The Perceptions Of An Observer: A Short Story Collection

XXII. The Lion

He didn't belong with them.

Maybe, once upon a time, he thought he did, but each passing day made it more and more obvious that he did not belong with the Puppet Master's clique.

He was just too different from the others to feel of an equal value to them.

The Lion was a newer addition to the clique and to the known world, a wanderer who had not expected a place in this land he had mistakenly stumbled upon.

Truthfully, he had not desired to stumble or settle anywhere. He was a traveler between worlds, and he liked it that way. He liked exploring the plains beyond the visible horizon with no chains, no boundaries. It was his way of life, one he wouldn't give up for the world.

But then he was forced into giving it up.

In the very beginning, The Lion did not understand the weight of the freedom he was signing away. Despite his wanderlust, the world he had found was a nice place.to settle temporarily. Maybe with the consideration of a safe haven such as this, a break from traveling could happen with much comfort and little sacrifice.

If only he knew just how contaminated this seemingly safe haven would become.

It was during The Lion's stay that The Puppet Master took the crown of the kingdom into his own hands, turning a safe haven into an unimaginably dangerous hell for anyone in its boundaries.

At first, this turnover of power did not especially bother The Lion. He was nowhere near the heart of corruption, which granted him some short lived immunity to the poisoning of the kingdom's heart.

But immunity wasn't forever, it would never be forever as contamination spread.

And The Lion would be trapped in the quarantined borders of a toxic world, no matter how hard or how far he tried to run.

This place was home in a physical sense now, whether he liked it or not. In his mind, heart, and spirit, the Puppet Master's kingdom would never be home. It was too broken, too poisonous, too dangerous to be a true home.

Maybe if someone else was the ruler of this land, it would feel safer. Maybe if The King never gave up his crown, there would be some eradication of the darkest evils of the current state of things.

Maybe if it weren't for The Puppet Master's spot on the throne, The Lion would find himself more at ease in this land he had stumbled upon those years ago.

The world as it was known was nothing much more than an exceptionally dangerous and daring circus, with The Puppet Master as a cruel circus leader, power hungry and thirsty for control over anything he could find some sort of dominance and superiority over. He wanted to reign over everything, turn the whole world into a stage of his creation, everyone around him performing for his benefit and entertainment.

That was all he wanted, all he cared about.

And this power hungry persona made The Lion exceptionally bitter.

There was something that could be discussed about wild animals in captivity. How if you stole one from its natural habitat and placed it in a cage somewhere away from the wild, by doing so you'd be setting off a toxic chain of events. You would be instigating a reaction of violence, of carnage, of displeasure that would poison all in its wake. The wild animal you took captive would lash out, its captivity and unrightful stealing of freedom making it bitter and dangerous. It would turn its rightful rage into violence, increasingly difficult to wrangle with each day of your choice to imprison it passing by.

And in theory, The Puppet Master was nothing more than a captor to The Lion, trapping him in a cage he didn't belong in. Trapping someone who didn't belong to his circus amongst the acts he had created, using malicious force and taunting to keep him in place.

Similarly to a captive animal in a parallel situation, The Lion simply had enough.

While he never directly lashed out at The Puppet Master, there was a clear bitter resentment for this cruel man spewing from every pore of The Lion's being. He hardly even bothered to sugarcoat it, why would he when one of his only true desires was for The Puppet Master to see the damage he caused, to feel the consequences of his actions?

But bitterness was not the end all for all situations, the unfiltered anger of the world's circumstances creating an imbalance of rage within The Lion that would cause him to lash out at times in which it was not considered to be the most acceptable.

In his mind, though, this anger was seen as reasonable. Random rages were justified, even at the smallest infractions, after all that The Puppet Master did and worked so tirelessly to sweep under the rug from the press. These countless erased abuse charges were enough to turn everyone into an enemy, and to prompt a response that aligned with these perceived threats.

And the more anger you showed to him, the more anger he showed to you in return. It was easy to learn this the hard way, the most historic event of which was his infamous battle with The Flame, when this bitter boy took on The Lion in a physical fight. The origins of this were unclear as time passed, but the message to not fight with those made dangerous by the world's abuses rang clear.

The Flame did deserve it, in The Lion's mind. Everyone who crossed his path and tried to make everything worse for him deserved the consequences of their actions.

The Lion's life was forever changed by the behavior of the few, and the temperament he had gained in a response to what he endured would never go away again.

He was different from the wanderer who found the world on a whim, thought it to be a safe resting spot. If only he knew about the danger that lay ahead, the danger that would permanently alter him and never let him be free from the world's cruelest circus ever again.