As the remainder of our forces had begun to head back the way they had initially came, I was doing the same, albeit under far less comfortable circumstances. I was being carried in a heavy sack, and while the journey wasn't what I would call a pleasant one, it was certainly quick. Well, relatively speaking. I didn't really know how long it had taken, but it was clearly far, far shorter than the many days of walking which myself and the other mice had required to reach Home Base.

Aside from being in a bag, a non-trivial detail, I was completely unrestrained. They hadn't even searched me, and, as a result, I still had the dagger that Meryll had given me. I kept it clutched to my chest, terrified that at any moment I would be forced to try, and most certainly fail to protect myself with the weapon. I had no doubt that I could have used it to cut myself free as well, both mid-travel and during the relatively short and seldom breaks. I could have cut a hole and made a break for it. Except that I couldn't, of course. Sure, that would have been the brave thing to do. It might have even been the intelligent thing to do, as it could have caught my captors unaware, and the longer that I waited to attempt escape, the further I would find myself from the remainder of my allies and potential rescue.

I couldn't, though. I just couldn't. I could barely bring myself to breathe, let alone engage in even the most low-scale of heroics. I was terrified. I don't know just how long had passed. It certainly must have been at least a couple of days, but even as my stomach began to growl and my throat dried up, I couldn't bring myself to draw attention to even ask for food or water. As foolish as it must sound, a part of me, despite being picked up and carried once again every time they broke camp, was convinced that I was forgotten, some oversight, and that the moment that I moved, the moment that anyone around me had realized that I was still alive? That that would be the end of me.

And so I waited. And waited. And waited. Occasionally I would hear snippets of conversation, but little that I could actually make out, and certainly not due to a lack of effort on my part. Anything to pass the time, to briefly distract me from my potential fate was more than welcomed. It must have been about a day since my capture when I found myself awoken by voices so clear that I had assumed that they were talking to me.

"I knew it was a bad idea. I just knew it." A soft voice said to another, seemingly trying to go unheard. Not by me, presumably, but by any of potential eavesdroppers.

"What happened? Why did they call for retreat?" another asked back.

There is a brief pause before the first masculine voice spoke once more. "They say that General Gwendolynne challenged the bloody hell reaper. Alone. It's a miracle she came out of the battle with her soul still intact! It's lucky that any of us did."

"Come on. You don't really believe those silly stories about how their leader eats souls to grow stronger, do you?"

"I don't know what I believe." the second voice sighed. "I don't want to put it to the test, though, either. I'm just glad to be away from there. There were too many of them. They didn't seem all that strong, but their fighting styles were so strange. Our leaders shouldn't have kept up the chase once we'd lost the numbers advantage."

"You'd better not let General Gwendolynne hear you say that. Otherwise, you'll likely lose a lot more than just an arm..."

From here, as though they could sense me listening in, or perhaps they were just afraid of someone much, much more intimidating overhearing, the conversation had quieted further, to the point where I couldn't make out a single word.

It was only a matter of time before we had arrived. Our pace slowed, and there were more voices to be heard, along with strange mechanical sounds which I couldn't even begin to identify. Before long, I found myself set down upon a hard, cool surface, and left alone. And that was where I had remained for some hours. There were strong hints of distant movement, but nothing in my immediate vicinity. I was sore, having been curled up in a small ball for days on end, starving and dangerously dehydrated, and yet, for the longest time, I still couldn't bring myself to move. Rationally, I was fairly certain that I was alone, but I couldn't escape the fear that waiting all around me were half metal foes, blades in hand, ready to raise the alarm that there was an intruder in their midst, and even quicker to cut me down.

In time, however, I stood up. I had to. My cramped limbs were making far more urgent complaints than my worried brain, and thus won out. The bag wasn't even tied shut, so 'escape' proved to be effortless. I found myself all alone within a small, metal room. The design of the walls reminded me a little of the outer barrier of my own city, clearly somewhat improvised with what pieces the builders had available, but undeniably of far, far higher quality of construction. Up above my head hung a buzzing mechanical light which kept the room as bright as mid-day, but I couldn't even take a guess as to the actual hour. I could have just as easily been the middle of the night.

The chamber was scantly furnished, not that mouse structures were to be known for being heavily decorated, and what was here had a clear sense of design and purpose, something largely absent from the buildings I was more familiar with. There was a wooden chair, made of multiple wooden pieces expertly fused together, an actual, proper bed, complete with linens, and, most surprisingly, a metal table alongside it, complete with a plate of food and a plastic container of clear liquid.

I had worried that it was potentially poisoned or otherwise dangerous for but a fraction of a second, before hungrily pulling open the stopper and drinking it, perhaps a little bit too quickly. I had never tasted water so good, and while some of that could have been attributed to my immense thirst, it was also cool, and downright unnaturally clear, completely devoid of any impurities. I was a little bit more hesitant about the food. Not that it was likely to be poisoned, and if it were, chances were the water was as well, and it was already too late. Of course it was unlikely that my captors would have taken me all this way just to abruptly kill me off without ceremony, but in my anxious and paranoid state, my mind was flooded with the worst case scenarios, no matter how implausible they might have been. I more turned from the food as a point of pride, refusing such charity from my captors. I could have, perhaps, pretended to be ignored before, but it was clear that I was not some mere oversight, not that I was likely to have ever been one. I was abducted from the battlefield, those final moments a bit of a blur, and taken to... who knows where.

It didn't take long before I began to eat, however. I was just too hungry and reasoned that no matter what fate awaited me, going hungry wouldn't have made it any easier. It wasn't as though I had much pride to spare at this point, either. The food was fresh meat, cut into small bits and finely plated, something mice rarely get to enjoy, at least the mice back home. It was certainly tasty, but despite my earlier hunger, I found that my appetite didn't last through the meal. From there, well, I did something that I had become very much accustomed to over the past few days: I waited. More accurately, I slept. During the long trip, I rested fitfully, and it was clear that my body was in need of more than just simple nourishment. When I finally did awaken, after who knows how long, i was a little annoyed. More food and water had replaced that which I had eaten. Not to say that I didn't need it, but I couldn't help feeling as though I had missed a valuable opportunity. Not that, realistically, I could have willed myself to do anything heroic had I actually met one of my captors face to face.

More time had quietly passed as I slowly paced about my cell. It was a small, but not uncomfortable chamber, windowless and sealed at one end by a metal door within a solid frame. It was quite a while before I even worked up the will to test it out, assuming it to be locked, or worse, potentially trapped. When I finally did, however, to my surprise, it pushed open with relative ease.

I stepped out to find grass beneath my feet, and a bright blue sky overhead, complete with soft, billowy clouds. Or at least an impressive facsimile of them. Those details were well enough crafted to momentarily fool me, though. The grass was an unnatural plush material, green and soft underfoot, but clearly not comprised of actual soil and plant life. The sky was similarly limited, the paint job expertly done, but one didn't even need to look too closely to recognize the metal framework which was colored, along with the many wires and rivets which covered the ceiling and upper portions of the walls. The environment might have been contained, but it still wasn't small by any stretch. Perhaps not quite as large as my own kingdom, but certainly not falling too far short of it.

More than just a virtual landscape, it was clearly a city in itself, even more vertically integrated than my own. Long shelves are built out of the walls, covered with organized box structures, mostly metal, with an abundance of ladders and bridges connecting them to one another. It was familiar in principle, but there was clearer evidence of planning and a uniformity of both material and structure, compared to the improvised and haphazard construction of the denser populated sections of my own kingdom.

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I looked down as something bumped into the side of my foot, seeing a white ball sitting in place, and looked up to see, a short distance away, a small mouse boy wearing a simple white cloth shirt, their left leg missing below the knee, with an elaborate metal fabrication in its place. They kept their distance, looking to me with a cold and suspicious expression, as though they somehow knew that I didn't belong. Perhaps the expression I stared back at them with had made that abundantly clear. I looked down at the ball and lightly kicked it back towards the mouse, who bent down to pick it up and cast a final quick, suspicious glance my way before running off.

"I see you're finally up and about." A nearby voice said.

I turned to it, immediately stepped back and pulled the dagger from my belt, pointing it towards the woman. Gwendolynne stood a few lengths away, her cybernetic arms folded across her chest. The previously destroyed limb had been replaced, not that I had known, at the time, that she had even lost one. She gave a slight head-tilt at the sight of the weapon, as if asking what, exactly, I had intended to do with it. Not an invalid question, I had to admit, as I sighed and put it back in my belt. The fact that she showed no hint of concern at the sight of the blade was clear enough evidence that even so armed, I didn't pose even the slightest threat. Not that I really needed any further evidence of that fact, as I was well aware of it already.

Apparently it was my turn to talk. My first reflex was, naturally, to ask where I was, but that felt like a waste. I already have a pretty good idea, after all. From the many mice about, most working with some manner of unrecognized machines, not to mention the presence of the enemy general right in front of me, there was really only one place I that could have possibly been.

"Why did you bring me here?" I asked, instead.

"I assure you, it wasn't my idea." The mechanical mouse sighed. "If it were up to me, you would have died along with those friends of yours."

I didn't really know how the battle had turned out. Well, at least I didn't know the finer details, but I did know that my allies didn't die. Well, not all or even most of them, anyways. Had I not overheard the discussion the other day, I might well have not known that the battle had ended with Mollenoch's forces retreating. Maybe the statement wasn't entirely a lie, as she spoke of her intentions, which I very much believed to be accurate, rather than what was necessarily the result. Still, it was clear that she wanted me to believe that they were gone.

I didn't plan on revealing my hand, either way. Not that I knew that our side had won. Of course I had no idea of know how the fight was won, or even what victory entailed and what sort of losses they might have taken in the process. I certainly had no intention of revealing how terrified I was to find myself within the den of the enemy.

"Vania was the one who chose, on her own, to spirit you away from the battlefield." Gwendolynne continued. "Apparently she has a soft-spot for non-combatants, and no desire to see them harmed in the crossfire."

"What about Jebediah? Our commander?" I asked. "He's a non-combatant, but you seemed to be quite willing to harm him."

I was doing my best to remain calm and somewhat diplomatic, but apparently saying that was a mistake. Her previously relaxed and apathetic expression immediately turned to a hateful glare, her organic eye looking even more monstrous than her red glass one, the former half-smile transforming into an angry glower as she gritted her teeth. "I'll kill him!" she snarled, unnatural clawed paws balled into shaking fists which squeezed so tightly that I could clearly hear the grinding of metal. "The next time I see him, I'll slowly rend the flesh from his bones, and grind those to dust until not even a shred of that accursed fool remains!"

I backed up a step, my own efforts to look calm fading in response to the sudden waves of bloodlust. "So, he is alive." I almost said aloud, but knew better. This was someone who was clearly more than capable of killing me, and I preferred to not give her an excuse to do so. Right now, it looked like it wouldn't have taken much to become a target of her obvious frustrations.

Fortunately, she calmed down almost immediately, likely forcing herself to do so. I was clearly not the only one trying to maintain a certain facade. She lowered her head, took a deep breath and smiled softly, looking back up to me with a gentle but mildly embarrassed expression. "As I was saying," she continued, doing her very best to pretend that her earlier outburst never happened, "You were spared by my sister's mercy, and should consider yourself very fortunate. You have been offered a rare opportunity, one few of your kind get to experience."

"Oh really? And what's that?" I asked, very much skeptical. It was impossible to not forget how I had been dragged to this strange place against my will, but I still made every effort to sound neutral on the matter.

"You are a scribe, are you not?" She asked with her slightly unnatural voice. "It is your job to record history as it happens. To see the future that it leads to. Well," she raised a clockwork arm, sweeping it across the landscape. "Here it is."

There was undeniably much to see, and I would have been lying if I said that I weren't the least bit curious. Even from my limited vantage point, everything was similar, yet different. One thing that caught me by surprise was the fact that most of the mice did not appear to be mechanically augmented, at least not to a significant degree. Sure, there were the occasional replaced limbs or strange devices worn on their bodies which, in many cases, were clearly more than mere ornaments, but in general? The people looked surprisingly normal. There were market stalls, children playing, and laborers working on the walls and structures. What surprised me most was the fact that there wasn't a single weapon in sight. Even back in my own kingdom local guards regularly patrolled the streets.

It was my turn to speak again. After the unexpected fury she had demonstrated before, I felt the need to be extra cautious with my questions. "Am I a prisoner?"

She chuckled. "No. You are free to move about as you wish. You may even leave this paradise of ours, if you so desire, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's quite a long walk back to that decrepit kingdom of yours, and it isn't a safe road, either. If you wish to go, you can go, but we certainly won't offer you any favors beyond that, and you will no longer be under our protection."

I was a little skeptical. On one hand, it was true that I wasn't much of a threat, and even if I did manage to get back on my own, it''s not like I'd gained any valuable intelligence which could be shared. Still, I couldn't help but think that if I were to leave, I'd experience more dangers on the road than just Makers and dark lords.

"Even aside from putting yourself in danger, it would be foolish to leave this place." She continued to speak. "Once again, it is your job to document the coming days, this conflict in particular, through a neutral eye, is it not? Well, it's about time that you started to see things from the winning side."

I wanted to make a snarky reply, but I couldn't deny the truth to her words. As a scribe, I really had no right to be defining things in terms of allies and enemies. It wasn't my place to take sides and favor one over the other just because I'd grown fond of some of the mice. Still, I couldn't deny that the idea gnawed at me, as though even being willing to hear these mice out represented a sort of bitter betrayal. These people were murderers, after all, especially the general standing before me. So far as I knew, they might very well have killed some, perhaps many of my friends. Wait, friends? Was that really how I'd come to see them?

Well, in the end, it hardly mattered. Whether I saw these new mice as violent conquerors or simply people with differing perspectives, I was still here and should make the most of it. It was my job to learn and record what was happening, and I couldn't deny that there was clearly much to be learned from this place. Plus, there was the little fact that I didn't want to die, and imagined that playing along was sure to keep me alive for at least a little while longer than resisting. Still, there was an idea that was nagging at me.

"So you want me to write things from your perspective, huh?" I said. "Is that why I'm here? To make propaganda that supports your invasion?"

Her eyes turned cold once again. "Don't flatter yourself." She said in a low voice. "Whether you choose to write about the glories of our cause or slanderous lies are your business. Things will turn out the same either way. You're not that important."

I should have been more cautious, but fortunately her tone came as off mildly annoyed rather than wrathful. It would have been difficult for me to not notice that 'glory' and 'lies' were the only two possible options in her mind. Again, however, she was not entirely wrong. I made a point to avoid falling into that trap. Who was I to say that these mice weren't on the right side of history? Still, looking at the strange, half-mechanical abomination standing before me, it was awfully difficult to believe that.

To my surprise, her expression actually warmed slightly. "I suppose I should be a little more tolerant. You were taken here against your will, and all that you known about us are from the atrocities we have committed. At least from your perspective. While that's not quite the word I would use, I can't claim that it isn't entirely inaccurate, either. I can't expect for you to see us in the fondest of lights. All that I can ask is that you give us a chance to show you what we really are. After that, you are free to make your own judgments."

"I'll admit, I wasn't pleased to be brought here. I'm still not, but, well, you're not wrong." I sighed. "Fine. I'll do my best to be objective. It's only fair, after all."

She smiled, an actually rather pretty smile if one could look past the fact that the upper quarter of her face was largely glass, wires and metal plating. "Thank you. You won't regret it." she said. "You are free to move about as you wish. There are a few places that outsiders aren't allowed, nor would you want to be in them, as they're quite dangerous. They're certainly not the sort of places you could find yourself by accident, anyways."

Gwendolynne walked away, but after a few steps turned to look back over her shoulder to me, before continuing on. Not a command, but rather an invitation to follow, and I couldn't claim that I had anywhere in particular that I needed to be. The place was large and overwhelming, and following her, for at least a little while, seemed as good a way to get the lay of the land as any.

I couldn't deny that I was still worried about the others, and to some extent missed them, especially the flock, but I was, first and foremost, a scribe. I still had a job to do, and while this place wasn't exactly my first choice of destinations, I had no doubt that there was much to be learned from it. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, my concerns for my own safety had been largely forgotten.