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NOTES:

• This episode, "Circle Of Life", was written by Steve Feke and directed by Peter Andrikidis

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QUOTES:

• Tao: Dar, what do you think?
  Dar: What is it?
  Tao: It’s called writing.
  Dar: It looks like charcoal.
  Tao: Yes, but you use the charcoal to make the writing. what do you think it is?
  Dar: The track of some animal with strange feet.
  Tao: Well, uh, in a way you’re right. I have clumsy feet. It’s me. Tao.
  Dar: It doesn’t look like you.
  Tao: No, well, it represents me. It says my name.
  Dar: I can’t hear it say anything.
  Tao: When you look at it, it says “Tao”. It’s like a sign.

• Curupira: My animals don’t kill their own kind. Only humans kill just to kill.
  Dar: He wasn’t killed by a human.
  Curupira: You only see the obvious. You’re worthless. Find out what’s happening, Beastmaster.

• Dar: You talk too much. You’re like a honey bee that doesn’t stop buzzing.
  Tao: I know I talk a lot. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m concerned.
  Dar: What for?
  Tao: Concerned for the dead tigers. I’m concerned for Ruh.
  Dar: Don’t be.

• Ancient One: Sentimentality. It can make you crazy.
  Sorceress: Human beings can make you crazy.
  Ancient One: Yes, that, too.

• Ancient One: Dwell in the past and there will be no future.

• Sorceress: Somehow I feel connected to what I create.
  Ancient One: You’re being seduced by your maternal instincts. Just let them go. You see, the secret to sorcery is detachment. Create. Release. Create and release.
  Sorceress: Easier said than done.
  Ancient One: If you don’t, you become a prisoner of your children and they control you. The illusion becomes substance, and substance is mortality. And that’s the last thing you want.

• Tao: Obviously someone or something is bothering you greatly. Tigers killing tigers. The whole animal kingdom turning upside down. Everything’s acting strangely. You’re acting strangely, and somehow I think it’s all connected.
  Dar: You think too much!
  Tao: You don’t think enough! You have all this bottled inside up and you won’t let it out. I’m trying to help you and you won’t let me. And maybe that’s because you don’t understand what friends are for. And maybe that’s why Sharak, the ferrets and Ruh won’t talk to you either!
  Dar: You know nothing of my world and you never will!
  Tao: Well, fine! It doesn’t seem like a very nice place!

• Curupira: What have you learned?
  Dar: Curupira, please help me.
  Curupira: Tell me what you learned!
  Dar: The animals won’t talk to me any more.
  Curupira: Why?
  Dar: I don’t know.
  Curupira: Did you do something horrible?
  Dar: No. It’s just like they switched off. They’ve gone crazy in their heads, and I’m not one of them any more.
  Curupira: You’re part of them. If they’re crazy, then maybe you are, too.
  Dar: Yes. Everything’s different now.
  Curupira: Then fix it, Beastmaster. You’re not so special. If you can’t do it, I’ll find somebody else. I won’t loose my animals to some worthless human. Humans are helpless and useless. I don’t know why they were put on this earth in the first place.

• Tao: Ruh did this? I don’t believe it.
  Dar: We talked.
  Tao: Tell me. What about?
  Dar: He said they only reason he didn’t kill me was because of the past, when we were friends.

• Dar: Something is driving the animals mad, and me as well.
  Tao: I’ve been thinking about that. Before you start, thinking is what I do.

• Dar: Friends don’t hurt friends.
  Tao: Not intentionally.
  Curupira: You’re wrong. Humans hurt everything all the time.
  Beastmaster, I have a question for you. Which hurts more, the claws of a tiger or that you were betrayed by a friend.
  Dar: That I almost betrayed a friend hurts more.

• Curupira: What is this?
  Tao: It’s writing, actually my name.
  Curupira: You understand these marks?
  Tao: Of course I do. I wrote them.
  Curupira: Come with me. I don’t like to wait.
  Dar: Curupira, he’s my friend. Don’t you hurt him.
  Curupira: Your friends hurt you.

• Ketzwayo: The tiger didn’t kill him, but I’ll fix that. He has to die before I can kill that little green rat, Curupira. Perhaps you’d like to kill her? No, no, I’m reserving that for myself. She killed me once, so fair is fair.

• Ancient One: I like this game. No luck. No cards. Nothing to throw, just pure intellect. And when I play by myself, I never loose.

• Ancient One: Perhaps what I’ve done is wrong, but what I do is neither right nor wrong. It just is. Conscience is a terrible thing. It makes cowards of us all.

• Tao: What do you know if this burning forest?
  Dar: It’s a place of dead souls.
  Tao: Dead souls?
  Dar: They go there at the end of the circle of life to suffer.
  Tao: Suffering after you’re dead, that presumes a hereafter, another existence.

• Ketzwayo’s poems to Curupira:

“Roses are red
Violets are blue
The end is near
For the likes of you”

“It’s over for you
and the Beastmaster, too
Revenge is sweet
Dearie, little Funny Feet”

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"Circle Of Life" Storyline

The demon Ketzwayo is given a second chance at life. Reborn from the flames of hell, the miniscular demon promises revenge on both Curupira and the Beastmaster. Elsewhere, Dar is practicing flips with his staff while Tao practices writing his name on a rock. Dar, who can't read, questions the usefulness of what Tao is doing. They are distracted when Dar senses Curupira calling to him. Nearby, Dar finds a dead tiger and Curupira. The green-skinned demon with backwards feet is angered by the tigers death. She demands Dar find out what is going on, as it appears another tiger killed it and animals don't kill their own kind.

Later, when Sharak refuses to talk to Dar, Tao expresses his concern in words. Feeling his friend is over stepping his bounds, Dar lashes out verbally at Tao. Elsewhere, Ketzwayo is given three muscular guards called the Sentinel by a black clad apparition. This apparition, who has demonic red eyes, resides in a place known as the Burning Forest - a place where evil souls gone upon death. Ketzwayo promises her that he will destroy nature and the Beasmaster and Curupira, and in return rule beside the Apparition in a new hellish world of chaos and great destruction.

Dar and Tao arrive on the Savannah, where they spot many animals migrating, and others fighting and destroying one other. As Tao's concern grows, Dar snaps and lashes out at his friend some more. Tao lashes back, feeling insulted and useless. Dar storms off alone, leaving Tao behind. Dar soon comes up upon an orangatang. When the creature refuses to talk to him, Dar fears he has lost his powers to commune with animals. He maddens as he begins to feel all the pain caused by the unbalancing of nature that Ketzwayo and his evil magic has somehow brought about. He is even attacked by Ruh, and the tiger only refuses to kill him because of their once friendship.

Bloodied and battered, Dar stumbles into the camp Tao and him set up earlier. Tao tends to his friend's wounds. Dar tries to make amends, however, Tao knows his friend didn't mean what he said earlier...that it was part of this madness which is quickly sweeping the land. Curupira appears, and impressed by Tao's handwriting, invites him to come with her and investigate a scroll left with the dead tiger. Dar warns Curupira -- standing bravely up to her for once -- not to hurt Tao in any way.

Tao studies the scroll. After reading the threats made to the demon in the scroll, Curupira knows the evil force responsible is Ketzwayo. Curupira tells Tao to hide in the brush while she speaks to someone who can give a bit more information on the matter. This someone is the Ancient One, who at the moment is playing a game of chess against himself (since no matter what, he wins). Curupira learns Ketzwayo was resurrected because he gave himself to the one from hell with the red eyes. Tao returns to Dar, but not until he is noticed almost fondly by the Ancient One. After Tao tells Dar about Ketzwayo, Kodo and Podo come back from a confrontation with the demon himself. They have brought berries to Dar, which have been planted with a deadly exploding powder that will burst Dar apart if he eats them. Tao luckily stops Dar from eating the berries, warning him nothing is safe at the moment. The two know they must travel to the Burning Forest to do battle with the demon.

When the Ancient One returns to the airye, he freezes the Sorceress and the eagle Sharak, who has caught the Sorceress' eye lately. Verbally assaulting the Sorceress for her sudden interest in human emotions and the eagle, the Ancient One decides to punish her by removing her unicorns from the sky and placing them in his head. He unfreezes the eagle and Sorceress from the freeze, leaving them both separated once again, and in pain. Elsewhere, Dar triumphs over the Sentinel and Curupira sucks the life from Ketzwayo yet again - this time for good. All is right again as nature is in balance.

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