Echo tried to dig her claws into the mesh cage, but couldn't. As the vehical that she was in bounced around, she was thrown back and forth in the cage, crashing into the sides.

She had no idea what was going on. One moment, she was sitting by the stream, talking to her sister and trying to fish out a samon. Something rustled behind them, and when Echo turned around, she saw a gleam of silver before something sharp hit her shoulder. She had yelled at her sister to run, and after a moment of hesitation, she bolted back into the forest. Echo had tried to follow her, but couldn't move her paws. She collapsed, dizzy and disorriented. Her vision was blurry, and the last thing she saw was a couple of humans come out of the trees.

Echo had woken up in the cage, in the vehical. She was still slightly groggy, but Echo was up immediatly and frantically trying to break out of the cage. Now, after a big bump, Echo cracked her head against to side of the cage, and sank down to her paws, dizzy once more.

She didn't know how much time passed. The vehical hummed along, making Echo more dreary. Just as she was about to slip into the blissful releif of sleep, the vehical stopped.

She heard footsteps outside the vehical, and her ears perked up, listening to the noise. The doors to the vehical opened, temperorily blinding her. She saw hands grab at the front of her cage, and the cage lurched forward. Echo backed up into a back corner of the cage, flattening her ears and hissing, narrowing her eyes at the humans.

They looked at her in surprise, and let go of the cage. They then started speaking to each other in their garbled human-speak.

They pulled the cage out of the vehical, and one of them walked behind her. Eco twisted around to try and claw at the human, but once again, she felt a sharp prick on the hind leg, and she collapsed once more. The humans started rolling the cage forward, and Echo's eyes closed.

whilst Behemoth lolled in the magnificent fleeting sunshine, his not shut gaze did not avert from the nuisance stretch beyond the expanse of the narrow habitat he settled in. it was discordant. troubling the entire zoo into a fumbling quantity of havoc and sonority.

he was piqued. drawn to that disruption bluster from the side of the habitat. it was in his habitat.

and Behemoth did not appreciate the thought of splitting the habitat with a panther of his class, no matter the gender or age. it was narrow thus far, and splitting with another panther equivalent to his proportions would introduce an enormous dispute and belligerence as to who chooses that area. who eats first and who drinks first. he wasn't pursuing a companion, even if how lonesome he had gotten in the habitat, but friending one, just seemed so exhausting. he got accustomed to the solitude and just desired to have it as it is.

his cranium tilted, as his physique slumped to the side. he was lethargic, and still in a fog of haze from his earlier slumber. and if this nuisance was what he thought of, he would bargain with it until he is entirely replenished with vitality and time to squander an introduction and a greet. he grumbled out a gentle grunt, stretching his stout paws further into the capacious stone before his gaze hooded.

he wasn't assertive to novices, not enticed by brutality and dominance, but he did like to indicate who was in command of that spot. he had his boundaries, his areas to rest and detach from the colonial spotlight. and he desired respect for his conclusions and demands.

he bode here first. got taken from the wildlife as a mere cub and was brought to the exhibition of a wound that seemed, all recovered now. but apparently, the hirelings here thought so differently. with a dispute to give him back his freedom, the relentless humans chose to enslave him in captivity more, or, for the remainder of his life. perhaps, it was of the meager wisdom he understood about survival. or that he was a lavish striking panther of the exhibition and people appreciated admiring and studying a black panther abide in its habitat.

they did not care as long as the cash was set on their table.

Echo was lowered into the exhibit and pricked with another needle. A few minuted later, her head jerked up, mind in a haze. She shook her head to clear it from the fog that seemed to cloud her vision and her thoughts.

She looked around, seeing hard, straight walls. The space around her was tight, and on one side , there was a clear wall that humans were looking through to stare at her and the other panther in the exhibit.

It was the first time Echo noticed the other panther. He was just sprawled out on the rocks, sun bathing. Echo scoffed. He was just laying there, letting the humans on the other side of the glass gawk at him!

She started pacing back and forth, aggitated.

Panthers aren't supposed to be in captivity. We're suppose to be out in the wild, hunting and being able to run and climb without restraint. She thought savagely. Humans did this. They don't care about anything but their own benefit. They come into our homes and steal our trees, our homes, and our food. Then they come in and steal us. We're only here for their own amusment.

She growled as another human stopped and gaxed at her. Echo whipped around and clawed at the human, wincing as her claws grated against the glass. "Let me out of here, you carrion-eating fleabag!" Echo snarled, enjoying the look of fear and surprise in the humans face as they leaped back.

But more and more of them started crowding around the glass, all chattering. Echo backed up, flattening her ears. She quickly slid into the few plants that the exhibit had and layed under them, covering her ears with her paws.

"I hate it here." She growled lowly. I have a family back home to help. My sister needs me. "I need to get back home, somehow." She muttered.

The yowl came colliding down Behemoth's way, whilst he was serenely stationed on the stone. It was stirring him out of his respite, persuading him to tumble to his mitts in a rippling, fleet ascend. He was inquisitive, momentarily and needed to have full visibility of the opposite panther, in case this feline was, warlike toward its own breed, driven by terror and distress.

''Grrh,'' He uttered, in a lowborn, warbling coo before his physique, hastily neared the area the panther blundered in. He didn't fancy being the remedial companion to diminish such sentiments or soothe that this was its current residence.

All he desired was to muster up a basic greeting and usher no pugnacity or brutality to this unknown feline. If they needed to allot this narrow land, he ought to be sure it understood who was here beforehand and who was in possession of essential things.

But as his nares prickled with a more feminine fragrance, his audit fluttered haphazardly, he wasn't sure whether it would be a female or male swarming his environment, but not like it mattered. He would've wrought them evenly despite the disparity in gender. Once his cranium declined minimally, gaze averted from the latched steel entrance, it diverted over to the flashing lights occur beside. Humanity relished taking long-lasting photographs of things, especially of the varmints in the exhibition.

Before he registered the uttering sentence outpour like a raw river through his lobes, he steered his golden-threaded irises to the source of the melodious noise. It sounded like a female was in bare despair and outrage. Taken from the wildlife into captivity sounded grueling, especially when the panther was in the phase of maturity, the phase where brood mattered most.

But Behemoth wouldn't comprehend the feeling, he scarcely remembers how the wilderness even seemed, how it discerned and how much freedom it proposed.

All he could do was just dismiss it, and resume living in the habitat like the bounded, squawking wilderness.

''Hello..'' He said, audibly.

How would I even get back though? Echo thought to herself. Humans have taken over so much of our territory, and I was unconcious for most of the journey here...I wouldn't be able to find my way back. I wouldn't be able to remember the way. Echo buried her head further into her paws, willowing in her despair. She tried to shake off the feeling. Pitying herself wouldn't get her anywhere. Maybe I couldn't find my way back to my sister, but there's no way I'm staying here, letting te humans get their way.

Echo rose her head, staring at the way she had entered the exhibit. The gleaming metal almost seemed to tease her, taunting her with the thought of escape just behind that door. I would have to find a way to open that. The only way I could get out that way is from a human opening the door and then me slipping out. Unlikey.

Before she could think up anymore plans, a low, rumbling voice sounded behind her.

Echo spun around and saw the male panther from earlier standing before her, gazing at her calmly. She narrowed her forest green eyes, unsheathing her claws and dug them into the ground.

Male panthers were always something to be wary of in the wild. They were known to attack other panters for food and territory. Here, in a small enclosure, limited territory, things could go downhill quickly. Plus, Echo didn't know what the feeding routine was here. There oviously wasn't proper prey here.

If the panther wanted to fight over the territory and the food, Echo wouldn't back down. She wasn't going to let herself be pushed around.

But the panther didn't look aggressive. Echo narrowed her eyes and sat down, her muscels tensed and ready to fight.

"Hello. Who are you, where are we, and how can I escape from here." She relpyed.

Behemoth craned his head at the numerous inquiries spewing from the mouth of the panther. But instead of responding, he stretched some distance amidst them, settling down when the vicinity was restful. But observing the female revise her position, physique taut and balking, he responded, equably.

''I'm Behemoth.'' His voice was underlined with stoicness and poise, altered when the final response was said. ''Unfortunately, you're in the Flovapia exhibition. Now, under humankind's supervision, I suppose,'' Just as his voice diminished into whist stillness, his irises rambled around the panther, examining her physique for any bestrewing injuries or defects that would render her to be captured. But there was nothing, just an elegant ebony mantle of a coat.

''But you're not wounded. They shouldn't have seized you for mere nothingness I'm sure,'' He said, in a bewildered tone. They shouldn't have taken the panther from the adequate wilderness for breeding purposes solely, that seemed ridiculous; from Behemoth's perspective. Unless they needed an increase in reputation since that was the entire basis of why Behemoth had grown in constraint and enclosed by four steel barriers ebbing the latitude he thought of.

''To escape. That's your position to figure out. I've never been so wily as to conspire a getaway plan, nor I wanted to.'' He disclosed, sanguine and candid in his wording. Even genuine.

''I grew up in here, so..'' He ascended on his mitts as his figure helmed back to where he occurred from. ''Hope you're expectancies are shattered because getting out of here is — inconceivable,'' He gibed. ''Tell me if you discover a way out, I'll be joyful to say my farewells to you,'' Those were his last words before he sauntered back to his little base. The unrough stone embellishment the humanity adorned his habitat with.

He said all he wanted to say.

Echo stared after the other panther as he strolled back to his place on the rocks. He grew up here...? She looked at her sleek black coat. I'm not injured. The humans just took me from my home. Echo frowned. Flovapia Exhibition. Never heard of it...there has to be a way out of this place though. There always is. Phantom managed to escape. Phantom was an old ocelot that Echo had met one day while hunting with her sister. She had told them not to go any farther, and when the two panthers inquired why, the ocelot had told them her story, how the humans had seized her and stolen her from her kits, and how she lived in an enclosoure for years before she managed to escape. She never found her way back home though, but she managed to make a new life for herself there.

Echo vowed to do the same as Phantom if she got out. But, to get out of this place, she would need help.

She chased after the panther, catching up to him.

"Wait, you've never been outside this place? Never began in the jungle, or forest, or savanna?" Echo questioned. "Echo, by the way. I realize you don/t really care about getting out of here, and you seem pretty content letting the humans control you, but I'm not. I have a sister to try to get back too. Even if I can't, I refuse to live under human dominance. If you can give me any insight to getting out of here, please, I need you to tell me." She scowled at Behemoth when he didn't answer. "Listen, if you want me gone, and you want your little enclosure all to yourself again, you need to help me. I don't want to be here, and I can tell you don't either. There's no point of me being here, either. I'm not injured or sick. I was just taken from my territory. Either you help me by giving me any information you know and have, or you're stuck with me."

Behemoth stumbled in his footing, bristling his well-brushed fur at their nearness stretch thickly amidst them. But he couldn't disregard her currently, so with a vague, senseless snarl, he responded. "I came from a rainforest, yes. But I was taken when I was just a feeble cub," His gaze wavered whilst he bounded onto his stone, settling on his haunches before he breathed in the unwilted, woven human air.
"To get out here is demanding, just like I said. But the flight passage is the steel entrance they got you in. Or either by feigning to be ill so they could possibly take you out of here." He pointed, endeavoring to be valuable even if he had hardly any understanding of how to flee this exhibition without being seized back again.
"As much as I want you out of here, I'm barely any valuable," Behemoth answering her inquiries did not sound content or the merriest. He was vexed and irked and sort of repentant of his history and how accustomed to this location he was. It made it challenging to understand her intent to flee, to go back to the wilderness Echo was taken from.
"All I can do is pretend. Put on a play so the zookeepers here will be troubled that something has happened and if they leave the wicket opened, it'll be your queue to flee." He proposed the concept but didn't sound super sure since he had never tried it. But it sounded analytical and try-worthy, but would it be successful? Behemoth was uncertain.
"Although through the exit I'm oblivious of what lays. But hopefully, if it works, you can find a notch to scramble through and flee." He mustered, descending fully on the stone, getting restful for an afternoon snooze.
"But remember, you're in a metropolis, full of people. You're a panther, an apex predator. You will be hunted once they notice you." He was sure of that, to saunter through the metropolis into the wilderness seemed more demanding than fleeing from this zoo. Encircled by people, who were sufficiently more effective did not seem worth it, at least to Behemoth.
"But that's you're concern. So before you flee so fast, think of a technique. Of what you will do when you escape this facility. Because you're now in a world rich in peril."

Echo allowed Behemoth to leave then, standing in silence. She pondered on his words.

It was true. Without a plan, and without a stratigy, she would either be darted and transported to a more secure area or would be shot on site.

Echo swiveled her head, observing her surroundings once more, but this time, paying much more attention to the landmarks. It was small and tight, but there was a small pond-like area with water, the sunning rocks, and a small, crooked tree.

Walking slowly towards the tree, Echo's mind wandered. If she could get information from other animals around here...but most animals couldn't speak in feline-tonuge, and she didn't speak other animals speech either. Additionally, she couldn't even reach the other animals.

Echo crouched at the foot of the tree, and then powered herself up into the branches. Hooking he claws into the bark, Echo steadied herself and climbed a bit farther, then padding along the branch to the end, and laid down.

Echo rested her head on her paws, allowing her tail to hang over the branch and drape down. She felt satisfied with her spot. If Behemoth wants the rocks, I get the tree.

Her green eyes flickered around the enclosure. This place was loud and smelly. Though the smell of the grass and flora in their exhibit and the ones encircling it masked a lot of the smells, her sensitive nose could still pick up the harsh scent of the human world. Her acute sense of hearing heard the ramblings of humans and the noises form other enclosures around her.

She focused on the rustling of the leaves around her, and slightly relaxed. Though the tree was far from the towering kapok trees in the rainforest, the sound of the leaves moving against one another reminded her of all the times she and her sister sat in the trees, watching creatures from all over the rainforest walk under them, swim in the river near them, or fly through the trees above them. They ate most of their prey in the trees to make sure that no other predator stole their food, and tended to sleep in them too. Echo and her sister had spent a lot of their time in the trees, no doubt, and they held a special place in Echo's heart. That's another reason she hated humans. They were tearing them down, and expected the wildlife to be fine with it, and learn to live along with it.

Here, there was only that one tree. And she claimed it, wanting to cling to her last strand connecting her to her old life.