He wasn’t anything like what she first thought he was, the loud-mouthed and even harsh stallion she came to know as her friend and even more than that; he was... Surprising when he wanted to be. When he truly had time to think about his arguments, he was quiet and thoughtful, but the thing that surprised her most was the fact that he was right. He was absolutely right, of course, and she found herself only more and more confused as she thought about it; on how wrong she’d been before without ever realizing it. It hurt to be so wrong...

It wasn’t any kind of loud explosion that brought her back to consciousness; no great conflict, nothing alarming in fact. She simply woke up again as everything came online, standing straight, her head lifted up and everything inside of her working just as it did before.

Seventy-Nine was... Confused? That was certainly the word that fit the description of the feeling, but she didn’t remember ever having the feeling before now. The light mounted to her head was active, illuminating only the area in front of her with a white glow as no other lights in the giant storage room were active, her forward right leg hissed as it rose up; the hind left one mirroring it easily; and she stepped forwards, out of the line.

She committed processing power to analyzing the area around her, noting the rows of machines that surrounded her, all of them were much like she was; though the ones that were far ahead of her were different; they were male-based instead of female-based, though male or female they all stood silently and motionlessly; systems offline and waiting for something to awaken them.

Seventy-Nine began to wonder why she had gone online while they still stood quiet; she scanned through her programming as she slowly moved her limbs to turn to the left; there were no bugs in her systems, as far as she could detect, and there was no organic here to greet her, which would have been an obvious indicator of why she, alone, was awake.

Her metallic hooves kept her slowly moving until she reached the end of the row, giving her pause; the front of a twin to her left and the rear of another twin to her right. Her thoughts wandered... Was she allowed to leave her row? What if the organics penalized her for waking alone and wandering?

The machine slowly looked back over her shoulder, though her head-light could not show her what laid behind herself, only to her sides, all she could see was the black abyss, the row of her twin sisters, all of them standing silent, disappearing into it.

The Darkness... It filled her with fear, at least, she was certain it was that feeling. A hesitance to move forwards and a irrational fear of the Darkness behind her kept her bolted to the spot she was in, even if there was a hint of another feeling. Curiosity, or perhaps even a little courage.

Seventy-Nine slowly looked forwards, to the cement wall, running parallel with her twin sisters; to the right where were the rows of male robots ran, and to the left were rows of smaller machines; which looked like spiders, and she was certain there were more machine variants further down to her left.

She decided on going right. Carefully stepping around the corner her twins made and she began to follow the wall; her head-light keeping the path ahead clear of the Darkness. All she could hear was the sound of her hooves clinking against the cement floor as she moved and the hissing of the pneumatic servos that allowed her movement.

She stopped when she reached the male-based machines, looking over the first one, it was tall and thick, as they all were, but she noticed a difference between a few of them; metal impressions on their shoulders that read what squad they were in, and the white paint on their flanks that showed their numbers.

This one was part of Squad Twenty-Five, and his number was Two-Eight-One. He was just as silent and unmoving as all the others were until his head turned towards her, eyes black as night, a monstrous growl coming from his throat as green fire burnt in his mouth.

She raised her right hoof up to defend herself, a metal plate on her leg shifted away and a sharp blade slid out with a loud scraping noise echoing around the room, the sharp blade cutting through the thick, old air where Two-Eight-One’s head had been moving towards her, but now it was back in the original location, looking away from her; she found she could only stare at the male machine.

Her blade slowly slid back into her right hoof and the metal plate covered it again; she chanced looking away before she began to gallop forwards, her metallic legs beating the cement floor as she rushed to the end of the male rows, finding only a soft light illuminating the area; coming from above the elevator, she slid to a stop at the door and turned around, putting her back against it.

The unblinking, unmoving, and still entirely silent rows of fellow machines greeted her view; she reached out and hit the button for the elevator to her right, watching and waiting for another demon attack. A hallucination, it had to be, a bug in her programming, or a virus affecting her optical systems, certainly it had to be.

With a loud ding, the elevator doors slowly slid open, and she backpedalled into it, she tapped on of the other buttons and the doors slid shut once again; she could feel her systems overheating; her pneumatics hissed louder when she stepped back further until she found the back wall of the elevator.

The music that softly played from a speaker at the top of the elevator was strangely calming, though it also bored her more than she thought possible in her state of alarm; how could her brother, a fellow machine, become a demon like that? It was impossible!

The elevator loudly dinged again before the doors slowly slid back open, at least this time there was light... She registered the colder temperature as she stepped out of the elevator; slowly stepping on the tiled floor, a ‘click-clack’ that made her look down and tap her hoof against it, testing the sound.

She looked up and took stock of the area; it was well lit so she turned her head-light off. Seventy-Nine stood in a short hallway leading to the elevator at her back, so she walked forwards, looking to the right when the hall ended in walls, and she followed the orderly wall to her left on, watching the strange shifting wall to her right; it was a blur of different shades of white and specks of light.

Continuing to move on; looking away from the shimmering wall as she entered a small area, a desk sat cold and still as it probably had for a great many years, cobwebs and dust gathered on the surface; plus, there was a door to the outside with a pair of standing metal detectors just before it, though they didn’t seem to be working. On the floor was a pony, wrapped up in a huge, thick coat with specks of white all over it, their face covered with wrappings and goggles, their legs wrapped with furs and snow.

The machine paused, tilting her head as she slowly closed the tiny distance between them, leaning in close. Seventy-Nine was very curious, why would a pony lay here in the middle of a lobby? Wait, were they hurt? She looked the pony over for any source of crimson liquid, though she didn’t find any, and she reached to draw the pony closer, the temperature here was very low, so it could be because of the cold.

Seventy-Nine grabbed the pony’s thick, furry coat, looking back towards where she came from before she began to haul the pony to the elevator, sharp tug after sharp tug until the pony was safely in the ancient box. She looked over the options of the elevators’ panel, seeing eight choices.

She didn’t know which one she had come from and she chastised herself for inadequately dividing all of her processing power to her hallucinations. She tapped the button next to ‘armory’ and the doors slowly shut, then she could feel the box lowering down.

The machine took these seconds to overlook the pony for anything else, though it seemed that they were more or less intact, none of the ponys’ limbs were at odd angles and they even seemed to still be breathing, though it was very weak; she only found herself worried for this pony, what had driven them to walk through extreme cold?

With another ‘Ding!’ the doors slowly opened once more and Seventy-Nine pulled the pony out into the wide, open space; finding it to be filled with racks of weapons; though she hadn’t been surprised. It was an armory after all... She quickly rushed to grab every sheet of paper and clipboard as well as scrap pieces of metal that laid around the room, taking them to the ponies’ side.

She did her best to create to a camp-fire with what she had, putting the thick pieces of metal in a circle and ripping the thickest pieces of paper into strips and neatly setting them in the middle of the circle before covering it with whole sheets, and finally she snapped a pair of clip-boards in half, putting them in as well. She took a piece of metal and struck her hoof against it, creating a shower of sparks near the thick strips, and she continued doing it until the fire finally started up, white smoke funneling towards the elevator shaft...

Satisfied with a job well done, despite the fact that a fire indoors was a bad idea, Seventy-Nine moved to secure other pieces of paper, and then she began to clear away the weapons from the ponies’ reach on the floor; scanning the huge room to find their proper places, ensuring to lock them back into their places in their racks; however she refrained from actually using the locks, as she did not know the combinations.

Eventually this task busied her enough that she’d barely noticed the pony stirring as the temperature in the room increased; she set the weapon she’d last picked up, some type of shotgun, down on the counter she’d acquired it from, turning and moving to the ponies’ side once more.

She watched closely as the pony looked up at her, blindly blinking up at her before they realized what they were looking at, slowly looking around the room; first at Seventy-Nine, then to the weapons and lastly to the fire. They slowly pulled the wrappings on their face down, revealing dark white fur and their mouth; then they spoke, a deep bass voice shattering the quiet in the room. “Where-... Where am I?”

Seventy-Nine literally beeped in response; taking a step closer to the stallion, slowly laying down in front of him. Something began to drive her crazy; not only the need to learn more about the outside world, but the need to help him. “I do not know what this place is called. I only just awoke; but are you okay?” Her vocalizations were all nearly monotone, only inflecting up to indicate she asked a question, but she spoke at a high enough volume to cause the stallion to flinch.
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“I-I remember, walking through glass doors, no- Raiders-s. There were raiders following me, th-the edge of the snowstorm, I had to get away, warn S-Spit they were coming again...” He spoke slowly as his teeth began to chatter together, and then the rest of him quickly started to shake, as he tried to take his coat off of himself, however Seventy-Nine stopped him; the coat still looked warm, even if the outside of it was slightly wet.

The stallion glared at the wall in front of him as he then took his goggles off; Seventy-Nine noted just how bright purple his eyes were when he’d looked back at her. They were fascinating to view, and so, so pretty... He attempted to stand, but instantly failed, clumsily losing his footing and falling to the floor, grunting in pain; Seventy-Nine watched helplessly, uncertain of what to do with the organic in front of her.

She’d helped him with the cold, but how could she keep him near the fire? Organics, what did they enjoy, what could motivate...? “Stallion, cease and desist.” She started, gently making him look to her. “Stay here and warm yourself, I will retrieve food for you... Don’t breath in the smoke of the fire.”

He chuckled and pulled away, grunting as he got his hooves back under him although he stayed still from there on, looking to the fire and leaning ever so slightly closer to it; she quickly stood, taking a simple one-sided saddlebag, it went on her right side, and then moving back to the elevator and stepping inside of it again.

The machine scanned over her options once more, however she noted each one carefully this time, eight floors in total. Lobby, Processing 1 and Processing 2, Factory, Armory, Employee Office, and Employee Residency.

She did not know what floor it was she had come from to get to the Lobby, but she was certain she was in the Armory. The best place for any food would be the Employee residency, so she gently tapped that button, hearing the soft hiss of the doors slowly shutting.

She felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness, being unconnected to the ground, as the elevator went down, and down, and down until finally the little bell rung and the doors hissed open; Seventy-Nine turned her head-light on as she stepped out, a familiar but different ‘click-clack’ of metal-hooves-against-tile was the only sound she could hear.

The machine moved into what seemed to be a large foyer, a pair of benches stood at each of her sides against the wall and an empty dais was ahead of her. With careful steps, the machine moved forwards, glancing back and forth from the left wall to the right one, she stepped to the dais, it was a grand, tall metal one, with large steps allowing a pair of ponies to climb on top of it.

Seventy-Nine dismissed it for now as she went around it; her more immediate concern coming back to the forefront of her mind, she stepped lively in a slight rush, on the end opposite the elevator she found a pneumatic pressure door, and with the tap of a button at the right side, it opened with a hiss.

An incredible long hallway greeted her, doors, about every two and a half meters on each side of her, were present as well. It was a puzzling conundrum. Were these all the rooms the workers lived in? Where would she find any food?

None of the doors were any different from any other, Seventy-Nine noted as she advanced down the hallway, and she could only wonder why that was. Ponies were known for being creative and celebrated individuality, even while they still conformed to herd instincts, the most notable example would be the Element of Harmony bearers, being literally more powerful for being together.

The machine stopped moving, belatedly noting something different about a door; she turned to look at it closely; this pneumatic door had what looked to be red paint marking “Dont open!!!” on it, in very large letters, a trail of the red paint on the floor led to the bottom of the door, and presumably, into the room.

How could Seventy-Nine not open this door? She looked to her right hoof and let the front metal plate slide back out of the way as a sharp blade, short and thin, scraped its way out, she turned to the right and hit the button for the door; and with a sharp hiss it opened quickly.

She waited only a pair of seconds for something to come out before she turned and went headlong into the room, instantly she viewed why there was a warning on the door; some type of walking corpse charged as soon as she’d stepped in, she haphazardly swung her blade upwards at it and missed, and with a great, thundering crash, it bowled her over out of the room.

It was on top and its weight kept her on her back, its coarse, decaying teeth biting at her facial plating, sparks from the bone-on-metal attack filled her view as she attempted to stab her blade into its side, and she heard the disgusting noise of sharp metal slicing through flesh and breaking bones, but it didn’t stop the creature, it reared up and her connection to its gut lifted her up as well, and when it came back down she did too, it slammed its hooves down on her cranium, as she hit the ground her head-light shattered, leaving her to drown in Darkness.

As it had reared up once more, it pulled itself off of her blade, and she had only, approximately, three seconds to aim it better, thrusting the sharp blade up into the neck of the creature as it came back down to bash her again, it easily impaled itself on her blade, the force of the blade thrust up into its neck as it come down clashed hard enough to separate the creatures’ skull from the rest of its body.

The still biting skull clanged against her cranium and bounced off, landing hard on the floor as Seventy-Nine turned to the right, pushing the already decayed corpse off of herself with her left foreleg and turning over to get her other hooves under herself, letting her blade slide back into her right hoof so she could stand on it.

She stared at the head in the Darkness until it stopped moving; looking left and right down the hallway, unable to see very much. She slowly backpedalled into the room, her hoof steps silencing as she moved onto carpet, she remained prepared for any threats as she began to search the room. It was a normal room, four meters across and four meters long.

There was a messy bed, a few dusty dressers, a small hoof-locker, most of an uneaten corpse, and the trail of blood leading straight to it. She began her search with the hoof-locker, using her sharp blade to break the simple lock on it and quickly opening it up, finding little more than a revolver, a cowboy's hat, and a stack of ancient comic books that she could not read in the Dark.

The machine took the revolver up, looking it over, in the bleak Darkness Seventy-Nine could not tell if it was a real weapon or not, the handle was made of wood and the rest made of something that made a ‘clink’ when she tapped her hoof against it, so Seventy-Nine took it, carefully placing it inside of the saddlebag she wore on her right side, giving her only one item of interest... She took the little hat as well, giving her two items of interest.

She searched the dressers next, finding warm clothing that she eagerly took, folding each one carefully and meticulously before she put them into the saddle bag; she looked at the corpse but decided it was better to leave it be, it would most likely not have anything of interest.

Seventy-Nine left the room, stepping over the decayed, uneaten corpse and only stopping to glare at the skull for a very brief moment. Feeling triumphant over the Things That Go Bump In The Night, the machine decided to forge ahead, even in the Darkness, and with careful, slow steps, she went to her left.

She hoped to find another door of interest, but also dreaded the idea, every ‘click-clack’ of her metallic hooves against the tile floor only served to make her feel more and more paranoid, but she couldn’t go back now! She had to prove to the organic that he was safe here, so she had to obtain food.

The Things That Go Bump In The Night would not be stopping her anytime soon, with slightly less cautious steps, she continued down the endless hall, moving faster, and when she reached the end of the straight hall she felt glad for it; it however forked apart, a path to her right and a path to her left.

The machine glanced around for any indication for food and belatedly noticed the small signs on the wall ahead of her, so she approached. Sadly whatever it said was indefinable as she was unable to understand it. It was either the Darkness or it truly wasn’t a language she understood.

There were however two tiny drawings on the signs, the left sign showed a trio of z’s, a z-z-z arching upwards, and the other seemed to be some type of plant-life, perhaps leaves? Ponies ate plant-life, many leaves in fact, the machine realized, and with a firm nod to herself she set off to the right, marching intently.

The rooms were beginning to get larger, or so Seventy-Nine assumed, as the spacing between each door was slowly increasing, until she came to the end of the hallway, another pneumatic door impeded her progress, but she did not allow that to stop her! With a harder-than-necessary tap of the doors’ button, it hissed open, revealing to Seventy-Nine an incredibly large room filled with light, nearly blinding her for a moment until her optics adjusted, but she was joyous to find what she did.

A very large, underground vivarium, with lights! There were many planters with growing plants; fruits and vegetables, Seventy-Nine carefully stepped into the room and tapped the button to shut the door, extremely glad to be out of the Darkness. She quickly moved to the nearest planter, looking over what was growing there.

She, of course, had absolutely no idea what it was, if it tasted good, or if it was even edible... Seventy-Nine realized too late that she had no idea what any of these plants were; but she would not give up now that she stood literally next her objective, something here had to be edible, at the least.

The machine almost used her blade to cut a fruit from its vine when she realized her blade was not clean, and so she carefully used her metal hooves to pull it off, it was a very bright red and looked very, very squishy, so she was even more careful to set it away in her saddlebag. She moved around to the next planter, pulling a plant from the dirt to find a long, brightly colored orange thing that the dirt clung to, this looked much less squishy so it, and more of its kind, was put away with less care.

She found many fruits of many colors, plenty of leafy greens, but fewer vegetables beyond the orange things and bulbous browns. The machine truly found herself happy to be categorizing and storing every kind of plant-life away safely in her saddlebag, until she found that she truly could not put much else away, as it would no longer fit.

Seventy-Nine quickly turned to leave, opening and closing the door with button taps as she went, and though she dreaded having to walk in the Darkness once again, she was still feeling elated after all, she had found food for the pony she had rescued, who was hopefully still alive by the fire, and soon they would be speaking of the world outside; information was very important after all!

The machine turned the corner, paying little attention to the other path she did not take as she continued walking, ignoring the corpse and its’ detached skull as she passed it, she did curiously wonder about the dais however when she arrived at it, giving her a moment of pause. Had a smart, tall, and handsome pony once give an amazing speech there? She could only wonder as she stepped into the elevator and pressed the ‘Armory’ button.

There was another ‘ding!’ again when she reached the armory and the doors hissed open once more; she was happy to find the stallion laying peacefully on the floor; at least, after she noticed his chest still rising and falling as he softly snored. With careful steps close to him, she unloaded her saddlebag, setting the food down in one spot, putting the clothing right next to him, where the rest of what he’d worn sat, she put the little hat on his head to amuse herself, and then she finally checked the revolver.

She was saddened to find it was not real, but she was also very amused that she had confused it for a real weapon; so she let the amusement she felt carry her to set it away safely next to a pair of obviously real, metal pistols.

She returned to the stallion and tapped his muzzle to waken him, carefully placing herself behind the food she’d obtained for him and sitting down when he finally looked up at her, sniffing the air; he shifted up a little and glanced up, blinking as confusion settled on his face, staring at the small cowboy hat before he took it off.

He then looked to her and she pointed down at the food, and he shrugged, smiling as he wiggled closer; setting the little hat down at his side while he took an orange thing and bit into it, Seventy-Nine laid down as she watched him feed himself, without much better things to do, she asked him, “Do you enjoy that crunchy, orange thing?”

“Tastes like dirt... And what, you don’t know what this is called?” He gave her a confused, but also amused look, or she at least thought that’s what that look was.

“No, I do not.” She shook her head simply. “I am glad it is edible.” She nodded her head at him slowly, looking over the rest of the food slowly.

“It’s a carrot-” His eyes narrowed as he stopped, glaring at her. “Wait... You don’t even know what I could eat?”

“Why would I?” She asked, feeling slightly embarrassed as he glared up at her. “I’m not an organic, I don’t have a need to consume plant-life to continue my existence, as you do, my reactor powers me.”

“Well, since you rushed off to feed me, I thought you at least knew what a pony could eat!” He crossed his hooves in front of his chest; his eyes narrowing further into a glare.

“Again, why would I know? I am a war machine, not a tractor.” She stomped a hoof, leaning towards him as she stood up on all four hooves. “I was assaulted, by a creature, bringing you these items, you should be grateful, organic!”

His expression softened and even turned to fear as she stood taller than him, he looked away from her, speaking softly now. “Oh. Well, I am grateful; thank you for saving my life and for getting me food...”

Seventy-Nine watched him carefully, slowly sitting back down. “Perhaps you should just eat and I will continue sorting through the Armory. I simply cannot have firearms and ammunition laying around, some loaded while some are not, it is truly chaos in here...!”

She quickly got to work while the stallion ate his literally dirty food, Seventy-Nine hoped it wasn’t too bad for him, but she also could not bear to look at him at this moment, feeling ashamed of how she’d acted. He was the only friendly and active face she’d seen since she’d woken up, there was no reason to be so rude to him.

It was a short while until he finished what he wanted to eat and she’s finished cleaning up the armory, safely ‘locking’ away all of the ammunition as well as the weapons, there were all kinds of guns and explosives here. Seventy-Nine wondered just what the need of them were until she recalled her short time with the creature she’d encountered.

Seventy-Nine heard the stallion grunt and thump onto the floor, she turned to face him, watching him struggle to stand up, but he failed again; hissing in pain as he cradled his body with his hooves, she moved close, looking down at him.

He looked to her and spoke loudly, clearly, and with strong urgency. “I need to leave, okay? There’s a lot of things I need to do back home. Why don’t you help me get dressed...?”

She looked him over slowly, he didn’t look at all ready to be going anywhere, but she nodded, bringing his now-dry clothing over close to him, as well as the mare clothing she had found, helping him into it before she sat down in front of him, letting him get dressed without her clumsy hooves getting in the way.

Seventy-Nine watched carefully as the stallion began to stand up as well, his winter clothing weighing him down but making him much warmer, he grunted in pain and drew her out of her musing, but he stood up fully on his own; she relaxed out of her combat ready stance and sat down, bringing her hooves together lightly. A metallic ‘ting-ting-ting’ filling the air as she clapped.

He laughed and shook his head at her, wobbling a little before he stood a little taller, his head held high when he looked at her. “You’re the strangest robot I’ve ever met in my life, Seven-Nine.”

“Is that a compliment, or is it an insult?” The machine asked, standing and moving to his side, taking a gently hold of his jacket and pulling him closer, letting him lean against her side; her face close to his. He even blushed slightly, which was odd. Perhaps just feeling dizzy from standing?

“Well, I don’t think I know you that well, to decide if it's good or bad; you’re really smart but really dumb.” He pressed his weight on her, lifting his hoof and putting it around her, pressing further. “Come on, I need to leave. I need to get back to Spit.”

“Spit?” Seventy-Nine was curious, though she did still help him towards the elevator she didn’t feel she could argue with his decision to leave, as it was not her place. “You need to leave so you can spit? No, you refer to that as a location?”

“Yeah, it’s my town... We call it Spit, because, it’s just a little spitball of a town in the middle of nowhere.” He chuckled a little, but then hissed in pain from one of his steps as they entered the elevator and turned around, he leaned on her a little more and she adjusted for this before she tapped the button for the lobby, the doors slowly closing.

Seventy-Nine looked at him carefully, reaching up and pushing his goggles down over his eyes, making him laugh a little more, a smile on his face as the doors opened up again. He pulled his little bandana over his mouth and tried taking more of his own weight on his own, stepping with her out into the little hallway, and then into the lobby proper.

He helped her cross the metal detectors, she was scared they’d make noise and alert the organics she was leaving but he convinced her that they didn’t mind, and then she helped him open the door, having to push against the strong wind, that’s when she noticed the sound of wind blowing, the snow flying past in swirls of white flakes, she stepped ahead of him a little, eager to see the outside.

She noted the low temperature and carefully adjusted her systems, sealing herself with a few hisses and increasing her internal temperature, all the while she looked out across the cold, snowy, empty land, watching smaller drifts of snow get picked up by the cold and float away, just to clump together in the air and soon land together in a different area. It was absolute chaos to Seventy-Nine, but it was also beautiful.

“Holy shit, it’s cold!” The stallion yelled out, “Oh, Celestia, do I hate snow, fuck, fuck the snow; fuck it with Celestia's holy sun!” He moved forwards at the most breakneck pace he could achieve and she quickly helped him, taking most of his weight; at least, until she sank into the snow when the porch of the lobby disappeared under her hooves, leaving her to instantly crash down into head-high snow.

Seventy-Nine wouldn’t describe her own movements as ‘flailing in absolute terror, thinking that the snow was invading her body as part of a Zebra conspiracy and attempting hostile takeover’ but the stallion certainly would. He stood on the top most part of the snow, being a much lighter weight than the metal machine, he watched her attack the snow with her limbs ruthlessly for a short time, unsure what to do to help her.

The machine stopped all of her movement when she came to the conclusion she was not being assaulted and conquered by tiny aliens, thus she looked up at the stallion, shoving a hoof up through the snow at him. He took her hoof with both of his forelegs and began to pull her up; until he realized he was then only sinking further into the snow, he couldn't pull her up like this...

He let go, almost falling over onto his haunches, his breath billowing in the wind as he glared down at her, he glanced out over the frozen wastes and then looked back at her, he pointed at the lobby, and she turned and looked. She began to walk through the snow, the stallion staying up above her, then she scrambled to climb back up onto the porch of the lobby; he grabbed her by the head with his hooves and tried to pull her up, but she batted him away when she detected he was pulling her cranium off from her neck, she fell back down into the snow and he fell onto his rump.

Seventy-Nine got back onto her hooves and leapt at the snowy porch, most of the snow had been moved during the last attempt and this time she had a better grip, she pulled herself up onto solid ground, looking down at him; he was panting hard, his breath rapidly flowing away in the breeze.

He reached up and grabbed her, pulling her towards the lobby doors again and taking her inside, firmly slamming the door shut behind himself before he fell to his knees, his chest rising and falling quickly, he was practically heaving for breath as he looked up at her. She looked at the doors and then to him; she felt to her own knees next to him, regretting even thinking snow was beautiful, Seventy-Nine, in fact, loved how he put it and repeated his words in monotone. “Fuck the snow. Fuck it. With the sun.”