Jajumbal, Tigre

The air was filled with sounds, animals and plants each gave their tribute to life. Insects and small mammals made their way across the jungle from tree to tree as a great tigre made his silent way on the dirt floor.
Barely no sound escaped as his feet padded the ground even though he weren't hunting yet. Something had called to him, he had been the king of this jungle for so long and now suddenly some new entity had entered.
He didn't know if it was someone out for his place or his hide, humans came from time to time but never did he let them leave. He never sought them out, they neither smelled nor tasted well in his opinion. They just found him and he killed them before they killed him, that was the simple way of life they all had to live by.

But this presence was something else, dark and looming. It made the water stale and it scared the prey of daylight. Now, in the night, it had lessened.
'Why' was the question he couldn't answer, he could not figure out the reason. Maybe a feint to lure him out or the caller had gone into hiding, maybe it had tired after sending out so much ki for over a week.
Jajumbal hoped for the last, a tired prey was an easy prey.

But it seemed like faith was out to tease him tonight as he suddenly felth the presence of someone close and as he turned his eyes to the left a woman came into view.
Her pristine white dress flowed freely around her legs, shoulders bare and hands covered in light blue silken gloves.
He noticed she was dressed oddly for a human, and her aura seemed off somehow, darker and colder than those of other humans. But he didn't dwell on that as he snarled and prepared to bite her to death, she came unarmed and would suffer for that no matter how different she was.
A light seemed to emit from her just as he tensed his muscles to jumt and he froze as the light fell upon him. He could not move, no matter how much he willed his body to do so. Not even a whisker would twitch in irritation or sway even in the slight wind. Something akin to fear seeped trough his whole being, screamed at him to escape this woman.
As it was he could not, and she would not let him. More than the peace of this forest would be decided tonight, more than the fate of this very world.

She said something in a language he could not understand, frowned and tried something else. To him it all sounded the same, but that was no surprise when you knew about him. Jajumbal had had no interaction at all with humans if you don't count the killings and thus he had never learned their language.
He knew the words of birds and snakes, the tongue of whisps, the language of herbivores and hunters as himself and than was enough for him. What need could he have of the language of humans?
"Well this must be a language you can understand, right?"
How could he not have felt it? Suddenly a great snake seemed to have wrapped itself around his body and the head was placed beside his ear, the wheezing voice a little too close for comfort.
"Animals like you have a knack for learning languages, yes? A snake should prove to be better company than her, yes?"
The snake hissed the words to him and while Jaju wanted to answer he found that he could not.
"Duele, release him from your spell, will you? He can't answer me like this, can he?"
"I have no need of hearing him speak, his mind is too easy to read as it is. And right now he is wondering what you would taste like. Still wish for me to release him?" Her voice was velvety smooth now, and fully comprehensible to Jaju.
Movement came back to him and he tried to bite the snake-head placed within reach of his jaw. But his teeth tore trough nothing but air and shadows until they clashed together painfully.
"I will not let some simple animal sink it's teeth into my hide Duele, you should know very well what I think about biting, no?"
The snake's voice came from Duele's side now and Jaju finally got a good look at the elusive snake. Its hide seemed to be green and gray, shifting seamlessly back and forth along the body. He had never seen such colouring or such a power in a snake: To not move fast as lightning but to not move at all, to be in one place and then another in the blink of an eye.
What kind of creatures stood before him?

The snake Vasi slithered closer to Duele and took one turn around her, almost seeming to shield her as the slitted eyes bored deep into the core of Jaju.
"Will you answer me now tigre, or will you stay silent and force me to read yout thoughts? Let us start with something simple: My name is Duele, what do you call yourself?"
A few moments passed before he answered her properly.
"Call me Jaju, Tuimyo Jajumbal. I am since long ago the one who rules over this forest as the strongest. So what do you want here?"
He was filled with caution, not knowing anything other than the fact that the woman could paralyze him and that the snake could move impossibly fast made him watchful. They both probably had more up their sleeves.
She at least lit up at his answer and a smile, careful but still there, graced her lips. As she spoke her voice was just as smooth as before.
"I want you Jaju, or rather I want to talk to you about some things regarding much more than this little forest."
He just kept on staring at her, meeting her eyes and trying his hardest to keep his gaze steady as a silent way to tell her to continue.
"You are more than a tigre, you are more than any human or animal you can find in this world. And this world of yours is just one among many.
In this little world, you are insignificant. You may believe otherwise but what I am speaking is the truth. This forest and this world will live on without you but many others will not."
He wanted her to stop talking, he wanted it to be a lie. But something within him said it was the truth and he believed.
"Why do I hold this role?"
There was much more to ask but it was a start at the very least.
"You are no ordinary tigre in a similar way like that of a tigre being no ordinary tiger. You carry another shape within you, a human one. And there are more like you, though most are born by a human mother and are then shunned or revered by them.
You all come from different worlds, with different inborn powers and views on life, and you are all important.
And you were not created to stay here for eternity, since you stand outside of time and thus you are not bound to a linear aging with a certain world. I'd make a guess that your human form is no more than 5 years old at the moment but that will change fast."
That same ting deep within him stirred now, like something long buried in the shadows. It wanted out and it wanted to... embrace this woman and her words?
It was a feeling wholly foreign to him. Both tigers and tigre live alone, females take care of the cubs until they can fend for themselves, then they are abandoned. A tigre does not feel the need to show that they care, they do not feel compassion to others so why would he feel something like this now?
And to that woman of all creatures?
"Trust your heart Jaju, it is speaking for the first time. I am bound to your kin, and you are bound to me in turn, thus your heart long for me and your siblings.
Please, gather your things so that I can take you to a place where we can talk undisturbed."
She said the last words with a glance at Vasi, who in turn glared back as well as a snake can.
"If you want me gone so bad then just tell me, dear Duele. And it's not like I'm the one who knows you best, right?"
The tone of the snake was sharp, but to Duele it was more insulted than insulting. So her still sweet voice was a wonder to Jaju, why would you answer with kindness to anger?
"We know each other too well Vasi, and I can not be sure that you would not stay in the shadows to eavesdrop if I asked you to go. Not that what I am going to tell him is something you don't know but I want to be fair to Jaju, understand?"
The snake just snorted and turned his head away from her at that while the tigre just watched them interact like cubs bickering over something. It was strange, weren't they supposed to carry themselves with grace when considering their strength? That was at least how the strong did in his world, you acted like a mature creature when you were one, cubs were the only ones who could relax fully.
But it seemed to him like he was part blind, at least if he were to believe Duele like he indeed did. He now knew that there existed more than this place and that brought forth endless new realities and possibilities.
"Tell me more, Duele, and I will not have doubts about leaving this place.
Banu is my greatest rival and he will do a good job of protecting this forest from the humans. Young Danira or my son Sau can probably take him down in a few years, it does not feel like I would abandon anything.
The only things I have are better left to Sau, I only want to tell him and Banu that I am leaving if you will let me."
He was met wit a smile, a nod and a curious snaketongue flitting out to taste the air.

Night had broken into dawn and the warmth of the morning sun made the early morning mist thick on the ground.
A lonely woman came walking along the dead leaves, body shrouded in white and even though they were not visible her feet were bare. She was moving with slow grace, nothing could make her hurry because things would not move before she did.
And when she came to a halt it was in front of a majestic tigre, his eyes leveled with her eve though he weren't even trying to look taller.
She inclined her head and then spoke with a voice full of feelings, for Jaju it was hard to identify anything part for her words.
"Everything went well, I suppose?"
He nodded back, a new necklace swinging back and forth with the movement, and spoke with the same deep voice as always. It was not easy to talk animatedly with the jaws of a tigre.
"It did, Sau gave me this medal he took from the humans, so I shall take it with me. What do you want me to do now?"
"Change, do as your nature tells you and shift. The way I can open for travel here is for humanoids only so you need to take your other form to follow me."
Shift? He had never done it before, hadn't even known that he could. But he wanted to, wanted to know how it would feel like. And something, that same mysterious thing inside of him, told him to just want and feel it to do it.
The change was slow but not painful, it was a great mass that would be compressed into something smaller. And it seemed from Jajus eyes that everything got bigger, the trees as well as Duele towered over him when the change was over.
The human form of Jaju was barely four years old, but as Duele bent down to him she was met with sharp eyes the shapes of almonds and beautiful, silken and soft brown locks that framed a lovely face now set in a scowl.
"Why am I so small?"
She could feel it in the air around them, the irritation emanting from him and making the mist ripple away from his bare body. She just smiled and leaned in to place a quick peck to his forehead, making him fall backwards in surprise and land on the rather soggy mixture of leaves and mud on the ground.
He let out a squeak then, nothing he would later admit to, in sheer surprise and also from the foreign feeling of naked skin meeting damp coldness. He tried to scramble up without much luck due to him being new to the body, and Duele lifted him easily to his feet to hold him steady there.
"First you need clothes, and when we get to my place you will have time to get used to your body, I will teach you a few human languages and you will learn to control your body it in all the ways you will need."
She spoke a few fast words after that but they were in a language Jaju did not speak. And in the blink of an eye something light clung to his skin, mostly his hips and shoulders. It was dry, soft and warm compared to the ground and he felt a little more protected. It was a white tunic and shorts in thin linen that covered his skin and Duele picked him up after he had gotten used to them.
"Put your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist, and hold on."
He nodded solemnly and did as told, still a little chocked and greatly overwhelmed with the new sensations assaulting him from everywhere, all things were a little different now.
And in the blink of an eye they had disappeared, gone far away from the planet Buwar Nin Gaoul.