Kamal: The White Tiger

Here it is my avid readers! So, it's not quite as long as I suspected, but it is a special treat. As I've been writing these blog posts and recounting the two novels that are out, I've realized that y'all don't know as much about Kamal as I do, much less his perspective on things. If any of you have read my personal blog (I'm pretty sure it's in there) then it's known that Tigers are my favorite animals. Dragons are my favorite mythical creatures but that's for another post!

I do hope all you readers enjoy seeing the world through Kamal's eyes and enlightens you as to how he came to be who he is. I'll be explaining some more aspects that are brought up in his entry so if anything is unclear, that should clear it up. However, if you want to ask questions, please post and I'll do my best to clear up anything for you. Cheers!

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Kamal

All I have ever known is Dante. My mother was shot and killed shortly after my birth. I was nothing more than a small ball of grey-spotted white fur, silent in my fear, when he found me.

My first impression of him was fear. I bit him. Scratched him wild as he lifted me up and cradled me to his chest. He showed no sign of having been affected at all by my transgressions. My fear turned to. curiosity. How could this human feel nothing? I calmed, relishing in the extra warmth.

He traced a symbol on my head and I heard him, but more importantly, I understood him. He introduced himself as Dante. Asked what I would like to be called. His voice was...hollow. Something, though I still have never figured out what, decided that I wanted to be with him so I told him the only name I remembered hearing whilst I cowered in fear after my mother's death: Kamal.

The smile he gave me was bright and so different from the hollowness of his voice and I set myself up to keep that happiness in him.

Before I knew it, ten years were gone. Dante tried for years to find more of my kind but we were too late. Dante wanted to keep looking, said there could be more places they could be hiding, but I felt it in my gut: I was the only one of my kind left. A sense of dread filled me too because I could feel my time drawing near. My life was going to end.

We had an assault on our home. I finally saw what Dante truly was. Fear should have taken me over, but it didn’t. I respected him. I took shit shots for him, but I never felt them. He took my pain. As I lay there bleeding out, he told me he’d never let me leave this world in anything but a peaceful bliss. I got healed.

A calming light had showered down around us from the sky. Dante acknowledged it, or her, as Councilwoman. She talked highly of Dante, of his steadfastness and ability to just let life go as it should. She said for his sacrifice and since soul mate magic (whatever that was) wasn’t working, the council had agreed to grant me immortality. Me, an animal. She spoke to me then. Said it would only be if I wished it. And that, should I choose this, they would grant me magic to transform into a human at will should I choose to do so. I accepted.

I was partially confused by some of what she’d said, so I asked Dante about it. About what she meant by ‘let life go as it should’. Dante revealed that he could have healed me, saved my life, with magic. Dante had known I was nearing the end of my lifespan and he could keep it going with magic, but it would have made me dependent on it because that wasn’t the way magic was supposed to be used. And that one should not live like that.

He never spoke more on that until he pissed me off a few years later. It was the first time I'd decided to take on a human form. I did so because something inside me just wanted to punch him like I'd seen Dante punch other humans. I forget why I was so angry but I remember what he said about magic.

Magic was as much a gift as it was a curse. A double-edged sword.

While magic was useful, too many people used it to get their way. They got drunk on the power and ease of it and obsess over it so much it consumes them. Usually driving them to their death. He said that is why people today could only use one type of magic. And why the height of people was so short. I scoffed at this. All humans were short to me.

I never admitted it to Dante, but I liked the feel of being in a human form. I began to transform a couple times a month and Dante and I would converse for hours, sometimes just on menial things. The conversations regarding his family were the only brief ones. I could see how desperately he wanted to be back with them, but I couldn’t find it in me to push the issue. In the way he spoke, I could see that he’d kept his family in the dark about the extent of his magic.

After a few months, I decided that he needed his brothers to keep that smile I wanted him to have, always. After another few months of gentle prodding, I got him to finally open up completely to his brothers about his magic. Their reaction shocked both of us, but Dante most of all. They only wished they had been there to help him with his burden.

I could sense the bond of these brothers grow stronger, and I knew I would protect all of them forever. Even when Dante got his deepest desire filled: to find his Soul Mate. Even then, I’ll protect this family because they are my family. Forever.

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.P.S. If any of you are wondering how Kamal could have all this going on after he was just born, please bear in mind, Kamal comes from a very rare breed of Tigers that are overly large and highly intelligent, and, like Dragons though its not threaded through their DNA like Dragons, have some hint of magic flowing through them. It allows them to survive. okay, I think that its. Cheers again!