So Far From Home

[Reptiles]

It was bad enough, the capture. Wrenched from trees, from under rocks, from the depths of ponds and lakes; with few exceptions, they all came from the wild. Traumatized, terrified, and sometimes even wounded, they were snatched from their homes with the suddeness of a July thunderstorm, one minute happy in their native habitat, the next shoved in some bag or crate. All one could do was writhe or claw against his or her confines, give a rattling hiss or detatch a tail. None of the natural defenses worked, and all of the captives were unable to free themselves.
It went downhill, from there. Some spent weeks hidden in crates in sweltering mud-huts in the Amazon. Some were smuggled in jackets with the lining removed. Others suffocated in suitcases, or starved in boxes that never reached their destination. Regardless of how long or brief the time they spent captive, no matter where they came from, they all had the same destination: a massive freight ship headed for Florida.
For a very handsome fee, the captain had been paid to look the other way while crate after crate of illegal reptiles were loaded into the cargo area. A well-known annual national reptile expo was being held in the state in mere weeks, and the potential for selling the rare, exotic animals, many of whom were endangered or illegal to own, was massive. Last year was lucrative enough that the organization of herp enthusaists putting on the event had more than enough money to arrange the purchase of the exquisitie wild-caught specimins promised for this year's "bigger and better" event.
There were a few things they hadn't counted on. One was that, amongst the crew, were under-cover agents for the department of environmental conservation. Florida's mounting problems with introduced wildlife had increased port scrutiny over the past several years. What's more, with knowledge that last year's Reptile Expo had involved the sale of reptiles from illegal sources, the Florida government was determined to make sure the same did not happen this year. So, they bribed the captain with something much more handsome than the transhipper could have, set their agents on the crew, and simply waited for the animals to start flowing in.
It was a bigger bust than they could have dreamed of, and, in retrospect, been prepared for. All in all, over 700 illegally aquired reptile specimins were gathered. In addition to that, several hundred snake, lizzard, and turtle eggs were also confiscated. Every confiscation area used to quarenteen illegal wildlife, every station where the animals were held as evidence until the courts made their decision and their fates were decided, was innundated. Strapped for funding due to the massive amount of care the animals required, some were sent out to zoos and private collectors. But the most significant problem was the decreased security.
Yes, it was cheaper to flick on a camera to film the actions at such facilities than to hire actual security. And so, it was not entirely surprising that breaches would be made. Some of the animals were stolen by the very people who had them shipped to begin with. Others were taken by employees themselves to be sold at market. But the most memorable, mass-scale act of theft and vandalism was by an animal liberation group who, knowing that many of the animals would probably spend months in captivity just to be auctioned off once they were done for use as evidence due to the challenges of sending them home, elected to take extreme action...

<T'kar paced along the long, narrow glass walls of his confines. Lacking proper enclosures by the time all of the reptiles were sorted through, the DEC had resorted to keeping some of the captives in simple aquariums, empty-bottomed for ease of cleaning. The tortoise thunked along noisily, thick legs crammed against the scratched glass walls. Periodically, he paused and craned his neck, looking to see if there would be any change in pace - a feeding, a new arrival, anything. He needed something to occupy his mind before he went mad.>
<Down the way, there was a nearly constant screech of nails against glass. A massive lace monitor, her nose rubbed raw from the wire cage she was previously kept on, sides thin and scales dull from poor nutrition, obsessively attempted to climb the glass. She should shimmy up until her haunches could no longer bear her weight, then slide back down to the bottom, Lyssile was beyond logic. Distressed by captivity, hungry for live food, and bored more than she thought was possible, the intelligent, dominant lizzard felt the madness of confinement intensely.>
<Matsi, of the entire bunch, was the least bothered by captivity. For one, she had been there longer, and had a fairly nice little habitat in with some other constrictors. Secondly, she was from completely captively bred lines, being held for another reason - she'd been discovered during a drug bust in an apartment, and because it was illegal to own snakes over 4 feet in the particular town this occured in, she was sent off to be held as evidence until further notice. She'd been there for months now, and saw no particular urgency to find an escape. Of course, wether she wanted to leave or not, she was going to soon enough...>

[Inara and Ladon]

>It did not take long for her fear to turn to anger, and her anger to loathing. Torn from the familiar confines of her home, ripped from the branches of a tree that would have protected her against the most determined adult dragon but could do nothing against a human, denied the most basic strategies of defense, Inara had turned to thought as her only escape. Physically, she was confined in first a burlap sack, then a crate, and now a too-small cage, but her mind was free to romp across ever more creative landscapes of hatred. Daily she came up with new threats, new things that these humans would suffer if ever they came too close, were too unwary.
>They never were, of course. However much she disliked them, she had to give it to the primates: they knew how to confine a creature such as herself past hope of escape or vengeance. However much she dashed her weight against her cage walls, clawed at them with the sickles of her claws, tore into them with her poisonous, malodorous fangs... nothing. Freedom remained beyond her reach. While her tail had scored several a satisfying blow upon scaleless human hides, they took this disconcertingly in stride, and they were never fool enough to allow her any real opportunity to harm them.
>If she didn’t dislike them so much, she might even respect them.
>So she sat, and she brooded, and she would have blamed her inability to escape or injure on her body -- unusually small for a dragon her age, and wirier than her kind was wont to be -- if not for the fact that she was not the only one who had endured this trip. There had been three of them back when the burlap sacks had been in play; the third, a sickly female, had died during the cold and pitching of the crate-stage. Now, kept in a cage not far from her own, the second dragon, a hefty but small male who swore he was from the same season as herself, proved that her body was not at fault. Even after the stress of their capture, he was muscles from the end of his snout to the tip of his tail.
>Inara did not particularly like Ladon, and would not have associated with him if not for the current situation; he was bold and loud, and always eager to tell her why she was being a fool. When she had torn out teeth and one claw and rubbed scales from her body in frantic attempts to escape, he had sat calm and quiet, eye ridges raised. His getaway attempts came in the form of violent writhing and attack whenever the humans had to handle him; he often gloated that this method was far better than hers. Lately, Inara had taken to pointing out to him exactly how far away from his cage he was: which was exactly no distance at all, same as her. In short, their relationship had taken a turn towards the worst.
>Not that there was much better to do than pace and snipe at each other.
>“Shut up for a minute.”
>Ladon’s mouth gaped and closed; his expression was bemused, as if he was confused by the command. Snipe they might, but Inara tended towards sarcasm, and rarely out-right rudeness.
>Inara listened, and her heavy pale tongue slid in and out of her mouth.
>“Something,” she told him. “Is going on.”
>He looked annoyed, but also puzzled and worried. “What?”
>Inara’s tongue flicked out again: there, the scent that should not have come until the daylight. Human. She said as much, and watched as Ladon hunched in the middle of his cage and tasted the air, eyes half-closed. He glanced at her, without a sneer on his lips; he agreed, then. Sensed it, too. His face was wary, puzzled.
>“A surprise is never good from a human.”
>He nodded his agreement. Inara paced and Ladon hunched; they both waited in agitation to see what new event awaited them.