Chapter Two - Earth-Brothers.

The sun was shining far over the horizon by the time fawn’s slender legs could propel her no more. She had run for what seemed like ages and then her fear had compelled her to walk beyond that. Now however, head bowed and lungs burning she could go no further.

Her sides quivering with effort she sunk down into the tall grasses that seemed to be a sea all around her and let her head droop to the earth. The ground was hard and cold and the wind still blew its icy breath over the land, but at least here there was no snow.

When the tiny deer opened her eyes again night had already begun to fall. The sky was a deep cobalt with its million spattering of diamond lights and the last of the after light of the sun was just slipping beyond the horizon. She felt too weary to stand. Her legs ached with the pains of her first run and her first meal had long since been spent. Her instincts told her that she needed something to nourish her, but her mother was nowhere to be seen.

Her mother...

The fawn lifted her weary head to the wind and sniffed, searching for the familiar scent that spoke of love and warmth and safety. It was nowhere to be found. She smelled sharp dusty smells which were the dry grasses around her, and deep earthy smells that mingled with something cool and moist, and then there was something musky.

The fawn’s ears stiffened as she remembered the last musky scent she had caught, just before...

She sniffed again, her fear giving her legs just enough power to make a wobbly stand and allow her better reach of the scent. To her great relief this scent was different. It was musky, yes, but it was a warm earthy musk that spoke of sun and grass. She was too small to see over the tall grasses that surrounded her, but the fawn could feel the earth quiver beneath her feet as the big musky-earthy-thing seemed to be moving close by.

Her legs shook warningly and the fawn gave in and dropped to the ground again, hoping that if she just stayed still whatever-it-was would go away. She closed her eyes and her stomach gave another growl of hunger. She thought of her mother once more and her heart ached terribly.

The ground trembled under her again. The frightened fawn let out a soft mournful cry and hid her head against her side, shutting her eyes tightly as if to shut out her fears of the world. She sat perfectly still like that, aching and hungry and terrified for a few agonizing moments as the deep-earthy-musky smell moved closer and the ground trembled its approach.

Then she felt a deep grassy-warm breath puffing across her and then another breath that reminded her of the scent of her mother’s milk, but vastly earthier.

The fawn looked up, hoping against hope to see -

An enormous dirt-brown face peered back down at her, coal-deep eyes glittering in the light of the rising moon. The fawn cried out with horror as this earth-mound monstrosity loomed above her seeming to go on for miles above and behind its dark head. Then the creature bent and ran its wide black nose across her again, blowing steaming warm breath that made the fawn shiver. A large tongue reached out to lick her chilly side and the buffalo began to bathe the tiny fawn with a mother’s devoted attention. Her own calf, barely a month older than this tiny creature, watched with eyes filled with curiosity.

When the fawn had been licked back to warmth, the buffalo-mother nosed her to standing and then set to nibbling the grasses around them before she settled to bed. The earthy-calf shook itself and then nosed around for its mother’s milk. The fawn watched hungrily and then tentatively nosed about as well, wondering if all mothers could provide the same creamy stomach-filling warmth. She was surprised by the richness that was so different from her own mother’s milk, and it sat heavy as her second-ever meal but the warmth was delicious and she drank until she could hold no more. Then she hesitantly curled into the grass by the musky-earth-mound calf and fell deeply asleep.

The buffalo-mother watched the tiny infant who was not even half the size of her own calf and wondered if it would survive. No matter the milk, for grazing in the grasslands was still good and this small thing drank so little that it would make no difference. She could smell the sorrow in the small fawn’s fur, and also something else. Something that seemed to radiate from the fawn’s small head. Something that had been the scent that caught her nose and made her stop to investigate. It was vast and still-but-bursting and it had the smell of the dawn about it. It smelled like that moment the light rose above the edge of the world to bring on a new day. It smelled of the sunrise.

She stood watch over the two sleeping children through that night at first pondering the origin of this small creature, then drifting to sleep herself as the herd moved closer together for there was not anything in these wide plains that would dare attack an entire herd of the great bison.

* * *

Morning dawned clear and bright just as the fawn awoke. The air was still and filled with the scents of a whole herd of the musky-earth-giants but she felt no fear of them now. The buffalo-mother eyed her with those liquid-coal pools and then licked first her own calf and then the small fawn clean of the night’s dustings. Then she set to grazing with the herd while the younglings drank their thick-rich breakfast.

Once his stomach had been filled the calf began to bound around the grasses, tall enough to see over them with ease, small enough to still dart around and between the thick legs of the other members of the herd.

The fawn was shy at first, with so many giants around her and so many other calves much older who bounded through the grass so sure of their legs. She attempted several leaps but found her long thin legs tangling themselves before she had even started, and so she turned to practicing simply making them work together instead of apart.

The buffalo-mother watched the fawn progress across the grassy space and back again, never straying more than a few lengths from her side. She was amused as the fawn-child took such great care to work out how to jump without falling. First watching the other calves and then lifting her legs gingerly and giving a tentative hop. Awkward with a newborn’s innocence, yet of a graceful stock the buffalo-mother could tell. She had seen this child’s kind at the edges of the prairie, and some of a more bounding likeness that wandered from stream to stream. Graceful they were, but light and weak in comparison to the buffalo’s broad muscles.

As the day wore on the young fawn grew less afraid of her own legs, but she was still shy of the other calves and clung to the buffalo-mother’s side, watching and learning. She took small test nibbles of the things she saw the mother chew, but her mouth and stomach were not yet ready to see it as food.

So the day passed into night, and the herd shuffled their slow way across the prairie to settle into the sea of grass. Night passed into day, and the small world of the fawn slowly expanded as it repeated its cycle many times. Always she watched and listened carefully to everything the buffalo-mother did. She watched and listened to the lessons the other calves were taught. She learned to smell the wind for dangers, and how to find the scent of the streams. She learned which grasses to chew and which plants could cure pains or sickness. She learned to speak a little with the buffalo, though their voices were far different than that of her deer-mother and there were no soft songs about their heads.

She could not butt heads with the other calves without being knocked to the ground, so the fawn learned to run faster than wind and leap higher than the great humps of the bulls as they grazed. Her buffalo-mother’s milk was rich and nourishing, and as spring rolled across the prairies and turned into summer she grew, though smaller than her earthy-kin, but fast and silent and strong in her own way. They came to love her as their own, for small and shy and quiet as she was, she held a stubborn determination that they could admire.

She learned the names of many things in the tongue of the buffalo though much of her own past became merely flitting dream to her. She called them Earth-brothers they in turn gave her own name to her, calling her after the scent that always hung about her head.

Rise, they called her. Sun’s Rise.