The Tiger and the Prince, Part I

===THE TIGER AND THE PRINCE, PART I=======
(no smut just plot)

Once, long ago, there was a city in the East, that sat astride the trade routes of the plains of Enkhedesh, a hub where traders and wanderers from the Seven Cities, in the Seven corners of the great plains, could go to meet, and it was said anything and everything could be found there, for a price.

The Saranjamdar of Chali was the ruler of this city, and he was a man of mighty girth. He wore the finest saffron robes, and a great turban of true silk, into which he would wrap the flashing emeralds that are called "Tiger's eyes." He loved nothing more than to sit on his great verandah, watching the hustle and bustle of commerce and trade in his city, for he loved nothing so much as to see the flow of wealth, much of it entering his own, enormous vaults, filled to bursting with copper, silver, gold, and the coins of Platinum from the Furthest East. Yet the Saranjamdar, for all his wealth, struggled mightily to sire heirs, untill one day his favoured concubine, after a long and painful struggle that claimed her life, gave birth to a child, weak, scrawny, and feminine, barely deserving of being called a boy. The Saranjamdar was no man of war or conquest, but he was disappointed that in his house of treasures his only child should be so unspectacular, a girlish boy of small manhood without the fire he so admired in others.

The boy, the Jamdar or Prince of Chali, was named Pannalal, and raised as royal heirs often are, amidst a wealth of splendour, opulence, with access to the finest education anyone could hope for. But the thing he desired most, and found so lacking, was love and respect. He sought often to attract the attention and love of his distant father, seeking always to better himself, to try in some way to impress him. Despite his girlish and slender frame, his long, womanly jet-black hair and soulful-deep green eyes, he sought to master the ways of the sword, to impress his father by becoming the epitome of a true man, a warrior fast and lithe. For years he would train with the greatest Saint-Swordmasters, untill he could fight one, two, or both-handed, with two blades in each hand. Yet when his sword practice did not please his father, he instead turned to scholarly pursuits, learning many ancient secrets and the lore of the world. Still his lorecraft did not please his father, who sank ever more into a disappointed torpor, languishing on his verandah, his enthusiasm for the gathering of wealth diminishing day by day. Worse, as if reflecting the great Saranjamdar's mood, the city of Chali also began to ebb, trade drying up, as times grew lean and hard, and the Saranjamdar increased his tithes and taxes, trying to recapture the thrill and joy of the steady torrent of coin into his treasuries, but only worsening the drought of wealth.

Lean times turned into starving times, and a day came, not many weeks shy of the boy's eighteenth birthday, that the Saranjamdar waddled to his great treasury, only to find that it was near-empty, his wealth having ebbed away in lavish living and attempts to induce the return of merchants and trade. His palace shook with his terrible anger, and he went at once to where his son was, in the Gardens of Lavender, sat trying to learn the sittar and other great instruments of music, perhaps hoping that this new path might please his father, and ease the emptiness in his heart.

"You are a curse to me, Pannalal! My wealth has shriveled like the prick of age, and my city is shrunken, desolate! I am becoming skinny, like a dried prune, and even my emeralds have begun to lose their shine! This is all your fault, you weak, pathetic, half-formed runt!" He laid into the boy, his thick pudgy hands slapping and punching the young man, who did not resist or retaliate, but simply endured his fathers blows with sorrow, feeling the emptiness growing to consume him. He cried then, and seeing his son spill tears like a Maiden, the Saranjamdar grew so disgusted and loathed his womanly son that he left him. "I no longer care if you live or die." He said coldly, before returning to his chambers, to brood and to try to find some way to restore his greatness.

That night, Pannalal searched through the most ancient archives in the bowels of the city, desperate to find some way to bring back his father's wealth, knowing that this above all else would make his father love him, and perhaps make his empty, lonely life in this beautiful, but cold, palace bearable. He vowed that if he could not find a way, he would indeed end his life, for he could imagine no way he could continue to bear this sorrow.

At last, as dawn's light began to creep in through the arch-windows, an old man in swarthy robes approached the Prince, as he sat at the scholar's desk, his eyes worn with fatigue, trying to read some ancient book on economics.

"Perhaps I can be of some help to you, your Majesty." the old man crooned, sidling up to the side of the dutiful prince. "I am a scholar and a wanderer, and I have heard many tales and learned many secrets, some which cannot be written down, or found in any books."

The Prince, too tired to wonder how the old man came to be in the palace library if he was a common wanderer, turned to him with curiosity. "If you know a way to help my father, to ease this burden I carry, I will gladly pay any price for it." He spoke rashly, but so great was his need for love and recognition.

The old man chuckled, his eyes flashing grey and green, heterochromic in wisdom and ancient magic. "I know of one who can make this city great again, but you may find the price beyond bearing."

"Anything, anything to ease my heart."

The old man sighed, and saw in his way that the Prince's soul was pure. But after a moment, he produced a fine, tiny hammer made from crystal, it looked too fragile and small to even so much as hammer a nail. "Take this crystal hammer, and shatter the gems that are called the Tiger's Eyes, within your father's turban. Do this, and you will lift the curse that strangles this land, but the price will be great."


Pannalal eagerly took the crystal hammer, though fear stole into his heart, wondering how his father would curse and rage if he destroyed the two gems, the last remnants of his most splendid wealth, were to be destroyed. But so great was his love that, as great a risk as this might be, it was worth it if it would make his father happy again. He thanked the old man for his help, and immediately left the library.

He slipped into his father's room, posessed of this conviction and determined to prove himself, sneaking as silently as a whisper to his father's side, as dawn's rays began to slowly fill the shadows of the room. He creeped past sleeping concubines and half-awake Eunuchs, who did not think to question the son's presence at this time in his father's room. He slid up onto the great, luxurious bed, a circle of marble overlaid with many fine mattresses and linen sheets, his hands shaking with eagerness. He slid his father's turban- for he wore it always- and unwrapped the great cloths, spilling the two perfect emeralds into his hand. As the sun's rays began to touch his father's eyes, the room growing filled with light, Pannalal took the crystal hammer, raising it to strike. His father's eyes flickered open, and as if from a dream, he saw his son, the failure that he so hated, with a look of pure determination on his face, bring the little hammer down on the two things he loved above all else, shattering them perfectly into fine, green dust.

"NO!" He shouted, his eyes bulging wide, unable to believe the nightmare before him, and he sprung bolt upright in his bed, flinging his son across the floor with great strength.  "What...What have you done?" He cried, his whole body aching with the betrayal.

"I have saved you, father!" Pannalal cried, and tears began to spill from his eyes, for he had felt so sure that this was the right course of action, though his heart screamed with the pain of disappointing his father.

"I-I- For this, I will banish you to the ends of the ear-" The Saranjamdar began, sucking in breath into his great lungs, readying himself to heap a thousand curses and punishments on the head of this most useless creature that shared his blood.

But before he could continue to speak, there arose from the shattered gems a great green smoke, that coiled into the form of a strange woman. Pannalal and the Saranjamdar stared at this strange apparition, bewildered. She stood six feet tall, and her powerful body was muscular and lithe, covered in light striped fur from head to toe. Her head was shaped like a tigress, and her eyes were the same powerful green as the gems, and they looked into Pannalal's own eyes, as if he was gazing into a mirror, and saw his emptiness reflected there. She wore purple silk wraps that lifted and hid her powerful breasts, and a long silk loincloth that covered her crotch and hind, but a long striped tail twitched from beneath it, swaying lightly in the morning breeze.

Her hands, backward facing, were human in shape, despite being covered in tiger fur, and she clutched her own elbows in a strange and inhuman pose, as she watched the two men. The others in the chambers began to stir and awake, and were equally entranced by this creature that had come from green smoke.

"I am rakshasa." She said, her voice smooth, commanding, and infinitely powerful and confident. Pannalal's heart began to beat, the power in her voice reminding him of when his father had been in his prime, before the long years of disappointment and lethargy.

"You have freed me, Prince Pannalal, and as such I will grant you a boon. But be warned, for my favour comes with a price." She purred.

The Prince stared warily, his knowledge of ancient lore and the Asuras, those alien creatures from the Other Planes of whom the rakshasa are but one kind, made him cautious, and his fatigue and sorrow made it hard to speak. Yet the Saranjamdar, his heart hammering, sweat still on his brow, eagerly jumped at the chance to once again have that which he desired most. "Restore my Kingdom's wealth! Make this city great again! I will pay any price you name!" he shouted, his eye alight with greed.

The rakshasa's eyes flashed, and her tigrish lips pulled back, revealing powerful fangs. It seemed she was trying to smile. "The Bargain is made." She unfurled her hands from her elbows, and weaved them in strange patterns in the air, before clapping them together, entwined. "Chali will become great and powerful again, and your kingdom's wealth will swell beyond all measure." She promised. "In one month, at the Full Moon, I will return, and I will make my price known."

She bowed lightly to the two astonished men, before sitting down into the lotus pose, crossing her long, muscular legs. She unclasped her hands again, and, closing her eyes, she spoke a word, one that no human mouth could make, before vanishing in a gust of air.

The Saranjamdar looked at his son, his chest heaving with great breaths. "Well, you useless runt, it seems you finally almost managed to do something right-" The Saranjamdar began, his words still full of cruelty even after his son had accomplished the thing he had desired most, but he gasped suddenly, his hand going to his heart. The exertion of apolexy had burst his weakened blood vessels, and he fell at once to the floor, his head hitting the marble with a loud crunk, as he began to writhe in agony, a powerful heart attack crippling the great king.

Pannalal, his eyes wide with horror, rushed at once to his father's side. "Father! No! Please!" He begged, and held his father's hands, all his knowledge and skill useless before this terrible reality. Within minutes, his father choked and spluttered no more, and he lay quite still.

The Saranjamdar was dead.