Knock knock knock.

Belch woke to the sound of pounding on her door.

Knock knock knock. “Hey! Are you up?”

She lifted from her bed, oddly determined. Belch wanted to move but in a less literal way and a more… action way. After a few seconds, she lost her burst of motivation. There was no source for it, and so, her body reset gradually to a dulled, tiresome feeling.

Perhaps it had been the change of setting. Sleeping alone felt wrong to her. She recalled her entire life spent sleeping in her bunk bed with hundreds of other beasts lined up against the large facility walls. In that one place, she fought, slept, and ate. But here, she had her own bed, a heavy mattress, and a thick blanket that felt like paradise compared to the thin sheet she had before.

Knock knock knock, the sound continued, bones of knuckles, but gentler than hail.

Belch yawned, stretching her arms up. These days of inactivity were turning her lazy. Who would have thought that three days out of thousands could throw her off balance like this? She dragged herself off the bed, devoid of energy. She rubbed her eyes, then walked toward the door in front of her.

Knock knock knock.

“Hello?” Belch asked from her end of the door.

“Hey,” a voice said on the other side. “Open up.”

Belch obliged, twisting the door lock, turning the knob, and opening the door. The light from the hallway revealed Pedr standing with a tired expression. Belch turned around, looking to her window. The sun wasn’t even up yet.

Pedr bent over, lifting a stack of clothes from the floor before walking into Belch’s room, dropping them on a desk along the sidewall. He yawned himself, which sent shivers down her spine from the dense vibration yielded from a swole. He divided the clothes in front of her, putting them into five outfits. Each had a tan pair of trousers and a white pair of socks, but each had differing colored shirts. Of the five pairs of clothing, her eyes locked onto one in particular.

“This one,” Belch pointed. A purple-dyed shirt, tie-dyed to have darker and lighter blobs in a wild pattern. But, as a whole, the colors reminded her of the flowers from Dork she adored.

“What about it?”

“I want this one,” Belch said. “I’ll take this one.”

“Well,” Pedr said. “You get to have all of them.”

“All of them?” Belch asked. Her head tilted to the weight of the idea. “These are a lot of clothes.”

As a beast, Belch had only two outfits to wear at any time, changing outfits every other day to wash the other set. But, with five different pairs, she could change clothes every morning and night!

Pedr nodded. “This is the most they could do on such short notice. You’ll have to settle in working out in jeans.”

“Working out?” Belch asked.

Pedr nodded. “Between studying, you’ll be moving a lot, just to see if your powers are set in any of the basic skills.”

She perked up. “Really? It’s been forever since I’ve fought.”

“Well,” Pedr said. “You won’t be fighting at all. Just simple exercise.”

“That’s enough!” Belch said, nearly jumping out of her skin. She clenched her fists, shaking them, feeling herself moving already. “When?”

“This morning,” Pedr said. “We’ll be walking through the city out into the forest, where I will teach you how to read. After an hour or two, we’ll get you moving.”

Belch nodded. Whatever this “reading” was about had to be worth the promise of physical freedom.

“Get dressed,” Pedr said. “Choose your outfit, put it on, and we’ll head out.”

Belch nodded. She lifted her shirt—

“Hey!” Pedr snapped. Belch released her shirt back down, noticing Pedr covering his eyes with his hand.

“What?”

“You don’t… do that in front of people.”

“Do what?”

“Change…” Pedr sighed. “You don’t change your clothes in front of people.”

“I used to change clothes in front of other beasts all the time, though,” Belch tilted her head, confused. “Why is it wrong now?”

Pedr sighed. “You are too naive to understand. But, I guess that’s part of my job now to help you with that. Listen, like eating with your hands instead of a fork and a knife, the way you act around other people can be considered… rude and improper.”

“Changing is one of them?” Belch asked.

Pedr nodded. “Keep yourself clothed in front of others, simple as that, okay?”

Belch nodded.

Pedr groaned like he hated explaining something that sounded so simple for him but complicated for her. What was Belch supposed to do when thrust into a society far different than the one she lived in before? She needed time to adjust. Time to be, as Corden once explained it, “domesticated.”

Belch changed into her purple shirt while Pedr had his back turned. The fabric felt cool and breezy, more spacious than the pair she had on before, despite being a smaller shirt. Putting on the white pair of jeans, even they fit well, forming to her legs, stretching down slightly above her ankles.

Finally, the socks were pretty basic, though they were a little taller than the ones she wore in her old life, which she needed more time wearing them to decide if she preferred them shorter rather than squeezing halfway up her calves.

Pedr and Belch walked out of her room, turning left to immediately enter Pedr’s room through the door beside hers. He picked up a darkish-gray bag, lifting it by its straps, slinging it over a single shoulder. There were two straps on the bag, though the bag's size was small for Pedr’s large body, designed probably for a human, like Belch.

A human, Belch thought, lowering her brows. Since when did I consider myself a human?

Up until, well, this morning, she had about known she was a beast without much doubt. She understood she looked the same as other humans, but yet, she believed her green eyes damned her to be a beast. Yet now, the line that separated her from humans was growing thinner the longer she spent out of Dork. What was it that put these doubtful thoughts in her mind?

Belch shook it off, following Pedr out of the apartments out into the streets. It was her first time embracing the city, excluding the little she saw from the momentary glimpses from the back of the carriage she rode in to enter the city. She hadn’t known the city's name, but she did know how large it was compared to Dork.

Buildings of black and silver with slightly slanted roofs lined the wide roads with thin alleyways between the massive buildings, glass windows evenly spaced on every floor walking down. Most buildings were mirror reflections of the other, alternating dull colors. Few if ever juxtaposed. Mostly the corners were different in design, without windows, yet having the sides of the building open with concrete barriers. Belch noticed horses going in and out, and on the first floor, she saw them tied down to posts.

The sun started its rise, gilding the city a faint orange. Halfway through the city, the citizens began leaving their buildings, walking or riding their way to where Pedr described as “work.”

As she passed, no one yelled at her. No one called her a devil. It was different. She wasn’t a person of interest anymore, something people could shout or spit at, but somebody who didn’t matter. There was peace in not being looked at. People simply passed her by, not even batting an eye.

They found their way out of the city's central district and into the outer sections, which had smaller buildings and homes, layered close together to fit as much as they could while the roads twisted and curved like veins on the leaf, meeting together on the main stem. Aside from central, where horses pulled carriages from destination to destination, offering rides to the people, the streets in the outer city had individual horses, holding only one person for each.

“Am I going to have to learn how to ride a horse?” Belch asked.

“Don’t think so,” Pedr said. They continued forward, heading toward a tall, opened fence wall at the end of the wall. “Maybe in the future. However, if you have to learn, it’s not like I can teach you. I can’t even fit on a horse.”

Belch smiled at the swole, almost instinctively.

Pedr lowered a frown. “What’s so funny?”

“Imagining you on a horse,” Belch said. She felt inclined to stick out her tongue but puckered her lips to seal her teasing. She didn’t know how Pedr would react. “Your feet would almost touch the ground.”

Pedr smiled back. Something Belch didn’t expect. “Of course they would,” he said, “a horse’s legs would buckle under my weight, bringing me down with them.”

Belch laughed softly, approaching the already opened gate. Two uniformed men in gray jackets and silver caps over their heads nodded.

“Excuse us,” the one on the right marched up. “What is your business at the south exit?”

Pedr coughed. “I am to access what Lord Aidan called, ‘the shed’ out in the forest.” He reached in his pocket, pulling out a silver card, handing it over.

The uniformed man scanned the card, flipping to the other end to quickly validate, handing the card back after he finished. “You’re good to go. A warning, though, the exits close at sundown. If you find yourself outside, you will have to round the fence to the main gate to enter again.”

“Alright,” Pedr said, pocketing his card. “And the shed, it’s down this path?”

They nodded simultaneously, though only the lead man spoke. “Right down the path through the forest, you’ll find a stretch of plain with a lone shed. Lord Aidan has stocked the shed with everything you need, paper, writing and reading tools, and an afternoon lunch.”

“Thank you,” Pedr said, walking forward. The uniformed men had their hands on their swords' hilts, ready to draw. They wore no armor or leather but similar fabric to what Pedr and Belch wore, except their uniforms were tighter fitting without any slack.

Belch supposed that in Summer, it’d been too hot to wear anything more than what they had. Even with her clothes that felt somewhat cool, her skin started to sweat, and it hadn’t even been a half-hour after the sunrise. Summer had been the season where the beasts had their skin tanned, as Dork had been just as hot as Dormoor was now. Though, her skin always remained fair, like the sun couldn’t scathe it.

They followed the trail like how the man directed, walking through minutes of trees before finally reaching a steeper hill leading to the plains. Pedr grunted, looking down.

“What’s wrong?” Belch asked.

“If I trip, I’m going to die,” Pedr said flatly. “I’ll roll down and break my neck. Damnation!”

“Grab the trees,” Belch suggested, pointing to the trunks of trees closely packed together on the sloping, bushy ground. Sticks of wood lined the path down, probably full steps before the dirt blown back to reform a hill.

“G-good idea,” Pedr said, grabbing hold of a trunk. Honestly, he was more scared than he had to be. Belch felt the steepness after the first step but felt attuned to the nature around her. The trees, the shrubs, the wild grass, they all slid down her vision as she started hopping down the hill. “Hey!” Pedr shouted. “Slow down! Don’t get too far ahead of me!”

Belch spun, skipping backward, hopping off one foot before planting another. Small dirt clouds dirtied her jeans, though she didn’t care. Balance, something she always strived for, on display in front of Pedr. He seemed concerned, though he shouldn’t have been. He saw her fight before, after all.

She slowed, letting Pedr catch up, slowly bringing himself down the hill. Belch gave him a direct stare, and that must have pulled some courage out of him as he moved from tree to tree at a faster pace. She slowed, waiting to see if he needed help coming down. Pedr pulled through, reaching down the hill to the level plain ahead.

“That is our shed?” Pedr mumbled, looking ahead at a small wooden shed. Two larges holes were missing off the wall's face, with a tiny glimpse of the green field behind visible through the shed. “So they stocked it but didn’t repair it? Unbelievable.”

For as beat up as the outside looked, the inside had been even worse. An inch coat of dirt covered every surface except for the black cooler with a white top. While Pedr reluctantly wiped away at the dust, Belch opened the cooler to see meals packaged in bags.

She closed it, despite her hunger, looking around. A bookshelf had a plastic box of pencils and pens next to a stack of paper under a heavy rock. Belch lifted the rock, and sheets flew with the draft leading outside. Pedr gave her a cold, hard stare.

“Oops,” Belch flushed. His stare continued as strokes of paper flew across his face. Belch placed the rock back, imprisoning the paper before any more blown away. “I guess I know why there’s a rock on top of the paper now. I’m learning already.” She grinned.

Pedr smiled. “Alright, alright. Enough goofing around. Let’s teach you the alphabet.”