The Tiger Princess

I have written a fictional, middle-reader, fantasy-adventure series of chapter books about a 10 year old tiger princess named Saderia.  Saderia is sort of a cross between Kiara of "The Lion King" and Indiana Jones!

The Tiger Princess is the 1st book in the series and I have included the 1st three paragraphs of the synopsis and the 1st chapter of the book here.
(I am new here and am just learning so please forgive the formatting - it is not like I have it in Word - thank you!)

The Tiger Princess

By: Sarah Renée

Synopsis

Saderia is an adventurous, intelligent, no-nonsense, 10 year old tiger princess who feels things deeply. Her parents, queen and king of the forest, Karenisha and Makero, were killed in a fire when she was a cub and she misses them very much and still feels connected to them. Her Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash have taken over the duties of queen and king and raising Saderia but Saderia resents and resists the way her aunt wants her to be the prissy princess type, which is not Saderia at all. Saderia feels disconnected from them and like she has no voice and has to hide who she really is. The real Saderia is who she suspects and hopes is the one her parents would be proud of.

Saderia has dreams that frighten her but also arouse her curiosity. Her well intentioned aunt and uncle do not like to bring up the past under a misguided notion that Saderia will heal better that way but Saderia feels the connection to her parents and yearns for knowledge of them. Saderia's dreams lead her to start snooping around. She finds her mother's diary and starts to find clues to who her parents were and how they died and discovers that the fire may have been intentional and her parents murdered. She also finds confusing and conflicting information about her parents that seems intended to ruin their reputation and starts to collide with the image Saderia has always held of them. Saderia also discovers some clues to her ancestors, especially the first queen, Queen Tarae, and hints at a prophecy which would seem to involve Saderia and a royal secret or power that is not yet understood.

Strange things are happening in the usually peaceful forest at this time too. Hard times and disappearances of family members, especially children, is creating fear and desperation among the forest animals. Among the chaos, out of the past and the shadows, comes an intelligent, dark, mysterious lion, Dastarius, to offer his services and play the hero. He was the most trusted advisor of Queen Karenisha and King Makero but had disappeared after a misunderstanding with them that made him feel humiliated and caused his wife to leave him alone to raise his timid son. The fire happened a few days after Dastarius' departure.




Chapter One
Princess Saderia
 
            Flames licked up the pine trees, forever scarring their bark and charring them an ugly black color. The leaves were scorched into nothing more than ash as the fire crept along the forest violently. The crackle of flame drowned out the cries of the animals of the forest, as they rushed to get water to put out the fire. Trees fell and made other bushes and trees burst into flame when they smashed against them with a sickening crack. The smoke from the horrible fire turned the normally peaceful, light blue sky into a dark black cloud, choking and damaging the throats of the animals it captured.
            The fire spread from tree to tree hungrily without stopping, creating a dangerous ring of flames. The blaze turned the forest red, orange, yellow, and black. Some of the forest animals ran for cover while others rushed to put out the fire.    Some of the animals yelled as loud as they could and still couldn’t be heard over the crackle of flame, the snapping of falling trees, or the screams from the other animals. The fire was closest to a large den, secluded in one part of the forest, and two tigers were running around screaming orders at anyone they could get to and desperately calling for two others.
            As a baby tiger cub, Saderia observed this from safely inside her den. Her eyes stretched wide with fascination, wonder and terror as she looked out of a window to see her forest burning around her. The heat reached her even through the walls of the den and she felt fear well up in her small body as she stared out with a quiet whimper. On the verge of tears, she watched the forest and the two tigers that had run from the den closely.
            “Karenisha!” one of the tigers who had run out of the house screamed.
            “Cia, have you found them?” yelled the other tiger, racing around to another part of the ring of fire.
            “No!” Cia screamed, “Jash, where are they?!” She raced around the fire, coughing and trying desperately to see through the smoke and flames. “Makero!” she roared desperately, but the roar of the fire swallowed her own.
            They continued to race around, yelling in vain for the two missing tigers while other animals raced forward with water to try to put out the fire. It was almost impossible to stop the fire but no one ever gave up trying. Screams from the fleeing animals floated in the smoky haze.
            “Where are the King and Queen?!” someone screamed.
            “Where did the fire come from?!” shouted another.
            More yells and cries came but they were useless against the enraged fire as it devoured yet more of their precious forest.
            Baby Saderia observed all this with huge eyes and a shaking, tiny body. Two fat tears teetered precariously on her eyelids and then spilled over her face, quickly at first and then slowly until they plopped onto the window sill she was sitting on.
            “Mommy…” she whispered, “Daddy…”
           
            Saderia’s eyes blinked open and she sat up quickly, nearly falling over the edge of her bed. She quickly caught herself with her claws and pulled herself up on the bed and clutched her uncomfortable blanket to her chest with her paws, panting and gasping for air.
            She looked around at her feminine room and her horrible nightmare started to drift away from her as she realized that that was all that it was and she was back in her room, safe and sound. And miserable. She reminded herself that she was now ten and none of that was happening now.
            She stopped gasping and let out a long sigh, blinking back tears. She knew her awful nightmare had been much more than that, rather it was a memory she could never bury no matter how hard she tried. She had only been a cub at the time, but the memory still had the power to hurt her over and over again.
            She slowly relaxed her grip on her scratchy, royal purple blanket and leaned back against her too-stuffed matching purple pillows and gazed around at her royal purple room. The rest of her bed was an elegant deep brown color and the canopy above it was purple with light streaks of pink. Gingerly she pushed the fabric away and stepped out of her bed. She checked the time on the clock on her elegant, deep brown bedside table and decided it was about time to get up anyway. She definitely was not going to risk sleeping again.
            Walking across the thick purple carpet she made it to the vanity on the opposite side of her room, knowing what she had to do but hating it no less. Being a Princess, she was expected to act sophisticated and fancy, when what she really wanted to do was ditch the cosmetics and the ‘typical Princess’ act and go out to be rough and wild and have fun. But Aunt Cia would never approve, and she had to listen to her unfortunately.
            She quickly combed through her orange and black striped fur that was now sticking up in clumps from the way she must have tossed and turned last night because of her dream. She quickly put bows on her ears and applied the stupid makeup she was forced to use to bring out her amber eyes. She quickly smoothed out her unusually fluffy tail and stalked away from the mirror, hating to see herself like this when it was the farthest thing from who she was and who she wished she could be.
            Trying to push the horrible dream out of her mind, she left her room and started down the hallway. She walked past the bathroom close to her room and out into the front room, which was large with wood floors and elegant wallpaper on the walls of the den. There was a desk in the corner with lots of drawers filled with papers and two computers on one wall.
            She ignored the hallway opposite of hers for fear that it might bring her pain after the dream, and instead turned right into the arch that led to the kitchen and dining room where her Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash were waiting. There was another arch at the back of the dining room that led to the living room with couches, bookcases and the TV.
            The two adult tigers were sitting at the solid gold table in the middle of the small dining room which broke off into the kitchen. Only sparkling, gold railing separated the two rooms and Saderia quickly went to sit at her place at the table. Cia had already made breakfast and left it on the table for the three of them but Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash had hardly touched their food. Instead, they were bent over some papers.
            Cia looked up from the papers with troubled blue eyes. The frown on her already worried looking face deepened as she took in Saderia’s expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
            “I just had a nightmare,” Saderia muttered. She wondered why they both looked so worried. She knew that Aunt Cia did worry, mostly about Saderia and her ‘un-Princess-like’ tendencies, but she usually kept a light, carefree expression to hide that. Uncle Jash normally didn’t look so serious either.
            Uncle Jash looked up then, too. “What about?” he asked.
            She met both of their blue gazes and then looked down. “The fire.”
            Aunt Cia flinched and Uncle Jash looked down.
            When Aunt Cia spoke again, her voice was calm but strained. “Saderia, it’s been ten years since that happened and you were just a cub then. Why would you have a nightmare about that?”
            She shrugged. “I don’t know; I have no control over my dreams.”
            Aunt Cia sighed. “We should have never told you what happened if it gives you nightmares.”
            “Well, you did and I’m glad you did. I should get to know how my parents died.”
            Again Aunt Cia flinched and Saderia felt guilty about sounding so harsh but she couldn’t take it back now and her dream had really disturbed her. One thing that frightened her about it is was that Aunt Cia hadn’t exactly told her in detail what had happened and yet she could picture the scene almost perfectly, although she had only witnessed it when she was a cub.
            Aunt Cia shot Uncle Jash a look asking him to say something to her, and he turned to Saderia and, speaking calmly, said, “Your Aunt Cia is right. Your parents have been gone for a long time, and you didn’t even know them since you were so young.”
            Saderia raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She had known her parents no matter what anybody said, despite the fact of her young age when she knew them, but she didn’t try to tell Aunt Cia that she knew her mother as well as she knew her sister despite her short time with her. Instead, she decided to change the subject.
            “So what’s with the papers?” she asked them, pushing her bowl of cereal aside so she could lean forward.
            “Don’t lean, it’s not good for your posture or how a Princess should act,” Cia said automatically.
            Saderia sighed and sat back up straighter. She wanted to tell Aunt Cia that it’s not like she had any choice about being a Princess, being born into it the way she was, but she had learned a long time ago that it was best she kept most of her thoughts to herself.
            “So what are those papers?” Saderia pressed.
            Aunt Cia sighed, looking worried again and muttered to Uncle Jash, “I really wish my sister were here to handle this. She knew how to be Queen much better than me.” Saderia guessed she wasn’t supposed to hear that and so she kept her face composed as she waited for an answer.
            Aunt Cia turned toward her and put the papers on the table. “Problems. Many animals of the forest have lost their jobs and children are disappearing. No one knows what is happening and everyone is getting frightened and suspicious. Some suspect…murder.”, she added more quietly.
            “So they’ve turned to the King and Queen for help,” Uncle Jash finished.
            Saderia didn’t try to point out that there were not King and Queen even if Aunt Cia had been born into the royal family and Uncle Jash had married into it. Her parents had always been King and Queen and Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash were just taking over the responsibilities until Saderia was old enough to be Queen in ten more years.
            “Anything I can help with?” Saderia asked, “It sounds like something a Princess should prepare for to handle when she becomes a Queen.”
            Aunt Cia shook her head. “No, you need to work on being proper and elegant,” she said, giving her a hard look, “You can learn more about this when you’re much older.”
            How much older, she wondered. This seemed a much better thing for her to be preparing for as a Princess than learning about where to place her fork or do up her fur, or sitting up straight. But, of course, it was not part of her Princess training, and the training she did get was the kind she hated. It seemed stupid to worry about such ‘Princess’ things when she would so much rather be out helping the forest animals, solving disputes and problems, and making the forest a safer and kinder place.
            “Fine,” she muttered.
            “And, of course, you still have your learning,” Uncle Jash pointed out awkwardly.
            “Yes,” Aunt Cia agreed, “And you already have such a hard time with that, so you can’t be bothered to do much harder things like this.”
            Great, she thought. But she supposed her lie had to catch up with her somehow. She resented Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash knowing about who she really was since they so rarely let her be that tiger and also because they were not her parents, so she tried to keep as much of herself and her life secret. She was really smart, but pretended to be learning impaired just to keep up that act.
            “Speaking of learning, your tutors will be here soon,” Aunt Cia told her, “We’ll worry about this problem, you just worry about learning how to be a proper Princess.”
            “Great,” she said out loud, allowing just a pinch of sarcasm into her voice but not enough for them to give her stern looks.
            She looked at the papers and started to wonder if it would be worth it to snatch them when they weren’t looking so she could get more information and maybe think of some way to help. She decided to think it over more, but keep her eyes on it just in case.
            Suddenly there was a knock on the door of their den, and Uncle Jash quickly took the papers away while Aunt Cia and Saderia got up to answer the door, knowing it would be the tutors Aunt Cia had hired to teach Saderia instead of going to normal school like she wanted.
            “Why can’t I just go to normal school?” she hissed quickly but hopelessly to Aunt Cia as they walked swiftly to the door.
            “We’ve had this conversation,” Aunt Cia said with a sigh, “You’re a Princess and shouldn’t be around the common animals. You have to learn to be sophisticated like a Princess and not ordinary like the other non-royalty animals.”
            “Fine,” Saderia said. To her, the words ‘sophisticated’ and ‘Princess’ meant ‘alone’ and ‘miserable.’ But no one ever listened to her so she stopped trying after a while. It was kind of ironic to her that she was a Princess who was supposed to have so much power and yet no one listened to a word that came out of her mouth. And, of course, she resented that almost as much as she resented the fact that her parents were not here to raise her themselves. Somehow she knew they would listen to her, unlike her aunt and uncle.
            When Aunt Cia opened the door, three animals stood outside. Two were lionesses although one of them looked sweeter while the other one had a sharp, more pointed face and stricter look. Behind them was a pretty, but serious looking black panther.
            “Come in,” Aunt Cia greeted Saderia’s tutors and they stepped in. As usual, the three of them curtsied as all animals were required to do in the presence of royalty before they came inside. Aunt Cia gave Saderia a look and Saderia led them over to the desk and tables in one corner of the front room, reserved for where Saderia’s schooling took place.
            “We’ll be in our room,” Aunt Cia told Saderia as she went to her room to join Uncle Jash and probably look over those papers more.
            Saderia led the tutors over to the table and sat down at her desk as they took out papers from their bags.
            “We’ll begin with math and science,” the sharper looking lioness said in a way that almost seemed challenging to Saderia.
            “Okay, Ms. Greenwell,” she replied, trying to sound stupider than she was.
            With a stern look, she began her lessons for the day. Saderia was used to the way she didn’t describe anything adequately enough for anyone to understand, even though she did but that was because she had already learned these things on her own, using the internet and textbooks from the library and book store, along with the uninformative textbooks they gave her.
            “I don’t get it,” she muttered when Ms. Greenwell had finished speaking. She was completely bored out of her mind and slouched over her desks in a mess of papers by that point.
            Ms. Greenwell hissed in annoyance and assigned her a bunch of homework to make her get it, but then the panther snapped at her. “Sit up straight, young lady. A Princess does not slouch!”
            Saderia sighed and sat up straight though it made her back hurt. “Sorry, Ms. Celen. Better?”
            “Speak fluently. Use complete sentences,” she snapped.
            Saderia took a deep breath, used to the strictness of the tutor hired to teach her useless ‘Princess’ skills like the example with the fork and this whole sitting up straight thing. Speaking clearly and articulately were big things she had to master, but she wondered why they were trying to teach her that when no one listened even when she did speak the way they told her. Why did they always want her to keep her mouth shut if she was supposed to be learning how to speak right?
            “I apologize to you, Ms. Celen,” Saderia pronounced each word very carefully, “Is this way that I am sitting better than before?”
            “Yes, it is,” she said, satisfied.
            “Thank you very much for gracing me with your presence even though I clearly do not want it,” Saderia muttered to herself, too low for any of them to hear. Of course, Ms. Celen snapped at her for muttering and she was forced to stay very still as Ms. Greenwell continued her lesson.
            When she was finished the softer lioness took her place. “Oh, you look so cute with your bows!” she gushed, “Are you ready for your lesson?”
            “About?” When Ms. Celen looked at her sharply, she rephrased, “What is the lesson about, Miss Lila?”
            “Compound sentences,” she replied, still mooning over her ‘cuteness.’ Saderia suddenly felt the urge to run to the bathroom and throw up at the way Ms. Lila was staring at her she was a basket of buttercups and daisies but she kept that to herself and endured it.
            Saderia suddenly wondered why her tutor was allowed to use short, not complete, sentence speaking when she wasn’t. Especially since she was talking about compound sentences because that clearly wasn’t one.
            “And other types of sentences,” she added, pulling gently at my bows.
            Again, that was technically not a sentence but again, she didn’t comment.
            “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
            Ms. Celen gave her another sharp look since she didn’t particularly like contractions but Saderia didn’t feel like correcting herself. Ms. Greenwell didn’t like her to be sarcastic so she too gave her a hard look but she ignored both of them and then started to drown out Ms. Lila as she started talking about things Saderia had taught herself long ago. When she was finished and Saderia had looked at her blankly, she too assigned a lot of homework to supposedly help her to understand.
            It was Ms. Celen’s turn to teach her about being a proper Princess and Saderia groaned inwardly, and kept herself busy during her teachings by imagining the three tutors morphed together into some three-headed monster with different bodies. It was slightly entertaining and it kept her busy through the boring lecture of how to speak right and how to eat properly, walk elegantly, and how to look sophisticated.
            At the end, Saderia said, “What? I don’t understand any of that at all!”
            Whenever she said that to this particular tutor, she wasn’t lying because, although she understood how to do what the tutor was saying , she couldn’t wrap her mind around how any of this was important.
            To her, it was demeaning because it took away her personality and turned her into some boring clone of every other royal animal. She liked to think that she was unique in personality and attitude but these tasks that the tutor asked her to do were destroying the last pieces of herself that she had managed to hang on to. There was only one thing Saderia was afraid of and that was becoming the stereotypical Princess and losing her personality, and she made sure that never happened.
            Ms. Celen let out an aggravated growl and snapped, “I do not know how to better explain it! You will just have to practice it to learn it!” She checked the time. “It is time for me to go now, Princess Saderia.” She and the other tutors curtsied again and then left the room as Aunt Cia stepped out to join Saderia.
            “Honestly, Saderia, would it kill you to pay attention to what they’re saying?” she scolded her, shaking her head. “I was listening, and it’s obvious that you don’t care enough to try.”
            “Hey, you’re catching on,” Saderia said with a stupid, sarcastic grin, before she got out of the desk, grabbed the homework she had been assigned and started to her room to work on it.
            Aunt Cia stared after her with narrowed eyes but didn’t say anything as she disappeared down the hallway and shut the door to her room, using all of her self-control not to slam it.
            “I hate this!” Saderia exclaimed, ripping the bows out of her fur when she was in the privacy of her own room. She fluffed up her tail to her liking and spit on her paw to dab the makeup off of her face. She stared around at her room with a glare yet longed to curl up in it and lay there forever. She rolled her eyes at herself. “I can’t believe I have a love/hate relationship with my room!”
            Part of her hated this room because of the girly, Princess-y way it was designed, yet another reminder of what she was supposed to be but didn’t want to be. But another part of her loved this room because she could have some privacy in here. It was the only place she could be herself because she was alone.
            She let out a long breath before going over to her bed to curl up under her stiff, uncomfortable blanket to begin her homework. She knew that the only thing she wanted more than to be herself was her parents, but that was impossible. In her mind, she imagined scenes with them and how they would treat her so much more differently then she was treated now. She would actually have a voice with them and she could actually be herself with them. The cold shell that she showed other animals and what she was becoming inside was not the real her and it upset her to think that she was becoming bitter because of the way she was forced to keep her ‘stupid’ thoughts to herself, but there was nothing that could be done to help that.
            Thinking about these things always hurt and she would do anything to distract herself from it. That was why she loved doing the hours worth of homework that her tutors assigned her. It took her mind off of her longing to be herself and longing for a better life and for her parents most of all. She knew most animals thought she was selfish and horrible for thinking her life was hard because she was a Princess who was expected to lead a charmed life, but being a Princess meant nothing to her if it meant she could never express her true self and her true feelings.
            After several hours of nothing but homework problems, even doing extra ones just for herself, and writing out in perfect, complete sentences the proper things a Princess was supposed to do, which was her homework from Ms. Celen, she put the homework away in her dresser-like drawers up against one of her walls. After cramming the overflowing drawer full, she went to her bed and opened the little drawer in her bedside table and took out the book she had been reading. Reading was very easy and natural to her and it took her to another time, another place, another world which was good because she liked anything that distracted her from the charade she was supposed to call her life and the ever-present longing for her parents.
            What really bugged her was that on top of the whole proper Princess, never allowed to express herself situation, she was expected to be happy like a Princess should be. Well, they didn’t know that she liked to play outside and, yes, get dirty doing it, to do rough things like climb trees and swim through lakes, and help the other animals, and that she longed to go to normal school, and actually make a friend. She knew that part of her was afraid to express who she really was, for fear of rejection or scorn which would surely come if she ever admitted who she was, and so she curled into a ball and clamped her mouth shut over her tirade of hurt and angry feelings.
            But she was bordering on painful territory so she quickly buried her face in her book and tried to ignore the jumble of emotions that wanted so desperately to get out. She quickly relaxed into the words on the page and read for hours until it got dark. She put the book up and moaned as it all came back to her in one painful rush.
            “I have no life, do I?” she muttered to the purple canopy over her bed.
            She felt confused by the emotions she was feeling. She usually felt miserable and upset, but these feelings rarely came to her so much. Now they were practically all she could think about, and she couldn’t help wondering if they had been triggered by the dream. She groaned, knowing that the dream probably had caused these long-buried emotions to return and they wouldn’t fade for a long time. That was going to be painful.
            She glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost an hour before she was supposed to go to bed. That meant it was time for her to do another painful but necessary thing. She opened the drawer again, pushing the book aside to reveal a stack of clean white paper she always kept in there for herself. She took out a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write. She didn’t know why she had to do this, but she always felt the need to.
            Pencil gripped tightly in her paw, it moved across the paper swiftly, making graceful letters across the page. The only things elegant about her was her writing and she was actually proud of that and it always made her smile to see it, and she did even though this always hurt her a little.
            She wrote:
            I am Saderia, lost, alone, and silenced without my parents. But I know who I am. I am adventurous. I am a leader. I am kind. I am helpful. I am smart. I am someone with ideas. I am someone with a voice. I am altruistic. No one can ever know that about me, but me. And I know who I am. I am Saderia.
          Below it, she wrote:
            I am Princess Saderia, made, surrounded by royalty, raised by my aunt and uncle. I know who I am supposed be. I am prissy. I am a follower, of my betters and the rules. I am someone who does what they’re told. Everyone must know this part of me. And I know it is what I have to be. I am Princess Saderia.
          She gently tore the two halves of the paper into two and the shredded the Princess Saderia one viciously, throwing the shredded bits into the trash can beside her vanity. Then she put the Saderia one under her pillow, before she laid her head down on it. She knew that in the morning she would dip it in water to smudge the writing and then throw it away, but it made her feel like she was comforted during the night, knowing she had not lost herself.
            After a few moments, Aunt Cia called, “Saderia, time for bed!”
            Saderia flipped the light switch beside her bed to off and the room went dark. Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash came in a moment later to say goodnight and she said goodnight to them, too. Then they shut the door behind them and their paw steps faded away into the distance.
            When Saderia was sure they were in their room, she got up out of bed, leaving the light off, and took her book back out of the drawer. She flipped to the place where she had left out and took out her folded paper book mark. This was another habit of hers. It was only nine thirty and yet Aunt Cia expected her to sleep at that time. Saderia thought that was crazy and so she normally stayed up until ten thirty. Her amber eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and she was able to read without the normal light or a flash light.
            Saderia liked the dark, and she wasn’t afraid of it. It was a nice cover in case she wanted to sneak around, and it was secretive. Kind of like herself. So she had no problem staying awake in pitch blackness alone for a while. She loved being alone.
            When she was finished reading, it was time for her to sleep on her terms so she curled up under her scratchy blanket and closed her eyes. She waited impatiently for sleep to claim her for a long time until she sat up with a frustrated hiss. She didn’t even feel tired and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep. Bored and desperate for another distraction of any kind, she threw off her blanket and pushed through the fabric canopy and padded out of her room to walk around and find something to do that might make her tired. She certainly wasn’t going to stay up all night because that left way too much time for thinking painful thoughts.
            Absentmindedly, she walked out of her room and down the hallway, passing the bathroom again. She stepped out into the dark front room and made her way over to the hallway opposite hers that led to Aunt Cia and Uncle Jash’s room and her parents’ old room. She didn’t know why she stopped in front of the door that led to her parents’ old room, and could only call it fate or maybe just because of her yearning to have her parents back.
            She gently brushed her paw along the height of the dark brown door and her paw stopped at a place that looked as if something had faded away. She knew instantly that something strange was happening but did not react and stood completely still as she stared at the door. Actually, she stared through the door, and not to what lay on the other side but to another time period from ten years ago.
            She pulled her paw back slightly, not sure what to feel but it was like she was in a trance. Pulling back, she saw that the door was different. The wood was lighter colored and a small red heart shape was painted on the door with a crown adorning the top of it.
            Saderia carefully placed her paw back where it had been but instead of feeling the hard wood beneath her paw pad, her paw brushed right through the wood and everything around her seemed to disappear as suddenly the scene inside the room became clearer.
            Her paw dropped down steadily, not quickly, and smoothly brushed the floor to join her other paws in a sitting position as she stared at the scene in wonder and fascination. The blurriness along the sides faded away and suddenly she was staring at two tigers, one lying on the bed and the other one watching her carefully.
            The larger male tiger beside the bed was staring at the female tiger intently, concern darkening his green eyes. The female tiger with amber eyes very much like Saderia’s own eyes seemed happy but at the same time it was obvious she was struggling not to cry out in pain. Saderia could easily tell that she was giving birth.
            Her body convulsed one time and she fell back on her pillow with a sigh of relief. The cub had been born. The father quickly but gently took the newborn baby tiger cub and cleaned her up before wrapping her in a blue blanket. Very carefully, he handed the bundle to the mother who cradled it gently.
            The father stroked the newborn cub’s short, yellow orange fur. It had no stripes yet, but they could already see that it would have an unusually fluffy tail, much like the mother. Suddenly the father spoke with a warm, gentle voice.
            “What should we name her?” he asked the mother softly.
            The mother smiled up at him and snuggled her newborn baby closer. In a voice softened with love, she told him, “Saderia.”
            The father climbed into the bed beside the mother and her baby and the two of them played with their beloved newborn tiger cub and snuggled her. The mother kissed her forehead and then her father did. They both told Baby Saderia they loved her and she smiled back and laughed. Baby Saderia never cried; she had her parents, so why would she? The loving family stayed together until the scene started to blur and then disappeared quickly before Saderia’s eyes.
            Saderia blinked and found herself staring at the door that led to her parents’ room. The only thing was that this was the door she had originally come to and the crowned heart her mother had painted had faded and gone.