The twins considered this. "Do you have any cool skills?" one asked.
~~
Vlad finished his wine and set the glass down carefully. "No, no, thank you, but you need all the rest you can get after your work earlier today with the new addition. Perhaps another night I will take you up on that offer." He rose gracefully. "I should go."
~~
Claudius had been dozing contentedly, unbothered by the infrequent bouts of noise outside. Noise was nothing new to him, and none of it was tortured screams or particularly close. He had no idea where his caged wagon was in relation to the rest of the circus, but it was set back and away a bit, out of the sight of most of the curious circus goers. It was quiet and nice. The people kept him fed and watered and no one had studied him or taken samples or anything invasive. He still wasn't ready to trust any of them, not by a long shot, but maybe, just maybe it would be better than his last master. Even if they still used him for studies, it was still better than there.
"Here? What do you suppose this is?"
"I don't know. Why do you suppose there's this great big tarp over it?"
"Bet you anything it's something valuable!"
"Yeah, gotta be! Let's take a look."
Claudius raised his head and blinked sleepily as footsteps approached his wagon. They were cautious, stuttering footsteps, like someone who'd snuck into somewhere they weren't supposed to be. He paused. How did he know that? He couldn't remember. Then the tarp twitched at the opposite end, and two faces appeared. They peered inside, not seeing him at first.
"It's empty," said a disappointed voice.
"It can't be empty. Who coveres up an empty cage?"
"I dunno, keeping it clean or something?"
He stirred slightly, shifting to get a better look at the pair of faces, and he heard a gasp.
"Wait! It's not empty! Look there in the corner!"
"What is it? Some kind of animal?"
"No, a person."
"Don't look like a person to me."
"Come on. No one's around. Let's get the tarp off for a better look."
The sudden cacophony of the tarp getting flipped back startled him, and he staggered to his hands and knees. What was going on? The pair were struggling to push it up, so they changed tactics and pulled the whole sheet off, instead, tearing one corner where it had been attached. They got it off with more determination than finesse and stood staring inside. Claudius squinted in the light. It was only moonlight and some lights from the circus, but after the darkness of the covered cage, this was so bright! He crouched, his hands held protectively in front of his body, his erect spines and malformed horns standing out in sharp silhouette against the moonlight.
"Whoa! What is that thing?" gasped one of the pair staring at him. He and his companion both looked to young, but still technically of adult size while the gleam in their eyes was clearly childish.
"I think it's a beast of some sort," supplied the friend.
"Nah, can't be! Looks like a man, to me. Probably one of those fake attractions."
The first one had walked around to the end Claudius crouched in. Claudius shifted away nervously, but even in this spacious cage, he only had so far he could go to hide. The man-boy reached in suddenly with a stick and poked at the spines on Claudius' back. He tried to scramble away, but he wasn't fast enough, and the stick struck on squarely. He hissed more in shock than pain.
"Got him! Nah, those are real. Nah, that's a beast for sure or he'd be yelling at us."
The friend picked up a stick as well and poked at Claudius. Claudius scrambled to the center of the cage. This one's stick was shorter, and he was able to avoid it. "Moves pretty funny. What do you think it is?"
"Dunno, but maybe we can finally get our money's worth out of this lame freak show!"
The sticks came faster. Claudius jerked back and forth, instinctively hissing and growling as he tried to dodge. What were they doing? Why were they here? They were laughing at him! Slowly losing any furtiveness in their nature as they chased him back and forth in the cage, their sticks clanging against the iron bars and thrusting through.
