ORIGINS: Look at number sixth’s face in the original series. If that isn’t a tiger, we don’t know what is. The word we used there was effigy, but we don’t want flames for our tigers. Nails suit them better, hence the voodoo dolls.
Your bedtime stories promised me a frog, they promised me a kiss and a prince. You forgot to tell me that tigers don’t change their stripes. But I forgive you. No harm done. This doll can live with a loose button or two. But I don’t need your bedtime stories anymore. I have found my calling, and I’m having fun. I will keep putting curses on frogs, on tigers, until I run out of nights or love, whatever happens first.
You told me the tale of a princess that lived on the moon. I knew that nothing can be heard in space. I didn’t want to feel lonely. And just to be sure, I refused to become that princess. I looked for a different moon. One that would always be full, one that would never lose its light. And I found one in the ear of a tiger. Tigers have excellent hearing, it’s as if their ears have a life of their own. That is why I chose to become the princess on that tiger’s ear. That should have been my happily ever after. But the curse of loneliness still managed to take hold of me. Like a nail to the heart. You forgot to tell me that borrowing will never be enough.
You tried to teach me to be a better person. You wanted me to put my nails aside and stop putting curses on tigers, just because they couldn’t change their stripes. You wanted me to accept people as they are. I don’t think you ever realized that that was what you were doing to me. You couldn’t accept my own stripes. You kept growling in my ear. And every lesson felt like a nail to the heart.
I found an open book in a most unusual place. In the nose of an exotic tiger, and I couldn’t leave it unread. It promised me fantastic adventures, it promised me dreams that would forever be inked in my memories. I couldn’t put that book down. And by the time I noticed the bars, it was already too late. The curse would never come undone. I’ve tried looking at the world, but I am blind. Nothing outside those cursed pages feels real. Nothing feels worthy of a place in my memories. Not when I have already filled them with wonders beyond compare.