Goldenlight
The streak of Tigers gathered once more around the familiar watering hole, but the gurgling flow of the pool had long since dried up. The Tiger cubs were now weak, even the Alpha had grown weary.
Thirst threatened every living thing, and hunger too, for the zebras, the gazelle, the goats they had all abandoned this once flowing river, and with their departure so too had the Tiger’s food-source vanished.
It was a dark time.
Without water and without sustenance the streak of Tigers were exhausted and slowly dying.
Generations of Tigers had trodden this path and had cooled themselves and drunk from the once crystal clear pools. Tiger cubs had grown up swimming in these very waters, but something far upstream was wrong, and life in the jungle had changed, the greenery had slowly died, the rich dark earth had dried, and the waters were soured until all the fish lay dead on the parched river bed.
The river was gone.
The Tiger cubs looked up in fear and desperation into their mother’s tired eyes, and she felt their agony, and their cry and she stooped and breathed. Large slow breaths, and as she pawed the ground her strength of heart returned, and with it her deep urge to feed & water her own.
But there was no water to be found.
Rumours of another pool, an ancient river that sprung high in the mountains were nothing but myth and legend. She had never seen that ancient river or drank from it herself.
And yet the Tigers were hopeless, the cubs would die, what must she do? The Alpha had not scouted the jungle to find a new watering hole for his family, and so she lifted her eyes skyward and saw the Great Mountain soaring above the jungle canopy, shrouded in mist and mystery.
One by one the streak of Tigers lay in the dust, cowed and broken by thirst, hopelessness, despair. As they lay in the dirt she saw her once vibrant cubs were now a colourless grey, as if clothed in the ashes of defeat.
And so she acted.
The Tigress left, compelled by love and driven by a desire to save her own kin, she walked away. Without a snort or a growl she slowly strode through the jungle, her cubs cried, the Alpha gave a weak roar, but she did not look back.
Once through the dark monstera leaves she ran, her soul calling her upwards. She passed the manvillage slowly, careful not to be seen. She sprang across the tangle of prop roots and mangroves until she reached the great clearing. Vast miles of open land, nothing but fallen trees and manfires. She hid until nightfall and when she could no longer smell the manscent or hear the sound of their toil she ran, crossing the great clearing in vast strides until she reached the foot of the Great Mountain.
She looked up, high up, craning her graceful neck to look higher than she’d ever seen, and although the land about her was covered in darkness the peak of the Great Mountain was still bathed in a golden light. She ascended, climbing from rock to rock. She felt the unsteady shingle and gravel at her feet, and the incessant drag that wanted to pull her down. And yet she fought it, and she climbed.
High, high from rock to rock, until she could see the vast dark jungle, her own home, far below her on one side of the Mountain, and a great Desert stretching out to the horizon on the other. Her breath was harder to catch now, her great chest heaved and ached as she panted, gasping for air. Her strong paws were cut from the sharp stones and yet the picture of her cubs and her family was burned into her eyes. It drove her on, she looked up at the summit, the golden light was fading and so she climbed.
Through the night she moved, slowly now, darkness had descended. She was weakened by altitude, and neared the summit wall, exhausted, hungry, desperately thirsty. And still she climbed, step after step, breath after breath. She carefully trod as the path narrowed, a deep gorge opened up to her right. She was spent. Her heart was failing and her tired mind was playing tricks, she thought she heard her cubs... but she was alone in the elevated darkness.
She slowed, she stepped once more until she could move no further, and then in sheer exhaustion her hind legs gave way, she stumbled and she fell. The sudden drop into the gorge was deep and cold. She tumbled and rolled, as the chill air rushed through her hair and whiskers. She could see nothing now, so she closed her eyes in surrender as she knew the rocks far below would break her body.
As she plunged down into the abyss, she breathed her last gulp of air, and prepared to die, dreading the impact of the jagged rock.
The dread collision upon rock did not come.
SPLASH !
She was plunged beneath cool, deep waters, her limbs flailing and pawing for solid ground, baptised into a wellspring of life. She allowed the current to drift her body towards the riverbank, she found her footing, her sore paws soothed by the cool mud, and she drank. Deep gulps of water quenched not only her body but with each draught gratitude and life filled her being.
She staggered through the mud to a patch of soft mountain grass and she fell into a deep sleep.
Golden light softly caressed her eyelids and she was awakened by the sunrise flooding the high valley and to a beauty she had never seen. The river was deep and cool, and the sound of the waters reminded her of ancient stories she’d heard as a cub, but had long forgotten.
She plunged once more beneath the crystal pool and drank deeply and then she ran. Great strides full of purpose and confidence, leaping, her paws pounding down the rocky slopes.
She crossed the great clearing and raced through the prop roots until she emerged back through the monstera leaves towards her family. The grey dust of fire and ash and unbelief blew in the air, and it covered her, but she closed her eyes and slowly, purposefully stepped towards her cubs and her kin.
The Tigers were still asleep, parched, exhausted, all laid in the dust, but as she pawed the ground and snarled, one by one the streak of Tigers awoke and they saw her, glorious and grey but her eyes alive and burning with the promise of an ancient pool.
Mark Evans
May 2020
London