The Cruelest Show On Earth

[Axenus and Albula]

<The crowd's roar was always louder than his own. Thunderous applause, bright flashing lights from the cameras, all punctuated by the crack of the whip. The trainer pranced around the ring, directing the big cats through hoops of fire, showing off their massive height by drawing them to their hind legs with a whip and a bit of meat, or seating them on stools like civilized creatures. Presently, he had his head placed between precariously inbetween Axenus's massive jaws. The illusion of danger brought gasps from the audience, but the liger knew it was his life that would be in trouble should he succumb to the excitement.
He could hear the man's blood thundering through his throat, smell his sweat. It would have been glorious to have life meat for once. But he'd seen before what happened to those who lashed out against the trainer; it was beatings, shocks, confinement, and if the offense was serious enough, the thundering clap of a rifle. No, he'd sooner accept his USDA condemned meat than risk his life just to taste fresh blood. He kept his jaws fixed in place, trained perfectly by years of beatings, punishment, and domination.
The man's head was gone as soon as it came. The crowd heaved relieved sighs and the trainer took a flamboyant bow. Then, with familiar waves of his arms and cracks of his whip, the lions, tigers, and ligers filling the ring fell into a line, rearing up onto thier haunches in a magnificent formation. The lion-tamer bragged of his skill, spoke lies about the cheerful and willing participation of his subjects. The big-cats held pose, statuesque and perfect, fearful of the whip that snaked across the ground mere feet away. Then, the drum-roll sounded and the lights switched to the next ring, where the acrobats were preparing for death-defying feats high above.
Show over. Enslaved, subjugated, exhausted, and listless, the felines moved in a silent, grim procession through the festive exitway of the ring. In the back, cooling fans hummed, blowing the shit and piss reek of the small cages filling the cramped, dark area. Further back, half a dozen asian elephants were chained, heads bobbing nuerotically and as they shifted their weight on the hard earth. The air smelled a bit like cigarettes; the last act was taking a break.
One by one, the cats were filed into the cages. Prods and whacks with the hook hastened their progress. Here and there, a lion or tiger might turn its head and hiss and frustration. A violent electric shock or strike across the muzzle quelles the rebellion quickly.
Axenus had no interest in it like the others. Some sought every opprotunity possible to lash out at the trainers, to somehow break the rules or make the job harder. It was never a victory, and only resulted in beatings and yelling. So far as the liger was concerned, it was a wholly foolish action, one that proved nothing. He'd sooner cooperate. Besides, the male somewhat enjoyed the thrill of the game, the gasps of the crowd, and the knowledge that he was, in the end, the one in control. A trainer could beat him, shoot him, sure; but he would have to be the one to strike and kill first.
As he entered the narrow cage, so low-roofed that his head thumped against its ceiling if he sat upright, he sighed. He knew that the female next door would want to talk, as always, when all he wanted to do was curl up on the hard, metal floor and catch some rest. Laying down abruptly, he curled into a massive ball, tail wound around his muscular body. He closed his eyes, hoping the black and white female would get the message.>
"Wow, so that was some show, huh?"
<She didn't, as always. Axenus supposed he couldn't blame her; it was obvious from her horribly malformed face that the poor thing was inbred, and short a few screws to boot. Opening one eye lazily, the hybrid gave a short reply, hoping to cut off any extended conversation>
"Yup. Hoping to catch some rest, honestly; I was the main act. Kindof tired."
<He closed his eyes again, then felt the female's hot breath blow across his nose from the adjacent cage. It stank; her teeth were a mess, crooked and rotted, and always caught food in them>
"So do you think maybe next time I might get to go out? Because its really kindof cramped in here. Not that I'm complaining, I mean I get to sleep a lot. But I'd really like to get out and get some exersize you know? I wonder if they'd let me be in the show? I don't know why they never use me.."
<Albula babbled on in an endless stream of slow, simple speech. She was highly gregarious, unusually so for a tiger. It probably had something to do with physical and mental troubles; horrifically inbred, the fae was physically deformed and mentally stunted. Luckily, Axenus was more lion-natured than tiger, and thus was far more social. The female to Albula's other side only ever responded to her with hisses and strikes at the bars.>

[Monteroth]

He hated it. He despised every last bit of it... The roaring crowd, the whip, the overwhelming amount of noise, humans, and light. He couldn't stand the "tricks" he was made to do. Standing around like a human, going up on his hind legs like a dog, jumping through flaming hoops like it was nothing more than average routine for a wild tiger... It made him feel like he was going to jump out of his skin, causing him to tremble, trying to look tough but only managing a strange mix of powerful and terrified.

The only blessing he got today was that he wasn't the main act. He was only one of the many tigers in a line, there only for casual entertainment, but not having to make a scene. That was fine with him; Monteroth couldn't stand being the center of attention. The constant reminder of what would happen if he did something wrong held in his head like a neverending nightmare. He knew what would happen, having seen it happen to other felines. You did not mess up, ever. Your life depended on being flawless, perfect to every degree. Yet Monteroth never seemed to be perfect enough...

At the crack of a whip he fell into his position in the line, reluctantly rearing on his hind legs and trying to look pretty and beautiful. He only trembled, ears flattening against his head, eyes flickering around. He couldn't help it; he just couldn't keep calm during any of it. He had been trying for a long time, but in all the years he had been part of the show, he just couldn't look the part of a fearless beast. He was too terrified of everything, anything... He would just wait for it to be over, but that hardly brought anything better.

Lights off. Time to go back. Monteroth walked nervously back, staring at the ground, his trembling ceasing as he knew no one was staring at him anymore. Once the hooks came toward him to get him into his cage, he shrunk back, hissing fearfully. That didn't improve the situation very much, and once he was finally in the "safety" of his too-small cage, he had a few new bruises. Shaking his head, he laid down sadly on the floor, ears flat, glancing around all over the place.

Beside him, a liger and tiger began to converse. Okay, so the liger really was trying to cut off all talking, something that seemed quite obvious to Monteroth. The female never really got the hint, however. The white tiger listened for a while, then clenched his eyes shut and laid miserably in his cage, trying to pretend nothing existed.

[Akkadian Mneme and Bharat]

~:Akkadian moved with languid grace through his performance, a calm smile adorning his face. It was that smile that set him apart from the other felines, made it obvious that he wasn’t quite right. A tiny, fragmented bit of him- probably the only part that could truthfully be labeled ‘Akkadian’- resented having to act out the various commands of the trainer, but that bit was so deeply hidden and so extensively fractured that it didn’t show at all in the African lion’s actions or expression. Indeed, one would think that the male had just sat down to eat a nice, plump zebra, if one was just judging by the expression of blithe calm upon his face.
:As the last act finished, and the lions filed to their cages, Akkadian settled with a slight ‘Umph’ into his, eyes instinctively flicking to the Siberian at his side. He had been housed next to Monteroth so long, however, and his personality was such that the foreignness of the tiger didn’t register. Instead, a small smile of greeting alighted upon the lion’s lips as he laid his mighty head down to rest. The soothing babble of Albula’s voice nearly chased him into sleep- it was just then, however, that Mneme filed into the cage next to the white tiger. Akkadian listened as the lioness snarled at the white tiger, obviously hating the sound of the female’s voice, before she started her endless pacing, panted half-words (“Oh, why, freedom, couldn’t I just, freedom...” and so on) echoing throughout the enclosure.
:Akkadian rolled over, eyes squeezing shut as the deep fragment rebelled, yelling at him, screeching that he should take note of what the humans had done to his pridemate, to care. Magnificent, sad eyes opened to the world as the lion focused most keenly upon the feeling of bars across his back (he knew that the tiger in the next cage over, Bharat, would not bother to attack him) and centered his gaze upon the sight upon the hypnotic stripes of Monteroth, This happened, sometimes, the once-him trying to get the now-him to take action. If it were the other way around- the calm now-him trying to get the fiery old-him to spring into action- the confrontation would end in action. As it was, with the soul-dead lion being the listener, nothing would happen.
Come on, Ak- surely you care? Kill those trainers, next they come! How disgraceful, disgusting, despicable for you to perform for the merciless crowds. They all hate you for it, you know. All of them. The lions, the tigers, the men, the dogs- the lowliest disparage your name. Have you forgotten yourself? Well, of course- otherwise I wouldn’t be a voice talking in a mad-cat’s head.
:Oh, how Akkadian hated that voice, the soul to it, the begging, the youth that permeated every syllable. It made him hate himself, and that simply wasn’t right- it didn’t fit his new character, no, hatred wasn’t part of him, now, it was too fiery of an emotion, to... emotive. The voice didn’t make being sane any easier, made him aware that captivity had killed him, and then left behind a swiftly cracking image of himself, just to haunt him.
:Aggression building, stress mounting as the voice cajoled on, the lion closed his haunting eyes, pain distorting his once-proud face.:
:Bharat regarded his neighbor with great distress, crouched down and open face showing a great amount of worry. It was always so disorienting for him, when the normally kind, conversation-ready Akkadian became so twitchy, quite, as if he were having a seizure. The Siberian nudged the lion through the bars, chuffing in an attempt to pull the other male out of his daze. It worked sometimes, but not now- no, the lion didn’t react at all. Drooping, Bharat retreated to the opposite side of his cage (not that that was particularly far away) not wishing to be too near the discomfiting presence of the lion. Surprisingly social or not, Bharat was still a tiger.
:Further down the cell block, next to Albula’s cage, Mneme continues to pace, eyes wild in remembrance of times past, when for thirty glorious seconds she ran free. When the tiger’s voice shocked her from her thoughts, she snarled and swatted at the bars between them before continuing on her tiny circular path.:~

[Albula and Axenus]

[td][/td]<Axenus's eyelids fluttered over those feral, untamed orbs. He was exhausted, perhaps not so much from the day's act itself, but from stress and excitement of it all. The act was never all that physicall exhausing, really; he was actually a tad overweight from never getting suitable exersize and eating fatty beef-cuts as a dietary staple. Still, it taxed him to be out there, focused, concetrating. Obeying the trainer, evading the whip, balancing in unnatural positions. No matter what type of tired, the liger wanted to sleep.
Every time he started to dose off, however, the female next door would errupt into another random string of thoughts, some of which didn't really even warrant being said. Axenus didn't really have the heart to tell her to shut up; she was such a simple creature, ugly and dull by birth, seldom used in the act. Her life centered around a few dangerous stunts they wouldn't "waste" a higher quality tiger on, and long stays in the cage inbetween. She was probably one of the most bored and lonely animals in the entire group, so the male was good-natured about accepting her endless babble.
Others, of course, were not. The tigress next to Albula, not having an ounce of social lion blood as Axenus did, was pacing frenetically, clearly in a poor mood. Her mood was evidently not improved by the mindless chatter flowing from Albula's ugly, crooked-toother mouth, and struck at the bars, hissing, before continuing along. The white tigress jumped at the sound, tail fluffing out massively and pupils dialated with surprise, but it did very little to shut her up. Instead, offering a soft and half hearted hiss, she pressed herself against the wall of Axenus's cage>
"I guess somebody had a crummy day."
<She said quietly to the male. Axenus heaved a sigh. A crummy day? Every day was a crummy day, at least to anyone who didn't partially enjoy the show. He himself somewhat derived pleasure from drawing gasps from the audience, from being one of the main attractions. However for most, the ring was just an endless cycle of humiliation and abuse, ending with confinement and boredom. It was the latter he despised more; there were always new smells and new sights when you were in the ring. A new crowd every time, a new routine, a new task. Caged, it was always the same dingy cell, the same piss-soaked hay, the same dreadful sounds of the elephants weeping and the big cats pacing.>

[Monteroth]

It was hard to pretend nothing existed when you were always painfully aware of it. It was difficult to feign you didn't care when you so obviously did. It was hard to detach yourself from life when you were still quite sane.

Body stiff, and too still to possibly be asleep or calm, Monteroth's ears flicked toward Akkadian when he heard the other enter his cage. Ah yes, Akkadian, one of the many creatures in the circus that Monteroth just didn't understand. The lion was always so happy, so incredibly thrilled to be part of the show. It wasn't the dominant thrill that Monteroth's liger neighbor had, the feeling that he was in control in his own pretty little mind.

No, Akkadian was just simply crazy. He always acted like what he was doing was perfectly natural, and that he was completely thrilled to be doing the humans' every will. It was a disturbing thing to see, and Monteroth never understood how anyone could be so thrilled. However, today seemed to be... Different. Akkadian was normally a very talkative beast, even though Monteroth never listened to him. Today, though, he was being quite silent. How incredibly strange and... Worrying.

Giving up his "I'm not here" act, Monteroth opened his eyes and looked toward his lion neighbor. He was immediately disconcerted to see the other simply staring at him, eyes sadly seeming to focus on his stripes. Then, face full of pain, the lion simply closed his eyes and laid very, very still. The lion's other tiger neighbor's attempts at getting him to rise didn't do very much either. Growling softly, the male shuffled closer to the liger beside him, trying to get away. Maybe Akkadian had gone completely insane and become dangerous suddenly.

Now what he hoped to be a good distance away, Monteroth came to the realization that maybe he was now too close to the liger. Frowning, the tiger slowly looked toward his other companion, Abula's babbling coming to his ears but not being registered. He was just making sure the liger wouldn't be attacking him for some reason, and ultimately make the tiger unsafe on either side. If Axenus didn't do a thing, then Monteroth planned to settle down and give his attempts at vanishing another shot.

[Bears N Cats]

:Chitwan lay in his cage, teeth yanking at his dull black fur and scraping at his already lacerated flesh. He had been forced to stop when the handlers brought in the big cats, not wanting to feel the bite of one of their various weapons- no way to retaliate, through the bars. Sometimes, the sloth bear entertained notions of attacking the trainers, when they opened his cage door for their various reasons, going for the throat and taking at least one down before they managed to kill or restrain him, in turn. The bear wasn’t yet suicidal, however- no, just intelligent enough to feel the shame of parading before the crowds, intelligent enough to figure out that an obvious injury made going out impossible. With the humans gone, his teeth went back to work: scrape, scrape, scrape. Despite all the times he had broken the skin, it still hurt. Despite all the times that he had noticed this, it still vaguely interested him.
:The report of a metal stick against cage bars jolted the bear into standing, hairless muzzle jerking around as wide black eyes stared at the trainer. Chitwan glared at the man, and the man glared back, before opening the cage next to animal and letting the female sloth bear, Yoganand, into her ‘home’. Chitwan called out a soft, weary greeting. As always, she ignored him- judging by the anger plain on her face, she had ‘done something wrong’, and was going over the moment again and again, trying to figure out how to fix it, next time she committed such an atrocity once more. At least, that wa show the she-bear explained herself to Chitwan, once, when she was not so mad.
“Hey, Yoganand- want to talk about the show? I really don’t mind. I’m sorry I snapped at you that one time. I didn’t mean to. I was just tired. Please? Yogi?” Chitwan stuck his muzzle through the cage bars, eyes hopeful. Still ignored. Yoganand curled up in a compact ball and abruptly fell asleep.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry at all: I’m sure she’ll come around. Some day. We’ve plenty of time to come around, after all. Yes?” the sad, vaguely mournful voice issued from Chitwan’s right, where the greatly fuzzy, light-colored brown bear Leontine had been herded, unresisting, into his cage. Cage doors were locked with final snaps, a particularly cruel man prodded the female brown bear slated for shooting, and the men filed out to do whatever it was men did after the circus closed for the night. The night air, once filled with the excited roar and shout of the crowd, took on the shifting not-silence of neuroticism, bears, big cats, and elephants weary, many too upset or neurotic to fall asleep.
:Chitwan lay back down, so used to it that he barely noticed.
“Anything interesting happening?” The voice was deep but feminine, issuing from the female brown bear, Mahaut, bored out of her mind, stared at her fellow bears. There was a moment of astonished silence- she had spoken so normally, as if she couldn’t see that insanity was going on, cruelty and ignorance and sadism.
“Well. We’re still in a circus. You’re still going to be shot. I’m going to chew off my leg. So... no. Nothing interesting.” Bitter, Chitwan nearly snarled the worlds, drawing a surprised, wide-eyed glance from Leontine. The male brown bear attempted to pacify the female beside him, seeing her face twist into the bear equivalent of a snarl.
“Not that he means none of that is bad, I mean, he was being sarcastic, I mean, he just means it all happens a lot, and he doesn’t mean you dying isn’t uninteresting, I mean, I don’t think you’re going to die, you’re too good at your act for that, I mean, you’re too good of a person for that...” the male trailed off, posture nearly cowering. Mahaut had obviously thought to escape thoughts of the circus by chatting with her companions- now, she simply turned her darkly furred shoulder to the other bears, contemplating the female lion that paced next to her.
“Life’s not as it used to be, is it, old girl?” Rhetorical question. Mahaut suspected that lions and bears could not, for some unknown reason, converse- after all, she had never tried it before. To her surprise, the big cat stopped her pacing, turned her feral orbs to look down upon the other mammal.
“M’dear, it was never what it used to be.” The lioness returned to her pacing, while Mahaut stared on in shock and surprise, having learned something after all this time. Inside her heart, an ache began, and ache that said this- ‘think, all of this time, you could have talked to them, yet you have wasted that with your aggression. You will die, there is nothing you can do about it. Time wasted, time that could have given you a chance to escape’. The female sighed, tucked her body into a quasi-comfortable position, but didn’t close her eyes, deep in contemplation of the world around her, trying to grapple with the thought of her own death.
:The sound of Chitwan’s teeth ripping away at his own flesh began once more.:
:Next to Akkadian’s cage, Bharat watched with interest as the depressed tiger (Monteroth, was his name? The Siberian had never really taken much interest in him) stirred, seemed slightly put-off by the lion’s show of insanity. This confused Bharat, a bit- after all, Akkadian did this once every few months; surely the other tiger was used to it, now? Deciding that this didn’t matter, interest revived over lion’s troubles, Bharat strode the short distance to the other side of his cage, propped one striped paw against the bars.
“You- Monteroth? That your name? Anyway, do you think we can get Akkadian outta this daze? Don’t think its good for him.” Hopeful, friendly, open- with an edge of melancholy, as all things had an edge of melancholy, in the circus. Joy, excitement... insanity and death. How different the lots of beast and person.:

[Axenus and Albula]

<Albula was finally starting to understand that no one had any intentions of speaking with her tonight. Axenus was being unusually distant, and she wondered if he was tired from the show. It was something she could only imagine; she was very seldom used in shows because of her hideous and deformed face, as well as her inability to learn complicated tricks. She was really only used if an act involved having a massive amount of tigers, and even then she was mostly shoved in the back, striking some pose in a far corner with poor lighting instead of being an active participant in the show. This was hugely dissapointing to her; when one's life was as terribly dull as hers, one started looking fowards even to the most menial of activities.
Defeated, the white lioness lowered herself to the cold floor of the cage, placing her large and unwieldy head on her forepaws and staring blankly out of the bars with a dull sigh. Distantly, she could hear the bears conversing quietly amongst themselves, though it was all just white noise to her at that point. She hadn't really taken much interest in any animals other than the elephants, and honestly her only interest in the pacaderms was thier massive size. She'd not yet bothered to listen to them, or attempt to converse for that matter; what was the point? All they ever seemed to drone on about was how depressed, lonely, and bored they were. Albula was down enough without all that talk.
As she rested, she felt her eyelids growing heavy. Groggy more from boredom than any abscence of rest, she began to slowly tune out. She did not hear the lion in the cage next to Axenus slowly shifting closer to his neighbor. She paid no attention to the voices of the felines around her. She did not even hear the roar of the crowd dying in the background as the circus began to close down for the night, the lights dimming as her eyes slowly closed out the world around her. Finally, the tigress fell into a deep and lonesome sleep>
((For some reason, I got stupidly confused as to if the lion or tiger was inching closer to Axenus, so if I screwed this up... sorry))
<Axenus, too, was finally starting to doze off when he heard a shuffling from the cage next to his. Letting out a low huff, he opened one golden eye groggily, his pupil blossoming from a slit to a wide orb in the darkness now that the lights were coming down for the night. Oddly enough, the tiger in the cage next to his had inched precariously close. Though the male tended towards more lion-like behavior, and was thus not too horribly bothered by other felines, he was curious as to what tempted the male to shuffle closer. Raising his head half heartedly, though still not bothering to open both eyes, the liger peered past the tiger's form to a rather peevish looking lion in the next cage down. When he saw who it was, he was surprised that the male was so silent and ill temptered; he was just about the only other cat in the joint who enjoyed the show, though his was a sort of head-in-the-clouds, surreal enjoyment. His interest peaked, Axenus was about to adress Monteroth when another feline spoke out, apparently also puzzled and concerned by the lion's behavior. When he finished, the liger piped in>
"Yes, he is acting rather queer, isn't he?"

[Monteroth]

Monteroth had not expected his slight movement to suddenly bring everyone's attention upon him. All right, so not everyone was staring at him, but to such a lone animal, it seemed like every single cat in the entire circus had suddenly tried to talk to him. First he noticed the tiger on the other side of Akkadian's confusion, which only baffled him. Didn't he have a right to be afraid of an insane lion? He had gone from being his typical cheerful self to looking very bad, maybe even dangerous. Monteroth had never really paid attention to him before, so seeing this was a little scary for him. He didn't want to unleash the lion's wrath, so moving away seemed best.

At Bharat's words Monteroth stiffened, fur ruffling. Get him out of the stupor? Monteroth was fairly sure he was moving away from the lion for a reason... To get as far as away from him as possible. He wanted nothing to do with the lion, especially one in such a stupor. He said it wasn't good for Akkadian... Yes, well, it wasn't exactly "good" for Monteroth to approach him, either. Who knew what could happen! If Bharat wanted to try and get the lion out of his state, then fine. Monteroth didn't plan on taking any part in it...

Then the liger spoke and nearly scared Monteroth out of his fur. The male jerked his head toward the other, then forced himself to relax; he was just making a simple comment. That was it. Just a simple, casual comment about how the lion was out of his head. He had no reason to act paranoid. Taking a deep breath, the male glanced toward Bharat.

"I... I don't think there's anything that I can do."

He just didn't bother saying anything else. Being a tiger made him antisocial enough. Adding social inhibition just put the icing on the cake.

[Bharat and Akkadian]

:Bharat nodded his worried agreement to the liger’s words, emotionally invested and unwilling to become uninvested once more. He was glad that someone else was taking an interest- perhaps two heads put together could snap the lion out of his rather depressing state. When Monteroth spoke, Bharat favored the other tiger with a disapproving frown. Sure, Bharat wasn’t completely geared towards social interaction, but you didn’t take that sort of dull tone when talking about someone’s mental health. It wasn’t kosher. Deciding to ignore Monteroth, Bharat locked his eyes on the liger, pupils wide to see clearly in the dreary light.
“Think I should poke ‘im?” Without waiting for Axenus’ opinion of this option, Bharat stuck a paw close to the cage bars separating from him the lion, giant paw magically fitting through sideways with the affront to natural laws of space that only a cat could manage. Claws extended, the tiger shoved his paw forward, giving Akkadian a four-point wake-up call. The lion’s reaction... well, there was none. Other than a slight twitch of his tawny hide, the male didn’t seem to notice- in fact, the twitch was just nerves, anyway, so it was quite likely Akkadian didn’t even notice.
“He must be having a fit- y’know, seizure, without the twitching. Or maybe he’s dying.” Bharat’s mouth pulled down in a frown. He plunked down onto his haunches, staring intently at the bigger cat, interested how the situation was going to pan out. However horrible the situation likely was for the lion, however grave the illness, it was a break from monotony. Not as interesting as when the bear went after the trainer, granted, but still rather fascinating. Perhaps a glimpse into the future? Bharat’s skin shuddered at the outright creepiness of the thought. One would hope not. Catatonic was not a state the Manchurian looked forward to.:

:Did you see that? Did you!? He poked you! With his bloody claws! Drawn and everything! How dare he? Inner Ak was enraged. The current version of Akkadian was rather uninterested, but perused the related nerves, anyway. Yep, he’d been poked, but there was no lasting discomfort, perhaps a few pinpricks of blood, but no long gashes that would have resulted from an attack. The paw was no where near him, anymore. In short, the lion no longer cared. Inner Ak ranted and would have thrown things, had he not been an hallucinatory incorporeal representation of a past self. That, and he didn’t have thumbs, anyways.
:Shut up, I’m trying to sleep. It was not a command. More, a pitiful flapping of hands at an annoying bug. The bug just happened to be inside the flapper’s head. Akkadian could almost feel Inner Ak sneer at him, then slink back to wherever it was it stayed most of the time. Akkadian heaved a great sigh, and then fell asleep, exauhsted by the fury and inner alertness caused by the Inner Ak.:

[Axenus]

<Axenus was not terribly surprised that the tiger had little interest or motivation to stirr the comatose lion. They were not the same species, and behaviorally had little in common; that much he knew from his own conflicted behaviors that had spawned from his hybrid status. Though he was always gung-ho to perform, the interaction with other cats brought mixed feelings; the lion wished to dominate the males and collect the females. The tiger wanted to avoid the whole lot of them.
Still, it seemed as though Monteroth should have at least been concerned if only for the fact that the potentially ill lion was in such close proximity to him. The irregular behavior could have been anything, after all; soon, Axenus's fertile imagination was stirring up images of all nature of foul contageous neurological disease. A frown momentarily sprung up on his massive maw, and he was going to suggest that they perhaps just keep away from the great cat.
Then, Bharat asked his question, and proceeded to jab at the behemoth cat through the bars with his claws. Axenus blinked once, hard. Why did he ask me, he though with great perplexity, if he clearly had no intention of waiting for my opinion? One ear cocked back and the liger's muzzle wrinkled in momentary distaste. However, he was too curious of the lion's reaction to the intrustion for it to last.
The results were un-impressive. The lion barely stirred, flicking his paw ever slightly ((er... I think. I got confused; shouldn't type when I'm sleepy)) but otherwise failing to be roused by the prick of claws against his hide. The liger was almost surprised at his dissapointment; part of him was so bored that he was almost hoping the lion would errupt in a flurry of violence, striking against the bars and maybe even summoning the wrath of the lion tamers. Axenus realized suddenly, though the thought always lingered in the back of his mind, that outside of the shows, his life was pretty much... well... boring and shitty. A slight sigh huffed from between his jowls at the thought.>
"Well, I guess poking isn't going to do much.... maybe he's sick. We should probably stay back."
<Like that would do any good. The sanitation at the circus was so poor that it was a wonder they didn't get ill more often. From hoses spraying shit just about everywhere down the drain, to rancid class-D meat, right down to the fact that the "keepers" didn't even wash their hands between species and animals, a sickness amongst one of them was a sickness to them all. Probably the reason why so many of the elephants had TB.>

[Monteroth]

Ignorance was bliss, or in this case, being ignored was bliss. At the rate things had been going, Monteroth had expected all the cats to continue talking to him, badgering him for his opinion and assistance on this or that. He expected such a hell to come, but was not mentally prepared for it, and thus sat scrunched up in the middle of his cage, ears flat and muscles stiff as he waited for everyone to unlease social disaster upon him.

However, he got lucky. Bharat ignored him, and the liger didn't pay him much more heed. Monteroth couldn't have been more relieved, and as a result couldn't stop the heaving sigh as his muscles relaxed. Seconds later, he realized how loud that had been, and he tensed again, looking around at his companions with a look that begged that he become invisible. They seemed more interested in the crazy lion, though, and he hoped it stayed that way.

Since Akkadian did nothing impressive when poked, Monteroth paid him no attention; he probably didn't even notice what had happened, since he was so busy being self-conscious. His muscles relaxed after he stared at the floor of his cage, concentrating on every little stain and nasty detail on it. His ears came forward ever slightly, and though he was tempted to sigh, he refrained, not wanting to attract attention to himself yet again. Even as he strove to drive all thoughts of others from his mind, his actions were still controlled by the fact that they may, just for a moment, look toward him.

He was calmer now that his cage and not others had gotten his full attention, and he shuddered, as if just coming out of very cold waters -- Indeed, he was, socially anyway. And now that he had surfaced, he felt tired and wanted to rest. Slowly the tiger laid down, forcing himself to keep his gaze downward and away from others, not wanting to break his perfect, almost blissful spell. He closed his eyes, and thought of anything, anything at all, but the animals around him. To him, even death was better than having to face the animals and humans around him, with their expectant gazes and unsaid demands...

[Circus Animals and Men]

The circus rattled to groggy life early the next morning, the smog on the horizon lighting with ribbons of golden and soft grey. Keepers rubbed at their eyes with grimy fingers and coughed around their cigarettes, sending foul smoke into the air. Many of the folks dismembering the tents and less mobile props sipped or gulped at coffee or tea, readying themselves for the rest of the day. As the circus broke itself down, a few of the ‘tougher and more courageous’ (thicker and less intelligent) of the staff approached the issue of loading up the larger, more aggressive animals. Straws were drawn, curses spat, and the people went to work. Their hatred stemmed more from the labor involved than any danger.
:First, the elephants were led aboard their individual trailers. Much bravado ensued, as several of the young men put up a show for a group of gawking local woman, making the elephants appear dangerous and unruly with a switch of a wrist here, an acrobatic dive out of the way when a trunk slithered along the ground towards them. Little actual danger existed from the great mournful beasts, which thrummed with confusion at each yelled word of abuse. The giggling women flocked away on chores, and the loading up began in earnest once more.
:After the elephants were locked into their trailers, the bears were loaded aboard their own transport, their cages none too carefully hefted by several men (in the case of the larger browns) and scraped into the trucks. Heads and limbs were kept carefully out of paw range, no-one wanting to be subjugated to stitches so early. From the elephant’s trailer came harsh, unhappy moans as the heat rose, and the bears snuffled unhappily in their containers, pawing at the plyboard separating them from their fellows.
:Next came the small animals used in the mini magic shows the circus occasionally put on. The ponies and horses, the petting zoo goats, the snake man’s boas, all shuffled aboard. Lastly the big cats. The trucks lay idling as the odds n’ ends were at last gathered together and loaded. Men milled, hacked some more, drank some more, began piling into driver seats and into the backs of beat-up cars, strapped up (when the seatbelts worked) and readied to set off onto the open road.
:Peace and happiness abounded amongst the circus folk: a good take last night, no crazy protestors, no problems with the local authorities. What could possibly go wrong?:

:The men were likely the only ones happy with the move. The normally placid, willing Akkadian turned into a pacing, snarling mess each time his cage was bumped, and he let out a piercing hiss when his cage thumped against the surrounding plyboard, ears flattening in a mixture of distaste and fear- could a claw rip through that veil, pierce his hide, kill him? Perhaps an echo of the situation of last night, this fear was odd, spawned from the depths of his mind. Some antagonistic part of him paying him back for not reacting before. The male hunkered down and squeezed his eyes shut in obvious denial of the situation at hand, although he did no slip into the coma-like state in which he sometimes indulged.:
:Mneme did little better than her male counterpart. Naturally a high-anxiety cat, she squatted in the middle of her cage with obvious signs of distress, eyes wide, ears back, panting. The terror she felt progressed to a physical level, pounding her heart against her ribs like a caged eagle, an eagle whose claws tore into her belly, which clenched and writhed in emotional agony. The lioness closed her eyes and focused on calming her breathing, sensing that stress was her enemy today- the men might prod her, poke her, throw her in a truck surrounded by the other predators, but the panic could kill her.: