Tiger's Blood
Epilogue

I walk forward slowly, shaking off the dripping cold water from my orange fur. I look out and see nothing but forest and grey skies in the distance. I give a loud roar and watch as the trees shake and the leaves fly off the skinny branches. A snowflake floats gently down and lands on my nose. I snort it off and I turn around and look back towards my companion. She runs quickly to catch up with me then stops halfway. She breathes heavily and coughs deeply. Her dirty blonde hair covers her face until she moves it away with her small hands. Her deep blue eyes look over at me begging for assistance. I mutate and walk over to help her.

“You doing ok?” I ask. She coughs and hacks then looks up at me. “Yeah, I’ve never traveled that far in my life. That was a rough storm,” she replies. “I know, neither have I, but we made it safely and that’s what matters,” I say. She nods at me then holds her stomach in pain and groans. “Do you want me to hunt this time?” I ask her. “No, I have enough strength to hunt. I don’t want to lose you while we are here. Let’s hunt together,” she says. “Alright sounds good. You go in front of me and I’ll follow behind you,” I say. She mutates and I watch her spotted grey body walk in front of me. I mutate silently and follow her through the darkness of the forest around us.

Her sandy grey fur covers her whole body. Her black spots dress her fur nicely from her small ears to her bushy tail. I wish I had spots like her instead of large orange and black stripes. Spots look better to me than stupid stripes. I watch as her rounded ears prick up. I stop walking and give her a low roar. She gives me a high pitched laugh back and I roll my eyes. I know you’re a Hyena, but that doesn’t mean you have to always make that laugh. It gets annoying quickly. She steps back and nudges me forward with her black nose. I sniff the snowy ground and pick up the scent of the wild boar. Yes, I love eating those fat boars. They always taste better than the normal pigs.

I slowly crawl forward and watch the boar eat the wet grass. He snorts and digs his brown snout back into the ground sniffing around. I leap forward and pounce on him. I take my fangs and dig them into his rough skin. He squeals loudly and I kill him quickly in one bite. I listen to Leah laugh behind me and I turn around and drop the dead, brown boar in front of her. She looks at me with her dark, Hyena eyes and I take a large bite out of the stomach. She uses her grey paws and claws into the boar until she replaces a bone to eat. She gnaws on it while I eat the tender meat. This tastes so good. I haven’t eaten since we left home. We should have packed more food and water for the trip over here.

After our meal, Leah and I mutate and look around for a nice spot to rest for the night. We look through the dark snowy forest for a couple minutes and replace ourselves a small cave. I “We should replace wood to start a fire,” Leah points out. “Yeah, let’s gather up some branches,” I reply. Leah follows behind me and I breathe in and out slowly. I hope we replace what we are looking for. I don’t want either of us to get hurt or killed, especially Leah. She’s my best friend; I shouldn’t have had her come with me. I knew we would be put in danger. We replace a small area of tiny trees and start breaking off the branches.

We gather up enough wood for three fires and begin to walk back towards our cave. All of a sudden, I hear Leah shriek loudly. I turn around quickly and walk to her. “Leah what’s wrong?” I ask. She points down at a dead body cloaked in a sheet of snow. I drop the branches in my hands and bend down on my knees. Leah gets down too and helps me brush the snow off of him.

His body is completely frozen and stiff. His eyes are still open which made him look really creepy. The body has a full suit of metal armor with a sword and many other weapons attached to his waist. Ugh, this guy was a Lion. I hate Lions, well all except one. I’m glad that he’s dead. I hope I don’t have to meet any living Lions on this trip. They are ignorant and selfish Bloods.

“Do you think this guy was a knight?” Leah asks me. “No, not a knight, I think he was a guard for the Lion Kingdom. You see all of this armor? Only place who makes armor over here is the Lion’s Kingdom. Knights are brave and noble warriors while guards just blindly follow whatever orders they are told,” I say. “Maybe that means we are close to where we should be,” she says. I nod and take his sword and the rest of his weapons from his body. “Skylar! Those are his weapons. We can’t just steal them from him that’s rude,” she says. “Oh yeah? What is he going to do with them Leah? Fight off the ghosts around here? Come on be more realistic, a dead man doesn’t need weapons,” I say.

“Yeah but what do you need weapons for Skylar? You are a Tiger Blood. You don’t need anything. You have your strength and your power,” Leah says. “Just because I’m a Tiger Blood doesn’t mean I’m all strength and power. You can’t be strong without being weak,” I tell her. “True,” she says. I gather up my portion of the branches and Leah grabs hers and we walk back to the slimy cave. We throw our branches in the middle of the cave, and I pull out a match from my pocket, light it up, then throw it into the wood.

I watch the fire rise up so high that it licks the top of the cave. The orange flames burn brighter than my hair. I comb my straight, long, orange hair with my fingers. I stretch out my arms above my head and my legs in front of me. I look over at Leah who gives me a crooked smile. “What are you smiling at?” I ask. “You always look prettier than me no matter what you are doing. It makes me jealous,” she laughs. “You are pretty too Leah. You don’t have to be jealous. If it makes you feel any better, I’m jealous that you have blue eyes and that I’m stuck with these boring green eyes,” I say.

“Don’t hate yourself Sky, you are perfect,” Leah says. “If I’m so perfect, then why do I keep making mistakes?” I say. “You’re not the only one who makes mistakes. Look at me, I lost my backpack with all our clothes in it on the way here and now we are stuck wearing these,” she laughs. “Yeah but that was an accident. I kept making stupid mistakes when we were back home. It’s hard to fulfill the image of a Tiger Blood to a whole village who’s always watching you. I was really surprised when they asked me to take the trip here. I mean I just turned sixteen a couple days ago, I’m way too young to travel on a long journey like this. I’m a little scared about this to be honest,” I say.

“Hey, I was even more surprised when you asked me to join you on the trip. I thought for sure that you would have picked a Blood who was stronger than me or a better fighter. I’m just as scared as you are Sky,” Leah says. “Leah, you’re my best friend. Why wouldn’t I pick you?” I say. She blushes and I smile back at her. “I’ll admit, I am glad I came here with you. It’s so beautiful and mysterious,” Leah says. “Yeah, there seems to be a lot more forest here, but that’s alright. I love being in the forest,” I say.

“Yeah, me too,” Leah replies. “Hey, I’m feeling a little tired. Do you mind taking the first night shift?” I ask. “Oh yeah that’s fine. I can stay up as late as you want me too,” Leah says. “Thanks Leah, I really appreciate it,” I say. “No problem,” she says. I miss my mom and dad. I wonder if they miss me too. I wonder what they are doing right now. Probably having fun and exploring new lands and meeting new Bloods. I wonder why they didn’t want to come with me on this trip. I don’t want to let them down on this mission. I curl myself up against the walls of the cave and start to dream.

I run throughout the forest chasing after a huge, black creature. He hisses at me as he flies through the air. What kind of Blood is that? I’ve never seen that Blood anywhere before. Not even in my dreams. I stop then I watch it disappear. I look up to the blue sky hoping that he will come back. After five minutes, I give up and start to walk back. My paws start to hurt after chasing the creature and I stop and rest underneath a shady tree.

After my nap, I wake up and hear a screaming woman. I prick up my ears and listen to her. I follow the screaming to another Tiger Blood. The screaming turned out to be Leah. I fight the Tiger Blood roughly when suddenly I am awakened by a voice in the sky. “Come on Skylar get up. We have to start traveling today,” Leah says. I yawn and stretch my arms. Leah helps me up and both of us step out of the cave. “The snow must have fallen heavily last night because we almost got snowed in our cave. Luckily, I dug us out of here,” Leah says. “Wow, I’ve never seen it snow like this back home. We are lucky even if we get a few flakes of snow,” I say. Leah nods in agreement.

“Did you have another crazy dream last night? You were talking in your sleep again,” Leah asks me. “Yes I did, it was scary. You were in danger,” I say. “Don’t worry Sky, I have you to protect me. I shouldn’t be in any danger anytime soon.” she says. “There’s danger all around us. Even back home we were in danger of other Bloods, storms, even accidents. The dream just scared me because in the dream I had to fight another Tiger Blood. I don’t want to hurt my own Blood,” I say.

“You shouldn’t have too. I know we have to look for that other Tiger Blood somewhere in this area, but I don’t think you will have to fight her. Not if we talk to her first at least. Hopefully she will be a nice and reasonable person. What was her name again? I know they told us back at home but I forgot,” Leah looks to me. I look back at her. “They said her name is Kira. I don’t know who she is, or if she is dangerous, but we have to replace her.”