Two Weeks, Day Two: Escape (2/2)
So warm, so snug, so comfortable was Josh as he half wandered out of deep, wonderful sleep, that he didn’t even open his eyes. And why should he? Everywhere about his was the stuff. The wonderful, soft stuff that made him purr, warm and safe as a baby’s blanket, soft as sheep’s wool, snug as a... diaper? Josh wriggled a bit, frowning as some discomfort intruded on his pleasure clouded mind. He moved his hips back and forth, babbling past his thumb as he tried to relieve the pressure in his belly, and go back to the blissful snug happiness. It didn’t go away, it only got harder and harder to ignore. He wanted to relieve the pressure, he really did, but some, ancient, obsolete part of his brain kept arguing, no, no don’t do it. He wanted to escape the pressure, to abandon it and regain that breathtaking freedom to wander his mind, but that well entrenched fortress of the past fought for every inch. 
Do it, do it!
Don’t, don’t!
Do it! 
Don’t!
Go!
No!
Free!
We!
You just need to...
“Let it go...” Came the most comforting voice Josh had ever heard, and it overran the ramparts. Almost instantly he was returned to his blissful isolation, even warmer than before. Another presence wormed its way into his happy little bubble, but there was something different about this one. It didn’t move so much as course around him, bits of the shell liquefying and flowing down to his nethers. He felt it touch him, so soft..., then whisper, “You’ll keep a while longer, little one.” And he returned to his hundred foot deep bed of raw wool.
Wait, what?  He though, jerking his thumb from his mouth and opening his eyes with a start. What? He felt the warmth in his crotch, the familiar, wet sensation. Oh no, no no no no no! He started to jerk wildly, trying to throw off the thick cotton cover, and the strange, furry material on the inside... feathers?
Josh jerked his head free to the sunlight, but found himself immediately restrained, arms and legs immovable. 
“Oh, sweetie, did you have a bad dream?” Said Windrifa, her feathery head mere inches away from his own. She had seated herself on a well used wooden lawn-chair, the kind that you can put your paws up on, and settled Josh down on her lap. Then She had wrapped him snugly in her dander soft wings, and thrown the cloak of her robes over them both as a blanket. He had literally fallen asleep in her arms. 
Josh was at a loss as to how he might disentangle himself from this situation with his dignity intact. He obviously couldn’t deny that he had slept sound as a baby in her very wings. Eventually, pressing need gave the lie to any objection he might make, “Uh, Wi... Windrifa?”
She smiled, and wrapped one wing around him snugly, holding him down to her breast, “Yes, sweetie?”
“I, uh... Do I need a... you know, change?” This last part he managed only after flushing bright pink, stoping and starting a few times, and clenching his teeth.
Windrifa only giggled at this, a deep and hearty sound that reverberated up through her robe and into him. Infectiously, he couldn’t help but giggle, too, “No, sweetie. You’re diaper can hold more than one wetting. How about you go and play while I watch?” Josh only blushed deeper at her knowledge that he had wet himself, but eventually nodded and tried to escape her soft, but incredibly strong wings. “Unless of course you would like better to snuggle with me some more, you were so cute while you slept, sucking your thumb and purring.”  
The lion, suddenly inspired, swallowed his pride and laid back down onto her belly, forsaking her offer of escape in a gamble. He had, for many years before he had grown big enough to bully others to get what he wanted, been quite the little orange shrew. He would bribe, manipulate, or suck up to whomever had greater power than he, and manoeuvre politically to attain his own ends. This, he had only just realized, was his key to extracting concessions from Windrifa. Give the bird what she wanted, and get the information he needed in return. The plan he settled on was a mix of bribery and smooching of the lower back, both of which, in his younger years, he had been a master of. 
It had been quite some time since he had last cuddled up in someone’s lap and purred, his pride forbid any such thing, but he pushed that objection aside, for now, and slipped into a younger, more cunning form of getting his way. He stretched out on top of her, belly down, and stretched like a housecat, yawning deep and cutely, then smacked his chops and blinked his yellow eyes up and Windrifa, who hummed with enjoyment. Then, as much as he could manage under her wings, he nuzzled a spot on her breast, yawned again, curled up into a deceptively small ball, and purred. 
“D’awwwwww, sweetie, I had no idea you could be so adorable,” the eagle said, staring open beaked, before scratching behind his ears and petting him like a kitten. And there he sat, overcome by the inescapably comfortable interior of her wings, for fifteen minutes being cooed at and coddled like a baby, then he struck, using all of the childish charm he had built up over a lifetime. 
Josh started up, looking back and forth in fear. Windrifa, tightened her protective grip, startled, “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” She said, the lion panting hard.
“I...” he started, then said nothing, snaking his head away and sobbing slightly.
“Oh, oh sweetie. What’s wrong?” Windrifa tried to pat down his bristled fur, “Please tell me.”
“I... I wana go home...” He said, starting to weep. It was hard for him to say, proud as he was, but clearly weakness was what would get the lion what he wanted, and hence, weakness was what he showed. 
The eagle said nothing, only patted him and held him close, amazingly, even his mostly fake upset started to smooth over and cool under her expert coddling, “Oh, little one, but you are home...” 
“No! My real home, my apartment!” Right on cue, the tears started to roll. He snivelled and blubbered in her lap, and, when she offered her green robe to him to wipe his nose in, he took it without hesitation. She seized the opportunity to sit up fully and wrap her wings around him, and rest her head on his shoulder. She rocked him back and forth, and the momentum of his tears started to ebb away.
“There, there. How can I make you feel better, my love?” 
“Y- you love me?” he said, feebly. 
“Of course I do, Josh. I would never want another child.” Her words bore such kindness and finality that Josh half as nearly abandoned the attempt and accepted the fate, only habit, however dusty, kept up his act, and he lunged for the opening in her defences. 
“Buh- but I don’t even know where I am...” he said, sulking away from her.
“You’re home, and I’ll always be there for you, sweetie.”
“Why won’t you let me go home, my real home?” 
“I’m... I’m sorry, little one...” she said, the first time Josh had ever seen her at a loss for words. After wording her next sentence very carefully, it seemed to Josh, she continued, “But you mustn’t think like that. This is new for you, I understand, but you must make an effort to accept it. It’s the only way you’ll ever be happy.” 
After this speech, Windrifa was almost disappointed to see that Josh was about to reply, “But I was happy with my job, with my apartment, with my toilet! Where I’m not happy is here!” his semblance of cover nearly gone. Josh waited a moment, two, three, as Windrifa only gaped at him, not having expected this sudden questioning, “I want to go back to my apartment, Windrifa, why won’t you let me?” 
Her face went stern, another gesture he hadn’t seen before, and said, “Because it’s not just for your own good. Everyone is going to benefit from your learning to be happy, not just you. Do you understand, now, Josh?”
“Understand?” He said, incredulous, “what I understand is that you’re crazy, lady!” She bopped him on the nose. 
“Don’t you talk to me like that, cub! You’re on time out.” She took Josh firmly by the hand and dragged him over to a nearby copse of trees. There was an elastic line stretched between them, and what looked like a pink leather harness in the middle, the kind of thing you would put on a dog. It had a shoulder strap that went flat around his neck and a thick, leather belt that encompassed his waist. The two were connected by a pair of bands that went in an X pattern on his front and back, and had additional straps that went around his legs, arms, and under his diapered bottom. He didn’t dare resist Windrifa as she strapped him into the thing, and locked every buckle snugly closed around him, but, secretly, he welcomed the chance to think in peace. He had overstepped his boundaries and broken character in his bid for information, but, from an optimistic viewpoint, he now knew the boundaries, and could better gather information later. After all, Josh was very confident that a heartfelt apology accented with some tears might absolve him of the better part of Windrifa’s anger.  
Windrifa gave him a firm bop on the muzzle and said, “Twenty minutes. I’ll be back out to see if your poor attitude has improved, cub.” After that the eagle pulled a small bottle full of what looked like milk, if a slightly yellowish milk should be imagined. She proffered the bottle to him, “Drink,” was all she said and, not wanting to anger her further, he took the nipple in his mouth and started to suckle. It wasn’t milk after all, but some bitter drink, very thick and unpleasant to drink, like straight blended banana. Even so, it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as his feeding the previous morning, so he took it with a stoic reserve, and finished the bottle in a little under a minute. 
She then nearly waddled away, irate, back to the house, leaving Josh in his harness and cross-tied to a pair of trees. He tested his range of motion. The thick, elastic ropes that tethered him from both left and right made moving in any direction nearly impossible. He checked all the buckles at least once, all locked, then finally he sat down, cross legged in the dirt. Josh glanced back at Windrifa, she sat back on her lawn chair, shaking her head at him, so Josh waited patiently, something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He examined the sky for clouds. It was a beautiful day, and nonetheless so because of the lake and forest before him. He would know exactly where he was, in a few minutes or so, once the eagle took him out of her gaze, which, obligingly, she did after only ten of his twenty minutes. Just as soon as he was sure that the door wasn’t about to open again, and he wasn’t observed, Josh took the small piece of glossy paper from his pocket. It was a sales recipt from No-Frills. He had stolen it from Windrifa’s robe pocket while she snuggled him, quite a masterful job if ever one had been done. He examined it.
Josh read it over quickly, as soon as he hit the bottom, his jaw hit the floor. First he looked at the date, it was today’s, this very morning in fact. It showed a large number of items bought, twenty bottles of baby food, most of them the blueberry that he had taken a liking to the previous day, many common foodstuffs that any shopping list would contain, and a large amount of ice cream. No diapers, though, which surprised him. The next line was the sum total and payment options, not very interesting either. She payed with a credit card, but the number wasn’t on the recipt. No help there. Finally, his eyes nearly missed the little moto in the bottom, so many times had he seen it. It said, Thank you, valued customer, for shopping at Noe’s No-Frills! It was, amazingly enough, a store that lay within walking distance of his apartment building. The eagle had literally been within eyeshot of his home not four hours earlier. 
So, she hasn’t taken me all that far, after all... He thought, and immediately started re-examining his surroundings and putting what he knew of local topography to use.
The only forest around here would be... to the North... And something clicked inside of him. His neighbourhood was on the northern rim of the city, she’d barely taken me anywhere! I’m probably a bus ride away! He nearly burst with happiness, and glanced at where Windrifa’s car was. An old, practical sedan, it was a tan color and seemed to be in good repair, at least from where Josh was tethered. Not only did Josh not have any idea how he would get the eagle’s keys, he didn’t even know how to drive! Driving lessons, after all, cost money, something which a student, working part time and living alone could scarce afford. What he was keener on was the dirt road behind it. It was long, and disappeared into the foliage after a short distance. All the better, he supposed, for keeping Windrifa off my trail. He was sure that the eagle would make pursuit once she knew he was missing, probably in the car. He would have to find a road, a real city artery, and beg a ride from somebody. 
Josh probably would have gone on like this for the rest of his time out, fleshing out details and debating the pros and cons of going through the woods verses the road. Maybe if I slashed her tires... he thought, but was rudely cut off by the protests of his stomach as it churned audibly, his bladder, full. 
“Oh, oh god,” he though, standing up and crossing his legs, helpless to do much else in the harness. The extreme pressure in his bladder and bowels made him bounce, red faced as he tried desperately to keep himself clean. It was only after he had fouled himself, the stream of excrement coming in bursts of fetid smelling muck textured mess until the seat of his diaper sagged deeply. His bladed didn’t fare much better in the battle, and soon, with a warm feeling and a hissing noise, Josh felt the front of his diaper, too, start to pull his pants down, despite the padding’s great thickness.
He found himself almost on the verge of tears once more, salty infantile tears, brought on by a humiliation scarcely to be imagined. He, an athletic, independent, adult male lion, reduced to the status of a helpless cub, the pact with reality sealed with the messing of his diaper. 
The lion sagged in his restraining harness almost as much as his diaper sagged between his legs. Broken, shattered, routed, beaten. The eagle knew this would happen. She must have, clearly there was something in that little bottle she had forced him to drink. The punishment wasn’t being forced to sit in a harness for twenty minutes, it was being forced to sit, helpless, in a soaked and messy diaper for twenty minutes while it petrified. And Josh was sorry. He made a pact with himself, all thoughts of escape gone clean out of his body just like the contents of his bowels, that he would never again anger Windrifa without reasonable hope of a complete escape, avoiding this same punishment was oh, so dear to him now. 
Windrifa wasn’t cruel about it, and, when she returned after only fifteen minutes, not able to bring herself to leave him stuck in a messy diaper longer than that, her temper had smoothed over, and she had regained the calm demeanour of a professional parent.    
“Oh, I’m so, so sorry, Windrifa!” The lion said, catapulting himself to the eagle’s feet with full honesty sobbing, and the scent of a full diaper to back up his words. “I... I won’t talk back anymore... I promise.”
Windrifa nodded, conciliatory, “I see your attitude has improved, I’m very glad” she thawed visibly after that cold reintroduction and petted the kneeling lion on the head, “Is there anything you would like, sweetie?”
Oh, wonderful. She makes me crap myself and now she’s going to make me ask for a change. Just wonderful.
“P- please change my... my.” He knew what he had to say, but his lips refused to form words.
“Your what, sweetie?” 
She knows full well what. Eventually he mustered the courage, or quashed the shame, whichever, and said, “Please change my diaper, Windrifa. I’m really wet and messy...” in the calmest, most factual tone he could muster. The result was a sly smile from Windrifa, and a quirt nod. She then disentangled him from the time-out harness. As soon as the crotch strap supporting his diaper was removed, Josh finally understood the full extent of his punishment. The entire diaper hung so heavy against the tapes that it was a miracle it hadn’t leaked, despite the added support of his shorts. 
As he realized, Josh made a sound more suitable for a soggy eyed kitten looking up out of a cardboard box with In need of a home written on the side. He looked down at his shorts, mostly white with a blue stripe running down each leg. Well, they had been mostly white, now they were mostly yellow. His clothing situation didn’t go long unnoticed by Windrifa, and she only shook her head and worked the soaked shorts down from his waist, relieving him of even the comfort of clothing to cover his dreadfully overused diaper. She took him by the hand without a word and led him back to the cabin. Her grip was firm, but not angry. Maybe she’s calmed down...
He shook these thoughts from his mind as the liquid contents of his diaper started to run down his leg, concentrating only on keeping his saggy, infantile garment from breaking open and spilling the ex-contents of his bowels all over the laminated hardwood floor as he entered the cabin. Windrifa led him not back to the nursery with its changing table, but to the bathroom. Not the same one which he had been bathed in before, this one was much larger, maybe the size of an average bedroom. The bath tub, if it could be called that, might have been easily mistaken for a large hot tub. It was in the center of the room and up against the far wall with three huge, old fashioned windows above it. The room also had a raised dias covered in laminated wood, a changing table, he thought, if a changing table built to retain five adults could be imagined.  The entire far side of the room, perpendicular to the windows, was covered by a dancing mirror and had a slight dip with a drain in the center.  Windrifa prodded him over to the changing table and set him down. 
Josh had promised himself to hold his tongue, but he was betrayed by curiosity, and a “Wow...” escaped his lips. Windrifa grinned.
“Nice place, eh?” Josh nodded and let her change him, removing his shirt, tearing the tapes and rolling the smelly, fouled garment into a ball before stuffing it into an airtight disposal in the wall.. He had been well powdered that morning, and hence most of the mess didn’t stick to his fur. Nevertheless, Windrifa prodded him into the middle of the depression in the tile floor and turned a dial on the far side. Almost instantly a spray of hot water descended upon him from an extensive shower assembly embedded in the ceiling. So pleased with this turn of events, and suddenly enthralled with the pleasure of being allowed to wash himself down, that Josh was completely removed from the fact that he was doing all of this while naked as a newborn. 
Windrifa giggled, a clucking, hearty sound, while Josh absent-mindedly wiped any trace of his recent, sad status from his body, right down to scrubbing between individual strands of fur. Windrifa tossed him a bottle of shampoo, a quick glance at the label showed, 4Cubs fur softening shampoo. Josh would have asked the eagle if she were joking, but, like always, she wasn’t. Sighing, the lion cub popped the cap and poured the baby blue shampoo into his paw, resigning himself at least to the dignity given by cleanliness. A quick whiff confirmed his fears, great, it’s perfumed, but, ironically, he quickly warmed up to the smell, like berries and cream. He lathered, and spread it all across his body, eartip to tailtip, the eagle watching him keenly from her perch on the changing table all the while. 
Wow... my fur does feel softer, he admitted, drying of, or, rather, being dried off by Windrifa with a fish printed towel. He submitted to the treatment only because he now knew what resistance meant to her, a one way ticket to time out. Not that he didn’t enjoy the pampering, he was almost able to convince himself that she was just a personal servant, and that he was actually a millionaire, able to afford attractive women to dry him off after a shower. 
His illusions soon faded after Windrifa deemed him dry, and set him back up onto the changing table to be diapered again, this time with a diaper easily twice the thickness of his previous one. He blushed a bit, but didn’t dare resist with so little to gain. The eagle dressed him, too, telling him that he was clearly too heavy a wetter for shorts, and that he would be back in onesies until he had proven himself. The onesie she put him in was, luckily for the lion, simply a light blue garment with no further prints or adornments. Diapered and dressed, she led him back outside, humour much restored, and patted him on the thickly padded and wobbling buttocks.  
“You can go play for a while, get some fresh air and exercise,” Josh was more than happy to oblige her, especially on that last point. In the normal course of events, Josh was a regular at the gym, and had the muscles to prove it. Most of those muscles, at the moment, were covered by a baby blue garment more suited to a toddler than to an adult lion, but, then again, there was no reason Windrifa couldn’t force him outside in nothing but a diaper, now was there? 
She sat herself back down onto the lawn chair and watched him waddle, legs spread, over to the lake to inspect a small dock with a row-boat tied off. The lake was entirely within view, and thus useless for escape, but Josh looked it over anyway. He started off toward the car and dirt road, seeing how much his freedom could be stretched, and immediately found out.
“Sweetie, your boundaries are the forest on all sides, and the road. Stay away from all of them!” Josh nodded back, smiling, and waddled off away from the road. Clearly she knew her business, and would be on him like a shot if he tried to escape under her watchful eye. 
He decided, after all, that he would try to have some fun, and even succeeded a bit, climbing the numerous, thick branched trees that grew around and making rocks skip on the lakeshore. He even sat on the dock and put his feet down into the water. It was a nice lake, the perfect place to build a cottage. He would have loved to retire here, one day, just so long as there weren’t domineering eagles that kept one in diapers all the time. Speaking of which, just then Josh looked over at the eagle, who had long since turned away from him to seek greater entertainment in a book, only glancing at him once or twice a minute. She was lying on her back, the book splayed across her face, dropped. She was asleep.
“No fuckin’ way...” Josh muttered to himself, not believing that the eagle could be so careless. Lightly as a hunter’s bare paws could take him, the lion crept back up and looked at her, closely. She didn’t snore, exactly, only made a very quiet chirping sound in her throat. A rise briefly popped up in him, a plan that involved bonking her on the head with a big stick or something, then running off like robin hood in that one Disney adaptation. He quickly scrapped the plan, of course, it was wholly impractical for too many reasons to even consider. Instead, slowly at first but with growing speed, Josh ebbed his way towards the dirt path. By the time he got to where the trees met and it actually became a road, the lion was moving at the maximum sustainable velocity that he could manage given his horrifically thick underpants. He cursed, unbuttoned the onesie and tore off the tapes, letting the diaper fall to the dust. He buttoned his only garment back up, and was off at a sprint. He had medals for the 400 yard at home, and it quickly became apparent that the soles of his bare feet, softened from years of cushiony running shoes, were not up to the same bar that his cardio was. As a child he could, and would, run wild across gravel, sharp rocks, grass, asphalt, broken glass or anything else on nothing more than his natural, metacarpal pads. After a minute he was forced to a brisk walk out of pain. 
Josh quickly developed a pattern, thirty seconds running, a minutes walking, leap for the bushes at any noise. He debated with himself about how long he would have before the eagle realized he was missing, and whether she would come after him in the car, or on foot. Was this area private? Would he need to pass a gate? Were there others like her just waiting? Was this all a test to begin with? Josh had no idea, but, instead, channelled his thoughts into counting and listening, glancing back every ten seconds or so, every time he expected to see that sedan come around the bend, ready to bring him back to square one.
It didn’t happen like that, nothing like that at all. In fact, it didn’t happen in any of the ways Josh might have expected. He could understand being threatened back to the cabin by an angry eagle on the feet of a god, or by one in a old model sedan, but, surprisingly, despite his hunter’s instincts, he never even saw it coming. Back in middle school, Josh had once, for no apparent reason, been forced to watch an educational video about birds of prey. The teacher was on maternity leave with six weeks left until summer, so all the class got was videos and substitute teachers who loved their job because they got to read a book at a desk and be paid for it. The video had shown, at one point, a bald eagle at hunt. They rose high on thermal vents of hot air, then dumped the wind from their wings, crashed towards earth, and tackled, talons outstretched, at upwards of a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Then, usually, they would carry the prey away, it’s back broken, and eat it somewhere private, or share it with a mate. This wonderful little anecdote came back to Josh even as Windrifa, screeching, smashed her talons into his shoulders from above at a low angle. It didn’t break his neck, of course, but it did throw him off his feet to land in the middle of the dirt road ten feet away. 
The eagle locked her arm around his neck in a grip like an industrial steel vice, unbreakable by the likes of man, and hissed in his ear. The lion’s whole body was quivering from the impact, and, as Windrifa released her grip, only to dig her fingers into the small of his neck and force his face nearly into the dirt, his rear high in the air. She leanded down next to his ear, and, with more venom than he had ever heard injected into words, spoke six words.
“Never do this to me again.” She yanked him up by his neck, his stomach over her knee, and his onesie long since ripped open. Without warning, Josh became aware of the eagle’s raised hand, and his bare bottom. He, stud lion and long time lady pleaser, was about to be spanked like a child. He had never been spanked. Never. His father forbid it on grounds of dignity. And, so, he had no childhood experience to fall back on as her hand descended upon his exposed backside. He lurched forward on the first impact, a jolt of mixed pain and humiliation surging into every part of his body, each feeding off the other to make itself more potent. Then the next swing, and the next. His once proud lion tail jerked wildly as the soft, warm flesh very near to it was assaulted again and again, turning rosy with blood as each jolt of pain, shock and degradation reached his head. He soon realized that he was crying, there was nothing he could do to stop it, either. And so, he cried out his lashes, sobbing as the tears rolled. Eventually she stopped, the lion was so filled with conflicting emotions that he didn’t even notice for several minutes. Eventually, the eagle stood, picked Josh up out of the dust by the loose skin at the back of his neckline, and started to walk. 
 And that was it. Quivering in terror, Josh, proud and dignified lion, was dragged by the nape of his neck back to the cabin, bottom, rosy and stinging, eyes, not much less so. Not a word was said between them, Windrifa, because she was red in the face with anger, and Josh, because he was white in the face with fear. Julius Caesar once said ‘let the die be cast,’ as he crossed the Rubicon. Josh had made the same wager ash Julius, risking everything on one lunge for his goals, but, unlike Caesar, he had lost the throw. 
She pulled him along at a merciless pace, not even stopping when it became apparent that he was in great pain, his paw pads even bleeding slightly. He was bullied along all the way back to the cabin, which seemed to glare down at him in disapproval, and right in through the door, which the eagle slammed behind them after thrusting the lion through. A second later she had him back in his nursery, head hung in shame.
Windrifa didn’t reprimand him immediately, only paced back and forth in front of him, strapped into a chair much like his high chair, except this one was clearly built with the dressing of cubs in mind, much less the feeding of them. Nevertheless, he was helpless before her once more, and she mumbled, mumbled incoherence for a good quarter hour before walking over and looking deeply into his eyes. He tried to look away but was corrected sharply. 
“Look at me. Look at me, Josh. No, no, don’t you look over there. Look at me. At my face. Look at me!” He did, finally, after she pulled his head into place with both hands, and held it there, “I’m sorry, Josh. This is all my fault. I’m so, so sorry I have to do this to you.” If it were possible for Josh, just spanked and nearly incredulous with pain and fear, he would have been shocked, “But I do have to. I didn’t follow the system, and you’re going to have to pay the price.” Josh looked up at her, confused beyond reconciliation, “For that, my little cub, I am deeply sorry. But,” she grew suddenly stern, “But, I cannot just let you get away with something like this. I’d be ashamed, if I could be, in good conscience. I’ll go easy on you, then. One day, one day’s reprimand and we can call this whole fiasco forgotten, deal?” she put out a hand, stoic and business like, for him to shake, which would have been a hard enough task under the circumstances were he not bound, arm and leg, to a chair. But, apparently his concent wasn’t important enough, for she just continued, “Good, one day to get us back on the proper path. I promise,” and wandered off back to the closet, returning a moment later with a wicker basket. “As of now, you’re back to full infancy. Square one. Full diapers, 24/7, mittens, pacifier, booties, onesie, no walking, no talking, no complaining, and, I’ll have you know, for the next twenty four hours,” She paused for some dramatic effect, as though whatever she was about to say could possibly shock him further, “You, Josh the lion, will be known as little princess Nala,” and she pulled a small, plastic tiara out of the wicker basket and set it on his head, strapping it around his chin. Well, at least Josh learnt one thing that day: Never, ever, tempt fate.
She patted him on the head, and set about dressing him back up for bed. Everything she had said, mittens, a new onesie, booties, and a pacifier was put onto him and strapped firmly in place, exactly the same as he had woken up his very first day, but for one difference: everything, every last scrap of fabric that she applied to the lion, was pink. Pink, frilly, lacy, bow adorned pink. It was horrible. The worst torment that the lion could imagine, and he would have screamed, cried even, if it weren’t for the plastic nipple that Windrifa had taken the liberty of strapping into his mouth from the moment she had sat him down. 
He was unstrapped from the chair, not that it made any difference, really, he was in too much a cloud of pain and disgrace to really care as he was set, wimpering, onto the corner of a thick, very large blanket, and rolled up like a carpet. The silky insides of the blanket soothed him somewhat, enough that his eyes might clear, letting him watch as the eagle fastened three straps made of the same stuff as seat belt around the cocoon of swaddling, one at the ankles, wrists and neck. All restraints in place, he tested his range of movement as Windrifa tucked the blanket in around his toes, and into a pillow about his neck: absolutely nothing. He could not, for the life of him, move more than a half inch. In desperation, he took comfort in the pacifier, the last thing on the world that he could use for such. He suckled as Windrifa picked up the cocoon, he suckled as she deposited him into the crib, he suckled as she pulled up the bars, and he suckled as she turned out the lights, leaving him in complete darkness.