\n Carnoc came awake with a jolt.  Last he remembered, there were humans, and he had been held captive inside some sort of metal box until they had shot him again.  And now...

\n The smell of humans, at least four, was sharp in his nostrils, and it was black all around him.  He blinked a few times, rolling his eyes around, but he couldn't see anything.  After a moment, though, he felt his eyelid brush against something soft: some sort of cloth had been pulled over his eyes, cutting off his view of his surroundings.  He growled softly and tried to scratch at it with his claws, but he couldn't move his legs.  Or his neck, his tail, his wings...  He couldn't even turn his head, he was bound so tightly, forced by whatever held him to lie on his side, curled up into a ball.  There was something hard resting on his tongue, and it tasted bad; he tried to spit it out, but he couldn't open his mouth, either.  He was completely helpless.

\n "Are you awake in there, dragon?" said a voice.  Human, and female.  Carnoc turned his eyes in the direction the voice had come from and growled again.

\n Something slapped him on the nose, and he jerked away out of reflex--or he tried to, anyway.  The voice said, "I know it may sound cruel, but we've gagged you for a reason, dragon.  I don't want you to talk, I just want you to listen to me.  Understand?"

\n He snarled, temper rising, and got slapped again.  "I know you can speak English, dragon.  Just nod yes, or shake your head no, when I ask you a question.  Now, are you going to listen to me, or will I have to find some way to... encourage you to be more obedient?"

\n Carnoc snarled and strained against the bonds that held him.  There was no way some puny little humans could have him at their mercy! he thought, twisting and struggling with all his might, but no matter how hard he pulled, whatever held him down was too strong.  He remembered breaking the restraints holding his mouth shut with one of his bolts the last time he had tried to escape and attempted to launch one, but the bit in his mouth kept the fluids from mixing together properly and they refused to light.  He bucked in vain against his restraints a few moments longer, then settled, panting from his exertions through locked teeth.

\n "Are you done yet?" the human said, "or do you need more time to figure out you can't escape?"

\n He growled and flexed his claws, trying to see if he could reach any of the straps that kept him so immobilized, but they were beyond his reach, and he didn't have any other ideas.  His restraints were just too strong, too tight and too restricting for him to have any chance to escape; as much as he hated the idea, the human was right.  There was nothing he could do.  He moaned through his gag, defeated, then went limp in his bonds, and when his drive to break free left him, so did his rising anger.  He nodded the little that he could.

\n "Very good.  My name's Allison, and I'm the head zookeeper here at Disney World's Animal Kingdom.  I'm in charge of all the animals here, including you, so whether or not you like it, I'll also be taking care of you."

\n "She's nice," said another, deeper voice.  It sounded male.  "You'll like her, if you give her a chance."

\n The first voice, Allison's, laughed.  "I'll let him decide that for himself, Simon.  Now, dragon, we're going to take off that blindfold now, so try to keep still."

\n Carnoc nodded again and tried not to move, though he couldn't help but try to jerk away when the humans' unseen hands first touched his throat.  The hands were still for a moment and he had to stifle a nervous growl, but then he heard a snapping noise and the blindfold was pulled from over his eyes.  He had to squint for a moment while his eyes adjusted before he saw a dark-skinned human male standing by his head, crumpling a wad of black cloth in his hands.

\n "There you are," said a woman, who stood next to the man, and Carnoc identified her voice as Allison's.  "Now, let me just get some of these straps off so you can see where you are."

\n She took something from her pocket and pressed a few buttons, and he felt the straps around his head and neck loosen, then fall away.  "Go on, get a good look around your new home," the woman said.

\n Carnoc pulled his head up and looked down at the rest of his body first.  A series of black straps wrapped around his body and limbs in a sort of harness, securing him to the thick, soft red cushion beneath him.  He sniffed at the straps--they smelled like some sort of cloth or fiber--and peered at the tightly woven fibers, watching how they flexed when he strained against them, but he could barely get them to budge.  He squinted down his nose, where two more of the dark bands held his mouth firmly shut, then flicked his tongue against the bit in his mouth and looked away.

\n He was in a small cave, lit by a couple rows of lights in the ceiling, that was only large enough to hold three dragons at the most.  A short tunnel behind him led outside, where it was dark, and the rear quarter of the cave was separated from the rest by a near-invisible wall that occasionally flashed blue.  There was a door set into the corner of this wall, and there was another door behind that one, in the back wall of the cave.  The two humans he'd already noticed stood next to him, and three more stood in front of the flashing wall.

\n He lowered his snout and sniffed at the two humans; they stood still while he nosed over them, and the female held out a bare hand for him to smell, too, as if she was trying to prove to him that she wasn't a threat.  He smelled that, then pulled his head away.

\n "There's more than enough space for you to fly around outside," Allison said.  "And that brings me to the next important things for me to tell you about, which are the laser barriers.  The ones outside are like the one behind me, and they can be hard to see during the day.  The barriers outside are ten meters thick, though, and they start weak and get progressively stronger as you approach the edge, so you'll have some warning if you get too close to them.  Oh, and don't try to force your way through them, because you'll only end up hurting yourself.  Understand?"

\n He nodded again, lowering his head to scratch at an itch on his cheek with his bound claws.

\n "All right.  For now, the last things to mention are the alarms."  Allison pulled a small object from her pocket and flicked a button, and a painfully high noise rang out from it, making him wince.  "That's the fire alarm.  If you hear it, then get out of the cave and into the middle of the lawn outside, then wait for the alarm to turn off."  She pressed the other button, and a lower-pitched beep was emitted.  "If you hear this alarm, however, come immediately to this cushion and allow your handlers--Simon and me, along with those three back by the barrier and a few others--to strap you down.  Got that?"

\n Or what? he wondered, but he couldn't voice the thought.  Either way, he didn't like the idea of just submitting to the humans and allowing them to tie him up like this.  He hesitated, then nodded; if the alarm ever did go off, he could just refuse to come to the cushion.

\n "That's all I have," Allison said, putting the speaker away.  "Now, we're going to take that muzzle off you.  Don't try anything," she pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the men standing in front of the laser barrier, who held rifles in their hands.  "Not really worth it, I think."

\n Carnoc laid his head down in front of the two humans, who released the various buckles and straps of the muzzle, and after a little work they tugged on the foremost loop of the restraint, slipping the bands off his snout.  He felt the bit move forward and opened his mouth, spitting out the foul-tasting plastic cylinder, then glared at it where it dangled from the rest of the muzzle.  He growled and shook his head, swallowing a few times and trying to work saliva over his tongue to dull the taste.

\n "Come on, it wasn't that bad," Allison said, slapping at his tail where the harness made it curl around near his paws.

\n He snarled, baring his fangs.  "Don't touch me."

\n The human just smiled.  "He speaks!  Do you have a name, dragon?"

\n "Carnoc," he looked away.  "I'm hungry."

\n "As well you should be, Carnoc, after going for so long without food.  We just gave you a nutrient dose right before you woke up, though, so you shouldn't have anything more until morning."

\n He growled, wondering for a moment if it would be worth it to try to just eat the little human, if she wouldn't bring him any prey; he was hungry now, regardless of what she claimed to have just given him.  "How long is so long?"

\n "Two or three weeks, I think.  We gave you some water and supplements while you were out, but they don't compare to solid food.  Oh, but there is a stream that cuts through the front-left corner of your habitat, if you're thirsty."

\n He bucked against the straps that pinned him down.  "Then let me up, human!"

"Allison," she said.  "If I'm going to use your name, then you could at least be decent enough to use mine."

\n "I don't care what your name is, human," he snarled at her.

\n Allison folded her arms across her chest.  "You know, I could perfectly well respond to that by saying I don't care that you're hungry, and I'll bring you food when I feel like it."  She let that sink in for a moment, then continued, "but there's no need to get into that sort of fight.  I'm trying my best to accommodate you, Carnoc, but I can't do that if you don't help me out yourself.  Can you work with me here?"

\n He snorted.  "Just untie me."

\n The human didn't move.

\n He sighed, tail twitching as it tried to lash back and forth.  "...Allison."

\n "Thank you."  She fiddled with the thing from her pocket again, then she and the other human backed away.

\n The straps of the harness loosened and disappeared into the cushion with a whirring noise.  Carnoc stood up and stretched, flexing his wings and legs and groaning as the stiff joints moved for the first time in weeks, then looked towards the humans, who all now stood on the other side of the laser barrier.  "See you in the morning, Carnoc," Allison said, then the humans filed out, turning off the lights on the cave ceiling and closing the door behind them.

\n He snarled after them, then took a long, slow breath.  Now his blood was high, of course; why couldn't it have helped him when his head was free to attack them, and they were all so close?  It didn't do any good to be angry if there was nothing to be angry at.

\n Nothing in the cave presented itself as an obvious target to vent his rage on, so he closed his eyes and calmed himself down as best he could.  What would his father want him to do in this situation, anyway?

Adapt.  That was the word.  Nesleh would probably tell him to adjust to this new way of life as best he could, don't do anything to make humans dislike him or other dragons, and wait for an opportunity to make his escape.  He could practically hear him say the words.

\n All right, fine, Carnoc thought.  I'll try to put up with it.  As long as these humans leave me alone.

\n To take his mind off the situation, he started to explore the cave.  He sniffed around at the corners first; the rock here smelled almost artificial--like some sort of resin--so maybe the humans had constructed the cave somehow instead of digging it out of rock that was already there.  He nosed over the cushion, too, noticing the slits that ran through it in various places.  It was a nice, soft cushion, but he knew those straps that had held him down only minutes before were on the other side of those slits, just waiting to be called back into use.  He wasn't sleeping anywhere near that thing, no matter how nice it looked.

\n Finally he examined the barrier separating him from the tiny rear section of the cave: while the door smelled like ordinary metal, the dimly-lit barrier had no scent to it at all.  He brushed his nose against the barrier only to jump back again with a startled yelp, stung by a powerful electric current running through it that was almost strong enough to paralyze him.  He rubbed the end of his snout against one of his forelegs and glared at the barrier--it just kept glowing there as if nothing had happened--then growled and turned towards the exit.

\n Carnoc walked outside, picking his head up to look around.  It was dark out, but he couldn't see the stars through the faintly glowing barriers that formed the walls and roof of his habitat...  No, not a habitat, as Allison had called it; it was a cage, whether or not that was the word the human wanted to use.  It was a cage, and he was the animal trapped inside.  An animal, he growled to himself.  That's all the humans see when they look at me.

\n His eyes followed the gentle slope down from the cave to a large open area of short grass.  As Allison had told him, there was a stream running through the front-left corner of the cage, but when he walked up to it he saw that the dim blue glow of the closest barrier began right on the far bank of the stream.  Carnoc sniffed at the water, then lapped up a mouthful and swished it around his mouth before he swallowed it, satisfied.  It was good water, at least.

\n After drinking his fill, he reached his head up and slowly extended his snout into the barrier, feeling a weak electric current run through him--enough to sting a bit, but nothing he couldn't ignore.  He hesitated, then stepped across the stream and put his head farther into the barrier, gasping with pain as the barrier's strength increased more sharply than he expected.  He was able to hold there for a moment, but then the stinging grew too much for him and he backed away from the barrier as quickly as he could.  Maybe if I tried to lunge through it, he thought, but the barrier in the cave felt much more solid, so this one must be solid somewhere, even if it isn't at first.  And to go so deep into the barrier just to be met with an even stronger shock...  He growled and pawed at the grass beneath him, trying to nudge his mind away from the thought that he could really be trapped there.

\n Carnoc looked past the barrier.  There was a wide walkway around both the left side and the front of his cage, with a short fence on the near side of the walkway.  Probably for humans, he thought.  At least the fence and the barriers would keep them from walking right into his cage, but he growled at the thought of having to come so close to the walkways--and the humans that were sure to be on them--just to get some water.

\n Now that his thirst was dealt with, he backed out of the corner and turned around, spreading his wings and flapping them experimentally, head raised to feel the direction of the wind.  He bounded into the air and spiraled upwards, but even as slowly as he was flying he still reached the top far too soon, and had to backwing to keep from flying into the field of the barrier that formed the roof of his cage.  From this height, he'd barely have room for a decent dive.

\n While he was circling there, he took the opportunity to look at the areas outside his cage.  There was nothing notable behind it; the strange-smelling rock his cave was made out of built up and into the side of a building, and beyond that there was just overgrown vegetation.  On his left there was a wide-open space, with small buildings scattered here and there.  It looked like a place where a lot of humans would gather during the day.

\n In front of him and on his right there was a large, long metallic structure that twisted and turned through the air, doubling back and forth several times and occasionally turning a vertical loop.  Part of it even passed through the right side of his cage, suspended in midair halfway up the wall and surrounded by more of the thick barriers to keep him from getting too close to it.

\n He growled softly to himself and looked up at the sky.  Though he couldn't make out the stars through the barriers, the moon hung in the sky above him.  Carnoc watched the moon; it comforted him a little, to see something here that he was used to seeing so much back home at the clan caves.

\n But that was a bad thought to have.  How had he gotten here?  What had happened to the rest of the clan?  He didn't even know where he was--Allison had said "Disney World," wherever that was, but he had never heard of such a place before and, now that he was there, he wished he hadn't.  "Can anyone hear me?" he called in dragontongue; maybe the others were in their own cages, somewhere out of his line of sight.  He waited a few moments, then called again, but there was no response.

\n He looked around again at the barriers that kept him from flying off into the free air, trying to see what created them, and saw big thick beams rising from the ground at the corners of his cage to the top of the upper barrier, emitting blue light in the same color as the barriers.  They created the walls of his cage, he was sure, so if he was able to attack one, maybe damage or destroy it, then the barriers should disappear!

\n Carnoc flew over towards one of the corners, trying to get as close to one as he could to strike at it with his claws, but as he approached it he was only reminded of the thickness of the barriers and just how strong they could be.  He had to turn away with a sharp howl of pain, but lashed out with his tail on his way back: not close enough.  He couldn't get close enough to the pillar to use his claws, or fangs, or tail...  But as he circled back around to approach again he saw that the barriers didn't progress directly to the support: there was a little corner cut out, so the beam was entirely outside the barriers, which meant he'd somehow have to pass through them if he wanted to get access to it--and he already knew he couldn't.

\n His body couldn't, but maybe a bolt could.  He growled, lined up his shot, then arched his neck and fired Vidac's bolt right into the corner.

\n There was a sharp crack as the fluids ignited and the bolt launched towards the support, but as it reached the barrier's edge it burst outward before fading away, the barrier just glowing a little more brightly where Vidac's bolt had struck it for a moment, as if nothing had happened.

\n No!  That was his only hope to escape, and if that wouldn't work...  Carnoc's head and tail drooped, and he turned slowly away from the corner, drifting back to the ground.  Trapped.  He had been captured, bound helplessly, then locked up in a cage he couldn't escape from by a bunch of weak little humans.  How... how could this have happened?  He was a dragon!  There was no way a dragon could be so easily contained, no matter what technology the humans had...  But here was proof staring him in the face that he could be imprisoned, that it could be done so easily, and that he could not break free no matter how hard he tried.

\n He landed roughly, and it took considerable effort to keep himself from collapsing on the lawn and just lying there until someone came along to make him do otherwise; that was what any other animal the humans had captured would do, anyway, and they'd made him one of them, now...  But he was a dragon, he growled softly to himself.  Dragons didn't give up, didn't accept defeat so easily.  So strength alone couldn't get him out of here, but maybe something else could, if he could just think of it...

\n But when he tried to think, other questions kept crowding escape out of his mind.  What was going on?  Where was the rest of the clan, how had he come here, how had he been found, and captured, and how long did they want to make him stay...  As much as he didn't like the woman, he decided to ask Allison.  She seemed willing enough to talk to him, so maybe she would answer a few of her questions.  He flexed his wings a few times and folded them, then looked around one last time before walking into his cave.  He glanced at the cushion that lay there, but curled up on the floor against the wall on the other side of the cave instead.

\n He was about to fall asleep when something on his neck itched, and he stood back up to scratch at the spot with a hind paw.  It didn't go away, so he scratched harder, only for the tip of one of his claws to catch in something hard.  He paused, reaching up to feel the thing with his foreclaws instead; it was hard, probably metallic, smooth and very thin--though it had a bulge at his throat--and wrapped all the way around his neck, right behind his head.  What did humans call them?  Not a necklace...  A collar.  The humans had put some sort of collar on him.  He tried to turn his head to look at it, but it was too close to his head for him to see.

\n Just another way for the humans to humiliate me, he thought with a growl.  He tried briefly to pull it off, but it was so tight around his neck that he could barely get the tips of his claws under it, and there was no way he could get enough force on it to pull it apart without choking himself or breaking his own neck first.  He scratched at the collar one last time, then curled up for a nap.
\n  

\n
\n "Good morning, Carnoc!" Allison said, and he pulled his head out from under his wing with a snarl to see the woman standing over by the barrier at the back of the cave; there was barely any light coming from outside, but the lights in the cave ceiling had been switched on again.  There was a large tray heaped up with some unidentifiable meat on the ground in front of her, and Carnoc stared at it, mouth watering.

\n "Hungry?" Allison asked.  "It's fresh enough, I'm sure."

\n He shuffled his wings.  It wasn't prey, but after two weeks without food he was too hungry to care; he uncurled himself and stood in the same motion, then walked over to the tray of meat without even bothering to stretch first.  He buried his jaws in the food, not waiting for the human to step back or even sniffing at the meat first, snapping it all up as quickly as he could.

\n She watched the process for a moment, then asked, "is there something wrong with your cushion that kept you from using it to sleep on?  I thought it felt thick enough, but I'm nowhere near your size, so I can't be sure."

\n He glared at her.  "I'm not sleeping on anything that's meant to restrain me."  Flecks of blood from a not-yet-swallowed bite got on Allison's face and clothes, but he snorted and went back to his meal without apologizing.

\n Allison just shrugged, wiping at her face with a small white cloth to get the blood off.  "Your choice, then.  I'll be back this evening with your dinner, but if you need me, just knock on the door in the barrier and someone will get me for you."  She turned and left, turning off the lights as she went.

\n He returned to his meal, nearly taking up half the tray in his hunger--though it still received a few dents and scratches from his teeth.  Once he was done eating, he returned to his corner of the cave and started to lick his claws clean, then used them to clear the blood away from the corners of his mouth.  He growled; now he realized that he had forgotten to ask Allison anything.

\n He sat for a couple of minutes before he realized he was thirsty, and he froze.  Were there humans outside yet?  He held still, listening, but he couldn't hear much noise coming from outside the cave.  Rising, he crept to the cave entrance and peered out at the walkways.

\n It was daylight outside, but fortunately the walkways were empty--for the time being, anyway--so he bounded across his cage to the stream as quickly as he could.  He took a long drink, and was just starting to wash the sides of his face when he heard a human speaking somewhere nearby.

\n He didn't even bother looking for the source of the noise, he just bolted for the cave as fast as he could run; caged or not, he had no intention of showing himself for the humans outside.  Once he was safely back in his cave, he went back to his corner and shook a few stray droplets of water from his face, then curled up to rest.

\n But he couldn't.  There was noise outside now, and it was only growing louder: humans.  They were outside, on the walkways, walking around with their possessions and their young, and hoping to catch sight of the new caged dragon.  Put on display like a prize for others to admire, he thought.  It was sickening.

\n Carnoc pulled his wing over his head, he curled up facing away from the cave entrance, he even tried using the cushion for a minute, but nothing worked.  He couldn't sleep, and the humans outside were only getting louder.  He growled to himself and walked back to the cave entrance, keeping low and to the side so he wouldn't be seen by the humans outside.  He peeked his head out, squinting in the sunlight, and sure enough, there they all were.  Some moved along the walkways, some stood watching his cage expectantly, others stood in smiling groups to take pictures of each other--a practice he had never understood, despite Karen's attempts to explain it to him one evening a few months ago.  And all of them were noisy.

\n Worse still, a loud hum built in the air, peaking when some sort of vehicle ran through his cage, packed with still more screaming humans, on the raised track he had noticed the night before.  Was it some sort of... ride?  Though getting onto something just to be scared didn't seem very appealing.  One of the tracked vehicles ran through his cage once every couple of minutes.

\n He went back to the corner of the cave and curled up again, but now that he could put images with all the sounds they were even harder to shut out.  After ten more minutes of lying there, he just couldn't take it any more.  He got back up, stomped over to the cave entrance and poked his head outside, then took a deep breath and roared.

\n The humans didn't run, they didn't scream with fright, they didn't even quiet down.  They cheered.

\n Carnoc groaned and waited for the noise to die down a bit, but it didn't.  He roared again, saying, "would you all just shut up?  I'm trying to sleep!"

\n Near silence followed.  "That's better," he snorted, and walked back into the cave.

\n Out on the walkway, Chris nodded and leaned against the railing.  "That's Carnoc, all right."