Are those footsteps? Or have I just been in here so long that I'm imagining them?

The noise faded away, making me think it was the second option. After all, who would be seeing me at this hour? I pulled the thin sheet back around me in a feeble attempt to keep out the blasted cold when I heard them again. Then the blanket on the cage was pushed out of the way to reveal a face. A young boy.

"Hello there," he announced cheerfully, like he wasn't staring into the face of a hideous monster at three in the morning. "I'm your new trainer."

"New trainer?" I yelled back in surprise, forgetting that I wasn't supposed to speak unless someone asked me a question. "What happened to the old one?"

He waved his hand in the air in a dismissing gesture, as if the loss of a trainer was nothing important. "Nevermind that, how do you feel about a walk? Preferably a fast one."

His talk was casual, but I could smell the fear on him, and could see his eyes continuing to dart back to the main tent.

"You're not supposed to be here... are you?" I got up and began to pace my cage, watching him closely with my good eye. What the heck was this human doing here? Didn't he had anything better to do than to bother me?

"Yeah well, I don't think you should be here either," he whispered, pulling a large, brass key out of the pocket of his doublet. He held it up as if I couldn't see it from where he was clutching it.

"How did you get that?" I knew my old trainer. He never let that thing out of his sight.

But instead the boy just sighed. "So many questions! Listen, do you want to come out or not?"

I fervently nodded. To be allowed out of this cage without a show going on or an audience to throw rotten food at me? Sounded too good to be true. The boy dutifully slipped the key in the lock and twisted, causing the lock to snap open and turn on its side. It didn't take too long for me to ease out of the cage after that. Stepping off the ledge of the cart, my naked feet barely had the time to sink an inch into the freezing snow when I heard shouts in the distance. People, and they wanted me.

Instantly I whipped on the boy, growling and grabbing his soft neck in my hands. "You led them to me. You want them to kill me!" It made sense. After all, why else would he have wanted to let me out? I began to squeeze, not to hard at first because I wanted to make it last.

However, the boy continued to squirm in my hands. "No... you got it all wrong. They're angry because... I swiped the key of your trainer..."

"Wait, you took the key?" I turned my head sideways so I could look at him with one eyes, then the other. "What happened to my old trainer?"

He looked over his shoulder as the voices became closer and easier to hear. "I can tell you, but we have to get out of here first." He squirmed out of my grasp and began to run before I could catch him again. "The name's Ian, by the way."