The great hall’s ceiling was so high up that Rabbit figured he'd need three armories stacked on top of each other to reach the chandelier at the top. The crystal chandelier, in pristine condition, shined in the hall’s stain glass window light, so that the chandelier nearly looked like a rainbow. Rabbit loved the thought of the rainbow; he had seen rainbows when going out for exercise after a rainstorm. Rabbit often imagined that the rainbow, which appeared magically through the window in the top of the dungeon after it rained, could perhaps be an escape route. He would dream of the rainbow appearing right where he needed it, in the center of the cloister, and with speed and agility, he and the other beast-men would be able to run up and escape over the rainbow.

ffp, “Hahaha,” Bear and Wolf were roughing around again.

It was strange to Rabbit, that Bear and Wolf could have such different personalities than him. As he sat and contemplated freedom, they pushed each other and told jokes. Rabbit could see how his personality had changed over the years, from being playful and childish to the more serious person he was now. However, he sometimes wished that he was more physically focused and lively like Bear and Wolf, or even more sophisticated like Stag and Horse.

Stag and Horse had grown into verbally focused adults. When Stag and Horse finished running around during exercise time, they would often stand and talk for hours about nothing really. Rabbit had tried to listen into their conversations before, but it was really all gobbledygook. How could Stag and Horse get together and complain about every single guard they met or saw? Why would they talk about their past memories when they could live those moments in their head? Rabbit glanced over at them now. They were shaking their heads in Bear and Wolf’s general direction. Rabbit could picture Stag and Horse whispering in their cells about the stubborn roughhousing when the room wasn’t so tense.

Rabbit started to forgo those thoughts and moved onto what the lords were doing, pushing the beast-men around like that. In fact, he wondered if they had studied them during exercise as well. It would be easy for the lords to spy from around the crenels of the inner wall. Of course, they were probably just seeing the beast-men for personal reasons. Rabbit had come to think of the bodies of the beast-men as oddities based on how Doctor Worchester treated them.

Evan climbed down the staircase, solemnly walking near the right railing. When he reached the bottom he said, “I’ll be taking you down to the dungeon again.”

The beast-men lined up.

“Not you Rabbit.” Evan said.

“Why not?” Rabbit asked this question and the other beast-men glared at him.

“Doctor Worchester will be briefing you himself.” Evan said, and nodded to the rest of the guards who they formed a box around the remaining beast-men.

Bear struggled outside of the box of guards and pushed his monstrous bear-face and two arms around so he could talk to Rabbit, “Rabbit, don’t trust those men! You can’t trust any of those men. We’ll figure this out without them, Rabbit.”

The guards managed to push Bear back into the box, likely jabbing him with a poisoned dagger to make it easier on their life. Rabbit stood dumbfounded and watched the guards re-grip order.