Beast Taming

"AHHHH!! NOOO!! GET BACK HEERE!!!!!!!!!!"

Edith cried once more. This was her third tree. She had taken a rope earlier and was trying to use it to tie it around the Giraffe's neck and bring it back to the truck, but the creature would never pay attention to her and would keep moving from tree to tree. 

This was the third tree she had to climb, it was getting annoying because small branches kept scrapping against her skin, and despite not causing her to bleed, they were leaving marks and she was tired of climbing. At one point she fell into a small section of mud and now she was done with this entire mission.

"The sooner I get done with this, the sooner I get to have a snack," she said in a pitiful tone. 'Why does this place have good food? It's unjust.'

"Oh, Edith!" John said from underneath the tree, "Do you need some help climbing down?" he asked.

"No, I am fine I was just admiring the view up here, it is amazing," she said with a fake smile trying to show happiness.

"Are you sure? If you jump I will catch you, it's not a shame to ask for help."

Edith considered this, on the one hand, she had never been carried by a male other than her father and his friends so this might be an opportunity or the other hand she didn't want to ask for help, this way she could brag to Cyrus who seems to ask like he knows better that she didn't need help at all.

In the end, she chose to try and one-up Cyrus, "I appreciate the offer but it's fine really."

"Alright then, my lady," John said with a low bow on one knee then I will be off and leave you to tend to your matters. He gave a charming smile and walked away.

'Damnit! I want a male butler in the future," she thought. She looked down and realized just how high she was. It was slightly above 10 feet and she didn't want to waste climbing down to climb back up so she jumped down held onto a branch, swung off of it to a lower branch, and then jumped to the ground.

"Alright," she groaned with a tad of frustration, "Next tree."

****

"I need to go, I need to go now!!" Dawn said as he was running through the field.

He had escaped the hippo by climbing on top of a branch that was hanging by the water. The hippo realized this and broke apart the branch with its mouth.

Dawn was running as quickly as he called to reach John, 'He will protect me, right? They wouldn't want me to die, they want me reformed.' The fact that he was even having such thoughts made him want to throw up. His chest was hurting from such nonsense.

The Hippo unfortunately wouldn't make it so easy for him, it gave chase, moving at a mere 5km/h, pursuing him with interest.

He had to keep running or risk being dragged back to the lake.

As he approached the vehicle, he couldn't see John anywhere near it.

"John! John! JJJHHONN!"

But there was no reply.

'Did he leave me here? But the truck is still here, he couldn't have left.' Dawn did not know where John was but he figured he would take shelter in this place until it would leave. Displaying a decent amount of acrobats he leaped into the open window and hid inside.

The hippo noticed his disappearance and waited outside the truck, circling it.

At first, it was moving around for Dawn, waiting for him to come out, but soon it smelled a pleasant scent from the back. It smelled of food, good food with lots of vegetables in it.

It went to to back of the truck but it was too high for it to climb onto, so it began ramming itself into the truck, attempting to flip it over. Dawn was scared but he figured this could all be part of the test, it made no sense for the truck to still be here if John left.

He made a plan, if the truck flipped then he would crawl out and run away as soon as it did. He didn't want to be cornered, not again. He just needed to see this as a game.

When the truck flipped the hippo went to work devouring all the food that had been left on it, meanwhile, Dawn had stealthily snuck out and was crouching away like in a videogame. Trying not to alert the enemy.

At one point it turned to him but he was hiding behind a tree, after a few seconds of looking at it, it turned back to eat its meal. After which Dawn had made another run for it.

****

Terra had come face to face with the lion's den and he didn't know what to do.

Not only was he supposed to tame one but five of them in total, 4 females and one male with a dark mane around its neck.

"I need to go out there," he said.

But then he turned around and common sense hit him, he could not go out there, it was crazy. Terra wanted nothing more than to walk away and to have someone tell him that it was okay to leave and that he did his best.

A little bit away from him, John was watching this sight.

Alex sees a lot in you, he really does and it motivates me to see how you do.

John knew that no one would get hurt from this, one of the perks of being chosen by the earth is that all representatives will not be killed or critically injured by a beast of any kind.

Terra and all the others were safe, this was more of a test of bravery, so he never mentioned this to them. If they aren't brave enough to take the first step alone, then no one will be there to help them take the next step.

Terra thought back to why he was doing this in the first place, he had lost his parents in a gang war, and someone had aggravated the other mafia groups, gangs, and mobs to attack the city he lived in.

One thing led to another and his parents and sisters were killed, his sister had been raped before she was killed, and his mother's chest had been defiled, his dad died a slower death watching. All of this happened on his way from school one day.

He had returned in time to find the culprits who did it, they had never left as they were considering raping his dead's mothers corpse. They were sick people, and what hurt him the most was that such people were allowed to exist in this world.

The things he did to them were so vile that he never could have told his younger self these things lest he would be horrified of himself. That day Terra realized that you can never fully know what you are capable of until someone pushes you far enough.

He had become something he despised and though what he thinks he did was necessary he also believes that there could be a better way to do it, maybe he could have called the police or something, but not taking another person's life.

Terra wanted to change after that, he had cut off communication with his relatives after that and had spent most time doing community work. He wanted to redeem himself and after being chosen, he decided that the best way to make up for what he did was to protect everyone else who still has somebody they love, so nobody has to lose their loved ones too.

As he was lost in thought, another female lion appeared right before him.

Terra was stunned, he thought he counted correctly, there were still 5 lions in the den, which would mean that there were never 5 lions, to begin with, there were 6.

The lioness growled in front of him, lowly as she took her approach, step by step like a hunter hunting its prey. Terra took a few steps back but then stopped in his tracks, he remembered when his sister was watching a documentary about animals that to deal with a lion, you need to stand your ground.

So that's exactly what he did, he stood there almost frozen but seemingly unwavering.

The lioness continued its approach and it was about to pouch on its prey but then it stopped, it relaxed its back and approached him the way a house cat would approach its owner. And it purred.

It rubbed its head on his hand and went around his body as if petting itself against him. Terra was stunned, he did not know what to make of the situation, it was as if the lioness chose to tame itself.

The lioness pulled the sleeves of his jacket and led him down towards the pride of lions.

As nervous as he was he figured this was a better way to go down there than any other, with one of them guiding him. 'At least this way they won't attack me, right?' he thought.

The lionesses stood up first, assessing the situation and the Male leader stood up last. It let out a growl letting Terra know that he was in its Territory.

Terra gulped as he approached it, the lioness that was guiding him stayed back and now it was up to him to do his thing. He let out a hand and started approaching slowly.

The lion saw this and roared again and Terra stopped and waited for it to finish, after which he proceeded again, slowly but steadily. He had finally reached near its mouth and could feel the warm hair brush against his skin, he was trying to pet its head but it kept moving and Terra was getting a little frustrated with it.

He brought out his second hand and the lion was threatening to bite his hand but he kept moving in slowly. He placed one hand underneath its mane and one hand on top of it and began petting the lion.

Terra was expecting a retaliation of some sort but the lion let him. It let him pet it and even seemed to be enjoying it to some extent.

After a few more seconds of doing this, the 5 other lions came forward and were all circling Terra's body. The all wanted to have a piece of him.

Terra smiled and gradually started laughing as the group of lions were caressing him. It was not as bad as he thought it would be and he was actually glad he came here.

 John who had been watching the whole thing was taken aback, "It was that easy for him? They accepted him so quickly despite being a stranger to them." Normally it would take weeks if not months for a lion to get used to seeing a human and that was if they were feeding it all the time.

But Terra just walked right in and it was done.

John was second-guessing the kind of kids he was watching after.

"Alex, this one kid might even been more naturally talented than you were as a kid."

With all of this said and done it was now time for him to move on the the other kid that was dealing with an animal from the big cat family.

It was time to move on and see if Vito had made any progress in taming the Tiger.

****

Back to Vito's point of view, he was sweating nervously as he was hiding behind a tree. Similar to Terra he had found the den of the tiger but it was just 1. One very big tiger who didn't like visitors.

But unlike Terra, he was going to make the first move towards it.