Epilogue
#20 of Tiger-Tiger
Finally... the big guy can take some time to do what he didn't manage to do the year before.
I stood looking at the lightening horizon over the city and smiled. I was here with my camera to get a picture that I had tried to get the year before but had missed the shot due to unforeseen circumstances. Before I adjusted my camera, I took a single white flower from a pot and went over to the bank of the nearby river and planted it in the soft soil that my strong hands managed to dig up.
"For you Mikel, I hope you find the peace that you were so vainly seeking in your next life." I said softly as I planted the flower. I'd managed to get my cat to tell me the one time when Mikel had been most at ease... it wasn't in combat training or trying to figure out plans for some new thing that Olaf wanted done... it was simple gardening. Mikel had been at his most content and happy as a cub back in Russian digging around in the dirt and putting growing things in the holes that he made. To think that those around him hadn't seen that he didn't want to take life, to kill and hurt things, but rather to make things grow and flourish under a gentle gaze and the warmth of the sun.
In the past eight months' things, had settled down and I'd become comfortable and content in my role as the Assistant Guardian of Blackwater Pride. Though there were times the Pride Council had made me want to tear my hair out in frustration. What had been even more frustrating was the fact that I'd had to take up temporary residence in my parent's old condo, without my family, so that I could be close to the local college where I was working on upgrading my educational credits so that I could take some courses at the university. At the end of each week I was ready to call it quits until I returned to my family and spent time with them getting myself reenergized to tackle another week of plowing through schoolwork. The sad thing about that was that with my mind more or less on an even keel what I was finding frustrating was the fact that my upgrade courses did little to challenge my mind at all.
For Mom and dad things had also become much more stable as my mother very quickly took over from the Pride Medic, who was getting on in years, and proven herself to not only be a talented and effective medic, but in a twist, that surprised almost nobody, she'd turned out to have a talent for healing. For dad, his job was both harder and easier, since he soon found his place among the Protectors as a team lead. He was fairly strong, and I had him sit on the council and provide the House Votes for House McEwan, though he did consult with me before choosing how to vote since I was still technically his House Lord.
With my tribute to the one who'd turned me completed I returned to my camera and made some adjustments to the machine while I glanced through the viewfinder.
My family was staying in a guest room at Forest Edge, they were still sleeping, but this morning I had to do this for my own sake, I felt that time had come full circle and I was once more standing waiting for the sun to begin peeking over the horizon in order to see if I could take a perfect shot...