Deep in the forest lies a palace. Gilded columns stretch to gold leaf ceilings, marble and mosaic stones making patterns between all the beams of sunlight. Rivers run through the halls, waterfalls creating pools of crystal blue. Flowers and bamboo, branches twisted into perfect perches with ivy curtains hung like tapestries. It is a palace of ten thousand rooms...but only a single door. Even the expanse of gardens surrounding the palace circle back inward. Reach for the sky and eventually, everything reaches a roof. A roof, a wall, another arch that leads right back. For all the wonders befitting a king, the palace is nothing but a cage. And truly, nothing enters by choice.

Those that inhabit the palace--known only as The Menagerie--were once beings from another realm. Or maybe another place or another time, for no one knows exactly where The Menagerie is. But they were all once human. Now, the wildest array of animals occupy the palace. No two exactly the same species, but all humans trapped and on display.

The older animals, or at least the ones who have yet to lose their minds, say a witch brought them there. No one has seen her face, but they tell of dreams. Or nightmare memories, really. They also tell of a door that leads back to the human realm. Some have found it, but most slowly lose all sense of who they once were. Animals without a mind, they roam The Menagerie, having become the body that they inhabit--forever. That is the endgame. All the animals of the world beneath a single roof, lost in the sea of time. They do not die. They do not starve, or freeze, or age a single day. And forever they shall remain.

...Unless they find the door...

The Rules:

1) Please post more than one or two lines

2) As the animals in the menagerie are immortal, even if characters fight among themselves or encounter a wild predator, they will simply wake up whole again. You cannot kill anybody off.

3) That said, minimal levels of violence are okay, but refrain from excessive gore.

4) Only real animals are allowed and try to be specific. If your character is an owl, are they a barn owl? A burrowing owl? Since there are no animals repeats, keep the rest of the species open for play.

5) To join, post your image with a simple line above that describes what your character is at its base. Ex: for a lion you could say, I am a beast who rules with heart and pride.

6) You can jump in at any point in the story.

I am a blue jay and I am as clever as I am beautiful.


~~O~O~~

He came to awareness slowly, as if waking from a dream. Half formed memories of two legs and golden hair filled his mind for a second, but they vanished just as quick. When he opened his eyes, it was to a world nothing like that. The blue jay ruffled his wings, tail feathers glinting blue in the sunlight around him. For a second, it left panic rising in his mind. Who was the soul that inhabited this body? Who was this bird body that definitely did not belong to him? Before long, the panic cooled though, eased by the sound of gently falling water.

It was the second day since Blue Jay woke in a world unlike any other. All around him various animals scurried. They spoke to him, telling fantastical stories about the palace. In another life, he might even have grown to love it. But the memories of who he once was weighed too heavily in his mind. And the idea that this was a cage.

There was only one thing that Blue Jay wanted now and that, was to get out.

I am a grey wolf and am as ruthless as I am compassionate


She was a grey wolf. At least, that was what she looked like. Grey was not at all understanding what the bright world was all about.

She was Grey, somewhere, somehow. A wolf. A predator. A cunning creature. She would escape and punish whoever had locked her up in the first place.

She would get her revenge.

Blue Jay peered down through the branches that he perched on. The particular room that he resided in, spanned a massive amount of space. With trees and flowers and leaves stretching up in every direction, it was obvious that the particular room was created for tree dwellers in particular. However, the marble flowers ended in an arch with a great open space beyond. It was there that the sound of water came from. It was also there that he caught sight of intelligent eyes.

A wolf in a room of birds and woodland prey. Despite himself, the blue jay took flight and landed on a nearby overturned log. He could tell that this animal still remembered itself, just like him, so, Blue Jay trilled out a simple greeting.

"Are you new?"

Grey looked at the blue jay, sorta startled that it would be speaking to her.

"I guess." she barked, to put it simply, wondering why a blue bird was talking to her. Not that she didn't want to have someone to talk to. It was nice for someone to speak to that actually understood you. "I mean, I just sorta woke up here."

The blue jay nodded his head in a gesture that was halfway between human and bird. It had only been a few days and he already had trouble separating the...well, bird-ness, from his behavior. He imagined it looked just as strange to the wolf as it felt to him.

"That's what happens with everyone. You just wake up here, as an animal. It's so funny that we can all speak to each other though. At least, those of us that are still human..." The blue jay waited on bated breath for the wolf to respond. It was daring to call them humans now, but wasn't that what they once were? Hopefully this wolf still remembered.

(Oh, you sorta forgot to ping, lucky I noticed it. :p )

Grey nodded too, which was actually very confusing. Okay, where did I learn that? Her wolf side was almost taking over. But, what about Felix? Isn't my brother... Where is my brother? Grey started to panic all of a sudden, looking for any sign of her younger brother... and found nothing.

"Yeah..." Grey said softly, actually really looking around, remembering for a few minutes who she was.

She had been Abby, the daughter of a cow farmer. Her brother, Felix, had been a few years younger than her, but was positively charming when he did his share of the work. Her mother had died when both were young. Her father had shown her how to work and be a happy helper and not be afraid to get dirty. She and her brother both had...had...had... and her memories went fuzzy, and she acted mostly wolf again.

Grey decided to stick with the name Grey, because then people -er, animals- could remember her name better since she was a grey wolf. This was were she was, this was the life she was living. She was a wolf, and her used-to-be family members would hardly be able to remember her.

(lol whoops. I don't have a good habit of pinging)

Blue Jay sang softly, understanding clear in his dark eyes. This world was a very strange thing indeed. Hopping closer, he studied the wolf for a second before deciding that he liked the other being, whoever they had been before. "I was...ah....Caleb before," he managed after a moment. The name felt fuzzy and as if it belonged to another being. Of course he remembered who he had been, but it felt wrong to call himself Caleb now. Caleb was not a bird.

"Um, anyway. Just call me Blue Jay, or Jay if you want. I haven't been able to check many rooms so far, but they seem to go on forever. I really wonder if there is a way out..." It seemed so far fetched. Before he woke as a bird, he would never believe that such a palace as this could exist. Nothing about this place made sense. It left a pang running through his heart, but really, was there anything he could do about it but continue on?

(It's fine. :P I do that too sometimes.)

Grey swung her head around so she could look Jay in the eye. "Hello Caleb, Blue Jay, and/or Jay." She smiled as much as she could with her different mouth form and everything. "I am...was...Abby. I call myself Grey."

She thought for a few seconds, and then answered slowly.

"If there is a way in, I believe either that, or something else, must be our way out. And I can't wait to get the ones that put us in here in the first place." Grey growled deep in her throat, canines showing slightly. And then she realized she was probably scaring everything, and stopped. She lowered her head, ashamed of herself. Whenever the wolf truly took over, she just hoped she wasn't in a position to be able to hurt those she cared for.