Tony loved the new toys. The little red ball was really bouncy and he spent several hours bouncing it off the top of his head and hitting it with his tail. The yellow plastic thing was part of a set of three things that bobbed on the surface of the water. Each day, the human arranged them in different spots in the tank and directed Tony to swim between them in different patterns.
But the rope was probably Tony's favorite new toy. It was a simple thing, but the human had so many uses for it. Tony could jump over it or touch it with his tail, just like the metal bar with less risk of injury. But then the human started working him up to multiple jumps. Tony delighted in jumping back and forth over the whole span of the rope. One day, he was sure he'd have the energy to do all nine jumps down and then nine back up. But at the moment, just making it all the way down one end filled Tony with the pleasant exhaustion of accomplishment.
"I think we finally have enough tricks down to start putting them together," the human said with a gleeful expression as Tony surfaced to lazily float on his back after the latest round of jumping over the rope.
Tony whined and squeezed his eyes shut. He was too tired to do anything except bask on his rock for at least the next hour, maybe even the next two hours. As awesome as he was, doing so many high jumps in a row without a break really took a toll on his energy levels.
"Not today, my pet," the human hastened to assure him, running a gentle hand through Tony's hair. "It'll be quite some time before you've built up enough endurance to incorporate the rope into a routine. We'll start with a few easy combinations first."
Tony yawned and rolled over. It might've sounded fun if he had the energy to think about it, but he didn't, so he just swam over to the sunning rock and somehow just managed to drag himself out of the water before he fell asleep for half an hour.
He awoke to the itch of his scales drying out. With an irritated growl, he splashed water over himself and went back to sleep.
It was almost two hours later when he finally felt alive enough to dive back into the water and swim about aimlessly.
In another hour or so, he might be able to work himself up to imagining what the human had planned for tomorrow.
No, actually, imagining didn't take that much effort.
Tony allowed himself to sink down to the floor of the tank. He rolled onto his back and wriggled in the sand until he was in a comfortable position.
The tank was too deep to see the surface from the bottom, but Tony gazed upwards anyway and just imagined the way the surface looked. He could picture himself doing all the tricks the human had taught him, although he couldn't quite see himself doing all of them at once. That was going to be exhausting, especially if he added in a rope sequence.
But Tony welcomed the exhaustion. If he was too tired to get bored, life was easier.
He rolled onto his side and curled up to take another nap.
As draining as the rope jumping had been, Tony felt perfectly fine by the next morning and raring to try it again.
But the human didn't have the rope with him when he showed up. Just the red ball and the hoop.
"So, we're going to start with something really easy," the human said. He placed the hoop in the water and gently nudged it so it would float away from the side.
Tony cocked his head to one side and stared at the hoop for a moment and looked back at the human. He was pretty sure he had gone through the whole gamut of hoop-related tricks, but the human apparently had more to show him.
The human tossed the ball up in the air and then caught it again. "So, we'll see how well you can aim with your tail. Try and land the ball in the hoop there." He tossed the ball at Tony.
Tony managed to hit the ball successfully with his tail, but the ball veered wildly all the way to the other end of the tank. His next few attempts were about the same.
No matter how careful Tony tried to be, he kept hitting the ball with way too much force to have it land just a few feet away.
"We're going to try something else," the human decided. He placed the ball on the surface of the water. "Now try it."
Tony carefully slipped under the water and eyed the ball. Hitting it with his tail was the easy part. He'd had enough training with coming up through the hoop and touching the bar to be able to calculate where to place his tail. How much force he needed to put into the touch was the hard part.
In the end, it took three tries for Tony to successfully land the ball in the hoop and another five tries for him to be able to consistently get the ball in the hoop at varying distances.
"Very good, my pet." The human tossed Tony a sardine and smiled as Tony caught it in his mouth and gulped it down. "And I'm glad to see you still have energy after our game."
Tony rolled his eyes. The game had been mostly intellectual. Figuring out the angles and lining up the shot. Hardly a strain on Tony's body.
"So perhaps we can add another element to this," the human said.
Tony bobbed his head eagerly.
The human directed Tony into a dive, had him do a flip, then slowly spiral upwards as he raised his tail out of the water to hit the ball.
It all seemed like needless movement to Tony. Frittering around underwater beforehand didn't make it any harder to hit ball or really add to the game at all. When the human tried to get him to repeat the stupid moves, Tony just stared him down and lashed his tail.
He wanted to learn new tricks, damnit. Or learn some fun, challenging combinations of tricks. Swimming about was neither fun nor challenging.
"Please, my pet," the human coaxed. "Do it for me."
Tony snorted. He would do it for the fish, maybe. But not for the human. Why should Tony care what the human wanted?
"Perhaps we'll try again tomorrow when you're in a more cooperative mood," the human said. He fished the toys out of the water.
Tony huffed and dove back under the water. He still had plenty of energy so he chased after a few fish until he was ready for his daily nap.
He didn't know why the human was so insistent on slow, boring stuff, but it was probably his ridiculous sense of concern at fault. Tony had gotten tired jumping over the rope, so therefore to compensate for it, the human wanted to give him easy stuff to do to force him to take a break.
By the next morning, he was hopeful the human would come to his senses and see Tony was definitely rested and raring to go and show him some more exciting things.
But the first thing out of the human's mouth the next morning was, "Are we ready to try the sequence again?"
Tony hissed at him.
"How am I to create a routine if you refuse to learn any choreography?" the human said.
Tony didn't give a damn about choreography. He just wanted to learn more parts of the mega trick.
"Be reasonable, my pet," the human wheedled. "You have to take a slight break between tricks or you'll wear yourself out far too quickly. Just think about how difficult it is for you to jump the entire length of the rope. Nine jumps in a row is tiring. But it wouldn't be as difficult if you took a break to do other tasks in between jumps."
Tony snorted. The difficulty was one of the things he liked about it. If it was too easy, it was boring. He understood taking a small break here and there, just enough to recover his strength for another difficult task. But this was ridiculous. Hitting the ball into the hoop wasn't hard.
The human sighed heavily. "Okay, we'll do this a little differently."
Tony listened patiently as the human came up with another plan. This time, Tony was meant to jump over the ball, come up on the underside, and then hit the ball into the hoop.
This idea sounded a lot more promising.
Tony bobbed his head enthusiastically as the human gestured to the ball. This, he was willing to do.
He swam around the ball and the hoop, lifting the hoop into a better position with his tail. The splashes from the jump would jostle it anyway, but at least it would start in a good spot. And then he moved himself into position for the jump.
It was a short jump. He barely needed to clear the water's surface to go over the ball, but Tony still carefully angled his body so he'd break the surface cleanly and cause the least amount of splash.
He put the same amount of care into adjusting himself underwater and bringing his tail up to hit the ball.
"Bravo!" the human cheered as Tony bobbed to the surface to survey his attempt. "You're doing so well, my pet."
Tony swam to the side of the tank and accepted the human's pets. He was pleased with the new trick. It was still incredibly simple, but much improved. Now that he had demonstrated his skill, perhaps the human would work on making the trick even better.
"How are you doing, my pet?" the human asked as he scratched Tony's scalp. "Feeling up to another part to our game?"
Tony eagerly shoved his head into the human's hands and chirped excitedly.
The human chuckled. "Very well. Let's see what else I can come up with."
Tony was thrilled as the human added more and more parts to the trick. Each day, the human made the trick slightly more difficult. The pace was a little slower than Tony would have liked, but after a few weeks, a mega trick was starting to take shape. The human added in a few of his dumb choreography sections in every so often, but Tony reluctantly admitted that they helped now.
As the trick got more and more complex, Tony occasionally struggled to remember the order of the smaller tricks. He didn't think it was that big of a deal which thing came first, but the human had a very specific order in mind. Tony wasn't going to complain too much about the human's pickiness. It was just another layer of difficulty for the challenge.
"Perhaps a little music will help you understand the routine I'm putting together," the human said. He placed a laptop on top of the metal storage cabinet that held all the awesome toys and wheeled it closer. "Just listen to the rhythm of the song and picture yourself making those movements."
Tony tipped his head to one side and considered the music. He wasn't entirely sure he liked the song. It was definitely energetic and upbeat, but just not his style.
"It's called 'We Built This City." The human chuckled. "I'm sure you don't understand the irony involved, but it amuses me."
If the human found anything funny about this song, his sense of humor had to be broken. But, whatever.
"Now, listen," the human said. "This is where you jump the metal bar."
Well, if the human said so. Nothing about the song particularly said jumping the bar to Tony.
"And this is the part where you hit the ball into the hoop. Do you hear it?"
Tony shrugged. He supposed the human was referencing the drum beat. It was a stretch, but maybe it sounded just like hitting the ball with his tail.
"Let's try a few things out," the human said. He paused the song and gestured for Tony to get in the middle of the tank. "We'll start with an easier bit." He fast forwarded the song a little and paused it again. "So, you're going to dive down, come up tail first, slowly spin in place three times and then tail down to the right. Think you can do that for me?"
Tony nodded. This wasn't the first time the human had asked him to do the same silly bit, but it would be the first time he was doing it with music.
The human pressed play. "And go!"
Tony obediently dove into the water and allowed himself to slowly float back to the surface with his tail outstretched. Spin, spin, spin and let his tail slap back down onto the surface. Easy stuff.
He resurfaced and waited for the human's next task, but the human was busily muttering to himself about the timing being off.
Tony whined and slapped the water with his tail. He was ready for the next part, damnit.
"Let's run that by one more time," the human said. "I need you to really listen to the music and let it flow through your movements."
He rewound the song and pressed play again. "So, this where you dive down," he said. He lifted his left hand overhead and then brought it down to his waist. "Then you come up." He lifted his hand with one finger pointed upwards. "Spin in place. And then over to the right." He smacked his palm against his right arm. "So, I need you to do it just like that."
Tony frowned at him. Whatever the human was doing with his hands looked really confusing.
"Go on," the human coaxed. "Get into position."
Tony rolled his eyes, but he moved back into position.
"And go."
Tony repeated the same sequence of movements, making a little bit more effort to listen to the music beneath the water. From what he could tell, the human had brought out the music to put a time limit on his movements. And that was an interesting new challenge. But Tony was going to do just fine. He'd make it through the sequence well within the time limit. Speeding up his spin, Tony flopped back into the water a couple seconds before the human's schedule.
He felt pleased with his accomplishment when he surfaced, but the human only shook his head with a sigh.
"Pet, why do you have to make this so difficult?"
Tony growled and angrily lashed his tail. What the hell was the human talking about? He had done everything he asked, even better than he asked. He should be rewarded for his skill.
"I'll go over the timing again," the human said. He started playing the song again, pausing the music every second or two to explain to Tony exactly what movement he should be doing.
Tony groaned. Oh god, he was expected to hit each component at a precise time? God, this sounded annoyingly hard. And he had to do this shit for an entire song? That was going to be next to impossible.
"I don't want to hear any whining," the human said. "You like to be challenged and this will certainly be challenging for you."
Tony huffed. The human did have a point, although this wasn't the kind of challenge he liked.
"Let's take it from the top."
Frustratingly, the human forced Tony to practice again and again and again until he finally got the timing right. By then, Tony was tired and grumpy and the human's praise didn't make him happy. The fish didn't even make him happy although he was very hungry after so much hard work. Tony snapped its spine and shoved it into his mouth without really tasting it, then floated down to the cave to pout about what a terrible day it had been.
The next morning, the human insisted on more music. Tony snarled at the laptop as the human set it up, but he started playing the annoying song anyway.
"We made progress yesterday," the human said. "Not as much as I would have liked, but the choreography is definitely coming together."
Tony rolled onto his back and made a gagging sound.
"Enough playing around, pet. We have work to do."
Tony whined. He missed the day when the tricks had been fun, not work.
The human started up the music on his laptop and played another short section. "So, we're going to do another few seconds today and see if we can add it on to yesterday's work."
At least the human was incorporating jumps into his choreography today. Tony was willing to endure the music if the human had more exciting tricks for him to do.
"Just feel how the music swells," the human said. "This is the moment where you put in a lot of speed underwater to prepare for your jump."
Tony nodded. The higher the jump, the deeper he had to swim to get momentum.
"And you'll do a backflip here. Get as much height as you can, but make sure to land quickly. We need to keep up with the rhythm of the music."
Yeah, yeah, the stupid music whatever. Tony lashed his tail, impatient to get back to the jumping.
"And go," the human said.
Tony skimmed along the surface and then dove down sharply, getting as much depth as fast as he could before rocketing back to the surface for a magnificent backflip. There. The human wouldn't have any criticism about his jump. tony bobbed back to the surface.
"No, no, no," the human said. "You can't surface here. After the jump, you transition into your spins. Remember your bit from yesterday?"
Tony scowled. Yes, he remembered the annoying part from yesterday and he wasn't particularly interested in doing it again.
"You're going to do your jump and then the spins and we'll have a nice section of choreography. Won't that be nice?"
Tony huffed. It would be nice to get it over with.
"Let's try this one more time. And instead of surfacing, you bring your tail up and move into the spins."
Tony grumbled, but he moved into position.
Skim the surface. Dive down. Backflip. Raise tail. Spin, spin, spin. And done. Hopefully.
Cautiously, Tony swam to the surface. Surely this time, he'd have done everything to the human's satisfaction and they could move on to something more exciting.
"No," the human said with a gusty sigh. "That's not right."
Not right? Tony huffed indignantly. He had done everything in order, just as the human had asked.
"You're not keeping your tail vertical when you do your spins. Let's not get sloppy, pet. Try it again, one more time."
Goddamnit. Okay, fine. If the human was going to be picky about it.
With a heavy sigh, Tony moved back into position and went through all the moves again, making sure to hit every move with precision.
And the human still wasn't happy about it.
"You're off beat, my pet. Do it again and remember to keep up with the music."
Tony was sick and tired of this choreography. He had tried over and over and over and over and over again and the human was never satisfied. The human wanted him to move faster to keep up with the song and also scolded him for being sloppy if he went too fast.
He had tried the same choreography over ten times and it still wasn't right.
The human' shoulders slumped. "It's no use. I'm pushing you beyond your capabilities."
Yes, finally. Finally the human understood his expectations were ridiculous.
"It looks like my life's dream will never be realized," the human said with a heavy sigh. He patted Tony's head. "It's okay, my pet. You tried your best. But a whole routine is fare beyond your skills."
Tony cocked his head to one side and whined as the human walked away. That was it? The human was just going to give up on teaching him anything?
He floated back down to the bottom of the tank and curled up in a ball. It was so unfair. He was good at things. Just not at the things the human wanted him to do. And now the human was just going to write him off as unteachable.
Goddamnit. He should have splashed water over the laptop when he had the chance.
