The Tiger and it's Lover

Grief

You bury your lover amongst the flowers that it once picked for you.

Forget-me-nots, you learn.

You will never forget.

You will never love again.

You are a shell of what you used to be.

You are not happy.

You are in pain.

Any day spent without your lover is a painful one.

You are always in pain.

You visit the grave every day, you spend hours talking to your lover, wishing that it might come back.

'I will find you.' It had said.

'Wait for me.' It had said.

You can not wait.

You want to die.

To leave the jungle kingless and be reunited with your lover.

You don't care what your people think, you will be dead.

They can see how their king is struck with grief and sorrow.

They know because you are no king anymore.

You are a husk.

A shell of the mighty ruler you once were.

They will mourn you, before finding a new king.

It's just the way of the jungle.

But there is a war brewing.

Humans want land.

Your people will not give up that easily.

So when the day comes, when the war finally begins, you will fight for your people.

And die a hero.

They will see you as a hero.

Yet you are anything but.

They don't know the truth.

What you truly died protecting.

So when that day comes...

When the human finally points their gun at you...

You close your eyes.

And accept your fate.

To be with your lover once more.

Your people find your body strewn across your lover's grave.

Protecting it, even in the afterlife.

The Forget-me-nots curl around your body, like the vines wrapped around the trunks of trees.

Like the snakes suffocating their prey.

Your people don't move you.

They know that that's exactly where you want to be.

With your lover once more.