I wake up in the morning, Minx purring by my side. We're not pressed up against each other, but we're close enough that I can feel her vibrating purrs. I stand up carefully, the leaves falling from my pelt. I give her a lick and she wakes up, bristling, "What are you doing?!"

"Uh, I give Gale a lick behind the ears every morning. Otherwise he just snores."

"Please don't do that. Your tongue is like sandpaper. Who knows where it's been?"

"Don't Felids lick themselves clean?" I ask.

"Yes, but I know where my tongue has been. I'm not a Canid, so hopefully more sanitary places."

"Sorry." I mutter, flicking my tail around. I feel a bit guilty about the ordeal, even though I know as well as her it's not really my fault. I guess, since all my families have been Canii or Canira, I've only really adjusted to their ways, which are similar to each other.

A loud dinging pierces my ears, making me grip the blankety fluff below me. Down feathers fly everywhere and the others just look drowsily up at the ceiling, like nothing has happened.

"Is it that time already?" asks Minx in a dull and dreary voice, stretching out with a hugely dismissive tail flick.

"Time for what?" I ask, vaguely curious.

"Breakfast."

"They didn't have the loud noise yesterday." I look up at the ceiling again. "Where does it come from?"

"Speakers."

"What are speakers?"

"You'll learn soon enough. For now, let's just call it magic. The type Axel specializes in."

"Right then." I cock my head, putting a bit of contempt in my voice to seem civilized like her.

I meet up with Katrina and Glaze in the huge common room, where already there are dishes of food put out. It smells like rabbit, if someone had taken the rabbit and spread the stuff put on the wood here all over it.

I wrinkle up my nose, looking at the indistinguishable red mush in my bowl.

"What's wrong with it?" The Canis sitting next to me isn't Katrina, it's a deep purple Canis with black dots. He looks almost like me, but his marking are more blurred. He has a deep smile on his face, wolfing down the meat like, well, a Lupus. He slurps down another bite, barely stopping to chew.

"Is it fake?" I ask.

"Magically preserved. It's good."

I bite in, and although the smell was unappetizing, the second I bite in a new taste spreads throughout my tongue and I find my mouth watering. I eat all of it in a matter of minutes.

He's smiling. He feels trustworthy somehow. "You're an odd Dreamlandian Dalmatian."

"It takes one to know one, doesn't it?"

He nods. "Yup, name's Indigo Swift, but you can call me Indy. I'm half Dreamlandian Dalmatian, half Labra, and half Inuma. That's why my Verhamera's Horns are so pointy."

"Are those species?"

"Breeds." he corrects me.

"How can you be three halves of anything?!"

"I'm magical."

"We're all magical."

"You're odd."

"Odd is my middle name. Indigo Odd Swift."

"You have three names?!"

Suddenly, Gale walks by, done with his meal. "Rena! Didn't see you earlier. I'll make sure to find you next time." He nuzzles me right near the horns, making my whole body buzz up to my wingtips.

I nod. "Gale, this guy has three names! Indigo Odd Swift or something like that."

"I think he was kidding." Gale says, slightly confused by the whole ordeal.

"Yeah, if my middle name was Odd, that would be a problem. It's just Indigo Swift. No middle name." He flashes me a trademark smile.

Gale groans, obviously annoyed by this, starts walking away. "Come on, Rena, we should go explore some."

"Oh! Exploring! I can give you the tour!"

Gale stops dead in his tracks.

Five minutes later, we are being lead around the building by an overly happy purple Canis who's springing around like a Lapis. He leads us to a room, the huge, huge one from yesterday where we all lined up to go find and capture the Delphicanira. "You guys know this one, it's really got no official name, but some of us call it the garage. I wish we had a garage. It would be nice to have one. Axel sort of has a garage, it's her office, and that's always filled with all her weird tech stuff."

I spend most of my time keeping up. Gale spends most of his time glaring at random things. I nudge him.

"So here's the last room. Don't click that button, it opens the door." Indigo warns.

"What's wrong with opening the door?" asks Gale, paw extended, naturally, to open the door.

"On the other side is the Arena. It's a really fun practice activity we use... We should ask Torch!" Indigo's ears suddenly prick up. He runs away down a corridor.

I run after, yelling, "Where are you going?"

"To go ask Torch if we can boot up the Arena today!"

Gale begrudgingly runs after the both of us, and before we know it, we're at Torch's room. There's no door, just a room splattered in green paint. At the middle, there's shards of broken glass placed on a little shelf close to a huge mess of blanket where he must sleep. A badly drawn black Canira is drawn on his wall, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple splattering her ears, a tuft of fur across her face, her paws, wingtips, and a ruff of fur close to her heart.

"Is that Dark Rainbow?" I ask, touched by it in an odd way.

"Yes. Hand painted. I had to plead with the Lira City council to extend my luxury budget so I could by paint that would stay on the walls and not fade."

"Luxury budget?" I ask.

"The city works like a pack. The higher ranks are allowed to get more luxury items. Breach the rules, you lose your place. We're pretty important, so we have a huge luxury budget. However, I still need to ask for more when I need anything. Someone keeps squandering their share on exotic lunchmeat."

"You were the one who said we should eat grilled armadillo more often." Indigo protests.

Torch just shakes his head. "So what do you guys want?"

"Well, I was wondering if we could maybe boot up the arena today?"

"I see no reason why not." Torch flicks his tail, a swooshing noise from his tail as the fire from it licks the open air. "Go tell the others to meet us by the door in fifteen minutes."

"What's going to happen?" I ask Indigo.

"Oh, you'll see." he says. "You're going to love this."