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It had been a few days since he'd been captured... a few days that seemed like an eternity. The four walls that surrounded him simply were no big enough and he felt he might go insane. Faking illness had only had him prodded into wakefulness, making him doubt if he was going to escape, if ever. He'd noticed, however, that the tamer cats were taken out and walked for exercise and, he suspected, to show off - there were lions who kept slaves, it made sense these aliens would do something similar. Everything on the savannah looked to lions as an example, these creatures would be no different. Caged near Auri, he waited and watched as he tried to figure out how best to get the two-legs to trust him.... they seemed comfortable enough around Auri.

The leopardess had figured out a while back that if she -ever- wanted out of her cage, she couldn't try to bite or claw at the humans. She'd seen those who had, and one or two had even been killed for it. So ... the thought had never really occurred to her to try to get away from them while she was outside the cage. "It's too bad your plan didn't work..." she murmured across the way, just the barest hint of sarcasm in her tone.

He was pressed up against the forward facing bars, doing his best to look friendly and appealing, though his rumbled at that comment, "Shut up. At least I'm trying to escape." Flashing a look at her, he tossed his head to send his mane waving like fire and flopped onto his side like a big house cat. When the hands tentative touched him, he jumped and pulled away, growling. It took several more days of this monotonous training in both directions before he could bring himself to entertain the touching of strange, frightening non-paws to his coat. Auri, of course, had been let out a few times since then.... and, by his count, should be allowed out any time soon. He wanted out too...... Bunting his head against the bar, he rumbled hopefully.

Glancing over when she was let out for her walk, Auri smirked faintly. "I completely see how you've been trying to escape the past few days..." she tossed in his direction, flicking tail as she was led away.

Oooou.... if he could grab her right then and there, he would. Tail flicking, he perked as a slab of meat was tossed into his cage and gnawed on it, disappointed. Out. That's all he wanted.... out. Back to the open spaces and the wide plains and away from here. "Mmph." Taonga muttered as he watched her stretch her legs. Must be nice....

Admittedly, Auri felt just a little bit superior now... she'd -told- him that it was impossible to escape, several times now. But he wouldn't listen. And she was a little mad too. It was terrible like this and she had hoped, for a while, when he said they could get out. But as days went by and nothing happened... well. He might talk, but he wasn't acting.

Taonga watched them parade her around, over by the other big box, then the tent things like the tribes on the plains had... that was the space he'd run. A plan had been circulating, forming slowly in his head, carefully laid out and based on observation. He would get out, one way or another.... and these creatures would rue imprisoning him. Stuffing his nose in between the bars, he acted as though looking for attention and was quite pleased when a hand came to pat his nose quickly. Yes! Yes! Over here.... Rising, he wandered over to the door and plopped down before it. Out. Here, you stupid beast, out! Rubbing his cheek against the bar, he glanced at his captors hopefully.

Eventually, the man walking Auri turned back toward her cage, and she glanced over toward Taonga for a moment - noting the men moving toward him. Oh, so maybe they were finally going to let him out too, huh? Good for him... though it wasn't escape.

He watched Auri's return, then started when the cage door clicked and creaked loudly, drawing his attention back to that. Slowly, the door swung open and a loop was thrown over his head.... he fought the urge to fight it off as they'd been doing that for a few days now.... tossing ropes and things over his head and leaving it. Mrring, he stood still, and ducked his head to resist the light tug before forcing himself forward. The men stood far away from him as he stepped down the small ladder onto the ground and shook his head and rolled his shoulders. Mrring, the lion stepped forward once, paused, and then moved again, puling against the rope.

When little resistence came, he ignored the man nearest him and set out to walking, though his paws itched to be running. The moments seemed to drag by, each step impossibly long and the temptation growing too quickly to ignore. Unable to resist the freedom before him, Taonga's plans were thrown out the window as he heaved forward, pulling the rope from his foolish handler's grasp and roaring at Auri's. Her lead rope was dropped as well, and, more used to acting then waiting, the big blue lion ducked into a headlong run for the wild, shouldering Auri as he passed by her, "Enjoy your cage!" He wasn't really sure if he meant that as a nudge to come after him or a triumphant, gloating catcall.

"Hey!" Auri half-yelped, frozen for a moment before she realized her lead had also been dropped. Then she blinked, startled... and took off after him. "Hey! Wait! They could kill you!" and indeed... behind them, a few of the humans were running around and yelling - one or two having gotten the long sticks that made booming sounds. Ooooh this was bad!

One shot soon answered her warning and sliced across his shoulder, a flesh wound, but it was quite sufficient to send him scrambling. Running faster then he ever had before, fueled by desire for freedom and a fear of the boomsticks, Taonga glanced back but once to find Auri running after him. "Run!" He shouted before falling silent. The bush came up soon enough and he ducked into it, moving with far more confidence in the undergrowth then any two-legger. In the distance, strange shouts could be heard but Taonga paid them no mind.

"I am!" she called back - she couldn't very well do anything else now... if they caught either of them, they were likely to be killed. Why in the -world- had she run after him! Ducking into the undergrowth behind him, the leopardess almost immediately ran smack into a thorn bush, yowling when she was scratched and poked.

Taonga spared a glance back when she started mewling and groaned, doubling round without breaking step and grabbed the scruff of her neck in his mouth and dragged her out. Chest heaving, he didn't really care if she were scraped or cut... those could be handled later. "If you're going to run.... BE QUIET!" He snarled at her before turning and resuming his flight. The baying of dogs could be heard now, their scent carrying down the wind and he growled.... he disliked canines....

"Ow ow, hey!" she protested, batting at him when he dragged her. But she did see how it wouldn't help to make noise and snapped her mouth shut as she ran after him. She could hear those dogs too and picked up the pace a little. They were going to be caught...

The terrain was growing more hilly, with gullies beginning to cut through the land as it was into one of these that he moved, hoping to lose whatever was chasing them. "You live with them! How do I lose them?" He called, changing direction when the sound of dogs echoed in front of him. What was going on?

"I do not... live... with them!" Auri protested, glancing back, then forward again - ears going back against her head. "I never tried to run away before, how should I know!" Frowning, she followed him, panting softly. She'd never run this much in her life either... "They... can probably smell us, though.."

"Smell?" He thought as he ran then suddenly cut left, heading deeper into the gullies. During the rains, these passages would flood, killing anyone caught inside.... but right now, that was useless. If they... if they lead to a river, maybe they could escape then....

However, a dog bayed nearby and another jumped and tumbled into the dirt before him, tripping Taonga and sending the two rolling. Roaring, he was up on his feet again, facing the dog. The dog, however, was already launching itself at Taonga, meaning to harry the lion long enough for its masters to catch up. Rearing up as the dog closed, he swatted it to the side and growled in frustration when it dodged the blow, ducking around beside him to leap onto his back. Roaring, he reared again, shaking his head to try to dislodge the scrabbling canine. Thankfully, his man protected his neck from the snapping jaws. "'ET OFF ME!" By luck, he snagged a paw in his mouth and pulled, yanking the dog from him and quickly finished the thing off. Panting, he turned to run, knowing they'd wasted precious time.

Auri had frozen while Taonga fought with the dog, eyes wide - since she'd never seen one of them killed before, especially not like that. When the lion took off again, though, she was quick to follow - though she didn't really think they'd get away now. It was just a matter of time before they were killed...

The baying stopped momentarily as they surged out onto a flood plain only to find that no water was near, the stream had gone dry.... Groaning in exasperation, Taonga ran with the stream bed, watching the ground. This way was growing more moist! "Water's this way!" He yelled, excited now. A few moments later, they came to a river, once vast and now much smaller, murky and sluggish. The dry season had not been kind to the area, but for Taonga it meant escape. Without a second thought, he jumped into the water and began swimming down stream. He could almost touch bottom, which meant the crocodiles infamous for lurking in the water would likely not be around, it was too shallow. "Hurry!"

"What does... water... have to do with anything?" Auri asked, panting again as she followed, paws sore and one of them bleeding where a thorn had gotten stuck in it from from that bush. She skidded to a stop at the edge of the water, staring at him. "What are you doing!" Water was for drinking, not ... not... whatever he was doing in there!

"Scent you idiot!" He growled, shaking his head, "Get in and go upstream or downstream! You'll be caught otherwise!" As if to emphasize his comment, the howling of the dogs, angrier now, was catching up again, following their scent along the dried up stream. "NOW!" Good gods... did this leopard know nothing? He wasn't waiting to find out if she figured it out or not.

"Get---" Auri glanced back and cut herself off, then jumped into the water and almost immediately sank under the surface, flailing. Of course, she had -no- idea how to swim or anything, so all she was accomplishing right now was stirring up the dirt and mud on the bottom. Oh, and making good headway on drowning hersef too.

Taonga heard the splashing and grumbled, swimming back to shoulder her, one leg on either side of his shoulders and returned to their escape. Really... if he wouldn't feel bad about abandoning her, he'd have left her to drown, maybe even slow down the dogs.... hm. Seriously considering it for a moment, he let the current carry them further down stream as it seemed the water was beginning to move much faster as it flowed into another ravine. "You're useless."

Auri gasped and choked, sputtering for a good few minutes before she could do anything else. And then she just latched onto the other, digging in with claws to hold. "You ... were the one that tried... to kill me! Told me to jump in here..." she half-growled, exhausted, wet, and irritated now.

"You're supposed to be able to swim." He muttered, the dogs' barking growing confused as they lost the hunters. Finally. "You're a leopard. Leopards swim and climb.... you can't?" Taonga's face was pinched with annoyance and pain, as her claws her digging in rather painfully. "Don't dig your claws in! Or I'll let you drown!"

"What is 'swim'?" Auri asked, quickly retracting claws and instead trying to wrap frong legs around him. "How else do I hold on!"

"Uhm." He seemed rather stumped by that question and shook his head, "That would be what I'm doing right now...." Taonga tilted his head to toss a disbelieving look at Auri, "You.... are not going to survive out here. You can't even swim." He frowned and wondered at the wisdom of saving her, not for the first time since their escape began.

She drooped a bit at that, slumping against him. "I'm sorry..." she murmured. "You don't have to help me anymore if you ... really don't want to." He could just let her drown, maybe things would be better that way.

He shook his head and sighed, "We'll get out of the water and then decide. If you can hunt... you can hang around. I don't really care. I'm free again." She was annoying.... be he couldn't just leave her, well not right at the moment, anyway.

Auri perked up just a little bit at that. "I can try to hunt... anyway..." she replied quietly, eyes lidding a little. "But later? I'm really tired now... and my paw hurts..." Yes, she was maybe whining a bit, but she'd never run that much before - or gotten thorns in her paws.

"Your paw...?" He asked as he slogged up the bank and collapsed, chest heaving, "What now? Fix it yourself." Rising, he managed to walk further up bank and into the grass where he settled down and let his chin rest on the ground, "I'm not hunting for you. You can go follow someone else for that." Harumphing, he eyed her for a moment.

Auri also got out of the water, limping a little on the thorn'd paw. "I think there's something -in- it..." she complained, but her voice was quiet and to her credit, she did try to bite at the pad to get the thorn out. Frustrated after a moment, though, she sighed and just flopped down on the dirt.

He opened one eye and sighed, "Do this." Shifting so his paws were before him, he let one rest with the paw facing upwards and dragged his other paw over it, claws extended. "If there's something there, it should get hooked and pulled out. You really are useless...." Murming, he settled back down.

"Sorry..." Auri murmured. "I did try..." But she did what he suggested and hissed softly when her claws caught at the thorn and pulled it out. Getting up again, she limped over to the water and stuck her paw in for a moment and then flopped over and licked at it. "You don't have to hunt for me... I'll catch my own food." Somehow...

"Good." He replied, arching a brow as he flicked his tail. The rope had come off in their escape, at least, and he could rest easy. "Now... leave me alone. I told you I'd get out." Grinning to himself, he settled down to sleep with a huge yawn. Hopefully she wouldn't bother him more after he woke up.