“One day, as Sarita tended to the wash, Gemma played in the garden. She was a knight, you see, with a sword fashioned out of wood. Most formidable, she was, though I didn't quite know how formidable. As I sat in my study, I heard screaming from outside. I ran to see what the commotion was. Sarita called to me, wide-eyed with fear, "Oh, Mr. Doyle, look- over there!" The tiger had entered the garden and was making his way toward where our Gemma frolicked with her wooden sword. Beside me, our house servant, Raj, drew his blade so stealthily it seemed to simply appear in his hand by magic. But Sarita stayed his hand. "If you run for him with your life, you will provoke the tiger," she advised. "We must wait."...I must tell you that it was the longest moment of my life. No one dared move. No one dared draw a breath. And all the while, Gemma played on, taking no notice until the great cat was upon her. She stood and faced him. They stared at one another as if each wondered what to make of the other, as if they sensed a kindred spirit. At last, Gemma placed her sword upon the ground. "Dear tiger," she said. "You may pass if you are peaceful." The tiger looked at the sword and back at Gemma, and without a sound, it passed on, dissappearing into the jungle."..."The tiger had gone. He did not come around a gain. But I was a man possessed. The tiger had come too close, you see. I no longer felt safe. I hired the best tracker in Bombay. We hunted for days, tracking the tiger to the mountains there. We found him taking water from a small watering hole. He looked up but he did not charge. He took no notice of us at all but continued to drink. "Sahib, let us go," the boy said. "This tiger means you no harm." He was right, of course. But we had come all that way. The gun was in my hand. The tiger was before us. I took aim and shot it dead on the spot. I sold the tiger's skin for a fortune to a man in Bombay, and he called me brave for it. But it was not courage that brought me to that; it was fear..."But you," he says, smiling with a mix of sadness and pride, "you faced the tiger and survived."..."The time has come for me to face my tiger, to look him in the eye and see which of us survives." - Mr. Doyle”
“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”
“How are you?”Rosa shrugged her shoulders. “My sister turned into a giant snake last night. And your cousin Tano—”“Second cousin.”“He was there too. He was a tiger. I recognized him from his eyes. Then I fainted.” She looked at him. “How does that sound?”
“I began to see that Wendy had something Tiger Lily hadn't even known she was supposed to have. Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter-strong, brave; to be big and to keep up-she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail.”
“(From Danielle Raver's short story THE ENCHANTRESS)Thick chains attached to the wall hold a metal collar and belt, restraining most of the tiger's movements. Open, bloody slashes cover his face and back, but he shows no loss of strength as he pulls on the chains and tries to rip the flesh of the surrounding humans with his deadly claws. Out of his reach, I kneel down before him, and his lightning-blue eyes cross my space for a moment. “Get her out of there!” I hear from behind me.“Numnerai,” I speak urgently to the tiger. “They will kill you!” He growls and gnashes his teeth, but I sense he is responding to me. “Great white tiger, your duty is to protect the prince. But how can you do that if they sink the end of a spear into your heart?” He looks at me for a longer moment. The fighters respond to this by growing still. In their desperation, they are overlooking my foolishness for a chance to save their fellows' lives. I crouch on my feet and begin to nudge closer to him. The tiger growls a warning, but does not slash out at me. “Think of the prince, protector of the palace. Right now he prays for you to live.”
“You may think my jealousy would have been enormous during those days after Peter gave Tiger Lily the smallest kiss on the neck. And you would be right. But these moments were swallowed by a bigger emotion, my tenderness for Tiger Lily, which had grown to take up most of the space in my body, without me knowing it. I can't say I didn't dream that this was a passing moment of infatuation, and that eventually Peter would notice and pick me-as impossible as that might have seemed considering my size. But I felt protective of Tiger Lily. I felt that just by watching over her, I could somehow keep her safe. And I wanted to keep Peter safe too.”