Blue eyes and his mother watched in horror as the soldiers dragged his father out of compound in chains. A collar was secured tightly around his neck, and his ankles and wrists were cuffed with wide shackles. It was painful to see the once great king in chains.
As mina stood beside the cage fence with blue eyes and cornelia, she glared at Rex, who kept shoving ceaser out of the way of the baby apes and towards the chimp habitat. The colonel stopped when he saw his daughter standing with the apes.
"Step aside Mina." He orders, causing the girl to glare at the man.
Mina does nothing, so he sighs and motions for the soldier holding ceaser and shoved the older ape to the fence in front of Mina. She reached out and grabbed ceaser jist before he falls to the ground, helping him stand as they opened the cage. Ceaser looks up in surprise at the young girl now turned into a woman smiling sadly down at him.
"Mina..." He whispered, smiling weakly.
'I promised i would be there for you all.' She replies.
He smiles, patting her shoulder but was yanked back and thrown in the cage by Rex. They locked it and walked off, leaving Mina with them. Rex saw her furious face when he threw ceaser into the cage and he felt bad, but it was a case of survival. Not just for him, but for her as well. She shook her head and turned from him. Rex sighed sadly and moved away a bit to give her space. Lord knows he didn't want to make her any more angry.
Mina was quick to move to the side of the cage where they had a storage bin of food. She pulled a bucket and shoveled in some food, then moved to a water jug and filled another bucket. Then she went around to the cage and motioned them over. Blue Eyes helped his father up so he could drink down most of the water in the bucket. Then mina handed him the bucket of food, pouring some in the apes' hands as they held them out and patting hers in thanks.
As she went down the line, she noticed a female black furred ape with beads in her hair. She seemed hesitant to take the food from mina, but held her hands out. She put food in her hands and smiled at her.
'Who are you?' She asks.
'My name is Mina.' She replied to the female.
'Your mina?' The female asks, suddenly tense.
'Yes. Why?'
'Blue Eyes talks about you a lot.' She signs.
'Really?' Mina smiled a little.
The female tensed more and sent a small glare her way. Surprising Mina.
'You are human. It cant be.' She signs and walks away.
This surprised mina but she backed away anyway. As she walked back around the cage, she looks to Blue Eyes, who was sitting by his father. Then the female came up behind him and putting her head on his back. Mina was shocked to see Blue Eyes reach around and hug the female comforting her. Mina felt sadness and jealousy bubbling in her chest as she put the buckets down beside the containers and walked by, keeping her head down.
"Donkey, clean up this mess!" A soldier shouted.
Mina left the cage to clean the mess the soldiers left behind. Rex, who watched the female with the male mina was always near, and hummed as the male hugged the female close to him. The male was with another, but Mina still cared about him, which was something he could never understand.
That night after feeding the ape again, mina was sitting with cornelia and ceaser, telling them of the last few years.
'And then when he branded me donkey, i became friends with apes here. Most are afraid to go against the colonel because the humans will kill them without a second thought.'
