I hug Glenn a goodbye. "I hope you find Maggie," I tell him and I step back and smile at him and Tara. "I really, really do. And Tara, I hope that you see this place an option to stay if you don't want to go--"

She shakes her head. "No, I should go with Glenn--so he can find his wife."

I nod. "Okay..."

"And Ember, you don't want to come with?" Glenn asks. Some guy named Abraham is outside the gates, waiting for them. He's a ginger. Sorry, if that sounds bad.

A few days ago, Glenn went astray with Tara at one point upon seeing this place. Today, they'll return to them and the quest for Maggie.

It's early morning and though the mild breeze is blocked by the walls of the gate and the walls of the library, the guards on the wall are getting the breeze and their hair and jackets are reacting to the long chain of wind gusts. Everett (who has a younger brother about a year younger than Aviva), a friend of Edith (Aviva's older sister) crosses his arms as he leans against the library building wall next to the oak double doors. He seems content with seeing the "unneeded" extra guests off. He waits for the rest of the builders, he would claim (if I had asked him to take his attitude elsewhere) he's here so that they could work on the reinforcement of the new walls. I don't buy it. He's here early so he can satiate his possessiveness over the community's integrity and the likes.

"This Legion is the safest place imaginable. I'm staying because if those we are separated from show up, where would we go? Becoming nomads like the paleolithic age isn't the most reasonable option now that this place is open to us." I reason, a small smile forming on my face. "When you find Maggie or anyone else, coming here would be a grandly amazing idea."

Glenn smiles and nods. Tara bites her lip. My eyes water, and I fight off the salt threatening to overflow and stream down my cheeks. Sobbing would be mortifying... "See you someday," I say to bade farewell to them both. I hug Tara and Glenn at the same time, surprising them both--especially Tara who is pretty much a stranger to me.

This is goodbye.

I don't want to pull away. Tara takes my arms off of her awkwardly. I know she feels guilty about something, but I don't know why. Glenn and I let go at the same time. It's too soon to be separated from an old friend you basically went through the hellish apocalypse with. These situations create friendships hard to get rid of.

"Bye," Glenn says solemnly, but offering a sad smile. Tara's mouth curves up in a reassuring way. It doesn't really reassure me in many ways...

The gates open outwards, but the redhead Abraham had been warned to step back from the wall this time and avoids getting knocked to the concrete ground.

There's also two others by his side. A man with a mullet and a girl with pigtails and an olive-beige cap, equipped with a rifle. They all stand in front of a truck. Glenn and Tara walk towards the gates.

And then, the large doors close behind them.

I stand there, unsmiling. Unmoving. I can't fathom how I keep letting friends slip away.

Because it's the right thing to do. They must find each other. Even if I won't be there to find them too...

An arm comes around my shoulders in a friendly gesture. I turn my head to see Joanna, smiling comfortingly.

"Hey, it might not seem like the best decision at first, but you'll come to realize it is the best choice one could hope for," Joanna says and I nod numbly. Sensing my guilt, she elaborates. "Leaving your loved ones is hard, but in most cases, it's the only way. Some things need to happen in order to have things we need to happen. That's what I've discovered recently, anyway. But I wouldn't be surprised to find this goes for everyone."

"Ah, Joanna's words of wisdom." I muse, grinning. "The apocalypse does age one's mind."

"You make me and yourself sound like we are ancient Wisemen." Joanna rolls her eyes, though smiling. "Respect your elders!" She calls out, earning inquisitive glances from wall-watchmen and watch women who heard her yell despite the newest gust of wind. I sort of cringe, but also chuckle.

I elbow her in the ribs. She recoils, breaking into a giggle. The sound of an engine comes from the outside of the wall. It fades with the growing distance. "Looks like the builders are coming out of their rabbit holes, finally. Everett was here all dawn break." And as if to punctuate Jo's remark, she yawns and shrugs, her grin silly. I turn to the entrance of the library where members of the Legion filter out. I notice a sophomore from that high school the Legion just cleared is also participating.

"Well," Joanna starts as she walks toward the piles of scrap and crap (not literally, it's actually building material from an unfinished construction site). I quicken my pace to follow. "Now that you are officially a member, pick up a tool and get building, Em! It's about time you start doing some heavy work." She claims two pairs of the limited supply of gloves the Legion decided to dedicate to building to stop the annoyance of splinters. She tosses a pair at me and I catch them.

I stifle a moan. "Hey, I teach archery classes too!" I refute.

"But you currently aren't right now, are you?" Joanna looks over her shoulder and back at me, smirking as she grabs a hammer. "Come on, slacker. Let's get to work."

----------------

I am assigned to protect the builders from walkers, and so is Aviva. Nate and Joanna are among the builders who are loudly hammering away--and even power tools with some leftover juice in them were used. The Legion is luckily well-stocked, but I feel like sooner or later, we'll be experienced shortages. And we've already preemptively started making efforts toward conserving our supplies and enforcing rations.

I am pleased to find out that we've prepped the school to expand into it in a matter of days. There will be no threat of close-quarter sickness like at the prison.

I always liked customizing things--making thing my own and personalizing things. There are so many classrooms...I'll be able to have my own as a room, though Joanna and I agreed that would be kind of lonely, so we decided to be roommates.

I stab a walker's head, the blade slicing into its brain. I pull away. There has yet to be any large amounts of walkers milling too close to the build site. I smile.

This is what elation feels like.

"Hey, Jo, can you bring me another plank? I'm sort of stuck up here." I hear Everett shout behind me as I stand guard with Aviva and her sister, who I had not ever really seen in person since I became a Legion member. She has auburn hair that is dark enough to resemble her siblings' dark brown hair. Despite this difference, she and Aviva have similar facial features. They both are not gorgeous but neither are they not pretty. They're the in-between, as most girls are.

Edith smiles, her eyes still trained on the open land of grass starting to grow wild in front of the forest trees take up the landscape at the end of the space. Aviva's eyes never leave the land in front of her. Her entire face is emotionless. It's almost mesmerizing of how devoid of humanity she is. It's so abnormal and I've never seen a face like that so convincingly "not

-feeling-anything."

"Yeah, I got it!" Jo replies soon after.

"Thanks!"

I beam. Everyone is so spirited here (except Aviva). It's refreshing. They are not like Woodbury because they know what it is to fight and survive and are fully aware of the danger of walkers. It's a democracy but whenever there was a big decision to make, Aviva's father never made a decision that majorly harmed the Legion. There was always compromise. And Aviva, a sixteen year-old girl, is their strategic advisor, humorously enough.

With time, this place could be indestructible.

Of course, that is what I thought about the prison--what everyone thought as they laid eyes on that place. I wouldn't throw that word around so casually--or maybe I shouldn't--after how the prison ended.

I hear the sound of an unsheathed blade to my left, which is sort of comforting in this situation. My gaze lands on Aviva. She jerks her chin towards the greenspace and I follow her indication to see a stumbling walker limping into view. She turns her long knife in her hand, finding a good grip. "I got it. I'm getting kind of bored standing around." She grins, shrugging, and I smile back.

Aviva walks towards the walker, carefully skirting around it as it makes its way towards the building site. She shuffles behind the undead person and holds the knife with both hands as she swings mid-step. The walker crumbles and Aviva yanks the blade from its skull. She wipes the black blood from the walker that coats the knife's blade on the rags of clothes on the walker. She sheaths her blade as she analyzes her surroundings, making sure nothing else is near.

Aviva gives her sister a thumbs up and she makes her way across the land again. Edith's lips quirk up into a smile.

-------------

"I was taught to always take the arrow and bring it all the way over and around the side of the bow, it's less awkward," I inform my whopping total of five students in the former playground. "Lucky that hunting shop had easy bows. Mr. Hunter and I adjusted the weight, so these probably couldn't penetrate the skin of a deer--or just really kill it. You'll have to be strong to pull back a bow weighted to hunt and kill. But for now, you must learn how to shoot. And then shoot at different distances."

Matthew Price and Cara Wills line up first to the rack holding color-coded bows representing size and weight, behind them are Nat, Joanna, some other guy Nat is friends with, and Aviva. Joanna and Nat wave and grin at me. Aviva smiles at me and I beam.

I give each of them the bow that correctly corresponds with their beginners' level of skill. Hunter the Bow Hunter and I instruct them to aim at the old, worn, and quite crappy quality targets with ring-painted pillowcases replacing target-covers that were beyond repair. The colors in order from worst score to best were large black ring (outer ring) blue ring, the red ring, the yellow, and I think the yellow includes the bulls-eye X-ring.

"Don't put the bow down until you see the arrow land on the target--" Hunter yells as he notes the state of the students, but cuts himself off at the sight of a rogue arrow (fired my Nat) landing nowhere near its intended target. "or lands at all. Any vibration in the bow will affect the outcome of your shot."

Nat's face twists up in frustration. Archery does not seem to be his passion or strong suit, despite it being silent and therefore being logical with walkers--and people, even. He probably took the class to also be with his friends. I walk over to him.

"Try again, it kind of is really simple--the basics, really," I tell him and he assumes the proper posture and stance. "Good, better than everyone else so far," He beams with self-satisfaction. Or as many would call it: pride. "Well, posture-wise."

"You really do rain on everyone's parade, Ember." His smile wanes. "How did you learn, anyway?"

"Before everything and when my biological family was still alive, I took archery classes from the church," I tell him, my eyes wandering to see if anyone got a bulls-eye yet. Cara Wills was close. Right on the center X-ring's line! "To be honest, I just wanted to learn how to wield a weapon like Katniss-friggin'-Everdeen back in 4th grade and I had no real interest in the religion lessons on how it all related to God and all that. I took Thursday classes with my friend. I still remember how we played 'bake the cake' where you had to lodge an arrow in every ring except the black one because then the cake would have been 'burnt.' Even the white background of the target was supposed to be hit!"

"And everyone in my group was moderately good at archery and I totally sucked back then. So it was time-based to see who could 'bake the cake.' So everything was pinned down except the white section." I say. "So I was the tie-breaker and I didn't shoot it properly before. So knowing I was rushed and therefore complete crap, I aimed as best I could and took my time and concentrated. I just barely got it in the white, the arrow was borderline black. I thanked the fact that I was horrible at archery and got a puny Three Musketeers candy bar, a candy bar my older brother said was one of the things I, a braces-wearer at that time, could eat. Of course, I broke those rules many times, who can fast popcorn for over two years!" I had braces for about that time. The world ended in seventh grade. No high school experience for me.

"Wow. Sounds like a fun game." Nat processes. "Could we play it?"

"Learn how to use a bow first." I tease.

"Well, I'm never gonna learn if you distract me with small talk like that!" Nat complains.

"Just get into the stance."

"Fine."

He lifts it up in the direction of the target while standing sideways to it, he pulls back the string with three fingers. His elbow seems in a good position. I rest my hands on my hips and nod to him in approval.

"Good. Now shoot." I instruct and move my gaze to the target that is 15-20 feet away--I think. I don't have a very good concept of measurement.

Nat fires and lowers his bow. It hits the topmost right corner of the target--the white section's outskirts. He bites his lip.

"Don't drop your bow early, it hinders the arrow, like how Hunter said," I advise and Nat nods, sighing with heavy exasperation.

"Try again."

Nat brings his arrow over the bow and settles it on the left side, ready to draw with his right hand--his leading hand. "Can you do me a favor?"

I shrug. "Yeah, sure. As long as it doesn't involve anything outside my morals."

"The Legion is probably the last place on Earth with proper morals," Nat says, his arm tensing and shaking a little under the tire of holding the bow for so long. "Don't worry, it just requires you of being a good friend--to Aviva." Nat shoots. He hits the red-ring. My mouth's corners quirk up into a smile.

"I'm all ears." I turn to face him, crossing my arms. He relaxes his arms and lowers the bow he's holding. "What do I do?"

"Talk to her for me," Nate insists and I raise an eyebrow. "I've known her since we were kids and...she has changed."

I nod and shrug. "Well, the apocalypse changes people. It makes them do things they wouldn't have done before the world went to shizzzzz."

"Yeah, but...she hasn't really improved, change-wise."

"Who are you to judge that?" I purse my lips.

"I'm her closest friend, Ember." He gives me a pointed look to accompany his sharp tone.

I stay silent for a long second to regain my composure.

Nice job, Em. Anger your allies.

"...How has she changed?" I inquire.

"She's cold. She is logical, yet creative--good qualities to have as a battle strategist and adviser, but she has been, well, battle-hardened...?" Nat explains, struggling for proper adjectives to describe Aviva. "She's become distant. More and more so with each passing day. She's been vacant of expressed emotions other than emotions that are immense--like her fangirling over a Game of Thrones book or something. She even is hell-bent on finding a radio that works so she can insert the TV show soundtrack into it because her dad had pre-apocalypse made it into a CD. Remember those things?"

"Yup. Very cool to have music for once. But loud noises are walker magnets." I remind him. Though we both know Aviva is too smart to blast instrumental music for all the undead to hear.

"Can you talk to her about this?" Nat asks, his face solemn. "We can't lose her. She's so important to the Legion, should a conflict ever again arise." I appreciate his grammar and working being so coolly elegant--just saying.

I nod. "Yeah, I'll talk to her about her detachment from everyone and all-things-to-do-with-emotion." Nat nods and smiles. "Keep practicing," I add as an afterthought before moving onto to the next student, Nate's friend..who's name I do not know...

Great, amongst the social situations presented to me, I have to awkwardly manoeuvre through the conversation to find out what the hell his name is.

:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;

(I'm Temmie!)

I only have a vague idea of a mile because here in Amurica we use miles, and I run Cross Country Races (and so does Joanna!!! Ayyyyy).

(w/ salsa, possibly guac)

Zaremareth