Maya's Story

Benjamin's hearing followed Maya. He knew she was awake the moment she moved and he kept one ear focused on her, the other on Sivian and around the enclosure to pick up any stray sounds, like the faint voices he could hear through the glass of the humans. He smelled meat stronger than it had been before and sensed her walking to toward him. She was bringing him food, wasn't she? His mouth watered, but...
Benji had a completely irrational belief that whenever anyone did anything for him ever, they were doing it because they thought he couldn't do it himself since he was blind. This, of course, excluded the zookeepers feeding them, but still. Leading him around, bringing him food, grooming him, any friendly gesture was taken as a threat to his handicapability.
The soft sound of meat meeting the ground and the strong scent filled his head. He was hungry after his nap, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to take it, still under the false belief it was a pity offering. He slowly fidgeted with his hands, head turning to look at her, although he didn't need to he'd found out others tended to be mildly disconcerted when he didn't look at them as he spoke.
"I'm not going to breed with you. I'm not your direct dominant, and I can get my own food. Why precisely are you trying to feed me?" he asked, one eyebrow quirking upward.

Benjamin could feel the hurt coming off of Maya in waves. He shuddered. Still, he hated charity, and he was sure that friendliness from a female was either charity or flirting. He didn't want to think about flirting. He slid into wolf form effortlessly, giving his ears a better range. The left rotated, the right still fixed on Maya. It faced the glass for a moment, where he could now hear the conversations outside. He didn't pay any attention, though, and hadn't mentioned that detail in his extremely heightened hearing to anyone else because why would he. He just assumed everyone else could hear through the glass, too.

"Look, Maya. I don't do friendship. I do dominance, submission, mated pairs, and family. Those are the only relationships I comprehend," Benjamin muttered, blinking blankly at her. His white fur shifted slightly in the breeze. His free ear swiveled to catch the scientist's daughter talking to her father. Nothing interesting, yet.

Benjamin relaxed slightly. He liked people talking to him. He liked being talked to. He settled down onto his belly, crossing his paws again, head resting on them but turned toward Maya as she spoke, just so she knew he was listening.
Benji had been told he had the palest complexion anyone had seen quite a few times, which was why, throughout the time spent growing up, his parents had spent more and more time trying to expose him to the sun so he wouldn't hurt his skin too badly. It hadn't worked in any particular way that had shown up very well, but it had taught Benjamin to sit in the shade whenever he could, as he was now, lest he risk more painful sunburns.
Still, he couldn't understand why people would want his skin tone, through which the veins in his hands usually showed, mapping his hands in an odd blue-red mixture map. His irises, not properly red or pink, were in all actuality entirely transparent. With complete blindness to go along with the damage caused by lack of pigment, and the way his shock of white hair and his delicate white eyelashes made him stand out, he wished he could look anything but albino. It made him stand out and it made people want to do things for him. He'd heard the people talking about the vampires, though, and sometimes the werewolves. Maybe the elves, too. Their enclosure was a little hard to hear.
"They keep talking about how they'd like to be vampires. Suck the blood out of the 'horrible people of mainstream society' or something like that," Benji chipped in, sitting up as he felt the sun hit one of his shoulders, he moved deeper into the shade and transformed back to human, a little dart of frustration running through him at the fact that he couldn't see enough to see if he'd moved into the correct spot to avoid the sun for a while.

Suddenly she heard her dad’s voice call “Nadelin! Could you come here please?” Nad growled, considering yelling back she was too busy, but instead shouted, “Alright Dad, coming!” With a final, apologetic glance at the elf she turned and walked to where her dad stood. He was as he had been since he had come to such great fortune; surronded by reporters and pressed from answers from all sides. Just the way he liked.

He stood a short distance from the werewolf cage, a couple of feet at most. This was obviously close enough for the reporters to get some good shots of both the people and massive wolves that were caged behind her father. In addition to the eye popping backdrop, this was directly across from the vampire exibit. Since his recent success her dad was as he usually was; surrounded by a throng of reporters. “What's up Daddy?” she asked him in a chipper voice her had instructed her to use in the face of the cameras. He smiled, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a sideways hug. Nad squirmed uncomfortably, her perkiness faultering against his side, but his arm held a vice-like grip on her shoulder. Oh boy, here came the "I-love-my-daughter" speech.

“This is my daughter Nadelin,” her father beamed while Nadelin tried to force her mouth into a weak smile. “I do this every day for her. It’s hard sacrificing so much time to my work but since her mother left us everyday life has been hard.” The reporters kept talking and Nad mumbled answers to the few questions in her direction. Finally her dad’s grip loosened enough she could slip out from under his arm. “Hey Dad, I’m going to go get some cotton candy, okay?” Nad said with a most fake cheerful smile she could compose. “Sure dear. Here,” He replied happily, handed her some money. Then Nad turned to walk back to the elf, the smile dropping from her face like a two ton weight.

“And Nadelin,” his voiced called, making her stop in her tracks and turn back around. The false smile had returned as if it had never left. His voice was light but his eyes were stone serious; the way they always got when he was threatening someone. “Stay away from the elf exhibit please sweetie. You’re upsetting it.” Nad’s shoulder’s stiffed but she couldn’t look away from his warning gaze. Unable to avoid defeat she beamed. “Yes father.” Nad chimed, then turned away. Her eyes were narrowed in anger and she slouched a little, dropping her eyes to the pavement. The accursed smile she had worn was gone as well as the faked craving for cotton candy. Instead she walked in the opposite direction, heading towards the “Vampire” cage in an attempt to get further away from her fame-struck father. If his career hadn't eaten all his humanity, his sudden fame was going to finish it off.

Benjamin sighed. He could understand people seeing for him. That was actually helpful. He was about to scoot himself over to the supposed shade when he winced at the sudden scent in the air, froze. He phased, just as he had sensed Maya doing, without thinking, backing up against the tree that he'd been instructed to, head down, tail between his legs, everything about his behavior reading in perfect Omega body language 'don't hurt me, don't hurt me, I'm more submissive than you, see?' It was purely the instinct of a wolf who'd grown up as the least dominant in his pack. This man's scent, his voice, it meant pain and confusion and tests. Words like 'blanket blindness', 'Oculocutaneous', and 'OCA1A' tossed around while they tested his senses and the sensitivity of his skin over and over again. Talked about how such severe albinism was almost unheard of in wolves, completely unheard of for a severe albinistic wolf to make it past a few weeks, especially blind ones and he kind of wanted to just snap at them about how he wasn't a wolf, he was a werewolf, but he kept his head down and only tried to escape when it was an option.

Benjamin jumped at the sudden touch, jaws snapping out to clamp on Maya's shoulder, but he withdrew a millisecond before he hit flesh, withdrawing as he registered her scent as friend, not foe. He dipped his head low, realising the comforting intent of the nudge and tentatively pushed his muzzle under hers in apology, fur slowly laying flat again.
Withdrawing from the contact with his new 'friend', he guessed that was what she wanted to be, but he was just pegging her as a dominant ally.
"Sorry," he murmured, then his ears flicked back toward Sivian. The smell of the lab clung to her fur, the air filled with her unmovingness. He sighed. Time to play Omega some more, go cheer up his enclosure-mate. Packmate? No. They weren't a pack, at least not yet. He stood, wincing as he padded out of the shade into the sun to nudge Sivian.
"Hey. You all right?" His eyes watered under the mid afternoon sun, his skin already itching a little under his thick pelt.

---

Logan beamed, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his mother lead him into the zoo for the first time. He'd get to see ((for free, no less, due to his mother working on the animals)), some of the greatest, most interesting beasts he'd never even dreamed of. He wondered if the vampires actually drank blood. If they fed them guests after dark. Oh no, Logan, don't let your imagination get away from you, kid, he reminded himself, beaming as his mother halted in front of an enclosure. He blinked. Then blinked again. Then once more. His blood ran cold.
Those weren't animals. Not the giant bats he'd been expecting, not the monsters born of bloodshed and fear he'd been thinking they were. Three humans. Packed like most endangered species which scientists didn't know how to breed; one male, two females, most likely in hopes they'd reproduce and expand profit. Logan couldn't help but stare. He clenched his jaw and didn't talk to his mother. He looked at the head scientist. No use doing anything now. He'd wait. He would wait and he'd manage to get through to those people in there, he was sure. He moved on, a little stiffly, ignoring his mother asking where he was going. The werewolves were easier to cope with. Two white wolves, one much paler, his fur bordering on transparent at the tips, his eyes pink if Logan was seeing right, the other a heavy arctic-wolf type colouring, and then the third, slate grey. These didn't look like humans. He could stand these being caged if he just thought of them as large wolves. That was better. Only a little, but better than caging humans. He finally found himself walking numbly toward the elf enclosure when he saw a single girl tapping on the enclosure's glass. Everyone else had moved on to different enclosures, most likely, due to the fact the elf seemed to be hiding. He walked up to her, and almost opened his mouth, about to tell her off for frightening the elf by tapping on the glass when he realised that it didn't matter; the glass was soundproof anyway.
"Hello there, ma'am," he muttered, peering into the enclosure, trying to figure out where the elf was. He wanted to see the scope of the things he wanted to rescue before he got too hasty. He needed to learn about them first. He needed to figure out what they needed. Then he'd try to scrape together some sympathetics and he'd free these critters if it was the last thing he did. Zoo breaking would just have to be this summer's adventure.

Logan watched Elusive's mouth moving, but human ears couldn't hear through the glass. He suspected that was intentional. So that the guests couldn't see how civilized these creatures really were. He nodded, though, then turned to Nad.
"Well, now, we're on the same page. And where your father only works with creatures in the lab, I presume, Mum works with training and understanding animals. I'm her intern for animal training, which means I technically have the right to go into the cages at any time that feeding isn't going on, as long as I have my trusty tranq on me." He patted the gun on his hip. "So, Nadelin, why don't we visit our elf friend here? Bit of an adventure, eh?"

---

Benji relaxed as he felt the accepted apology. When Sivian didn't respond, he let her be. If she was unconscious there was nothing he could do for her until she woke up, and she was definitely still alive, so he didn't worry too much. He padded back over to Maya, ears pricked as he scented the air in the direction she was looking. Two humans. One male, one female.
"Male and female. Think they're mates? I mean. I've heard it's totally okay for human males to mate with human males and human females to mate with human females so the male/female thing means nothing but," Benjamin kind of just decided to shut up, not wanting to incriminate himself or blabber needlessly.

Sivian's eyes snapped open as Benji went and she sat up. She looked around, seeming mad and a bit confused, untill she smelled herself and recognized the lab. She growled and than looked down. Her eyes widend as she saw the chain had gone, did they really trust her? This could be their biggest mistake untill now. A smirk spread across her muzzle as she stood up and walked away from the corner, without being interrupted by the bloody chain.

The ivory coloured wolf looked at Maya and Benji and frowned as she listened to their conversation. She shook her head to herself and turned back towards the wall. She narrowed her eyes and walked back to the corner where she had been running the whole time. She smelled the tracks and followed them, a slow walk, but not for long.

Soon, the wolf was running again, in a bigger circle though, now she had no chain, she could run in a bigger circle, but she definantly wasn't going to stay here. She stopped after a while, looked at her tail, snapped at it and continued running like she was trying to follow her own tail. Gone mad? No, not really. She just wanted to get out, and the only way to do that is injure herself, and so she would do. Maybe she would even kill, but she didn't like to kill, exept for humans than. She didn't mind killing them. Maybe she'd kill the next human entering this enclosure. But for now, she kept running, seeming to try to follow her tail, untill she could no more.

The wolf stopped again, not because she could no more, but because of her paws. She only noticed it now, the linnen. She growled and carefully pulled them off, then ripped them apart. After that, she continued running again, pushing her paws to go faster, as fast as they could.

Logan chuckled, smiling at Nadelin. He reached into the back pocket of his khaki shorts, jingling the keys there to make sure they were still there. He ran a hand through his permanently messy dark brown hair. He nodded, offering her his elbow. "Come on, my lady. Off to see our friend?" He cast his eyes around, toward the werewolf enclosure. They acted as though they were a small family or some such. A close knit group. Social like humans, but two of them seemed to ignore one almost completely. Some sort of inner-species drama, Logan thought. He was most excited to get into the wolves' heads, most definitely, because over all other animals, dogs were definitely Logan's passion.

---

Benjamin nodded, stretching a little and retreating further into the shade. He felt Logan's eyes on him, ears trained over there. "The male has the ability to get into the cages. He's the new woman's pup. They're going to go meet the elf. They're going into the elf enclosure," he explained, his ears remaining trained on the humans. "He trains animals. To do something. Not sure what."

Sivian opened her eyes slowly and blinked them a few times. Everything seemed so bright when she had been just woken from her unconscious state. She groaned softly and closed her eyes again, the pain in her paws returning again. She sighed and opened her eyes again, letting them adjust to the light.

Once her eyes were adjusted, she tried to sit up, but causing her paws only to hurt more, she didn't. She looked at her paws, and the crimson red sticky dried up liquid on it. She sniffed it and frowned. She than rose her head and looked around only to find Maya explaining to Benji what was happening. She cocked her head and flattened her ears slightly.

Slowly, the ivory coloured wolf sat up and looked around. She felt a bit dizzy, but ignored the feeling. Apparently, it hadn't worked to get her out running again, but she wasn't going to give up. If she would continue to run and hurt herself, the scientists would have to get her out and do research on her for what was wrong, and that could be her escape.

Slowly, the wolf stood up and looked at Maya and Benji again, before looking at her tail and closing her eyes. She took a few deep breaths and started to trot into the circle again, making it slightly bigger again. Her trot went over into a slow run and soon she was running again. But one thing was sure, she was going to get out of here.