“Mmfh…Mmfh!” Those were the sounds I heard as I regained consciousness from my slumber. Of course, it was me making those noises due to suffocating under my stupid sibling No.1! Sometime while I was asleep, he must have finagled his way on top of me – thus resulting in his rear end up my nose and mouth. “This is a dirty trick of yours! I demand the proper etiquette expected in a formal duel! Also, clean yourself more often cos you stink!”

 

Clambering away, I rubbed my face on his fur before looking out of my cage. It appeared I had slept through the entire day and awoken a few hours after dusk. Stretching my body and yawning at the same time, I shook myself to remove any drowsiness refusing to leave me before hearing an odd gurgle escaping my stomach. “…” Thinking about it for a few seconds, I then realised I was quite ravenous due to not having eaten anything since being in this cage.

 

Sibling No.1 aroused from his own slumber before languidly crawling over to me. I turned to see what he was doing, only to get his tongue all over my face before he moved to licking my ear. “…Just…why are you obsessed with messing up my beauty?!” I nipped at his nose in an attempt to get him to cease his actions, however he strangely took that to mean biting my ear instead. “It hurts! It hurts! Stop, stop, stop!” I whimpered in pain before being released from sibling No.1’s malicious maw.

 

Not bothering with me anymore, he padded over to the bars of the cage and started biting at them. His teeth caused an awful screeching sound – reminiscent of claws scraping against a smooth stone – which resulted in me immediately pressing my sensitive ears flat against my head. I suppose one good thing to come from this deplorable action of my sibling’s is that one of the adults arrived to check on our situation because of it.

 

“What the ‘eck?...Ah, I forgot to feed y’all. My bad, my bad.”

 

He then left for a few minutes before returning with many stones filled with food. “Food! I take back all of the nasty and pejorative things I’ve ever said about you, sibling No.1!” I wagged my tail as I delved into my much-anticipated meal. “Blergh! This is vile! Sibling No.1, I rescind my previous take back of insults! You’ve brought trauma to my taste buds!” I nipped at my sibling’s ear in aggravation over how awful the food was before licking the stone clean…I was hungry, okay?!

 

A few hours after sating my singing stomach, my ears began twitching as I heard a low growl emanating from a distance. I raised my head from my front paws to observe the outside, only to witness several adults heading towards the source of the sound. Angling myself to increase my view of outside, I could vaguely make out a large beast with black stripes all over it, a white chest and underbelly, along with a strong-looking tail. “Crystal tiger.” My mind told me, though my nightvision couldn’t determine the colour of its fur.

 

I deduced the beast had come due to the scent of food and many weaklings gathered in one place – namely the human children. Watching from inside my cage, I witnessed several larger-than-human beasts of varying shapes charge towards the crystal tiger. The adults who had run over there had paused a number of steps behind the beasts and had clasped their hands together while quietly chanting words in haste.

 

As my interest in this scenario was just getting piqued, the humans had to rain on my parade. “Hey! I was watching the show! The show? Um…the battle? Yeah, I was watching that battle!” I barked a little as an adult male ushered the children into our vehicle. Due to the close proximity between each cage – as well as with the addition of the children – the area soon became quite cramped and claustrophobic.

 

With the ensuing growls and roars of battle echoing outside, the last of the children finally entered the vehicle and huddled together. Oh, wait, not all of the children had entered since there were only twelve present. Of course, I didn’t have to wait long for the last one to arrive, only for one of the boys to hold out his hand – as if to stop the person from entering. It soon became apparent that my assumptions were correct…

 

“Sorry, there’s no more room.”

 

“…What…?” came the quiet mutter from a boy.

 

“He said there’s no more room! Now get lost!” said another boy, before he jumped out of the vehicle. Within a matter of moments, a soft thud resounded – followed by a pained grunt from the quiet boy. The child who’d left then returned to the vehicle with a smug smile on his face before sneaking a glance at one of the girls further in.

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t find a chance to examine the poor boy who had been abandoned by his fellow compatriots, however the laughter and conversation that soon followed his departure was quite fascinating.

 

“Hahaha! Did ya see th’look on ‘is face when I walloped ‘im good and proper?”

 

“Yeah, he looked so weak and pitiful, it almost made me feel bad…until I remembered it were‘im, tha’ris!”

 

I noticed how the boys were talking, they kept casting sideways long glances towards the girls – almost as if they were fishing for praise and merit for their deplorable actions and words. It didn’t take long for my surprise to be amplified upon hearing the girls also laughing. Turning my head to observe them, I saw how one of them seemed to be wearing much finer attire compared to the other children.

 

Focusing my gaze on her, she seemed to bear a more delicate complexion compared with the others, as well as a more visually appealing face. Well, I say more visually appealing, however it didn’t hold a candle to the one in my dreams! “What’s a candle…?”  Anyway, I was watching her as the others discussed their disdain towards whoever the boy outside was. It’s kind of strange but I swear that whenever her brows sometimes scrunched up at a particularly derogatory comment that I sensed an elated malice ooze out of her eyes. She then wryly smiled at the girls before speaking:

 

“I have to say, my deepest apologies on his behalf for his actions this evening. He’s such an embarrassment to the family, on multiple occasions. I honestly don’t know how to deal with him at home when he...”

 

She batted her eyelids at the boys before wrapping her arms around one of the other girls and initiated some well-timed fake-crying. How did I know it was fake? Because I didn’t detect any scent of salt in the air, nor the sound of moisture coming out for her to have been crying. In other words, I deduced she was pretending to cry in order to induce sympathy among her peers. “How truly sneaky! I must take notes for when I next compete against sibling No.1 for affection with someone! Ahem, I mean, I must review this case diligently to ensure I am not duped by future scenarios!”

 

The once tumultuous terror-inducing roars of the crystal tiger seemed to have lost much of its impact over the course of the children’s conversation. Outside, the chanting from the adults intensified – as though it were the final rally against their foe. From observing the faces of the children, I could see them steadily brightening towards a more positive mood – a sure sign that the battle outside was in the humans’ favour.

 

After a few more somewhat anxious minutes within the vehicle, the thuds and growls abated as an adult approached the exit for the vehicle.

 

“It’s safe! Time to get out now, everyone.”

 

The adult male gently rubbed some of the nearby boys’ heads before smiling at them all and leaving to help the other adults with something. I honestly wouldn’t have realised this earlier, however it seemed an air of tension was pierced through at the words of the adult. The children all seemed to release a breath they’d been holding as they clambered over the cages to vacate the premises.

 

Once all was at peace within my current abode, I nuzzled sibling No.1 in a bid to move him away from my person – since he had at some point climbed onto my back and rested his head on it. “I am not your bed!” While I was busy extricating myself from his paws, my ears twitched for the second time this evening as the adults started entering the vehicle. Sibling No.1 and I stared at what was happening with some vague hints of curiosity – wondering what on earth they were hauling into the vehicle.

 

To my surprise, they had placed the body of the crystal tiger beside our cage and it was humongous! Its size could easily overshadow me, all five of my siblings, Mother and Father combined – with some room to spare for something else! I have to admit, I felt a little faint viewing it so close, although my fear was mostly due to my concern for when it would wake up. Saying that, the adults didn’t seem worried at all as they simply dumped the body while throwing caution to the wind. “Be more careful!”

 

I closed my eyes and ears in trepidation over the expected roar and attack from the crystal tiger, only to be met with silence. “Huh? It didn’t wake up?” Noticing the humans were leaving the vehicle without maintaining their guard against the beast, my mind began to wonder over the current state of the fearsome foe. Sibling No.1 got bored and went back to sleep, while I padded over to the side of the cage closest to the crystal tiger.

 

“It’s strange…Why does it remind me of when sibling No.2 was sleeping and never woke up?” I poked my nose out of the bars in order to get as good a whiff as possible…and immediately regretted it. The familiar stench that emanated from sibling No.2 was faintly wafting off the crystal tiger. Examining its body, there appeared to be multitudinous amounts of wounds everywhere. “Is it just sleeping deeply to recover its strength?”

 

Although I would have enjoyed traversing down my train of thought, I was unfortunately rudely interrupted from my musings by a boy entering the vehicle. Well, I say boy but I can only say as much due to him smelling similar to the other boys – as opposed to the more pleasant-smelling girls. Of course, perhaps I was being biased based on a limited knowledge of the differences between genders, however I was confident in my assertations!

 

Going back to the boy, I couldn’t see his face due to him covering his entire body with a dark cloth, however I could tell he seemed to have a more fragile build compared with the other boys. If anything, he actually seemed to be even more delicately framed than the girl all of the children were fawning over sycophantically. Yes, I had determined those children to have already developed the art of sucking up to others. I believe it to be one of the most ancient and reliable arts to have cultivated within a social structure, to ensure those better than you are not displeased with you. “Hmm? Ancient art…? What the heck? I’ve barely lived a few months! How do I know anything about any ancient art for humans?” Of course, I side-lined that line of pondering when the boy weaved his way through the narrow aisles between the cages.

 

With my interest piqued over where this boy was going, I followed him with my eyes that were perfectly adapted for seeing in the dark. “Ha! You thought you could hide from me, but I see you! None can hide from me—hey! Don’t go there! That cage breaks my line of sight! Come back! Come back, I say!” I subconsciously started yapping at the boy in my frustration before being kicked by sibling No.1 – no doubt to tell me to shut up. “How rude! You should never kick a girl!” I kicked him back, which instigated a play-fight between us.

 

Once our fight was at an end, I recalled what I was doing before sibling No.1 so stupidly stole my attention. Searching the area in the hopes that the boy was still there, I found myself lucky in the fact that I detected him crouching beside what I remembered being the Umbral Spider sling’s cage. Of course, I failed to learn any more about why he was there due to the boy promptly leaving after turning his gaze to my location. Must’ve felt my voyeuristic gaze…

 

With the vehicle silent once again, I groomed myself to maintain my beauty before sidling up to sibling No.1 (lying on top of him) and slipping into a suitably satiable slumber.