Normally whenever Ainsley was distraught with Wren, he would simply apologize; sometimes not even completely sure why he was apologizing but doing it so that she could not be upset any longer. He could never bear whenever Ainsley was saddened, and especially not when it was him to blame for it. But this time Wren was annoyed with her too because she was always constantly looking for trouble. He did not understand why she always needed the answers for everything and wished she could sometimes just let things be the way they were without her having to muddle herself into every situation and understand every conflict or sometimes even find one where there was none in the first place. He found it almost unbearable to watch, as she constantly questioned things that weren’t her place to question, and he knew that one day she would get herself into trouble, one he wouldn’t be able to help her get out of. He decided that he was done encouraging her habit of constant curiosity and would simply tell her it was not her place to ask these questions, even if he sometimes thought similar questions in his own mind. Instead of going after to apologize, Wren stood his ground. She will come around he told himself. Wren had decided in his head that this time he would wait till his best friend came to him and admitted how absurd her attitude was of late. However, Wren was soon burdened with another thought. If he was going to wait until Ainsley came to him first, he may then be waiting forever. Wren managed to compartmentalize his thoughts and put his mind to the task at hand, which was crafting and shooting arrows at targets. He sat down at one of the wooden tables with two other people marking a resemblance in his age. After the age of 12, no age really mattered here, if you were old enough to wield a blade and shoot an arrow then you were old enough to work and contribute and was then end of it. If you did not contribute in some form or another for the camp, it was basically signing your own death warrant. The camp had no room for people who did not participate in keeping the camp moving for future generations to live with their massive walls.

Wren began carefully cutting the wood of what would soon be an arrow, smoothing it out and peeling off the splinters carefully with each lengthy stroke. If he put enough thought into perfecting the arrow, he reckoned that he could block all else out of his crowded mind. He stole a glance at Ainsley and quickly realized with the hurt that she was enjoying herself with her sister Genevieve and some other people that he did not recognize. Wren spent most of his time with Ainsley and Genevieve or in solitude. He didn’t care much for getting to know anyone else. He lived to work, building and working enabled his shoulders and hands to become extremely toned, aiding him when it came to heavy lifting. He had been a builder since the time he could walk, and he told himself that he was never much good at anything else. That was probably why he enjoyed crafting arrows more than actually firing them. Wren knew if the time came to point an arrow at another human being he would never be able to actually fire it, he could barely even fire one at a target without his arms shaking. He wasn’t Centaur material, and he knew that if he ever left the safe confinement of the walls of the camp, he would in most likeliness never survive on his own. That’s why he could not understand Ainsley’s desire to leave all the time. He could not comprehend why anyone would want to leave the safety of the walls which were built high to keep all the dangers of the old world out of their safe one. Wren was perfectly content following the rules, completing training and then getting to work building whatever needed fixing or creating new contraptions on his free time. The remaining of his time acquired half went to being with Ainsley who seemed increasingly jaded and restless each time he saw her, and part of this made him miserable and other part made him almost livid because she never seemed to care about those who stayed behind the walls distressing over her each time she left for training. She did not realize the kind of strain it put on himself, or more importantly the strain it took on her sister Genevieve, who Wren cared deeply for.

 The other half of his time acquired, went to visit children who were alone in their camp, ones whose parents had died for one reason or another. Some lost their mothers in childbirth, others had their parents killed outside of the walls, most of the deaths outside of the walls where Centaur and Praetor deaths. Children were also placed there if their parents had been executed for breaking the codes, a disgrace that the children would grow up bearing. Wren visited the children mostly because he could relate to the kids who had no one except for themselves. Hardly anyone else besides him seemed to care about them and their wellbeing, to most of the camp they were useless weight. What Ainsley could never grasp was that she was pretty much all he had in the world. Her and her family. His parents, whom he never could bring himself to speak of, were deceased. There was never any funeral or any bodies. They were Centaur-like Ainsley who were promoted to Praetor. He was told that they went out one night and never came back. No one at Apokaluptien ever talked about the missing or dead Praetor, it is just something people know but do not discuss out loud. No one wants to hear or discuss the horrors that lay beyond the wall, and for this reason, the younger scouts; the Centaur were are never allowed to venture off more than a few miles from the camp. Only the Praetor were allowed to do this, and only when it was of grave importance. Ainsley had often asked about his parents but he never could answer her questions. Once someone in your family died outside of the walls, it is strongly frowned upon and is an unspoken rule to never speak of it or to question it. Axel, the current leader would not allow Praetor to discuss the dangers that lay outside to the people within the walls because he was smart enough to know that very frightened people are the most dangerous there is. Frightened people are capable of doing cruel acts in the name of fear or rage. They use their fight to create a certain kind of hate and that kind of disorder would destroy Apokaluptien like a virus. The sole reason Axel allowed some of the stories about the others to continue, was because he needed to allow just the perfect amount of trepidation to flourish so that people obeyed the rules but not too much so that they were terrified and end up creating mass disorder. That is why, when one of Axel’s Praetor delivered the raw news at the age of ten that he would never see his parents again, Wren simply swallowed all his questions and all his emotions and nodded his head in understanding. Even at the ripe age of ten, Wren knew that he must follow the rules, even the ones that were hushed but meant to be understood without ever having to speak the words aloud. After his parents were gone, Wren had to fend for himself he had to get his own rations and work for hours just to get enough food so that he would not starve to death, and have his body thrown outside the walls since he had no family to claim it for burial. That all changed when he met Ainsley, the first person who ever showed him kindness. At first, Wren was sure that Ainsley only helped him because she pitied him, and luckily for both her and himself, her family was one of the more fortunate ones who never went truly went starving. After Ainsley and Wren developed a strong friendship the rest of her family took a liking to him and he became in a sense, their charity case. But after years of knowing Ainsley and Genevieve, he liked to believe that her family had come to love them as one of their own because he truly saw them as the only family he had in this cruel world.  

 Wren always admired Ainsley’s parents and wished they were his own, because even though he was more or less a grown man he longed for the nurturing attitude that parents naturally had. He sometimes spent time with Ainsley’s father, Maddox who had taught him many things about the old world. Although he knew Ainsley found history lessons of the old world, uninteresting Wren thought the exact opposite. He believed in order for humanity to better itself, it must learn from humanities past which is only found inside the deep and enriching world of the past and its history. Even though much of the old world has been forgotten with only half-truths, the parts that were known whether they were completely true or not, fascinated him in a way he could not believe himself. Reading and listening to stories were a blissful escape for Wren, and if he could get his hands on anything that resembled a book, he would read it in a matter of days no matter what it was about. Wren strongly believed that a better world could only be created if people were willing to admit their atrocities and flaws on both sides of a war and learn from them in order to move forward and better themselves. But if people did not take the time to study what was left of the world’s past, how were they suppose to not repeat the same mistakes over and over again in a horrific bloody cycle. This was something he tried to patiently explain to Ainsley but he could tell, that all she wanted to do was venture off outside of the walls and discover the remains of the old world herself, rather than sit down and listen to stories of things that may or may not have ever happened. She was the kind of person who could not truly appreciate something or trust it unless she saw or felt it with her own eyes and hands.

 Wren contemplated walking over to sit next to Ainsley and Genevieve but realized if he did that, he could quite possibly embarrass himself if Ainsley decided to make it clear to everyone sitting at the table that she was aggravated with him. In that case, he would have to get up and leave feeling somewhat humiliated. Another reason he decided against it, was because if he did sit at the table, he would have to converse with the others in fear of looking rude if he did not, and he couldn’t bring himself to talk to people that he simply did not care for. He hated to make the effort of speaking to people he did not know unless absolutely forced into the position to do so. This was partially due to the fact that Wren was incredibly shy with people he did not know but also because he simply never liked anyone’s company except for Ainsley and her family. If he couldn’t have their company, he preferred to remain alone and unbothered. It was seemingly difficult for Wren to find anyone he had anything in common with. He did not fit with the Centaur who concerned themselves only with adventure and weaponry nor any of the healers who studied medicine and science; aside from Genevieve. Wren discovered that he could not even properly relate himself with other builders. He did, however, enjoy speaking with the other teachers besides Maddox from time to time, but this often made other people around his age give him questionable looks. He longed to be more like Ainsley at times because she could act so confident and fearless when she wanted to be. He had never spoken these thoughts aloud to her but he thought if she managed to control her somewhat impulsiveness and stubborn nature; then she could make an exceptional leader one day if she wanted it badly enough. Wren finished his arrow and mechanically started to curve out the next one laying next to him.

“Having problems with your friend? Looks like she’s ignoring you,” Lachlan said with his usual self-satisfied tone nodding his head in Ainsley’s direction, his gray eyes filled with amusement.

“Screw off,” Wren responded while moving his arm up and down with his blade rhythmically, scraping away pieces of wood sticking out not bothering to look up at the intruder of his work.

 “Screw off? Is that even a saying?” Lachlan responded pretending to be hurt and puzzled, lifting a single thick eyebrow, his dark skin shining in the morning sunlight.

 “I’m just not in the mood right now.”

 “I’m sure you’ve heard that saying a lot before,” Lachlan said hardly containing his laughter at his own joke.

 “That’s it,” Wren said springing from his seat.

Wren took pride in the fact that he was someone who could hold in his temper incredibly well, he was used to people provoking him, but he never gave into it because fighting was against the codes and could lead to a night or two in the above brings.

“Hey, it was a joke, calm down you’re making a scene here buddy,” Lachlan said condescendingly, patting him strongly on the back looking around amused with himself and the situation of making Wren’s blood boil.

 Wren quickly glanced around to look at his surroundings, at the training perimeters around himself and saw the Praetor give him a warning glance. He then looked to see Ainsley, who met his eye contact briefly with a quizzical look but then quickly turned to look at her work laying on her table. Genevieve looked at him and slowly began shaking her head in a concerned no don’t do it gesture.

 “Fuck you too buddy.” Wren finally said back.

 Wren said this and sat back in his seat, not bothering to look at Lachlan, and continued his task having decided to ignore him. Wren waited a few moments until he felt Lachlan’s lingering presence finally leave. He didn’t look up but he could hear someone else coming towards him, and he silently prayed it wasn’t Lachlan coming back to bait him further into the argument.

“So what was that all about?”

 Wren looked up and to his surprise, Ainsley was at his table. In that moment he was almost grateful Lachlan had tried to start something up with him, because he knew Ainsley’s curiosity would make her come to the table and ask about it, pissed off or not.

“He’s just an asshole that’s all,” Wren said not looking up.

 “Looks like there is plenty of that going around,” Ainsley said this while concentrating on her hands.

“You’re referring to me?” Wren said this quickly and immediately regretted snapping at her when he saw the look of anger on her face quickly transform itself into hurt.

 “Lachlan.” Wren stated as if that was enough of an explanation. “I’m sorry for snapping. He was getting my nerves, leaving me in a shitty mood.”

 “Really? I hadn’t noticed, and I wasn’t referring to you, I meant myself.” She said continuing “I guess I’m sorry for possibly overreacting earlier. For being an asshole.”

 “Centaur!” one of the Praetor howled.

 “Well, that’s me. See you later trouble maker.” She said jokingly “Try not to get into any more fights while I’m gone.” She said winking at him.

“Ainsley wait. I’m sorry for making you upset earlier too. Be careful out there ok?”

“I swear the more time you spend with my father, the more your voice begins to echo his.”

“I mean it Ainsley, be careful.”

“Wren.” Ainsley said replicating her serious tone. “I’m always careful.”

Even though Wren found her carelessness aggravating he couldn’t help but hide his smile as she was leaving, however, his smile quickly faded as he saw Lachlan wave him goodbye in a mockingly smug manner. Wren sat back down at his table, and even though training seemed to be over at least for the Centaur, he continued smoothing out his arrow to the point of undeniable perfection.

Next Chapter: Lachlan: Chapter 3