Burning Bright
My name is Shiva, and that means destruction.
My kind has known destruction – hunted through the jungles of our homeland. Shackled and chained, and shipped to foreign lands. Been born to live in cages, to entertain those who laugh at our slavery. As destruction comes upon the enslaver, the slave is thus entitled to cheer.
Not in this destruction. Not in this perversion of things. It is the way of the world, to feed, to hunt, and be hunted in turn. The world is cruel, and so too can be the creatures within it. Cruelty begets cruelty. The things that roam the world now however, they which feed unto infinity, are not of the world. They are not of the natural order. The creatures that stagger are in the form of hairless apes, but are bereft of cruelty. Bereft of any sense. Their sounds, their smells, their sight…it is unnatural. An aberration. A perversion. Within my eye, that which is more symmetrical than any creature upon this Earth, I see them for what they are. Empty. Soulless. Creatures who feed not for substance. Creatures that hunt, but not for sport. Creatures that simply are.
What they are is a blight. What they are is anathema. What they are is even worse than the one who holds the chain, for even he may let go in time. These creatures…they will never stop. They will never cease to hunger. If the world sought to strike down the enslaver, it has created something worse in turn. The hairless apes may be the only one to rise, to walk as the dead may, but creatures high and low can still suffer their bite. Even without claw, without sharpened fang, their numbers are deadly.
It is why I followed the one who broke my chains. The one who kept me at his side. The one whom his kind calls king. No jungle is this, nor distant plain of cousin feline. But strong is his body, and long is his mane, and his eyes burn bright, in forest or not. I could see, as others of his kind approached his throne, why it was he, and not others, who sat upon it. Who led the pack.
Some things I could not see, or rather, not understand. My eyes beheld the packs of the formers slavers warring among each other, even as their fallen cousins still roamed the Earth. I saw that death had not departed, that cruelty had not taken leave. I saw, even as they did not, that hope for this world was in their hands. They, who could fight the endless hordes. They, who could defeat the gaping maw that comes for all life, be it scale, feather, or fur. They, who had the numbers, intellect, and savagery to fight the last battle, but instead warred among themselves. Almost I hesitated, at the walls of one of their villages, before sinking my fans into one of their kind. Almost I hesitated, before following my king to war. Almost, almost, almost…but I am a tiger. I am a daughter of the jungle. I am bound to follow a law as old as earth and sky. I owe him my life, and his life, shall grant. The life of all his pack, as they go on the hunt.
It is these thoughts I am confronted with, as I see the sight before me. In this place beneath the trees, similar, yet different from the lands of my birth. In this cold pit of darkness, as I see my king injured, as his subjects struggle to save him from those who walk eternal. As he bids them leave, not understanding, or ignoring, his significance. The strength of the wolf is the pack, but the pack can only be as strong as its leader. But then, if the leader falls, how strong is he? Is this not nature taking its course, even as the unnatural sullies nature across the world? What truth do my eyes behold, as I weigh my options? Do I flee, save myself? Or do I come to my king? My pack leader? How tight, I wonder, is the chain still around me? Around my neck, does it control my brain? My heart? My soul?
I cannot say. Indeed, I can say little, for the speech of the tiger, of many animals, is simple. But as I roar, as I leap upon those that smell of death…I let them know. I let the world know. I let my king know, that this tiger burns bright, and in this forest, if not the jungle, my flame will not be extinguished lightly.
He calls to me, for he sees the truth as I do. This fight is doomed. The ones who smell of death, the ones of sunken eye and un-beating heart…only in the head, can they be felled. Fangs and claws are meant for tearing into flesh, for hunting those that are living. I am not possessed of nimble hand – I cannot craft the weapons meant to strike them down. I can roar, I can spit, I can burn as bright as the sun of India, but alas, it is for naught. My fire is dying. All I dare hope is that my king survives. That he continues to lead the pack.
I roar as they tear into me – small of fang and claw, yet they are many. I feel them. Smell them. As my fire dies, I am defiled by them. But it matters not. My king lives. The pack survives. In a time of wolves, as the enslavers rise like lions, the one of long mane remains king.
My name is Shiva. My name is destruction.
And thus, as darkness takes me, the fire no longer burns.
A/N
Why yes, Shiva's death did hit me harder than many human deaths in the series. How could you tell?