Space for actually living in was, by comparison, minuscule. The result of the design was empty hallways, behind every wall a vital piece of the shield generator puzzle, accessible when repairs were needed, but otherwise hidden away. Miles and miles of twisting tunnel that went no where, because it had no destination. The tunnels were all the machine. There were spaces he was still not allowed to go, such as the fusion level itself, but there was never any need. The paths above it were sufficient space.

He had not bothered with serious exercise in recent years, and it seemed like being in some sort of shape was going to dictate whether or not he survived at all.

In the early morning, while the rest were far over his head on the small sheet of ice, he was running the tunnels below. Most of the time his goal was to get as lost as he could and then try to find his way back. Getting lost was easy. Every hallway and wall looked identical. There were a few exceptions, such as the hallway that had scraping streaks along it that suggested a huge object had passed through, and a couple spots where the metal had been scorched black and only partially wiped clean. Getting back to those places was difficult to navigate, and coming upon them was still more a surprise to him than intentional.

They knew he did it, of course they knew. The Pond was surveilled from end to end with the excuse of safety, but a camera on every corner meant that someone with a little time on their hands could see where he was, and if he took a sudden suspicious interest in one of the empty corridors. There was also the communicator that doubled as a tracking device, but given it also was able to provide a map when he got too lost, he couldn’t give that up.

No one stopped him. He followed the boundaries he was given, ran for the hours that practice went on, and when the Pond signaled the end of that time, he found his way back to his room and tried not to think too hard how sore he was going to be when he needed to do it again tomorrow.

The shower afterward always felt a bit better. Ten minutes where his brain was still empty and nothing would bother him. All the stupid items of the day would be waiting for him outside the door, but for a moment he could just stand still and enjoy standing still. That was nice.

Every day the running got a little easier. The scars from the void beast stopped itching, though it took longer than he would have liked. Eventually the feathers would grow back over it, and the incident would finally feel behind him.

On the seventeenth day after the confrontation with Asteroth, he came to a junction that he was started to recognize, the map in his head becoming a little more clear, when he found Nosedive, leaning against a wall in the intersection, waiting for him. Practice that morning had been pushed back, on account of a late night of saving the world throwing the schedule off (‘saving the world’ turned out to be a time consuming false alarm, but a late night was a late night).

It was the first time anyone had bothered to interrupt him. He could have kept going, but Nosedive had been an ally more than an enemy. Winterwing stopped, and waited without saying anything, breathing hard.

“You know,” Nosedive said, “If you want to hate yourself that badly you can just go upstairs and do sprints like a normal person.”

Upstairs meaning the ice, of course.

“ No , ” Winterwing said, and then, realizing this probably sounded much more aggressive than he intended, added. “Thank you.” Though the way it sounded didn’t seem very convincing.

“Yeah, I didn’t think I was going to talk you out of anything,” Nosedive shrugged, but smiled.

“What are you doing, then?”

“I’m helping!” he declared, and presented Winterwing with a small, black plastic box, a little longer than it was wide, maybe the size of his fist. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. There appeared to be crude buttons along its side, and a wire that lead from it.

Winterwing had no idea what it was. He turned it over in his hands, then looked to the teen, confused.

“It’s music, dummy.”

Winterwing frowned “Music.”

“It is twelve songs of the absolute best humanity has to offer!” Nosedive nodded, pleased with himself. “It will also play the five songs that are not as good on the reverse side automatically. Cutting edge.”

“That’s… all it does?” Winterwing turned it over again. “For something this big?”

“The sound quality is also terrible.”

“You’re not selling this thing very well.”

Nosedive shrugged, and placed the earphones atop the box. “I think it’s kind of fun, that everything’s just a little bit worse.”

“Nosedive, I don’t want to sound ungrateful-”

“Not a good set up.”

“-but, without getting too deep into the weird existential stuff, I historically have not…. Shared the same taste in noise as my sister.”

Nosedive shook his head, with a small patronizing smile. “Just take the stupid thing, we can pick you out something else later. Whatever.”

“You seem to have adapted to this place a lot better than the rest of us.”

Nosedive shrugged, looking down one of the corridors. “Shit sucks man, you can either have fun and pretend its a little adventure or lose your mind too much thinking about it. That’s why you’re down here running your brains out, isn’t it? You’re freaking out.”

“Excuse me?”

“We have a pool, you could use the pool, or even one of the treadmills if you wanted to run that badly,” Nosedive gestured down in to the dark corridor. “You picked down here because you’re trying to escape from everything.”

Winterwing said, in a manner that was not a question: “Can you not do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk to me like I’m your brother.”

“It was just-”

“I know what it was,” Winterwing sighed. “I’m down here because outside I get gawked at and the gym smells like bleach.” He raised a finger to cut Nosedive off again “And I am not interested in that little patch of ice you spend your day on, not that anyone has bothered to ask.”

Nosedive seemed, perhaps for the first time in his life, at a loss for words.

Winterwing walked around him, and fumbled with the box. He would have to figure it out on his own. “Thank you, for the music, though. It’ll help. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

He ran a bit harder than he needed to, until the Pond told him he was time to stop.