Almost large enough to be considered a theme park while remaining free to the public, Terrace Park is rumored to have been the site of the Grand Hollowheart's defeat, leading to the Hollowhearts first accepting a pact with humans. (+2 Fame, +2 Endurance)

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A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:10 PM


A dull buzz gently lifted Mwenye from his deep sleep.

The great lakundra softly stirred.

The noise faded, then rose again in a slightly more aggressive roar. Mwenye wrinkled his nose and gripped his temples with his massive paw, not quite ready to be awake yet.

The buzz faded yet again, and his golden eyes fluttered open.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:11 PM

Bars of cold steel met his sleepy gaze, radiating with a cool aura due to the kiss of the soft night air. He had never seen the nighttime sky, but he was aware of its different features--the drop in temperature being his favorite one. The multicolored tarp that made his life's walls and, if he threw his head way back, his speck of a ceiling, trapped heat like a glass. It made normal days unpleasant, let alone the humid, wrathful summer ones. Mwenye opened his mouth, expelling a blast of hot summer air from deep within his maw, and yawned, exposing the long, yellow teeth and bristly tongue.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:12 PM

He sat up and stretched his front legs as far as they would go, curling up his hind legs beneath him so tightly they went numb in order to give them more room. It was not a perfect stretch for his front legs, and he still felt tight and sleepy in places, but the rest of him was uncomfortable, so it would have to do. He squished his face against the bars to stretch his hind legs and tail, and didn't bother at all about his wings. He didn't know how to fly anyway; he'd never had the chance.

The dull buzz from earlier suddenly, and without warning, escalated into a dragon's roar, mingling with the clapping of hands and echoing throughout the tarp-built rooms and halls.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:12 PM

It was the crowd. They were cheering. He knew the sound well, as his daily life was made up of it. Wake at night, listen to the distorted echoes of strangers' unadulterated amusement, and then--and the sound of approaching footsteps and clanging metal told him this next stage was rapidly coming upon him--entertain that crowd himself. Mwenye shrank back in his cage as they came right at him, body language showing neither respect nor fear. The people dressed in black--some might call them stagehands.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:13 PM

They opened the door to his cage as he flattened himself to its floor, then stepped away from the opening and sank the sharp end of the draconian, black steel, spear-like "prod" that passed as their sorry excuse for a humane "encouragement" tool into the point of one of the vertebrae of his spine.

Mweyne yowled and launched from his cage like a rocket, then came to an on-the-dime halt and stood bone still when the blinding light of a desert sun scorched his eyes. Pain means go, pain means stop. A microphone boomed in his ears, and the crowd roared with perfect clarity. He blinked as fast and hard as he could, struggling to clear his vision before the coach reached him, for if he did not respond to his commands at the moment he gave them, it would be the forked whip for his sensitive nose. Pain means it's show time.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:13 PM

Although none of the people he had ever worked with were anything close to decent people, the coach that helped him perform night after night had one redeeming quality--he too was not a morning man. He understood that the light hurt when freshly woken, and he always gave Mwenye two tries if he did not respond to the command. Usually, it took those two--on bad days, it took three.

Today was one of those days. Mwenye cleared his eyes in time to see the whip bearing down on his face, and grimaced at the sting.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:14 PM

The coach turned his back to the audience, staring Mwenye full in the face, raised his whip, and blasted his whistle, as though Mwenye were a spirited creature that required strict and fierce training lest he reveal his full, savage nature... then raised his eyebrows. Mwenye gave him a very subtle nod. The coach nodded back, and gave the hand signal again.

In the circus, had you not guessed it yet, the performers are not allowed to speak. Everything that is done must be done with gesture, leaving coach and student to spend hours going over the intricacies of the circus sign language that they must learn.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:14 PM

Mwenye had gone through three different coaches over the many years that he had been living here, and each had their own motions. When they changed, Mwenye was expected to forget everything he had learned and re-memorize each new coach's gestures in a mere two weeks, or be physically punished for screwing up in the ring--because, again, the performers could not speak during a show. Thankfully, Mwenye had a very good memory, and he executed the correct tricks almost every time. As an additional blessing, the tricks he did mess up on usually melded with the existing routine, giving him a free pass for most of his mistakes.

His blessings ended there, however.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:15 PM

None of the tricks the circus wanted him to perform made any sort of sense to his body, and he always ended up limping back to his little cage every night, even though he was only asked to perform for roughly fifteen minutes. On this particular day, he finished his night lifting his entire body into the air on only his front paws, desperately struggling to balance on a single, bright orange ball.

Though the crowd cheered as mightily as soldiers at the end of a war, vibrating the air and making his ears ring, he still managed to feel something pop in one of his wrists. Pain throbbed harshly on the external head of his ulna, and he momentarily wobbled on the orange ball.

Don't, he said to himself firmly, and his balance steadied. He fixated on the agony and turned his mind to metaphors--anything to keep himself from panicking again.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:15 PM

The pain throbbed hardest at the point of its origin, as though a bomb had gone off on a peaceful city street, shocking the residents out of their facade of safety. There was a lapse of nothing, the criminals allowing a pause for effect, and then hot pain firing up and down his arm and paw like an army of rebels materializing from the explosion's debris and charging at the innocents surrounding them, firing away and causing widespread mayhem. The cheers of the circus audience melded with the white noise in his ears, and for a moment--just a moment--he swore he heard them screaming as bullets tore through their bodies. The orange ball wobbled again, only this time he wasn't sure it was his mood. He tried to focus, to suppress the whiteness closing in around his vision, but the ball wobbled again, more harshly than ever. Mwenye blinked his eyes shut, bracing himself for a fall.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:15 PM

A sharp whistle and crack of a whip announced that he was done for the night. Mwenye tried to ignore the white noise and ease himself to his feet proper, but he was too lightheaded. The floor slammed into the entire length of his body with great force, stealing the breath from his lungs and whatever stamina remained in his injured wrist. Golden eyes snapped open, and ivory claws flailed at the floor, struggling to lift the great body of black fur to its feet before his error was noticed, but all in vain. He rose at last, shivering, as the crowd gasped and cried out, innocently sealing his fate for the night.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:16 PM

The coach's face, not visible to the crowd from the great distance between them, was twisted into an ugly leer, the flesh around it as purple as a bruise. Mwenye's heart sank, but there was little he could do. He held his head high, hitched his wings back, steadied his stance through the pain of his ankle, and strode forward to the tent exist, mane flowing in the slight breeze he generated as he walked, as majestic as a king.

He curled up on the floor of his open cage to the echoed sound of cheers, resting his throbbing ankle against the cool metal floor to ease the pain and angry tendons. His golden eyes, though inches from his fur and squinting as hard as they could, were not able to fully tell if his pained wrist was swollen, even with his healthy ankle held beside it for comparison.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:16 PM

At least that was going for him--if he had indeed sprained the joint during his trick, it was not sprained very badly. He sighed in relief to the distorted boom of the ringleader reassuring the crowd.

Suddenly, pairs of black-clad legs and boots appeared at the head of his cage. The sounds of the circus' finale had drowned out the sound of the vile black-shirts approaching him. Instinctively, Mwenye tucked his paw into his fur.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:17 PM

Fear turned his golden eyes yellow... He still remembered a lovely, yet harsh, penticorn performer from his youth. She had turned her soft nose up at his gangly, teenage body, whose head and paws were too large, and his legs and body too thin and long. He had been deeply attracted to her beauty in a shallow way, and then she had broken her leg leaping a flaming hurdle.

One of the black-shirts spit into the dirt, hands on his hips. Mwenye stared at what little he could see of him.
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Re: A Hero's Journey [Self][Rated M]

Postby Feint » 05/07/2014 9:17 PM

"What's wrong with his foot?"

"I don't care so long as he can walk on it."

"Do we call a vet?" a young voice asked. Mwenye looked, startled; the legs of a teen shuffled to his right. A new hire?

"I'll call a vet if you'll pay for it."

Laughter.
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