Love Over Fear

The First Meeting

I opened my eyes to the sunlight that shone through the green leaves of my tree. The early morning, golden light nearly blinding my sensitive and sleepy eyes. And with that, I knew my day had begun.

I grumbled, having never really been a morning person, as I sat up and arched my back to stretch, much like a cat would. Well, I was a tiger after all.

Jumping down from my tree, I landed, with grace, on my feet. However, not even a second later, my stomach growled, surely waking something up nearby. Giving a quick look around, I decided to head for the river, so I started out with a fast paced jog.

Dodging trees and other obstacles, logs and boulders, I ran up the hill that sheltered my tree from much of the forest view, and then ran down the other, much steeper side, taking a little extra care to sidestep and duck under branches in the rough terrain. After the bit of exercise, I stopped at the full and clear blue river.

Cupping some water in my hands, I took several gulps of the refreshingly cold water. I stood up again to wade into the deeper part of the river with some caution, bearing in mind that the rocks were slippery with algae and loose mud.

I waited, but only for a little while before I swooped into the running water and caught a decent sized fish. Then another, and another.

Before long, I had about seven fish that I had strung up through the gills with a bit of tough reed. I exited the water and sat down on top of a flat boulder on the river's shore and ate my freshly caught breakfast.

I drank a few more long gulps of clean water before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and turned around to start off towards my tree once again. This time, I went all out with my speed and took the path that I've memorized through coming up and down, too many times to count. I hardly had to think before dodging and jumping through the densely packed trees.

I came to a stop once I reached the familiar clearing and tall tree that I called home.

Climbing back up the branches, I laid back down on the thick branch that supported my weight and width. The same branch which I had woken up on this same morning.

As I laid down on the familiar branch that attached to the familiar tree located in the familiar clearing, I felt that my mind was... numb. This boggling feeling of just plain, I sighed through my nose, refocusing my gaze through the leaves.

My striped ear twitched once, then twice, before I took in a long breath of air and shouted, "I AM SO BORED!" at the top of my lungs.

The distant sounds of squawking of angry birds, and the loud sounds of other disrupted, and annoyed animals were heard, but not registering in my brain. I had only one particular thought running through my mind.

I did the same thing every. Single. Day. Every time I woke up. Every time I ate. Every time I ran, and it made my stomach clench to think that I had lived my life doing the same thing every day. Never really exploring my options outside of survival and sleep. Wasn't there anything else I could do?

I shut my eyes and ran through a mental list of things I could do that didn't involve trespassing on other territories or getting myself killed. Something, anything, I could do differently in the middle of a jungle during mid-morning.

Nothing.

I can't come up with anything.

Sighing once again, I stared up through the thick green foliage, the bright sunlight streaming through the dense leaves, making the dark green of the leaves turn a lighter green as the yellow light passed through it.

'Might as well take a nap... Since I have nothing else to do. It's pretty nice today,' and with that thought in mind, along with the warmth of the sun under the shade of my tree and a gentle breeze soothing me, I dozed off.

...

In the dead of night, with the half moon accompanied by bright stars, their soft, white light filters through scattered clouds, into a particular clearing, where a small whimper and quiet sniffles invade the silence. A small, dark figure is hunched over, crying into his knees, under a certain tree.

On a particular branch of said tree, a twitch of an ear is a sure sign that our main character has awoken.

His bright, gleaming red eyes sparkle in the silver moonlight as they open and he shifts on his branch to look over at the intruding sound and stares down into the darkness, only aided by the small bit of light that comes from the night sky.

With a twitch of his orange and black tail, he leaps down soundlessly next to the small figure. His ears are back, and he's prepared to defend his territory with his claws and teeth displayed. However, he decides that it's not necessary when all he sees is a small, blue-headed boy with his dark ears down. His entire body is quivering with quiet sobs and sniffles.

He watched him for a few more moments before he crouched down to place a big, comforting hand on his back.

The small figure sat up with a start and looks back at Kagami with big, glassy blue eyes. Tears ran down small red cheeks and the boy's body shivered from the slight chill that came with the night. Red eyes widened in shock that such a small creature could be so eye-catching, even in a time like this. His eyes softened once again before he wrapped his lean and fairly muscled arms around the young boy.

The small boy gasps in surprise before he reaches out his arms as wide as he could to hug him back.

And little did Kagami know, that his same, dull routine was about to be disrupted, ready or not.

~~~