When she awoke in the morning, Tina the Tigress looked around and saw her family was no longer there. A steady stream of her tears bombarded the plants that lined the ground beneath her trembling feet. She missed her family terribly, but their absence did not surprise her. She had long expected them to leave her behind because of her refusal to partake in the flesh of her fellow beast. It made her weak. It made them vulnerable. Tina did not fault them for leaving, nor her mother for her decision. Her mother had made it because it was the most pragmatic, and Tina could not help but respect the resolve needed to abandon one of your cubs for the good of the rest of the streak. She had come to realize that her mother’s resolve was not unlike her own.

And yet, there was still a part of Tina that always wondered if it were a good choice to just eat as they did. Her people, not just her family, only knew a carnivorous lifestyle. Try as she might though, she would never forget the indelible image of her mother dragging a corpse to both her and her siblings. Where her siblings partook without even a second thought, the young tigress saw the lifeless body being devoured and quailed. Who were they to claim the life of a beast akin to themselves? Why was this the only way? And if this were the only way, why did they continue to uphold it? She never found answers to the questions that plagued her life. She even chose to ask her mother, who provided her with no clarity. She knew only one thing: there was nothing that would change her mind.

Shaking away the all-that-could-have-beens, the tigress almost wanted to try and catch up with her family. However, she had no way of knowing which way they had chosen to go in the dense and endlessly shifting overgrowth of the jungle. And even if she did happen to know the route they took, there was simply no way she had the energy to catch up to them--the only thing sustaining Tina, her raw strength of will. When the well of tears ran dry, she resolved to proceed onwards regardless. Even if she were to never meet her family again, there was no other road for her to take. As determined as she was to move, Tina was also reasonable and she knew that her time in the jungle inhabited by so many of her ancestors was coming to a close. Maybe, at least, she could find a beautiful place to die.

Tina’s movement was staggered, and onlookers within the jungle began to mock and jeer at her. The pride of the tiger was known to all, and to see one so visibly fragile was a rare yet welcome sight to those who harbored such great hate against the creatures that hunted them so,

“Look at the outcast, weak and frail,

A gust of wind would make them wail,

Follow the tigress, on her trail,

Before forsaken flesh grows stale!”

Tina did not understand why they had chosen to take out their frustration on her. She did not have the energy to explain to them why she had found herself in this situation, and she wondered if they would even care. The tigress felt something slowly crawling to the surface, a feeling she never thought she would know.

She tried her best to ignore them, her eyes darting around at the many creatures surrounding her. Their insults bit into her taut flesh, and she could feel their words burdening not only her mind but her very movement. Tina the Tigress, soon without both will and energy, collapsed in front of an aged tree. The clamor of her fellow animals, unlike the dying tigress, did not stop, and it seemed like her last moments would be spent being derided by the creatures whose existence she respected more than even her own. The painful comedy of her situation struck her like a match, generating friction and, indeed, there was soon a fire lit within Tina. Rage.

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Was it her fault that her family and distant kin would hunt them? Hers was a thankless effort, and though she knew she did it for no thanks, it still angered her. Had they ridiculed her merely days prior they would all feel foolish, Tina thought. But as she continued to think, she started to grow unsure. Were they so set in their distaste that they would not even give her the time of day? Had she any more tears to release, Tina would have released them, but there was nothing left within her, save for a fire fueled by anger and stoked by frustration. Her faculties began to fail her, and she slowly drifted to an endless sleep, the last thing audible to her a different kind of clamor from the surrounding beasts. Perhaps tigers had come, searching for a meal; the young tigress was unconvinced she even cared, a thought that both frightened and filled her with life.

Tina suddenly opened her eyes and perched upon a branch of the aged tree in front of her was a creature she had never before seen. It was a jet black, winged beast whose mouth was long and grey. Its talons, which tightly gripped the tree, were thin but stained with the substance Tina knew to be blood. What struck her the most were its eyes--abyssal voids leading to a dimension of perpetual darkness. Tina found herself unable to look away. It had captured her attention unlike anything she had experienced before. She did not even wish to tug her eyes away. A voice erupted from the creature,

“Some are crows, others appear as fish, and some wear crowns of fire,

But if I can’t grant your fondest wish, you may dub me a liar,”

The tigress felt something primal stir deep within her, something that cannot merely be regarded as some form of discomfort; she struggled to find a word to describe it. The crow once again spoke,

“An awakening.”

Tina knew then what it was she had to do. Her entire life she fought against it, but the derision against her taught her something: this is simply how things were, and how they should always have been. Her voice was barely audible,

“Creature now gripping tight this aged tree,

Grant me a fresh carcass I ask of thee,”

The creature seemed to nod, and before Tina a fresh corpse appeared. She felt energy coursing through her body as she rose and started to consume it. This was her first time tasting the flesh of another beast. Her emaciated form was given a hint of life after her feast. In the moment it felt utterly right to her, as though the answer to her questions had appeared before her and offered itself to her as a meal.

Soon, however, where once there was rage and understanding, there was now simply regret. Tina the Tigress stared down at the bones before her, and she wished she had died before the tree. Looking up at the branch where the foreign creature once stood, there was absolutely nothing. Not even a tree was left. Tina fell to the ground and yearned to take it all back, but there was no one around to grant this wish.

Tina had become what she sought to prevent herself from being. She had become a creature worthy of the jungle’s mockery. The foreign creature was the final nail in her coffin, built by blinding rage. What she thought was understanding was truly just failure.

Tina the Tigress sat in the same spot for the rest of her days, she would not move because she did not want another beast of the jungle she regarded so highly to be entrapped by that foreign creature. She would never taste the flesh of another beast again.

Many weeks later, the cub of a nearby tigress would begin,

“Mother, look! The bones of a cub,

It’s gripped by worm, and stick, and shrub!”

The mother tiger looked upon the bones and could not help but think of the daughter she had abandoned. She only hoped with all of her being that her daughter found the answers to questions she posed to her in the end. Though, if she was being honest, she was doubtful.