Stripe's Story
He leads you deeper into the habitat gone wild, amazingly sure-footed for one you are now convinced is blind. He stops now and then to be sure you're still with him, then finally emerges into a small, dark bower where he flops to the ground. He leans back, reaching into the heavy under branches of a rhododendron, and comes up with a battered tin cup. He seems a bit apologetic as he dips the cup into the spring and hands it to you.
"I don't need much, so I don't have much," he says. He waits for you to settle in before beginning his tale, even though as these things go, it's rather short. He tilts his head in that odd way and finally, after a long silence, he begins to speak.
"I was born here in the zoo, back when it was a zoo. I grew up not being afraid of humans, or human types, because they were around all the time. I was the largest of my litter, which, I guess is a good thing, since that's all I had going for me. My mother tried to abandon me, but the zoo people wouldn't let her. They tied her down so that I could nurse. She hated that, and from that learned to hate me. She named me Stripe, as a joke because I didn't have any, because I was different. And ohh, but I hated that. I learned hate real early. I hated the handler who forced my mother to feed me, and I hated my mother for not wanting me. I didn't know it was because I shouldn't have lived at all, that she was just following her instincts, until much later.
"One day the handler stopped coming around. I didn't dare try to nurse, because I knew my mother would kill me. I was eating meat on a regular basis then too, so that wasn't so bad except that I had a hard time catching it at first. Birds were the only thing that came into our habitat, and it wasn't long before they learned better too. Of course, my mother was hungrier than I was, and stronger, and maybe a bit more inventive. Maybe she was just more desperate. Regardless, it was she who tore the gate off its hinges and knocked the wall down where it was weak. I stood by and watched while she did it, and she ignored me. To this day I don't know why I didn't end up as a meal during those days. Anyway, once she had the gate open, she was gone without a backward glance for me or my sister. I think my sister ended up following her, but I don't know. My brother disappeared about the same time, but I barely noticed, since he never had much to do with me to begin with. Haven't seen any of them since, and that was a long time ago.
"I didn't see any real reason to leave. Now that I could come and go as I pleased from the habitat, it was easier to feed myself. I found that I could get into the antelope range, and I got fairly good at running them down. One would make a meal for several days if I ate sparingly. Of course, I didn't learn to do that until my sight started to go.
"That was the ultimate hatred, that I was going blind. At that time, I didn't know I was different, didn't know I could shape myself any other way, didn't know that my very thought processes were different. The thought just did not occur to me. At least, not until a gazelle kicked me in the nose. It wouldn't have happened if I'd been able to see, but when it did, the pain drove me near to madness. When I calmed down from my rage, there were four carcasses scattered around me, and I was sitting on my haunches with my hands across my nose. Yes, hands. I've never been so afraid before or since.
"Once I figured out that I didn't have to be enraged to get into that awful form, things were a little better, but unless I was angry, it was hard to stay that way. I experimented around a little, and eventually found out that I could assume this human shape too. I learned that it was a whole lot easier than the huge ugly form - I've never seen it, it just feels ugly - to maintain. In fact, it's to the point now where I'm equally comfortable on two legs or four. And each form has its advantages. Hands are great. So is being able to cover over 130 square miles on a regular basis.
"I learned a bit more about two-leg types the hard way when one of them buried a crossbow bolt in my shoulder. The wound itself wouldn't have been so bad, except that it was in just the right spot where I couldn't reach it to clean it --- in any form. Day by day I grew weaker, and finally I just didn't have the strength to get up. I resigned myself to starving to death, and then woke up to find a pile of meat, in small chunks not a foot from my nose. Next time I woke up, there was water, and more meat. The third time there was this person---I don't really know what he was---standing over me and my shoulder burned like all the demons of hell had spit in it. He was holding a bloody crossbow bolt. He backed off and just crouched nearby. I figured he was something like me, because he was human looking, but he had wings, like a crow or something.
"Anyway, he took care of me for a while. Weeks, it must have been. Taught me the language, taught me a little about people, kept me fed, kept the wound clean. He told me later he could have healed it most anytime along the way, but he wasn't so sure how I'd react to that, and he didn't want to end up being my dinner. He left finally and didn't come back. He left me a feather though, and said if I ever needed anything, just to hold onto that and think of him, and he'd hear me.
"I thought that was strange, until I realized that I could hear people when they didn't speak. It was even more of a surprise to wander in to the city and not be thought a freak, not to have people run when they saw me. I was just another person.
"So anyway, that's my story. And speaking of dinner, it's about that time, so you should probably go. I don't mind company, but don't come back this far uninvited. I tend to react first, and think after."
And with that, he surges to his feet and disappears into the brush, blurring into the tiger form as he goes, and leaving you sitting there in a darkened bower as the sun sinks toward the horizon.
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