Chapter Text
The Boy kept track of time the best he could, counting days by the light streaming through the sewer-grate window. When it rained, his cell was where the downpour gathered, only to slowly leak out through the single drain in the center. Sometimes it took days. He was lucky for the metal platform that was just big enough for him to perch on to keep his feet dry. In the stormy months, he spent all his time huddled there, pressed against the wall like climbing ivy. The ledge was small enough that it took all the strength in his core to stay on; the only thing willing to hold him, and it was on the condition that he do the work. He preferred the floor, but it was uninhabitable a great portion of the year. It made him jealous, sometimes, that the sky never seemed to run out of tears. It could keep going as long as it needed to. Nobody punished the sky for crying. But the rain brought gifts. There must have been a newsstand just outside, or close enough that its literature would find its way to him in soaked scraps. He liked the ones with dates - they were useful - but his favorites were the ones with words and phrases and sentences. He could piece those together into something beautiful and good. Stories where everything is right and children aren’t hurt. Anything to distract from the five years in captivity. That's what he'd counted; five years since they'd etched word after word into his skin. He still remembered which tattoos had gotten infected and where.
The rain hadn't come in two weeks. The Boy couldn't keep rearranging the newspaper scraps; they'd all either withered away or dried to the floor and walls like plaster. He still knew what would be coming soon. He saw them nearly every day, walked past his little isolated cell missing limbs or eyes. Winter meant higher demand. From what he'd been able to overhear, the cold was rough on the joints of old rich herbivores. The chill in the air was growing, and from his estimates, it was early November. He'd been so very lucky these past five years; he had his mane to thank for it, he was sure. Every single time he'd been shown to a potential buyer, the thin bramble about his neck and down his chest gave them pause. He didn't know how he had it, his body shouldn't have been capable of producing it, but it was there and it kept him alive. It reassured him that he was a boy. Was he old enough by then to call himself a young man?
Either way, he could be reassured that he was a proud lion with a proud mane. When they'd cut it short, it only found its way back within two weeks. When they cut it short, he could still startle the herbivores with the dark depth of his voice. He sounded nothing like a lioness and he knew it. Even gagged, he could growl out a sound that rumbled like truck-tires over his window. He heard what they thought of him. That he was a freak. But it was the very thing that made him unappetizing.
He could remember being young, in school. They learned about predatory relationships as young as seven, sanitised through the lense of biology, all the players in the stage de-animalized. Just insects. A child doesn't grasp the full gravity of it- what it meant for a butterfly when it was eaten by a praying mantis. But it was necessary to the lesson that they understand being eaten as the last thing a little bug would want. Because what they wanted children to internalize was that measures could be taken to avoid being eaten. As a carnivore sitting in that class, he never expected the lesson to apply to him.
It was clear, though, that making himself unappetizing would only get him so far. The salesman had started to brand him as a miracle animal, arguing that whatever medicinal properties his flesh held could only be enhanced by the mysterious presence of testosterone in his blood. So far, nobody bought it.
So far, nobody had bought him.
He'd like to keep it that way, and he knew his only chance at survival was escape. If he got out, the repeated fight for his life- or his leg- would come to an end. If he died on the way out, well…
At least then, he'd know freedom had never been in his cards.
He had to try. If he didn't try, he had no right to call himself a proud lion. So he'd been studying the door to his cage: the oily metal was heavy, and the weight of it helped it stay latched. But when he looked at the hinges, he saw the instability of it. The screws seemed to scrape against the concrete wall, eroding it. The last time the door was opened, the Boy had heard the screws rattle in their sockets. Hours ago, he'd dared to near the door, and was able to fit his claw behind one of the metal plates. The whole thing had groaned at his tampering, sending him to the back of the cell, heart climbing into his throat in fear that the heavy metal would clatter to the floor and he'd be killed. Fortunately, in five years, the wardens of his jail never once changed their schedule. This time of year, he knew exactly where the warm patch of sun would fall during the shift change. In the last few months, the Boy had noticed how they were growing careless, leaving the cell-lined hall unattended for minutes at a time when they relieved each other.
He hated that they got to come and go as they pleased. That they gained from being there. That they had the privilege of seeing any other place than this. How could they deserve a home and a warm bed more than he did? What had he ever done?
The Boy hadn’t been particularly useful to his family. Certainly not as useful as what his flesh was worth on the black market. If he’d have known, then, he would never have taken his bed for granted. He’d have savored school the way he savored the clean water he was given on fridays. He’d have made an effort to be worth keeping.
Since he was staring so intently at the uniform lines of sunlight as they drifted across the floor like marching soldiers viewed from a mile above, he could tell the moment the third line passed the deepest crack in the floor. His head jerked up, his round ears perking to hear the clang of the door opening at the end of the hall and slamming shut. He sprang to his feet and approached the door, putting a hand under a crossbar experimentally to test its weight. It shifted with surprisingly little effort, clicking against the lock. Good. He braced the door with one hand to keep it from crashing to the ground when he pried the hinges from the wall. It hurt to pull at it with his claw, but he was willing to lose the whole thing down to the knuckle if he had to. He fumbled as desperation urged him on. What if they choose today to do their jobs well?
The gate, especially the hinges, were slick with grease. The Boy thought grimly that it might have just been the accumulation of fat that hung in the market air. He couldn't imagine the guards going to the effort of greasing the hinges of every cell.
Every cell.
He swallowed. There had never been a time when he knew for sure how many others were held alongside him. How much younger than him were they? Was a cell door easier to open from the outside?
He heard the plate of the first hinge clatter against the bars first, and then the floor, the sound ringing and echoing in his ears. He inhaled sharply and listened, his eyes wide. There was no shuffling or shouting- no rattle of a baton pulled across bars. Though it felt like he had to force past a barrier in his throat, he started breathing again. On to the next hinge. He could go right, once this task was done. The stairwell was close enough. His cell was too small for him to lay down against the wall, forcing him to curl in on himself to sleep instead. The other cells must have been the same size, and there were three between him and the exit. Three and a half. The doors on the other side of the hall were off-set, so that the Boy had never seen another piteous creature long enough to remember their face, let alone build solidarity.
The second hinge came loose, but he caught it before it had a chance to sound the alarm with its sharp ring against the concrete. The iron gate fell heavier in his hands and he grunted softly as he adjusted his feet. He was getting ready to pry the last hinge free when it fell on it's own. The Boy winced at the shrill sound, but it wasn't as awful as the slam of the door's upper corner against the concrete frame. He was suddenly aware that he was shaking. Was that what freedom sounded like? It was nearly impossible for him to accept that this was truly happening. Wasn't it so much more likely that this was just some delirious dream? Wouldn't it be more believable if he was really just curled on the floor, content in imagining his liberation.
Expecting to wake up, the Boy pushed the gate. He nearly fell into the hall when it swung with no resistance, its only point of contact to the building itself being the lock. Because of the layer of grime, it slipped in his hands, swiveling on the lock and hitting the door frame with a thunderous cacophony. He nearly jumped out of his fur, pressing his back to the cold wall of his cell to watch the thing hang and swing idly from the straining lock. "Fuck", he whispered. It was the first time he'd said that word. The first time he'd spoken at all in months. His voice felt like it clawed its way through his throat. He half-expected to cough up blood. He didn’t have time to reflect on the unthinkable absurdity of seeing that impenetrable barrier hanging uselessly.
The Boy raced out in the hall, looking first to the left, where he had never been. His stomach lurched, because while his vision was clear directly in front of him, it seemed almost like a fog had gathered here beneath the ground. The further he peered down the hall- or maybe it was better described as a tunnel- the fog was thicker. His heart sank, finding an uncomfortable resting place in his gut. How could he open all these doors in time?
He looked to the right, where the exit waited for him in clear view of the guard's breakroom. There was a window in the center of the door, and he knew he’d have to do something to avoid being seen.
The boy checked the two cells across from his own first, feeling a strange loneliness set in when he discovered them to be vacant. He hadn’t realized until that moment, that he had been looking past his bars all this time, finding some small comfort in the possibility of company on either side of the gray slate view. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had imagined them, other young carnivores desperately clinging to life. He moved on, but the next cell was empty too. Horror set in, he wondered if he was truly alone, as he passed the fourth hollow box. He started to run, glancing in on ghost after ghost. Ten cells, before he reached the wall at the end of the hall. Ten cells and not a soul in sight. If he still remembered how, he was sure he’d have cried. The boy turned on his heel and ran back the way he came. There were still cells to the right of his own- still a chance that someone else was left alive. Four chances, actually. He didn’t like the odds.
All he could hear was his own heart fluttering like a trapped bird, begging him to just leave. Three more barren cages. The fourth and final one, which terrifyingly shared a wall with the breakroom, housed a shadowy figure, huddled as tightly into the corner as possible.
The Boy almost cried out in relief. And then he almost cried out in shock and grief upon noticing how much of this figure was missing. He was looking at the remains of an animal. The scraps. They weren't breathing.
He had to cover his nose to keep it from filling with the putrid rot. He was in such a hurry barreling up the stairs that he forgot to duck out of sight of the breakroom. He heard the door open to shouting behind him when he was halfway up the flight. He fell to all fours, using his hands and claws to pull himself up. His muscles protested, unused as they were to the exertion, and he stumbled on the last step, his knee slamming into the landing at the top.
The Boy had been up here before. It was the same path he had been taken through to get to the show room once a week. Usually monday. The landing connected to another flight leading up, and he wondered if the horror went all the way up to the roof, or if the top floor was some heaven to the almost clinical purgatory of the ground floor. There was a door that cut off the clean hallway and bright light from the filth that crept up the stairs. Grabbing the doorknob with one of his stained hands gave him the impression that he was the filth. Opening it, he wondered how hard a task that might be with that half of the knob missing. The Boy wasn’t sure of his strength, but he’d been able to hold up the bars, so without much time to consider, he grabbed each handle and put as much of his weight as he could on his left hand. It was overkill. The edge of the door hit him between his eyebrows and he pulled away dazed, holding one doorknob. Part of him wanted to keep it. He made eye contact with the guards the moment he slammed the door shut on them.
He could go in the only direction he knew, into the showroom, where he was routinely stripped and inspected. He thought he had a better chance rolling the dice and picking a new door. It wasn't just that the room made the Boy sick to think about. He could hear the clicking keyboard of the woman who worked there and tended to the customers. The fewer animals he interacted with the better, so he chose the next door over.
He recognized the creature on the table as a wolf by the shape of their skull. They'd taken all other identifying features- stolen their beautiful black fur and strapped it into the tanning rack. Hanging from a rod like coats, proudly displayed in the window, were dozens of other pelts. Most of them were smaller than he was, likely younger than him. The wolf looked so tiny on the metal slab which served as its cruel resting place. Couldn't have been much older than ten.
He rarely got sick anymore, but he still had to cover his mouth to keep from vomiting. With the sounds of his pursuers nearing, it was clear his only path was forward. The furs were soft, but cold against the back of his hand as he pushed them aside to open the window. The grime on him dirtied the pristine coat of a polar bear. He wanted to apologise. No matter how tough the last five years had made him, he still let out a yelp of distress when he slipped through the window and someone's tail found its way wrapped around his ankle. He had to leave the lifeless remains of his peer on the sidewalk.
The last time the Boy had been among a crowd- arguably this crowd, it had been this street, after all- he walked hand in hand with his parents. He was smaller back then, unable to see over the swaying field of heads like he was now. At least, he assumed he was remembering the movement of grass fields correctly. Five years before, the Boy hadn't attracted so much attention. He could feel eyes on him as he ran, that was fair, animals don't usually sprint through the streets- not even these ones. But once, and then more than once, he saw a pair of eyes follow his mane down to his chest and it made him ill. He crossed his arms. Just another teenage lion in dirty clothes tearing ass down the pavement and weaving between pedestrians, nothing to see.
God damn. He really needed glasses. This thought came before he slammed face-and-elbows-first into a solid chest. The impact filled his nose with the scent of danger, so he knew before he looked up. Herbivore fur misted with expensive cologne. This was who was coming to buy him. He still looked up though; it must have been morbid curiosity. This stag's antlers were more gnarled branch than gentle curve, and the Boy couldn't believe how well they reflected what a monster the adult must have been.
He turned to the left and ran, drawing a twisted path through the winding streets. He saw the perfect place, lined in the golden beaconing light of the evening sun. Piles of trash, a fire escape, and a dumpster tucked neatly into a narrow pass between two butcher shops - according to the petty graffiti scrawled on the alley walls, they were rivals. The Boy could feel the tension between them. He couldn't laugh, so he exhaled through his nose instead.
The Girl ran through the tangled crowd, clutching her shoulders like a widow and stumbling like a drunk. Her clothes - a plain button down shirt, simple trousers, a belt - clung to her in grimy tatters as a grotesque funeral shroud, and the blood which seeped from the wounds on her shoulder turned murky and brown as it cut streaks through the dust that caked her sleek, dark fur. She felt stupid, ugly, and wrong.
What kind of herbivore couldn’t die right in the Back Alley Market?
It was what she’d come here to do - to finally take control of the miserable smear which had made up her existence by putting a useful end to it. To finally, for the first time in her life, be truly and genuinely appreciated.
What a miserable melodramatic crock of shit that turned out to be. She could feel their eyes on her as she moved down the alleyway - she was used to being out of place, used to being stared at, leered at, told she didn’t belong. Of all the things the Girl had expected to find in the Market, though, a belonging she did not want had not been one of them. It was, perhaps, the cruelest irony: to go where nobody called out her horns or jeered at the clothes she changed into at the start of each school day (and stowed before going home in the evening) or didn’t spare her a second glance just for using the toilet, she’d had to visit Hell. The Okapi wasn’t sure she liked the feeling that Hell was where she belonged. She quickened her pace and kept to the edges of the sidewalk, away from the butcheries and the chopping blocks which reeked of soy sauce and death - the danger honed her senses to a razor’s edge, and around her the horrible world came alive. She tore a strip of her sleeve that covered where scars blended into stripes and tied it tight around her upper arm, staunching the flow of blood while her palm pressed the tears away from her eyes. She didn’t want to die - she was probably going to, now, but being snatched off the street and half-mauled by a starving raccoon of all things had been proof enough to the Girl for her to know that she did not want to die. The thoughts swam chaotically in her head, sick mosquito larva in a chlorinated pond - she was shocked when she realized that none of them were anxieties about being judged or accepted. She already knew what she was to these animals surrounding her - the drooling, slack-jawed masses and sharp-toothed smiles that peered out from their window stalls and dining tables. She was food. Her ear twitched - she heard them following her, about 10 meters back. The leopards traveled in a thin gaggle, and the scent of the steel they carried cut as easily through the gore saturated air as she imagined the steel itself might cut through, well, her. She spared only a glance over her shoulder, pretending to check the zipper on her bag; she counted four of them, and the satellite dish shape of her ears funneled their words into their brain. Delicious; alluring; alone.
She really was alone.
It had happened for the first time two weeks ago, when her last and only shelter from the rain had shriveled away. For a small number of years, the Girl had worked hard on developing the arts of forgery; prescription notices, tuition bills, and medicine labels were her area of expertise. Her doctor had been grumpy, aloof, and wholly unpleasant to be around, but he had also been her lifeline - as abrasive as he’d been, he had been her connection through money she stole from her parents to the resources that she needed to survive; to the counsel that she needed to be comfortable in her head, and the pills that she needed to be comfortable in her skin. And then, two weeks ago, he’d vanished. At first, she had thought that he’d just forgotten about their appointment - he was a bit of a mess, so it wouldn’t be the first time. But she hadn’t gotten a notification from him in an hour, or two hours, or a day, or two days. A week later, when she stood in front of his office and saw a different doctor’s name etched into the frosted glass, the dwindling weight of her little medicine bottle became a shackle around her neck that dragged her into the deep. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the little plastic bottle.
The last pill had gone this morning.
The Girl gritted her teeth and firmed her stance - if she was going to die alone, then so be it. Her family did not see her - to them, she was merely the ghost of the child they never had. Her friends made no effort to know her - to them, she was just the oddball they tolerated because pitying her got them off at night. Her doctor clearly never cared for her - to him, she’d only been a paycheck that he decided wasn’t worth the trouble. But she knew that if she died, her parents would weep and cry their salty tears on television for all to see, her classmates would brag mournfully about how well they’d known her (even the ones who tore her dresses and painted crude slurs on her locker), and her doctor would give a public address about the troubled youth he’d failed to save.
She wasn’t going to give animals who’d never given her the time of day the fucking satisfaction of turning her into their symbol.
The Girl quickened her pace and ducked into an alley - she knew they were following her, but she didn’t care anymore. She was an Okapi, she was an Herbivore, she was a Girl , no matter what anybody in the entire world had to say on the matter, and every second that she stole from the reaper was one more second she spat in the face of their plasticine gods and false-faced norms. The afternoon sun cast long shadows from the roofs of the butcheries that crowded her like the walls of a cage, and the milk-white steam that billowed from rusted pipes curled upwards into the uncaring sky, putrid streams that flowed from carnal urban cigarettes. She walked through the valley of death, but she was unafraid - misery here would do her no good.
If the Girl was going to die, she was going to die fucking mad.
The Child stared in wild eyed wonder at the thing that hung above him. It was baffling beyond comprehension - some vast, blue blanket stuck over with white lint that had a lightbulb in the middle so bright it stung his eyes. He reached up and stretched his fingers out as though to touch it, but no matter how far he reached, his fingers felt nothing but cold. His head swiveled in amazement - wherever the bars were, he couldn’t see them; only giant blocks scattered around the enormous floor. He couldn’t imagine the sort of kid this cage was built for. The number of voices that crowded around him was immense and terrifying - all of them shouting, crying, and speaking in words.
Words were not safe. Words meant danger.
Something swept past his face, and he crinkled his nose and searched for whoever had blown at him, but nobody was there. His little heart pounded inside his chest with powerful anxiety, and he looked up at the figure that loomed above him. It was proud, powerful, regal, tall, frightening - a great big creature that looked like him, but with skewers on its head and fancier clothes than any grown-up he’d ever seen. He examined the figure carefully - the smooth slopes of his torso, the long arch of his neck, and the terrible prongs of the things on his head that the Child was sure matched whatever the thin crease of the grown-up’s lips hid. The adult glanced down at him, and the Child peered up into its eyes - he felt a rage growing in him. He had seen other children leave the cage with adults of their very own - the only thing that ever came back were bones. The Child growled, and made a decision.
He bit the hell out of the hand that grasped his own and sprinted as far away as he could as fast as his little legs would carry him.
The Girl’s heart pounded in her breast and she pressed herself against the rough brick wall behind her back, tucking her legs back in behind the heavy green dumpster. The alleys of the market were more labyrinthine than she’d anticipated - the even, neatly cultivated grids that dominated the city she was familiar with had always been something she took for granted, but nestled in the gut of the Market, the Girl regretted ever assuming that streets should make sense. The alleyways, crossroads, and thoroughfares of the Back Alley Market mingled and twined like blood vessels in a tumor, curling and twisting around each other in a perverse tangle of urban improvisation. The place wasn’t a city, it was a hive, a beating heart - she couldn’t help but wonder how much longer she’d have one of those.
The leopards had picked up the chase once they’d followed her into the alley - she knew she gave them a good chase, but there was only so long she could keep it up for. So, she’d settled on a gambit - after rounding one corner, the Girl had rapidly rounded another, following the stench of decay moving quickly enough that her pursuers couldn’t have seen her duck behind the corner. Sure enough, the alley she chose sat behind a small butcher shop and the dumpster out back stank of death and flyblown rot - now, she was tucked behind the dumpster, desperately waiting to see if the cats would come back. The Girl pressed herself into the tiny corner formed by desiccated brickwork and rusted metal, squeezing herself as small as she could be - her life depended on whether or not the leopards’ noses would find the smell of her sweat over the shelter she took under the deaths of others.
What a morbid thought.
It was still too bright - the shadow from the dumpster was hardly enough to hide her shoes from sight, and the scent-barrier provided by the garbage would be useless if her pursuers (or any other carnivore looking for a tasty snack) came back for a second pass and just saw her loafers sticking out from behind the bulky green box. She cursed as the sun lazily glided overhead on its path towards the evening horizon - it was just her luck that the angle of the light against the butchery would shrink her protective shadow near to nothing. She stood, pulse thrumming in her neck as her backpack loudly shifted against her torn shirt - hiding in a well lit corner would do her no good, and she was too exhausted from fear, pain, misery and exertion to outrun a predator for the third time in one day. She had to think of something - it wasn’t a pretty solution, but it would work.
The Girl braced her palms beneath the lip of the dumpster’s lid and started pushing. The huge metal box groaned as she forced it open, a cakey mixture of dried blood and overgenerous paint flaking off its hinges as the lid creaked open and a noxious miasma spilled forth from its gaping maw. She shut her eyes against the stink, forcing her stomach back down her throat against its will - she could puke later; now, she needed to survive - and folded her elbows against her sides to get leverage for a final push to open the dumpster enough to crawl inside. Her muscles complained against the weight, and the wound in her shoulder burned, but she gathered her strength in her lungs and pushed, and the dumpster swung open, the light of day pouring into its dark confines and the thing that grabbed her arm.
For a moment, her heart stopped - she waited for the tearing of claws through her flesh, for the tug against her bare bone as the monster pulled her into its lair and devoured her still beating heart. When nothing particularly interesting happened, the Girl opened her eyes - inside the dumpster, awkwardly gripping her forearm, was a Lion. The Lion couldn’t have been much older than she was given his scraggly mane, but his body was already covered in tattoos: crude wavy lines that wrapped around him like a net with words that looked like labels, and draped in threadbare, dirty clothes that hung on his body like a pool of shadows. He was slick with grime, just like she was, and their eyes met, brown staring into gold. The Girl expected to see a lot in the Lion’s eyes - hunger, rage, the jittery nervousness that came before committing taboo - but all she saw was the same fear she was certain that he could see in hers.
She jumped up into the dumpster, and the Lion helped pull her in.
The dumpster’s floor was hard and sticky - if this was how it smelled empty, she couldn’t imagine how it must smell full. Dim light filtered in through the cracks around the edges of the lid, cast in reddish hues by the sticky film of ancient gore that lined their shelter like it was a hideous stomach - it took her eyes a while to adjust to the light, and she was keenly aware of the fact that until they did, the Lion could see her perfectly while she was blind. But her eyes did adjust, and the lion didn’t eat her, and the Girl felt her heartbeat gradually slow in the tense silence.
“Thanks,” she mumbled through her hands, covering her nose as tightly as she could. Her voice came out nasally and awkward, which matched the situation well enough.
“It’s nothing,” the Lion responded through his own hands. “Sorry I grabbed you. You weren’t who I thought.” She shrugged and resisted the urge to rest her back against the metal wall behind her - there was no telling what plagues swam in its dingy filth.
“It’s nothing,” she parroted. “Was someone chasing you too, or, uh, do you just live here?” The lion chuffed and nodded, clearly not as picky about where he rested his back as she was.
“I was chased - I don’t live anywhere this cozy. What’s your name?” The Girl almost spoke reflexively, but caught herself - this was someone who did not know her. Someone who knew nothing about her, who until this moment didn't know she existed. In this moment, locked in a decrepit cell, she could decide who she would be - someone glamorous, someone confident, someone beautiful.
"Cosmo," she answered with a nod. "My name is Cosmo."
The Okapi had a really nice voice. A lot of them did- herbivores. The Boy didn't like it very much when her big eyes looked him over; it made him feel the need to curl in on himself and hide. Her name was nice too. It sounded powerful and beautiful in her light voice. She sounded young, but he'd seen cherubic herbivores buy feet and hands. "How old are you?" The paw that wasn't covering his nose crept down to his throat. For a moment, he worried he'd never have a voice that didn't scratch.
Exhausted, injured, and dirtied in her nice clothes, the Okapi tilted her head and smiled. "Are you in any place to be interrogating me?"
The Boy felt his ears dip before he felt the heat on his cheeks that caused it.
"What's your name?" Cosmo asked, immediately following it with a persuasive "it's only fair."
He hadn't considered the possibility that he'd need to have a name so soon. That he'd get to have a name. He had one once, one that his parents had given him and sounded more like a stranger's name than the Boy's. He was never going to be what that name had intended. He thought about what he wanted to be.
The Boy thought about trees. Their height and strength, their resilience. Their glorious green manes. Nobody ate trees anymore. "My name is Ibuki," he decided.
Cosmo nodded, seeming pleased. "Okay, Ibuki. How old are you?"
It would have been embarrassing to admit he had to do the math in his head to be sure. "I'm 17"
"Oh, small world," she snorted, glancing at their surroundings. "Me too."
He narrowed his eyes, the corners of his lips tilting up "Are you just picking that number because I said it?"
Cosmo laughed, out loud, and Ibuki's heart was full to bursting as if it had gasped for air. She kicked her leg towards him instead of reaching for him with her occupied hands. "No, you alien . You're the one that hesitated, that's suspicious."
He swallowed. He was jealous that she knew without thinking who she was. "How did you get out?"
One of her eyebrows raised. "Get out?"
Oh. It did seem odd for livestock to be wearing something so close to white as her shirt. He coughed into his hands before gesturing toward her bloodied shoulder. "You got away from someone."
Her hand went to the wound, her eyebrows pulling together. "Oh. Yeah. Had a lot of fun today." It was a good thing she was avoiding the rancid wall of their shelter. It was easier for her, with her height- she only had to dip her head and keep her ears down to avoid the lid.
He winced sympathetically. "The party kind of fun, or the relaxing, uneventful kind?" This was his first real conversation since his animal-hood was revoked - it was as if Cosmo was trying to give it back to him. She had been, he realized, from the moment she asked his name. What if he was mis-remembering what a normal conversation sounded like? It was also possible that a normal conversation could never happen under these circumstances. He was just trying to follow her lead, hoping that would get him through it.
She was laughing again. He hummed, counting that as positive feedback. "Clearly the party kind, c'mon". She sighed. "What about you? Any fun today?"
"Well," he shifted his knee, but quickly decided never to do that again. His forehead hurt a bit. "I'm not bleeding"
She smiled "lucky bast-"
"Shh" he held a hand up, eyes wide as he listened to shuffling steps approach. Cosmo fell silent and watched him, before she seemed to hear it to and turned her head. They held their breath. The steps seemed to go completely around them, and whoever it was, they were close enough that Ibuki could hear them breathe. Quick frantic gasps pulled into tiny lungs. There was a whine in the back of the sound, like it was repressed. As the panting built in emotion, it was cut off by a frail growl from the same animal.
"Is that a kid?" Cosmo whispered.
These cages didn't have any gaps between the bars. The child couldn't see inside them, but they were big. Who did they keep in cages like these? How big were they? Would he ever get that big?
The big bright lightbulb on the blue blanket wasn't enough, apparently. All of the big cages were covered in other lightbulbs, some of them twisted into odd shapes. The child rubbed his arm as he ran between two cages. It hurt from where an adult had grabbed him. It was the normal kind of adult, with white sharp teeth and no twisted bones at the top of its head.
The child had been moving really fast. Faster than he'd ever been permitted to move, and certainly farther. It was getting hard to breathe. He put his hands on trembling knees, tucked out of sight behind a medium-sized green cage. It smelled familiar- not a good smell, but a smell the child had never been without. His breathing was loud, and sad , and he couldn't let that happen, so he growled at himself. The whining stopped.
A voice came from inside the green cage, tiny words said like the adults at night. The child scrambled away, looking around for another hiding place. There was a whole pile of those shiny black bags for the kids that didn't wake up. They were full. He hoped they were happy to be asleep as he tucked his body behind them.
The child was beginning to understand why the biggest light wasn’t enough. It had found its way somehow to the edge of the blanket, setting it on fire. He shook as he watched it, wondering how long it would be until it came rolling toward him to crush him or burn him. The child heard hinges creak and hid his head in his hands, his nose tucked between his knees.
There were more quiet words, nearing his hiding place, and he got ready to kick if he had to. Claws reached for him and he pressed his back to the ground, extending his legs with all of the might in his little body. He cried out when his momentum was cut short by that large paw closing around his ankle. He clasped his hands over his mouth as he stared in horror at the adult.
Only he hadn't seen adults like this before. There were two of them, small and dirty like he was. Well, not as small, but definitely as dirty. Usually adults smelled weird. The one holding his ankle didn’t, though. Its needle-prick eyes were locked on the bottom of his foot. The arm that held him was crossed with crisp black lines and the Child couldn't help but reach out to feel them. The two animals inspected each other's tattoos, and the child had a million questions he couldn't hope to ask.
He couldn't believe he hadn't been eaten yet. If this small adult had dark lines like his, did he know the language the children spoke?
He was out of the cage. He was going to die anyway. Might as well try. "Aawo han?"
"Hm?"
The child growled and thrashed, trying to get away. The other, smaller adult, who had no claws, stepped forward and said something, putting a hand on the sharp-tooth's shoulder. The adults crouched low and the child squeezed his eyes shut. He flinched when he felt something touch below his eye, barely making contact. Three long breaths passed, and nobody moved. When he cracked an eye open to peek, more words were said, in the tone he used to use with his friends before he was taken to have his bones cleaned.
Would he still be awake when that happened? He was sure he didn't want to be. Was this what all children went through in the end? His leg felt suddenly cold, and for a moment he feared it was gone, but he realized there wasn't a paw around it anymore. He was being grabbed under his arms, lifted with no effort at all. He screamed angrily and kicked. The smaller adult waved its hands and made hissing noises. They brought him to the green cage, which opened from the top instead of the front, and dropped him inside.
He was in a cage again. Did that mean he was safe? They were crawling in after him and he scrambled away. The door shut and the Child was blind. They wouldn't stop saying words and he covered his ears. Maybe if he waited long enough, they'd stop. He wrapped his arms around his legs as a chill set in. The Child always assumed that when the day came that he was dragged from the cell, that death would come immediately after. It was the comfort that helped him sleep. All of the waiting and running was torture. He opened his eyes to the sound of the adults gasping and stared into the dark cage for a moment before orange light flooded in.
Looming over them was the biggest animal the Child had ever seen, with black and white fur and round ears. It brought with it a smell that he recognized from the breath of other adults. “Girl?”
He knew that word and he knew that tone. It meant someone was in trouble and someone would get hurt if he didn’t do anything. He bit down on the massive creature’s paw hard enough to make his jaw ache.