"If you are injured and cannot walk, hop on a regal and have them take you to safety. This forest is no longer safe!"
Those were the last words Sonya heard while she was in the late red panda forest. She was heartbroken that the tigers were burning down the forest that she had grown to know and love. She was even more heartbroken that by the time she made it to safety, she was informed that her family didn't make it. Being a member of the very rare subspecies of red pandas, the gold red pandas, Sonya's life was much more difficult than even red pandas. While people have tried to capture red pandas from the forest before, much more people have tried to capture Sonya and her family for several reasons. Some did it so they to take them to a facility to research them, however the elders were not fond of these researchers, and simply ordered an attack each time one would set foot in the forest. Others did it because of how valuable they were compared to other red pandas because of their golden fur. Some even did it because they hated red pandas and wanted them extinct. Regal meadow was very large, and surely no wise person would ever attack the regals, but would it truly be safe? Would it truly protect not only the red pandas, but the travelers from far away as well? Sonya continued to ponder when she noticed some torches that didn't look like regal torches.
"Had I accidentally wandered out of the meadow?" Soyna thought to herself as she heard a loud "CRACK!" Startled, she raised her paws above her head like most red pandas do when they're startled, until she saw something that surprised her. It was a regular panda! The regular panda looked young, not as young as her, but around a young adult's age. The panda looked at Sonya in a concerned manner. "Oh my, are you ok?" The panda asked her. "Yes, but I've gotten lost from regal meadow, and I can't find my friends or anyone I know!" The panda looked very concerned as it plucked a beautiful yellow flower out the ground. "Here," The panda said as it gave Sonya the flower. "This is what our tribe calls a empathy flower. All you have to do is talk to it about how you're feeling, and it can help you feel better. It can't talk with words, but it can talk in spirt." Sonya held the flower, and felt like the flower had a heart of its own, and was talking to her. After talking with the flower, Soyna got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, the same feeling she got when she was with her family. "My name is Ravi, by the way," The panda said as it found a big stalk of bamboo and began chopping it up. "I'm the chief of this tribe. It doesn't surprise me that another red panda would show up here, after all you've been through." It was true. The red pandas were great friends with the panda tribe, and when the tigers would attack, the pandas offered them a place to stay until a new forest was found. The pandas were known to be knowledgeable and strong believers of spiritual beings. After talking with Ravi for a while and eating some bamboo, Soyna finally felt a sense of normal in her life for the first time in days. For the first time in days, Soyna actually felt safe! The two got to know each other more as the days had gone by. They both liked watching the regals fly over the horizon, sometimes with a beak full of balloons! And sometimes the regals would drop a beautiful feather that Ravi used to decorate the torches with. One day Ravi decided to tell Sonya about something she had told few others: The death of her family. "It was terrible. Luckily the elders then had found me, and brought me to the tribe. My tribe has since been like the family I once had." Sonya had began to think of Ravi as a motherly figure, one like the one she used to have. Eventually, the day would come, that Sonya would be legally adopted by Ravi, and she would live with her. And what made Sonya even more happy was that regal meadow was right next to her new home, and the regals were more than happy having her visit