Dark Pan Histories: from Forever to Never [In Progress]

The Unspoken Truth (Part 1)

Great Big Little Panther, chief of his tribe, named for his father and his lost son, sat at the edge of his lands atop his mighty steed and stared towards the Devil's Peak. Weeks ago, while hunting, he had watched a torrent of a storm sweep the forests surrounding the peak and swore the sky cried tears of blood.

Though he was deep in thought, Great Big Little Panther could hear the soft sound of footsteps drawing near.

"The spirits echo your footsteps Tiger Lily," Great Big Little Panther said without turning.

Tiger Lily was his only child and would be his only child since his wife had passed in childbirth.

Turning around Great Big Little Panther arched his eyes at the little girl who stood not more than ten feet from where he was. She stood with a big smile on her face and a bunch of flowers in her hands. Smiling back at his child, Great Big Little Panther climbed down from his horse.

"What have you go there my child?" he said as he moved to kneel before her. The flowers that Tiger Lily held in her hands, as a gift for him, were goldenrods. "Oh, Tiger Lily," Great Big Little Panther said embracing his child. "They are beautiful."

Great Big Little Panther knew the symbolism behind the flower his child had brought for him. They were flowers that grew on her mother's grave. Tiger Lily's mother, Mallaray, died giving birth to her, and since her name meant golden flower, Great Big Little Panther had planted goldenrods where she was buried.

"They are from mom to you," Tiger Lily said. "I think they always grow so beautifully on her grave because it's her way of reminding you how beautiful she was."

"I think you are right," Great Big Little Panther said.

Tiger Lily looked towards the mountain peak, where she knew her father had been looking. She knew that something was wrong in the fairy kingdom because word had spread through the Forever Lands of dark things coming to pass.

"What brings you this far out my child?" Great Big Little Panther asked, turning his daughter face to look at his own.

"The Elders sent me," Tiger Lily said. "They have news that you must be made away of."

Great Big Little Panther got to his feet nodding. Taking his child by the hand, he led her to the horse and hoisted her up to sit on the steeds back. Getting up onto the horse himself, Great Big Little Panther placed one arm around his daughter and took the reigns with his other hand.

Turning the horse around, Great Big Little Panther cracked the reigns, moving the horse in the direction of his home.

The Elders tent was in chaos when Great Big Little Panther arrived. Most of his tribe was outside the tent, while the elders inside argued amongst themselves. Tiger Lily waited outside the tent as her father went in, she knew that only the elders and her father were allowed inside the sacred tent.

"Did your father tell you what was going on?" one of the other children asked Tiger Lily.

"No," Tiger Lily said. "My father does not want me to worry about such things. Why, what have you heard?"

"I heard," the child said moving closer so that only he and Tiger Lily would hear his words. "That the people who live in the Cove are all dead."

Tiger Lily gasped.

"I heard that they killed each other. Some ever were found eating the skin other others."

"Surely, that can not be the truth," Tiger Lily said. "Why would someone want to eat the skin of another?"

The little boy, Running Wolf, son of Standing Wolf, shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "We eat the flesh of the animal, perhaps some see the human as much as an animal as any other." Hearing his father call his name Running Wolf shrugged his shoulders again before disappearing into the crowd.

Tiger Lily could not believe what Running Wolf had told her. How could anyone want to eat the flesh of another man, much less their own people? She would ask her father if what Running Wolf had said was true or not.

The day waned on as Tiger Lily, who had taken up a spot outside the Elders tent waited for her father to emerge. As the sun was going down, finally, the Elders started out of the tent with Great Big Little Panther coming last.

"Tiger Lily," Great Big Little Panther said when he noticed his daughter. "Have you not returned home? Did you not go and eat?"

"No father," Tiger Lily replied. "Running wolf told me something that bothers me and I need to know if it is true. Have the people of the Cove turned to eating the flesh of their own?"

The question was a strange one, but the look on her father's face told her all that she needed to know. Tiger Lily felt sick, she didn't think she would be able to eat with the idea of humans eating one another in her mind. When a sudden question entered her mind, she looked up at her father a worried look on her face.

"Will this sickness spread to our people?" Tiger Lily asked. "What if they come for the flesh of our people?"

Gathering his daughter up in his arms, Great Big Little Panther assured her that the illness that afflicted the people of the Cove, now named Cannibal Cove for the actions of its people, would not reach their tribal home.

"You have nothing to fear my daughter," Great Big Little Panther said. "I will be leading a group of our strongest and bravest warriors against the Cove. We will either save the people or we will wipe their corruption and taint from the Forever Lands."

Tiger Lily's look of disgust had changed. She looked at her father, afraid of what might come of him leaving the safety of their home for the wild Cove.

"Please father, do not leave," Tiger Lily wrapped her arms around her father as though she could keep him from leaving.

"It has been decided by the Elders," Great Big Little Panther said. "We need to keep our people safe and as long as those of the Cove are tainted and allowed to run around our people will not be. I will not be longer than the time it takes for the moon to cycle."

Tiger Lily understood her fathers place in the tribe. As the Chieftain of his people, he was charged with keeping them safe. Even if it meant risking his own life to do so.

The rest of the night was spent in silence. Tiger Lily and her father ate in silence and then he left to prepare the men that would travel with him.

In the morning Tiger Lily felt her father kiss her on the forehead but she did not open her eyes. She did not want him to leave, but when she heard the spirits echo his footsteps in the distance, she knew he had gone.

[ to be continued ]