Ten years ago, a devastating fire took the lives of Queen Karenisha and King Makero, leaving a young Princess Saderia orphaned. Nobody knows how the fire started, but it ignited quickly. Too quickly.
In ten years, the truth has never been discovered...
Saderia is a curious 10-year-old tiger Princess. Her Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash have taken over the duties of Queen and King and have raised Saderia since her parents disappeared in a mysterious fire. Saderia’s aunt and uncle don’t understand the sassy, adventurous tiger, which she resents.
At night, though, Saderia is haunted by dark nightmares about the fire - eerie, cryptic dreams that push her to start investigating her parents’ disappearance. As she uncovers strange clues, she soon becomes desperate to know the truth. Could her parents have been murdered? On a quest to uncover the truth about her parents’ disappearance, she soon realizes her forest has many other mysteries when she discovers a dangerous, ancient royal secret regarding her oldest ancestors - a secret that will change not only her life, but the lives of everyone around her.
Saderia doesn’t know who or what to trust, but she is desperate to uncover the secrets of the past. She will do whatever it takes to find the truth.
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Chapter OnePrincess Saderia
Flames licked up the pine trees, forever scarring their bark and charring them an ugly black color. The leaves were scorched into nothing more than ash as the fire crept violently through the forest. The crackle of flame drowned out the cries of the animals of the forest as they rushed to get water to put out the flames. Trees fell with a sickening crack and smashed against other bushes and trees which then burst into flame. The smoke from the horrible fire turned the normally peaceful, light blue sky into a dark black cloud, choking and damaging the throats of the animals it captured. The fire spread hungrily from tree to tree without stopping, creating a dangerous ring of flames. The blaze turned the forest red, orange, yellow, and black as forest animals ran for cover while others rushed to put out the fire. Some of the animals yelled as loud as they could and still couldn’t be heard over the crackle of flame, the snapping of falling trees, or the screams from the other animals.
The fire was closest to a large den, secluded in one part of the forest. There two tigers were running around screaming orders at anyone they could get to, desperately calling out for two animals.
As a tiny tiger cub, Saderia observed this from safely inside her den. Her amber eyes stretched wide with fascination, wonder and terror as she crawled up to one of the windows to look out of her den and see her forest burning around her. The heat reached her even through the house and she felt fear well up in her small body as she stared out with a quiet whimper. On the verge of tears, she watched the forest and the two tigers that had run from the house closely.
“Karenisha!” one of the tigers who had run from the house screamed.
“Cia, have you found them?” yelled the other one, racing around, trying to find an opening in the ring of fire.
“No!” Cia screamed. “Jash, where are they?!” She raced around the fire, coughing and trying desperately to see through the smoke and flames. “Makero!” she yelled in vain against the deafening sounds of the fire.
They continued to scurry around the forest, yelling for the two missing animals while other animals hurried forward with water. It was almost impossible to stop the flame but no one ever gave up trying. Screams from the fleeing animals floated around in the air.
“Where are the King and Queen?!” someone screamed
“Where did the fire come from?!” shouted another.
More yells and cries came but were drowned out by the enraged roar of the fire as it devoured yet more of their precious forest.
Baby Saderia observed all this with huge eyes and a shaking, tiny body. Two fat tears teetered precariously on her eyelids and then spilled over her face, quickly at first and then slowly until they plopped onto the window sill she was sitting on.
“Mommy…” she whispered. “Daddy…”
Saderia’s eyes blinked open and she sat up quickly, nearly falling over the edge of her bed. She awkwardly caught herself with her claws and pulled herself up on the bed, clutching her uncomfortable blanket to her chest with her paws. Her breathing came fast as she gasped and panted for air.
Looking around at her feminine room, her horrible nightmare started to drift away as she realized that that was all it was. She was back in her room, safe and sound. And miserable. She reminded herself that she was now ten years old and none of that was happening now.
She stopped gasping and let out a long sigh, blinking back tears. She knew her awful nightmare had been much more than that, rather it was a memory she could never bury no matter how hard she tried.
She slowly relaxed her grip on her scratchy, purple blanket, leaned back against her too-stuffed matching pillows and gazed around at her royal purple room. The rest of her bed was made using different tree branches, stacked together with a thick mattress attached to it. The logs were tinted an elegant deep brown color and the canopy above it was purple with light streaks of pink. Gingerly she pushed the fabric away and stepped out of her bed. She checked the time on the clock atop her refined, deep brown bedside table and saw that it was almost time to get up anyway. She definitely was not going to risk sleeping again.
Walking across the thick purple carpet, she made it to the vanity made of sticks and logs on the opposite side of her room, knowing what she had to do but hating it no less. Being a Princess, she was expected to act sophisticated and fancy, when what she really wanted to do was ditch the cosmetics and the ‘typical Princess’ act and go out to be rough and wild and have fun. But Cia would never approve, and unfortunately she had to listen to her.
She hastily combed through her orange and black striped fur that was now sticking up in clumps from the way she must have tossed and turned last night. Hurriedly she put bows on her ears and smoothed out her unusually fluffy tail. Then she looked glumly in the mirror; she had seen the face staring sadly back at her many times but she knew it was not her.
She barely looked at the rest of her room, with its deep purple walls and the large drawer against the wall where she kept her homework and other documents in. She just stalked out of the room, pushing her horrific dream out of her mind. It always hurt too much to ever think about that tragic time, even though she had been a tiny baby of only a few months old.
Walking out of her room, she started down the hallway, moving past the bathroom close to her room and out into the front room, which was large, with wood floors and elegant wallpaper lining the walls of the den. There was a wooden desk in the corner, two computers on one wall and lots of drawers filled with papers. The desk was slightly uneven, the computers rare and imperfect but they were the best that could be obtained. Saderia’s family’s rich and royal status guaranteed them the finest things in the forest.
She ignored the hallway opposite hers for fear that it might bring pain after the dream. Instead she turned right into the carefully carved archway that led to the kitchen and dining room where her Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash were waiting. There was another arch at the back of the dining room that led to the living room with wooden, fabric-draped couches and bookcases made from two thick tree branches with little twigs held together to form shelves.
The two adult tigers were sitting at the solid gold table in the middle of the small dining room which broke off into the kitchen. Only sparkling, very precisely made, golden railing separated the two rooms. Watching her aunt and uncle, Saderia quickly went to sit in her place at the table, the chair being wide enough to seat her with her front paws and back paws together in a sitting position. Cia had already made food and left it on the table for the three of them but Cia and Uncle Jash had hardly touched their food. Instead, they were bent over several sheets of paper.
Cia looked up from the paper with troubled blue eyes. The frown on her already worried looking face deepened as she took in Saderia’s expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I just had a nightmare,” Saderia muttered. She wondered why they both looked so worried. She knew that Cia did worry, mostly about Saderia and her less than Princess-like tendencies, but she usually kept a light, carefree expression to hide that. Uncle Jash normally didn’t look so serious either.
Her uncle looked up then, too. “What about?” he asked.
She met both of their blue gazes then looked away. “The fire.”
Cia flinched and Uncle Jash looked down.
When Cia spoke again her voice was calm but strained. “Saderia, it’s been ten years since that happened and you were just a cub then. Why would you have a nightmare about that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know; I have no control over my dreams.”
Cia sighed. “We should have never told you what happened if it gives you nightmares.”
“Well, you did and I’m glad you did. I should get to know how my parents died.”
Again Cia flinched; Saderia felt guilty about using such harsh words but she couldn’t take them back now and her dream had really disturbed her. Another thing that frightened her about it was that Cia hadn’t told her in detail what had happened and yet she could picture the scene almost perfectly, although she had witnessed it when she was only a few months old.
Cia shot Uncle Jash a look, clearly asking him to say something to her, so he turned to Saderia and, speaking calmly, said, “Cia’s right. Your parents have been gone for a long time, and you didn’t even know them since you were so young.”
Saderia raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She had known her parents no matter what anybody said, despite the fact of her young age. But she didn’t try to tell Cia that she knew her mother just as well as Cia knew her sister despite her short time with her. Instead, she decided to change the subject.
“So what’s with the paper?” she asked, leaning forward with her paws on the table.
“Get your paws off the table. It’s not good manners and your manners need to be perfect if you’re going to be a Princess,” Cia said automatically.
Saderia sighed but sat back up straighter. She wanted to tell Cia that it wasn’t as if she had any choice about being a Princess, being born into it the way she was. But she had learned a long time ago that it was best she kept most of her thoughts to herself.
“So what is that paper?” Saderia pressed.
Cia’s frown deepened. Looking worried again she muttered to Uncle Jash, “I really wish my sister were here to handle this. She knew how to be Queen much better than me.” Saderia guessed she wasn’t supposed to hear that so she kept her face composed as she waited for an answer.
Cia turned toward her and put the papers on the table. “Problems. Many animals of the forest have had some very bad luck. Some animals have lost family members.” She added more quietly, “Some suspect…murder.”
“So they’ve turned to the King and Queen for help,” Uncle Jash finished.
Saderia didn’t try to point out that they were not King and Queen even if Cia had been born into the royal family and Uncle Jash had married into it. Her parents had always been King and Queen and Cia and Uncle Jash were just taking over the responsibilities until Saderia was old enough to be Queen in ten more years.
“Anything I can help with?” Saderia asked. “It sounds like something a Princess should be prepared to handle when she becomes a Queen.”
Cia shook her head. “No, you need to work on being proper and elegant,” she said primly, giving her a hard look. “You can learn more about this when you’re much older.”
How much older? This seemed a much better thing for her to be preparing for as a Princess than learning about where to place her fork or do up her fur. But, of course, it was not part of her training to be a Princess, and the training she got was the kind she hated. It seemed pointless to worry about such insignificant ‘Princess’ things when she would much rather be out helping the forest animals, solving problems, and making the forest a safer and kinder place.
“Fine,” she muttered.
“And, of course, you still have your learning,” Uncle Jash pointed out awkwardly.
“Yes,” Cia agreed. “And you already have such a hard time with that, so you can’t be bothered to do much harder things like this.”
Great, she thought. But she supposed it had to catch up with her somehow. She resented Cia and Uncle Jash knowing about who she really was since they so rarely let her be that tiger and also because they were not her parents, so she tried to keep as much of herself and her life as secret as possible. She was really quite intelligent but her aunt and uncle rarely noticed or cared so she just acted dumbly, so as not to expect anything different.
“Speaking of learning, your tutors will be here soon,” Cia told her. “We’ll worry about this problem; you just worry about learning how to be a proper Princess.”
“Great,” she said out loud, allowing just a pinch of sarcasm into her voice but not enough for them to give her stern looks.
She looked at the paper and started to wonder if it would be worth it to snatch it when they weren’t looking. Then she could get more information and maybe think of some way to help. It probably wasn’t worth it but she kept her eyes on it just in case.
Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door of their den, and Uncle Jash hastily took the papers away while Cia and Saderia hopped down from their chairs to answer the door. She knew it would be the tutors Cia had hired to teach Saderia instead of letting her go to normal school like she wanted.
“Why can’t I just go to normal school?” she hissed quickly but hopelessly to Cia as they moved swiftly to the door.
“We’ve had this conversation,” Cia sighed in exasperation. “You’re a Princess and shouldn’t be around the common animals. You have to learn to be sophisticated like a Princess and not ordinary like the other non-royalty animals. You have to be above the common animals.”
“Fine,” Saderia said. To her, the words ‘sophisticated’ and ‘Princess’ meant ‘alone’ and ‘miserable.’ It was kind of ironic to her that she was a Princess who was supposed to have so much power and yet no one listened to a word that came out of her mouth. And, of course, she resented that almost as much as she resented the fact that her parents were not there to raise her themselves. Somehow she knew they would listen to her, unlike her aunt and uncle.
When Cia opened the door, three animals stood outside. Two were lionesses although one of them looked sweeter while the other had a sharp, more pointed face and stricter look. Behind them was a pretty, but serious looking black panther.
“Come in,” Cia greeted Saderia’s tutors and they stepped in. As usual, the three of them curtsied, as all animals were required to do in the presence of royalty, before they came inside. Cia gave Saderia a look and Saderia led them over to the desk and tables in one corner of the front room, reserved for where Saderia’s schooling took place.
“We’ll be in our room,” Cia sniffed as she went to join Uncle Jash and probably look over those papers more.
Saderia led the tutors over to the table and sat down at her desk as they took out papers from their bags.
“We’ll begin with math and science,” the sharper looking lioness said in a way that seemed almost challenging.
“Okay, Ms. Grenyl,” she replied automatically.
With a stern look, the tutor began her lessons for the day. Saderia was used to the way she didn’t describe anything adequately enough for anyone to understand. She did, but that was because she had already learned these things on her own, using whatever was available.
“I don’t get it,” she muttered when Ms. Grenyl had finished speaking. She was completely bored out of her mind, her head drooping over her desk which was covered by a mess of papers.
Ms. Grenyl hissed in annoyance and assigned a bunch of homework to make her get it, but then the panther snapped at her. “Sit up straight, young lady. A Princess does not slouch!”
Feeling more and more ruffled, Saderia sat up straighter. “Sorry, Ms. Celen. Better?”
“Speak fluently. Use complete sentences,” she snapped.
Saderia took a deep breath, used to the strictness of the tutor hired to teach her useless ‘Princess’ skills. Speaking clearly and articulately were big things she had to master, but she wondered why they were trying to teach her that when no one listened even when she did speak the way they told her.
“I apologize to you, Ms. Celen,” Saderia pronounced each word very carefully. “Is this way that I am sitting better than before?”
“Yes, it is,” she said, satisfied.
Increasingly annoyed, but not wanting to misbehave too badly, she was forced to stay very still as Ms. Grenyl continued her lesson.
When she was finished the softer lioness took her place. “Oh, you look so cute with your bows!” she gushed. “Are you ready for your lesson?”
“About?” When Ms. Celen looked at her sharply she rephrased, “What is the lesson about, Miss Lila?”
“Compound sentences,” she replied, still mooning over her ‘cuteness.’ Saderia suddenly felt the urge to throw up at the way Ms. Lila was staring at her like she was a basket of buttercups and daisies.
Saderia suddenly wondered why her tutor was allowed to use short, not complete sentences when she wasn’t.
“And other types of sentences,” she added, pulling gently at her bows.
Again, that was technically not a sentence but again, she didn’t comment.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Ms. Celen gave her another sharp look since she didn’t particularly like contractions but Saderia didn’t feel like correcting herself. Ms. Grenyl didn’t like her to be sarcastic so she too gave her a hard look but she ignored both of them and started to drown out Ms. Lila as she started talking. When she was finished and Saderia had looked at her blankly, she too assigned a lot of homework to supposedly help her understand.
It was Ms. Celen’s turn to teach her about being a proper Princess and Saderia groaned inwardly. The rest of the time she stared off into space with a blank expression, trying to keep herself entertained through the boring lecture of how to speak right, how to eat properly, walk elegantly, and how to look sophisticated.
At the end, Saderia said, “What? I don’t understand any of that at all!”
She wasn’t lying because, although she understood how to do what the tutor was saying, she couldn’t wrap her mind around why any of it was important.
To her, it was demeaning because it took away her personality and turned her into some boring clone of every other royal animal. She liked to think that she was unique in personality and attitude but these tasks the tutor asked her to do were destroying the last pieces of herself that she had managed to hang on to. There was only one thing Saderia was afraid of and that was becoming the stereotypical Princess and losing her personality.
Ms. Celen let out an aggravated growl and snapped, “I do not know how to better explain it! You will just have to practice it to learn it!” She checked the time. “It is time for me to go now, Princess Saderia.” She and the other tutors curtsied again and left the room as Cia stepped out to join Saderia.
“Honestly, Saderia, would it kill you to pay attention to what they’re saying?” she scolded her, shaking her head. “I was listening, and it’s obvious that you don’t care enough to try.”
“Hey, you’re catching on,” Saderia muttered with a sarcastic grin, before she got out of the desk, grabbed the homework she had been assigned and started to her room to work on it.
Cia stared after her with narrowed eyes but didn’t say anything as she disappeared down the hallway and shut the door to her room, using all of her self-control not to slam it.
“I hate this!” Saderia shouted, ripping the bows out of her fur when she was in the privacy of her own room. She fluffed up her tail to her liking, feeling the fur along her back start to bristle. Her glare scorched all sides of her room, yet she longed to curl up in it and lay there forever. She rolled her eyes at herself. “I can’t believe I have mixed emotions about my room!”
Part of her hated this room because of the girly, Princess-y way it was designed, yet another reminder of what she was supposed to be but didn’t want to be. But another part of her loved this room because she could have some privacy in it. It was the only place she could be herself because she was alone, and she wished for that every day.
She let out a long breath before going over to her bed to curl up under her stiff, uncomfortable blanket and begin her homework. However, her focus was not on her homework, and she lay there thinking of how the only thing she wanted more than to be herself was her parents. In her mind, she imagined scenes with them and how they would treat her much differently from how she was treated now. She would actually have a voice with them and she could actually be herself with them.
But that was impossible. Her parents were dead and never coming back.
She thought about herself then. The cold shell she showed other animals and what she was becoming inside was not the real her and it upset her to think that she was becoming bitter because of the way she was forced to keep her real self hidden.
Thinking about these things always hurt and she would do anything to distract herself from it. That was why she loved doing the hours worth of homework that her tutors assigned her. It took her mind off of her longing to be herself, for a better life and for her parents most of all. Most animals thought she was selfish and horrible for thinking her life was hard because she was a Princess, who was expected to lead a charmed life. But being a Princess meant nothing to her if it meant she could never express herself.
After several hours of nothing but homework problems, and writing out in perfect, complete sentences the proper things a Princess was supposed to do for Ms. Celen, she put the homework away in her homework drawer. After cramming the overflowing drawer shut, she went to her bed and opened the little drawer in her bedside table to take out the book she had been reading. Reading was very easy and natural to her and it took her to another time, another place, another world. Which was good because she liked anything that distracted her from the charade she was supposed to call her life and the ever-present longing for her parents.
What really irked her was that on top of the annoying ‘proper Princess’ situation, she was expected to be happy like a Princess should be. Well, the other animals didn’t know that she liked to play outside and, yes, get dirty doing it, to do rough things like climb trees and swim through lakes, to help the other animals. They had no idea that she longed to go to normal school, and actually make a friend. Part of her was afraid to express who she really was, for fear of the rejection and scorn which would surely come. And so she curled into a ball and clamped her mouth shut over her tirade of hurt and angry feelings.
But she was bordering on painful territory so she quickly buried her face in her book and tried to ignore the jumble of emotions that wanted so desperately to get out. Slowly she relaxed into the words on the page and read for hours until it got dark. But when she put the book away she moaned as it all came back to her in one painful rush.
“I have no life, do I?” she muttered to the purple canopy over her bed.
The emotions she was feeling were confusing. She usually felt miserable and upset, but these feelings rarely came to her so strongly. Now they were practically all she could think about, and she couldn’t help wondering if they had been triggered by the dream. Groaning, she knew that the dream probably had caused these long-buried emotions to return and they wouldn’t fade for a long time. That was going to be painful.
She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost an hour before she was supposed to go to bed. Opening the drawer again, she pushed the book aside to reveal a stack of clean white paper. She took out a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write. She didn’t know why she had to do this, but she always felt the need to.
Pencil gripped tightly, it moved across the paper swiftly, making graceful letters across the page. The only thing elegant about her was her writing and she was actually proud of that; it always made her smile to see it.
She wrote:
Today was another horrible, boring day. Your sister acted just the way she always does. I appreciate Cia. But she’s just…Well, Uncle Jash and I just try to listen and get through it. I wish you were here. Then I could be myself. Would you know me? I’m kind, and helpful, smart. I’m someone with ideas and a voice. I still remember you, I think. And the disaster. If you’re there, if you can see this or hear me, please Mom and Dad, don’t leave me here alone.
She gently put the paper under her pillow, before she laid her head down on it. She knew that in the morning she would dip it in water to smudge the writing and throw it away, but it made her feel comforted during the night, knowing she had not lost her parents, hoping that they could see her. It kept her going.
After a few moments, Cia called, “Saderia, time for bed!”
Saderia flipped the light switch beside her bed to off with her fluffy tail and the room went dark. Cia and Uncle Jash came in a moment later to say goodnight and she said goodnight to them, too. Then they shut the door behind them and their paw steps faded away into the distance.
When Saderia was sure they were in their room, she leapt gracefully out of bed, leaving the light off, and took her book back out. She flipped to the place where she had left off and continued reading. This was another habit of hers. At nine-thirty, when her aunt and uncle expected her to sleep, she wasn’t the least bit tired. Her amber eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness and she was able to read without the use of any light.
Saderia liked the dark, and she wasn’t afraid of it. It was a nice cover in case she wanted to sneak around, and it was secretive. Kind of like herself. So she had no problem staying awake in pitch blackness alone for a while. She loved being alone.
When she was finished reading at ten-thirty, she curled up under her scratchy blanket and closed her eyes. She waited impatiently for sleep to take her for a long time until she sat up with a frustrated hiss. Not even feeling tired, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep. Bored and desperate for another distraction of any kind, she threw off her blanket and pushed through the fabric canopy. Padding out of her room she began to walk around to find something to do that might make her tired. She certainly wasn’t going to just lie in bed all night because that left way too much time for thinking painful thoughts.
Absentmindedly, she walked out of her room and down the hallway, passing the bathroom again. She stepped out into the dark front room then made her way across to the hallway opposite hers that led to Cia and Uncle Jash’s room and her parents’ old room. Why she stopped in front of the door that led to her parents’ old room, she didn’t know and could only credit it to her yearning to have her parents back.
She gently brushed her paw along the height of the dark brown door and her paw stopped at a place that looked as if something had faded away. She knew instantly that something strange was happening but did not react and stood completely still as she stared at the door. But then she was staring through the door, and not to what lay on the other side but to another time period from ten years ago.
She pulled her paw back slightly, not sure what to feel, but it was like she was in a trance. Drawing back, she saw that the door was different. The wood was lighter colored and a small red heart shape was painted on the door with a crown adorning the top of it.
Saderia carefully placed her paw back where it had been but instead of feeling the hard wood beneath her paw pad, her paw brushed right through the wood. Everything around her seemed to disappear as suddenly the scene inside the room became clearer.
Her paw dropped down steadily and smoothly brushed the floor to join her other paws in a sitting position. An outside observer, she stared at the scene in wonder and fascination. The blurriness along the sides faded away and suddenly she was staring at two tigers, one lying on the bed and the other one watching the first carefully.
The larger male tiger beside the bed was staring at the female tiger intently, concern darkening his green eyes. The female tiger on the bed with amber eyes very much like Saderia’s own seemed happy but at the same time it was obvious she was struggling not to cry out in pain. Saderia realized with a jolt that she was giving birth.
The tiger’s body convulsed one time and she fell back on her pillow with a sigh of relief. The cub had been born. The father promptly took the newborn baby tiger and cleaned her up before gently wrapping her in a blanket. Very carefully, he lifted the tiny tiger by the scruff and handed the bundle to the mother who cradled it gently.
The father stroked the newborn tiger’s short, yellow orange fur. It had no stripes yet, but they could already see that it would have an unusually fluffy tail, much like the mother. Suddenly the father spoke with a warm, gentle voice.
“What should we name her?” he asked the mother softly.
The mother smiled up at him and snuggled her newborn baby closer. In a voice softened with love, she told him, “Saderia.”
The father climbed into the bed beside the mother and her baby and the two of them snuggled and played with their beloved newborn tiger cub. The mother kissed her forehead and then her father did. They both told Baby Saderia they loved her and she smiled back and laughed. Baby Saderia never cried; she had her parents, so why would she? The loving family stayed together until the scene started to blur and then disappeared quickly before Saderia’s eyes.
Saderia blinked and found herself staring at the door that led to her parents’ room. Only this was the door she had originally come to and the crowned heart her mother had painted had faded and gone.
Copyrighted Material. Copyright © 2009 Sarah Renee.
The fire was closest to a large den, secluded in one part of the forest. There two tigers were running around screaming orders at anyone they could get to, desperately calling out for two animals.
As a tiny tiger cub, Saderia observed this from safely inside her den. Her amber eyes stretched wide with fascination, wonder and terror as she crawled up to one of the windows to look out of her den and see her forest burning around her. The heat reached her even through the house and she felt fear well up in her small body as she stared out with a quiet whimper. On the verge of tears, she watched the forest and the two tigers that had run from the house closely.
“Karenisha!” one of the tigers who had run from the house screamed.
“Cia, have you found them?” yelled the other one, racing around, trying to find an opening in the ring of fire.
“No!” Cia screamed. “Jash, where are they?!” She raced around the fire, coughing and trying desperately to see through the smoke and flames. “Makero!” she yelled in vain against the deafening sounds of the fire.
They continued to scurry around the forest, yelling for the two missing animals while other animals hurried forward with water. It was almost impossible to stop the flame but no one ever gave up trying. Screams from the fleeing animals floated around in the air.
“Where are the King and Queen?!” someone screamed
“Where did the fire come from?!” shouted another.
More yells and cries came but were drowned out by the enraged roar of the fire as it devoured yet more of their precious forest.
Baby Saderia observed all this with huge eyes and a shaking, tiny body. Two fat tears teetered precariously on her eyelids and then spilled over her face, quickly at first and then slowly until they plopped onto the window sill she was sitting on.
“Mommy…” she whispered. “Daddy…”
Saderia’s eyes blinked open and she sat up quickly, nearly falling over the edge of her bed. She awkwardly caught herself with her claws and pulled herself up on the bed, clutching her uncomfortable blanket to her chest with her paws. Her breathing came fast as she gasped and panted for air.
Looking around at her feminine room, her horrible nightmare started to drift away as she realized that that was all it was. She was back in her room, safe and sound. And miserable. She reminded herself that she was now ten years old and none of that was happening now.
She stopped gasping and let out a long sigh, blinking back tears. She knew her awful nightmare had been much more than that, rather it was a memory she could never bury no matter how hard she tried.
She slowly relaxed her grip on her scratchy, purple blanket, leaned back against her too-stuffed matching pillows and gazed around at her royal purple room. The rest of her bed was made using different tree branches, stacked together with a thick mattress attached to it. The logs were tinted an elegant deep brown color and the canopy above it was purple with light streaks of pink. Gingerly she pushed the fabric away and stepped out of her bed. She checked the time on the clock atop her refined, deep brown bedside table and saw that it was almost time to get up anyway. She definitely was not going to risk sleeping again.
Walking across the thick purple carpet, she made it to the vanity made of sticks and logs on the opposite side of her room, knowing what she had to do but hating it no less. Being a Princess, she was expected to act sophisticated and fancy, when what she really wanted to do was ditch the cosmetics and the ‘typical Princess’ act and go out to be rough and wild and have fun. But Cia would never approve, and unfortunately she had to listen to her.
She hastily combed through her orange and black striped fur that was now sticking up in clumps from the way she must have tossed and turned last night. Hurriedly she put bows on her ears and smoothed out her unusually fluffy tail. Then she looked glumly in the mirror; she had seen the face staring sadly back at her many times but she knew it was not her.
She barely looked at the rest of her room, with its deep purple walls and the large drawer against the wall where she kept her homework and other documents in. She just stalked out of the room, pushing her horrific dream out of her mind. It always hurt too much to ever think about that tragic time, even though she had been a tiny baby of only a few months old.
Walking out of her room, she started down the hallway, moving past the bathroom close to her room and out into the front room, which was large, with wood floors and elegant wallpaper lining the walls of the den. There was a wooden desk in the corner, two computers on one wall and lots of drawers filled with papers. The desk was slightly uneven, the computers rare and imperfect but they were the best that could be obtained. Saderia’s family’s rich and royal status guaranteed them the finest things in the forest.
She ignored the hallway opposite hers for fear that it might bring pain after the dream. Instead she turned right into the carefully carved archway that led to the kitchen and dining room where her Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash were waiting. There was another arch at the back of the dining room that led to the living room with wooden, fabric-draped couches and bookcases made from two thick tree branches with little twigs held together to form shelves.
The two adult tigers were sitting at the solid gold table in the middle of the small dining room which broke off into the kitchen. Only sparkling, very precisely made, golden railing separated the two rooms. Watching her aunt and uncle, Saderia quickly went to sit in her place at the table, the chair being wide enough to seat her with her front paws and back paws together in a sitting position. Cia had already made food and left it on the table for the three of them but Cia and Uncle Jash had hardly touched their food. Instead, they were bent over several sheets of paper.
Cia looked up from the paper with troubled blue eyes. The frown on her already worried looking face deepened as she took in Saderia’s expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I just had a nightmare,” Saderia muttered. She wondered why they both looked so worried. She knew that Cia did worry, mostly about Saderia and her less than Princess-like tendencies, but she usually kept a light, carefree expression to hide that. Uncle Jash normally didn’t look so serious either.
Her uncle looked up then, too. “What about?” he asked.
She met both of their blue gazes then looked away. “The fire.”
Cia flinched and Uncle Jash looked down.
When Cia spoke again her voice was calm but strained. “Saderia, it’s been ten years since that happened and you were just a cub then. Why would you have a nightmare about that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know; I have no control over my dreams.”
Cia sighed. “We should have never told you what happened if it gives you nightmares.”
“Well, you did and I’m glad you did. I should get to know how my parents died.”
Again Cia flinched; Saderia felt guilty about using such harsh words but she couldn’t take them back now and her dream had really disturbed her. Another thing that frightened her about it was that Cia hadn’t told her in detail what had happened and yet she could picture the scene almost perfectly, although she had witnessed it when she was only a few months old.
Cia shot Uncle Jash a look, clearly asking him to say something to her, so he turned to Saderia and, speaking calmly, said, “Cia’s right. Your parents have been gone for a long time, and you didn’t even know them since you were so young.”
Saderia raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She had known her parents no matter what anybody said, despite the fact of her young age. But she didn’t try to tell Cia that she knew her mother just as well as Cia knew her sister despite her short time with her. Instead, she decided to change the subject.
“So what’s with the paper?” she asked, leaning forward with her paws on the table.
“Get your paws off the table. It’s not good manners and your manners need to be perfect if you’re going to be a Princess,” Cia said automatically.
Saderia sighed but sat back up straighter. She wanted to tell Cia that it wasn’t as if she had any choice about being a Princess, being born into it the way she was. But she had learned a long time ago that it was best she kept most of her thoughts to herself.
“So what is that paper?” Saderia pressed.
Cia’s frown deepened. Looking worried again she muttered to Uncle Jash, “I really wish my sister were here to handle this. She knew how to be Queen much better than me.” Saderia guessed she wasn’t supposed to hear that so she kept her face composed as she waited for an answer.
Cia turned toward her and put the papers on the table. “Problems. Many animals of the forest have had some very bad luck. Some animals have lost family members.” She added more quietly, “Some suspect…murder.”
“So they’ve turned to the King and Queen for help,” Uncle Jash finished.
Saderia didn’t try to point out that they were not King and Queen even if Cia had been born into the royal family and Uncle Jash had married into it. Her parents had always been King and Queen and Cia and Uncle Jash were just taking over the responsibilities until Saderia was old enough to be Queen in ten more years.
“Anything I can help with?” Saderia asked. “It sounds like something a Princess should be prepared to handle when she becomes a Queen.”
Cia shook her head. “No, you need to work on being proper and elegant,” she said primly, giving her a hard look. “You can learn more about this when you’re much older.”
How much older? This seemed a much better thing for her to be preparing for as a Princess than learning about where to place her fork or do up her fur. But, of course, it was not part of her training to be a Princess, and the training she got was the kind she hated. It seemed pointless to worry about such insignificant ‘Princess’ things when she would much rather be out helping the forest animals, solving problems, and making the forest a safer and kinder place.
“Fine,” she muttered.
“And, of course, you still have your learning,” Uncle Jash pointed out awkwardly.
“Yes,” Cia agreed. “And you already have such a hard time with that, so you can’t be bothered to do much harder things like this.”
Great, she thought. But she supposed it had to catch up with her somehow. She resented Cia and Uncle Jash knowing about who she really was since they so rarely let her be that tiger and also because they were not her parents, so she tried to keep as much of herself and her life as secret as possible. She was really quite intelligent but her aunt and uncle rarely noticed or cared so she just acted dumbly, so as not to expect anything different.
“Speaking of learning, your tutors will be here soon,” Cia told her. “We’ll worry about this problem; you just worry about learning how to be a proper Princess.”
“Great,” she said out loud, allowing just a pinch of sarcasm into her voice but not enough for them to give her stern looks.
She looked at the paper and started to wonder if it would be worth it to snatch it when they weren’t looking. Then she could get more information and maybe think of some way to help. It probably wasn’t worth it but she kept her eyes on it just in case.
Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door of their den, and Uncle Jash hastily took the papers away while Cia and Saderia hopped down from their chairs to answer the door. She knew it would be the tutors Cia had hired to teach Saderia instead of letting her go to normal school like she wanted.
“Why can’t I just go to normal school?” she hissed quickly but hopelessly to Cia as they moved swiftly to the door.
“We’ve had this conversation,” Cia sighed in exasperation. “You’re a Princess and shouldn’t be around the common animals. You have to learn to be sophisticated like a Princess and not ordinary like the other non-royalty animals. You have to be above the common animals.”
“Fine,” Saderia said. To her, the words ‘sophisticated’ and ‘Princess’ meant ‘alone’ and ‘miserable.’ It was kind of ironic to her that she was a Princess who was supposed to have so much power and yet no one listened to a word that came out of her mouth. And, of course, she resented that almost as much as she resented the fact that her parents were not there to raise her themselves. Somehow she knew they would listen to her, unlike her aunt and uncle.
When Cia opened the door, three animals stood outside. Two were lionesses although one of them looked sweeter while the other had a sharp, more pointed face and stricter look. Behind them was a pretty, but serious looking black panther.
“Come in,” Cia greeted Saderia’s tutors and they stepped in. As usual, the three of them curtsied, as all animals were required to do in the presence of royalty, before they came inside. Cia gave Saderia a look and Saderia led them over to the desk and tables in one corner of the front room, reserved for where Saderia’s schooling took place.
“We’ll be in our room,” Cia sniffed as she went to join Uncle Jash and probably look over those papers more.
Saderia led the tutors over to the table and sat down at her desk as they took out papers from their bags.
“We’ll begin with math and science,” the sharper looking lioness said in a way that seemed almost challenging.
“Okay, Ms. Grenyl,” she replied automatically.
With a stern look, the tutor began her lessons for the day. Saderia was used to the way she didn’t describe anything adequately enough for anyone to understand. She did, but that was because she had already learned these things on her own, using whatever was available.
“I don’t get it,” she muttered when Ms. Grenyl had finished speaking. She was completely bored out of her mind, her head drooping over her desk which was covered by a mess of papers.
Ms. Grenyl hissed in annoyance and assigned a bunch of homework to make her get it, but then the panther snapped at her. “Sit up straight, young lady. A Princess does not slouch!”
Feeling more and more ruffled, Saderia sat up straighter. “Sorry, Ms. Celen. Better?”
“Speak fluently. Use complete sentences,” she snapped.
Saderia took a deep breath, used to the strictness of the tutor hired to teach her useless ‘Princess’ skills. Speaking clearly and articulately were big things she had to master, but she wondered why they were trying to teach her that when no one listened even when she did speak the way they told her.
“I apologize to you, Ms. Celen,” Saderia pronounced each word very carefully. “Is this way that I am sitting better than before?”
“Yes, it is,” she said, satisfied.
Increasingly annoyed, but not wanting to misbehave too badly, she was forced to stay very still as Ms. Grenyl continued her lesson.
When she was finished the softer lioness took her place. “Oh, you look so cute with your bows!” she gushed. “Are you ready for your lesson?”
“About?” When Ms. Celen looked at her sharply she rephrased, “What is the lesson about, Miss Lila?”
“Compound sentences,” she replied, still mooning over her ‘cuteness.’ Saderia suddenly felt the urge to throw up at the way Ms. Lila was staring at her like she was a basket of buttercups and daisies.
Saderia suddenly wondered why her tutor was allowed to use short, not complete sentences when she wasn’t.
“And other types of sentences,” she added, pulling gently at her bows.
Again, that was technically not a sentence but again, she didn’t comment.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Ms. Celen gave her another sharp look since she didn’t particularly like contractions but Saderia didn’t feel like correcting herself. Ms. Grenyl didn’t like her to be sarcastic so she too gave her a hard look but she ignored both of them and started to drown out Ms. Lila as she started talking. When she was finished and Saderia had looked at her blankly, she too assigned a lot of homework to supposedly help her understand.
It was Ms. Celen’s turn to teach her about being a proper Princess and Saderia groaned inwardly. The rest of the time she stared off into space with a blank expression, trying to keep herself entertained through the boring lecture of how to speak right, how to eat properly, walk elegantly, and how to look sophisticated.
At the end, Saderia said, “What? I don’t understand any of that at all!”
She wasn’t lying because, although she understood how to do what the tutor was saying, she couldn’t wrap her mind around why any of it was important.
To her, it was demeaning because it took away her personality and turned her into some boring clone of every other royal animal. She liked to think that she was unique in personality and attitude but these tasks the tutor asked her to do were destroying the last pieces of herself that she had managed to hang on to. There was only one thing Saderia was afraid of and that was becoming the stereotypical Princess and losing her personality.
Ms. Celen let out an aggravated growl and snapped, “I do not know how to better explain it! You will just have to practice it to learn it!” She checked the time. “It is time for me to go now, Princess Saderia.” She and the other tutors curtsied again and left the room as Cia stepped out to join Saderia.
“Honestly, Saderia, would it kill you to pay attention to what they’re saying?” she scolded her, shaking her head. “I was listening, and it’s obvious that you don’t care enough to try.”
“Hey, you’re catching on,” Saderia muttered with a sarcastic grin, before she got out of the desk, grabbed the homework she had been assigned and started to her room to work on it.
Cia stared after her with narrowed eyes but didn’t say anything as she disappeared down the hallway and shut the door to her room, using all of her self-control not to slam it.
“I hate this!” Saderia shouted, ripping the bows out of her fur when she was in the privacy of her own room. She fluffed up her tail to her liking, feeling the fur along her back start to bristle. Her glare scorched all sides of her room, yet she longed to curl up in it and lay there forever. She rolled her eyes at herself. “I can’t believe I have mixed emotions about my room!”
Part of her hated this room because of the girly, Princess-y way it was designed, yet another reminder of what she was supposed to be but didn’t want to be. But another part of her loved this room because she could have some privacy in it. It was the only place she could be herself because she was alone, and she wished for that every day.
She let out a long breath before going over to her bed to curl up under her stiff, uncomfortable blanket and begin her homework. However, her focus was not on her homework, and she lay there thinking of how the only thing she wanted more than to be herself was her parents. In her mind, she imagined scenes with them and how they would treat her much differently from how she was treated now. She would actually have a voice with them and she could actually be herself with them.
But that was impossible. Her parents were dead and never coming back.
She thought about herself then. The cold shell she showed other animals and what she was becoming inside was not the real her and it upset her to think that she was becoming bitter because of the way she was forced to keep her real self hidden.
Thinking about these things always hurt and she would do anything to distract herself from it. That was why she loved doing the hours worth of homework that her tutors assigned her. It took her mind off of her longing to be herself, for a better life and for her parents most of all. Most animals thought she was selfish and horrible for thinking her life was hard because she was a Princess, who was expected to lead a charmed life. But being a Princess meant nothing to her if it meant she could never express herself.
After several hours of nothing but homework problems, and writing out in perfect, complete sentences the proper things a Princess was supposed to do for Ms. Celen, she put the homework away in her homework drawer. After cramming the overflowing drawer shut, she went to her bed and opened the little drawer in her bedside table to take out the book she had been reading. Reading was very easy and natural to her and it took her to another time, another place, another world. Which was good because she liked anything that distracted her from the charade she was supposed to call her life and the ever-present longing for her parents.
What really irked her was that on top of the annoying ‘proper Princess’ situation, she was expected to be happy like a Princess should be. Well, the other animals didn’t know that she liked to play outside and, yes, get dirty doing it, to do rough things like climb trees and swim through lakes, to help the other animals. They had no idea that she longed to go to normal school, and actually make a friend. Part of her was afraid to express who she really was, for fear of the rejection and scorn which would surely come. And so she curled into a ball and clamped her mouth shut over her tirade of hurt and angry feelings.
But she was bordering on painful territory so she quickly buried her face in her book and tried to ignore the jumble of emotions that wanted so desperately to get out. Slowly she relaxed into the words on the page and read for hours until it got dark. But when she put the book away she moaned as it all came back to her in one painful rush.
“I have no life, do I?” she muttered to the purple canopy over her bed.
The emotions she was feeling were confusing. She usually felt miserable and upset, but these feelings rarely came to her so strongly. Now they were practically all she could think about, and she couldn’t help wondering if they had been triggered by the dream. Groaning, she knew that the dream probably had caused these long-buried emotions to return and they wouldn’t fade for a long time. That was going to be painful.
She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost an hour before she was supposed to go to bed. Opening the drawer again, she pushed the book aside to reveal a stack of clean white paper. She took out a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write. She didn’t know why she had to do this, but she always felt the need to.
Pencil gripped tightly, it moved across the paper swiftly, making graceful letters across the page. The only thing elegant about her was her writing and she was actually proud of that; it always made her smile to see it.
She wrote:
Today was another horrible, boring day. Your sister acted just the way she always does. I appreciate Cia. But she’s just…Well, Uncle Jash and I just try to listen and get through it. I wish you were here. Then I could be myself. Would you know me? I’m kind, and helpful, smart. I’m someone with ideas and a voice. I still remember you, I think. And the disaster. If you’re there, if you can see this or hear me, please Mom and Dad, don’t leave me here alone.
She gently put the paper under her pillow, before she laid her head down on it. She knew that in the morning she would dip it in water to smudge the writing and throw it away, but it made her feel comforted during the night, knowing she had not lost her parents, hoping that they could see her. It kept her going.
After a few moments, Cia called, “Saderia, time for bed!”
Saderia flipped the light switch beside her bed to off with her fluffy tail and the room went dark. Cia and Uncle Jash came in a moment later to say goodnight and she said goodnight to them, too. Then they shut the door behind them and their paw steps faded away into the distance.
When Saderia was sure they were in their room, she leapt gracefully out of bed, leaving the light off, and took her book back out. She flipped to the place where she had left off and continued reading. This was another habit of hers. At nine-thirty, when her aunt and uncle expected her to sleep, she wasn’t the least bit tired. Her amber eyes immediately adjusted to the darkness and she was able to read without the use of any light.
Saderia liked the dark, and she wasn’t afraid of it. It was a nice cover in case she wanted to sneak around, and it was secretive. Kind of like herself. So she had no problem staying awake in pitch blackness alone for a while. She loved being alone.
When she was finished reading at ten-thirty, she curled up under her scratchy blanket and closed her eyes. She waited impatiently for sleep to take her for a long time until she sat up with a frustrated hiss. Not even feeling tired, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep. Bored and desperate for another distraction of any kind, she threw off her blanket and pushed through the fabric canopy. Padding out of her room she began to walk around to find something to do that might make her tired. She certainly wasn’t going to just lie in bed all night because that left way too much time for thinking painful thoughts.
Absentmindedly, she walked out of her room and down the hallway, passing the bathroom again. She stepped out into the dark front room then made her way across to the hallway opposite hers that led to Cia and Uncle Jash’s room and her parents’ old room. Why she stopped in front of the door that led to her parents’ old room, she didn’t know and could only credit it to her yearning to have her parents back.
She gently brushed her paw along the height of the dark brown door and her paw stopped at a place that looked as if something had faded away. She knew instantly that something strange was happening but did not react and stood completely still as she stared at the door. But then she was staring through the door, and not to what lay on the other side but to another time period from ten years ago.
She pulled her paw back slightly, not sure what to feel, but it was like she was in a trance. Drawing back, she saw that the door was different. The wood was lighter colored and a small red heart shape was painted on the door with a crown adorning the top of it.
Saderia carefully placed her paw back where it had been but instead of feeling the hard wood beneath her paw pad, her paw brushed right through the wood. Everything around her seemed to disappear as suddenly the scene inside the room became clearer.
Her paw dropped down steadily and smoothly brushed the floor to join her other paws in a sitting position. An outside observer, she stared at the scene in wonder and fascination. The blurriness along the sides faded away and suddenly she was staring at two tigers, one lying on the bed and the other one watching the first carefully.
The larger male tiger beside the bed was staring at the female tiger intently, concern darkening his green eyes. The female tiger on the bed with amber eyes very much like Saderia’s own seemed happy but at the same time it was obvious she was struggling not to cry out in pain. Saderia realized with a jolt that she was giving birth.
The tiger’s body convulsed one time and she fell back on her pillow with a sigh of relief. The cub had been born. The father promptly took the newborn baby tiger and cleaned her up before gently wrapping her in a blanket. Very carefully, he lifted the tiny tiger by the scruff and handed the bundle to the mother who cradled it gently.
The father stroked the newborn tiger’s short, yellow orange fur. It had no stripes yet, but they could already see that it would have an unusually fluffy tail, much like the mother. Suddenly the father spoke with a warm, gentle voice.
“What should we name her?” he asked the mother softly.
The mother smiled up at him and snuggled her newborn baby closer. In a voice softened with love, she told him, “Saderia.”
The father climbed into the bed beside the mother and her baby and the two of them snuggled and played with their beloved newborn tiger cub. The mother kissed her forehead and then her father did. They both told Baby Saderia they loved her and she smiled back and laughed. Baby Saderia never cried; she had her parents, so why would she? The loving family stayed together until the scene started to blur and then disappeared quickly before Saderia’s eyes.
Saderia blinked and found herself staring at the door that led to her parents’ room. Only this was the door she had originally come to and the crowned heart her mother had painted had faded and gone.
Copyrighted Material. Copyright © 2009 Sarah Renee.
Thanks for hosting Sarah today. I hope your reader will check out The Tiger Princess, which is free for Kindle. She has ambitious plans for this series with already five books under her belt and many more written or planned.
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting The Tiger Princess today! I hope your readers enjoy the first chapter. :)
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ReplyDeleteI've been out of touch due to treatment for lung cancer and am dealing with the side effects. So far I'm holding my own.
If you get a chance, please stop at my blog and say hi. Hearing from old and new friends is like a good medicine.
sincerely,
Mike
http://mikedraperinguilford.blogspot.com
PS Just reviewed "Body in a Bog" on Amazon, please check it out, think you'd enjoy it.