Chapter 6 - Into the Mist

The mountains grew larger before them as they journeyed each day, until Rise could begin to make out the shadows that Old Gray-hump said were trees running up the sides and the brilliant white on the peaks that was snow. Finally in the distance there were steeper hills and then tall trees that rose up against the dark shapes of the mountains.

“Is it the forest?” Rise asked gleefully of the tired bull as she bounded around him as he grazed his way in that direction.

“It is A forest.” He nodded, then spoke on for some of Rise’s never ending well of words had slowly been sinking into him as they had traveled. “And maybe there will be some of your kind there. We are lucky, you and I, for the summer has been warm and the wolves will have retreated into the mountains to do their hunting and raise their pups in the cool shadows.”

Rise spent the days pushing them on as fast as she could convince the old one to move and turning her eyes and nose to the west, watching for signs of anything like herself.

Finally, early one morning, she saw them. The small herd of does and their fawns were grazing at the edges of the wood, the morning light spilling around them like liquid gold. Rise’s heart leapt and she shot forward through the grass towards the deer. The fawns scattered themselves and then ran to find their mothers as this strange smelling-creature bolted at them. The does pranced nervously and eyed Rise and the following buffalo with worry.

“I have found you at last!” Rise cried joyously to them. The fawns were all much smaller and younger than her, but she knew from her reflections in the water that she had their same golden brown and spotted pelt, and the same large amber-brown eyes. She searched their heads for the golden light like that which hung above her own ears, but she could see nothing there.

The deer flicked their ears at her in confusion and then bolted into the forest. Rise was left standing stiffly in the grass alone. Old Gray-hump soon made his way next to her and watched the fawn sorrowfully. He could see even if she could not that these deer were not like her though they might appear so at first. They were like the gazelle, silent and animal, where this tiny fawn was graced with something more.

“Do not worry...” He told the quiet fawn, seeing the sadness spreading across her face. He felt an odd confidence in his words as he spoke. “I am sure we will find your kind here somewhere.”

“But they were like me, weren’t they?” Rise asked desperately, turning to the old bull her head and shoulders sagging in sorrow.

“Like and unlike, little one.” He told her, moving them on towards the edge of the trees. “Like in form, but not in mind. Like in shape, but not in heart. Your kind I think, is from a noble stock... and you will find them.”

The bull felt a peace here, in this pace of green filtered sunlight. He recalled in his youth having walked near these grasses with his own mother, ages ago. Now as they skirted the forest he remembered the mists that would sometimes fall from the mountains, and the vision he had seen one day at dawn.

“Many years ago, when I was but a calf,” he told Rise softly as they walked. “I saw through the trees a mist in the woods. It was a strange mist that seemed to glow with its own faint light, like the moon but pale and shimmering.

“As the sun rose and its light poured through the trees onto the mist it shone brightly and through it I saw a forest not like the one around it. There, was one like you, but different. His nose was short and his pelt was shining with a light that came from all around him, and he had branching antlers that were shaped like none I have seen before.”

“Did he speak to you?” Rise asked in wonder, her eyes on him intently.

“No.” The old bull sighed. “He was there for a moment and then vanished. But there I think, you will find those like you. In that other forest through the mist.”

Rise watched the wood excitedly that day, searching for any sign of mist or deer. She saw many of the does and fawns, and once a stag lit by the sun, but none of them ever came near or spoke to her. They only looked and then drifted away.

The two walked on, day after day, always skirting the edge of the woods or roaming just inside to find the patches of juicy berries. The sun rose and set but Rise saw no mist of any kind sweeping between the trees and she began to despair.

Old Gray-hump watched the lively fawn slowly become somber and dim. He worried as his own strength still slowly failed him, his eyes growing weaker with age and his nose barely able to smell out anything but Rise’s fresh scent. At least his ears were still good and he was thankful for that, but the fawn’s decent into silence saddened him.

I cannot stay in this world forever, he thought one night as he looked up at the moon, just now reaching full. I feel myself growing thin, yet I want to see this child safely to her own kind.

He loved her like he had loved the calves his mate had birthed in the plains so long ago, and more, since she was all alone, like him. She was so unlike the buffalo, so small and fragile and yet so strong. The will and thought of this small fawn were soaking into him deeply now, he mused, and they had become more like each other than he had realized.

As the horizon began to show signs of the coming dawn, Old Gray-hump smelled the mist descending from the mountains. He nudged the sleeping fawn and nodded his head silently towards the wood as he rose. His bones were aching from the night’s chill and his eyes had trouble making out the darkness from the trees but he felt a call pulling him onward, and he knew this time he did not have to resist.

Rise was sleepy at first, wondering in half-woken tiredness if she was dreaming. She followed behind the old buffalo as he trudged into the wood and the chill of mist settled around them. The setting moon filtered through the trees and seemed to light the world around them oddly, the bull’s hump shining it’s silver-gray in the light.

“I am glad you brought us here, little one.” She heard Old Gray-hump murmur to her. The mist was thickening around them now and his form was more of a light-and-shadow in front of her as she walked. “All is well.”

The mist directly in front of her obscured his shining hump for a moment, and then it lit again, brighter than before though she knew the moon should have set. Maybe the sunlight was starting to come up over the edge of the world now, she thought.

On they walked, Rise following the shining form always just misted enough to be obscure but bright enough to not be lost. She woke more as she walked and began to smell more of the forest around them. It was a strange scent, moist and green and warm. Birds were singing from somewhere in the trees ahead of them and she could hear in the distance the sound of water flowing over stone.

Then the fog began to part, and the figure ahead of her seemed to move away more quickly. As Rise passed out of the mists she saw a great shining stag that towered before her, and he turned his pink-red rimmed bright eyes on her with a mirthful laugh before disappearing with the mists.

Old Gray-hump was nowhere to be seen but somehow, sorrowful as she was Rise knew it had been his time and that the stag had led them both home.

She stood in stillness as a gentle rain, all that was left of the morning mist, slowly abated around her. Her heart ached for her friend and now that the stag had vanished she was afraid of the new forest that stood before her. Her shoulders sagged and her head drooped to the ground as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Then a strange call broke the birdsong for a moment, and Rise looked up, frightened. On a hillside nearby she saw the sunlit shapes of two tall pillars of stone surrounded by ferns and flowers and next to it the shadowy figure of a deer.

Rise felt her joy well up again as she remembered stones like these and the shape of her mother standing before them. She rushed up the hillside as fast as her legs could carry her and bounded up to –

The strange deer with his great curled horns and magpie-like pelt let out a bellow as his legs splayed out around him in surprise. His face was unlike any deer Rise had seen before, short-nosed and beautiful beneath a strange black bird-like mask, and above his head an odd pattern shown with amber light and was softly humming out the song that was his name.

Rise leapt back in fear though upon realizing that the figure was not her mother, or any creature like she had seen before. She cowered behind the twin statues and thought she could hear them chuckle.

“Well now, little fawn...” The stag’s light voice laughed out to her from the other side of the pillars. “What little bird gave you such a fright? It wasn’t Vipin here now was it? I’m as harmless as the breeze today.”