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A male tiger made his way slowly through the undergrowth, his head hanging low and his paw pads silencing each heavy step he took. His eyes were wide and concentrated, his ears shifting from flat to pointed. Body low to the ground, he slinked and stalked his prey ' a small red-tailed doe grazing upon fresh green grass. The forestry was alive with animals, critters crawling this way and that, bugs littering tree bark, but flesh simple in his grasp.

The doe's majestic head raised, large ears swivelling back, listening out for the predator. Kawfan froze, his right forepaw hanging in mid air, stock still and hardly breathing. The tiger's chest expanded and collapsed ever so slowly, it was hard to believe he hadn't run out of air. Three minutes passed before the doe lowered her elongated head to the vegetation of the ground and continued to munch, and the tiger was safe again.

He closed the twenty metre gap to about ten before he had to stop again. The doe perched her head high, locking this way and that as she checked her safety was secure. Kawfan's stripes his him well, his belly hairs just about scraping the dusty soil. And, over another ten minutes, throughout grazing and feeding, the small doe had worked her way another two metres close to the hunter. Sudden noise as a magnificent character leapt out of the brush, alerting the dainty doe within milliseconds. Her forelegs spread as if to stand her ground, until she saw what was after her. She took off in a blast, and so the chase began.

The tiger ran for his survival, while the doe did exactly the same, her thin legs laced with invisible muscle, pushing herself. She was not mature nor was she fully grown, and Kawfan knew it. She was growing tired, but she was not the only one. Phlegm-like saliva flooded Kawfan's throat gradually, from the smell of the meal and for lack of exercise. But he could not stop. He had mouths to feed.

No, male tigers did not raise their own children. That was the job of the tigress, whilst the job of the male was to live alone and mate when in heat, nothing less and nothing more. But the story of this one was different. He wasn't solitary at heart, regardless what he was in specie, and this took over. Outset from the crowd, he turned from what his mother raised him to be ' a proper tiger ' into one capable of social abilities.

With a last growl, Kawfan pushed his powerful hind legs, and using up a great amount of stamina he landed, claws unsheathed, onto the doe's back. She made a startled bawl for life, her legs kicking hysterically in struggle. But she was no match. No match at all. Now the felidae was not running and was down on the floor, his captor beneath him, he regained unimaginable amounts of strength back.

Swiftly, he shot his head to her neck ' the most vulnerable part of the body. Pulling back his top lips he thrust his top canines into her skin, piercing her soft flesh. To finish the kill he pulled his head down and parted his bottom jaw. In doing so he dug deeper, reaching her vocal cord, and dug his bottom canines into her nape, slicing her spinal cord, shutting her body down after a few moments of horrific shivers and seizures.

However, even once she'd died he lay still, his eyes wide and ears flat, looking about him, catching all his breath and strength ' not to mention that he was checking for any type of competition. After a few minutes of calm, he rose to his stocky, short legs, and tensed his neck muscles. Lifting the carcass, he hauled it along with him.

Of course, a forest is a forest, but every forest was different. The trees were not the same, the cats differently striped. Each was its own individual, and so here's how Kawfan's main land looked like; about three of four, huge and tall trees, two leopards, both black and spotted, lay in them, their heads resting lazily on their large paws, and on the third sat a jaguar, who leaped down upon Kawfan's arrival, his loose muscles visible under his tight coat.

Beneath the three trees, at the centre, there was a small den made out of leaves and dug-up roots, out of which two tiger cubs sprang, their tails high and whiskers leaning forewords in greeting to their father. A smaller, less noticeable den was not so far away by a small stream from which a tigress appeared, and yet another by a boulder where a snow leopard lifted his head in curiosity.

Kawfan dropped the carcass by his paws, which caused all cats to get up, getting ready for a short feast. Food was something each cat took turns in hunting. Usually the killer ate first and as much as possible before the other fed, but it was okay, seeing as all cats hunted alone. They might be used to living with one another but certain traits clung to them forever.

A series of growls were made when one of the tiger's friends came to close to the food he was eating. His cubs chewed and swallowed regurgitated meat their father gave them, and the rest put their passive paws against the food and tug and tore, some ripping off limbs and delivering a piece of meat to their personal spaces and eating alone over there.

When one would watch such a thing it might seem that tension was running high within the group, but it was far from. When the body had been stripped bare Kawfan lay on his flank, licking his lips repeatedly every few seconds, cleaning his mouth. Hygienic as he was, he just had to make sure his coat was nothing less than perfect, and so he flattened the hairs on his chest, legs and ruff, before cleansing his two cubs. His tail tapped angrily as thoughts crossed by his mind, but he didn't speak them aloud.

He heard footsteps towards him and he turned his head, his vertebrae flexing so he faced the tigress, Ria, as she approached him. He began to purr at her presence, and as she reached him she butted his head in a sign of affection. Kawfan had grown to love when it was against the law of the tiger to do so. But he didn't care. No-one was there to stop him.

She lay down beside him and they all felt just at home. One of the two cubs, Latashi, got up and cuffed at her, grinning and yowling and saying, 'Mummy!' Latashi was the more dominant and outgoing tiger, inheriting most of his personality traits from his rule-breaking father.