When Revtheyr lay down under the mushroom, he felt terrible. There was a gnawing ache in his stomach, and he knew it was from something he ate. Whenever this had happened before, he had been ten times better when he awoke. But this time, his dream, not his stomach, was what sent him into a cold sweat.

"Revtheyr, I cannot understand why you insist on chasing that buck." his father was saying. "It is neither befitting of your bloodline, nor seemly to your kin, to be seen like that. You are descended from the royal line of Kirin, and MUST act like the prince you are."

Young Revtheyr, only a fawn, had no idea how angry his father was. He simply took it as a chastisement, and tried to prance off, to play with the others. Not that he had many friends. For it was 'unseemly to his kind' - as father was fond of saying - to 'associate with such commoners'. Rev didn't think they were that bad. Most of the fawns he played with were very nice to him, and often found him the tenderest shoots of grass, and the highest rocks to climb, since he wasn't a very observant little one to find them on his own.

But this time, his father was tired of his words being ignored.

"You will listen to me! Or you are no son of mine!"

The shining white antlers came down on young Rev like a boulder, bowling him over, and knocking him backward into a tree. He called out for his father, before he realized his father was the one hurting him. Screaming like the child he was, he took to his heels, bleeding from the side and from the head, darting off into the forest, with his irate father following after. His mother, powerless to stand against the stag, watched in terror as her young crossbreed son was driven from his home, and gored over and over again. Sadly, Rev watched her turn away, her bright horn shining in grief, with crystal tears trickling down to shatter on the rocks she stood on.

He had no time to dwell on his mother. The next pass his father made sent him head over hoof into the ravine that marked the end of his herd's territory. When he dragged himself to his shaking legs, and looked up, the stag who looked down at him regarded him with angry, nearly hateful, eyes.

"So be it. You wish to associate with the commoners, you may BE one of the commoners." he sneered, turning. But he looked over his shoulder once more at Rev's shivering forms. "Never return, Prince. I cannot stand the sight of such a failure. Your mother will be informed that you have died. Because you are dead to me. Perhaps your 'friends' will shelter you, now that you are no longer their superior."

With that, the stag turned, and headed back into the forest. Rev didn't know what to do. Even should he try and follow his father back, he knew he'd die by those antlers. Those sharp prongs that had cut and gouged into his side. Wounds that would heal... but there were wounds that would never heal, deeper in his psyche. Wounds that left scars no hoof or nose could hope to touch and soothe. Scars that would remain - long after he had shed his first velvet. If he lived that long.

Quietly, the fawn took one long last look back at the forest he had known, and took off, bleating his distress and pain into the silent night, with only the full moon to hear and return a soundless call.

Waking with a start, Rev panted, and glanced around. Other deer were milling about the ruins, and had bellowed, causing him to come back to reality. Still shaking he rose and gave a light stretch. Echoing the scared and timid fawn in the dream, he called again and again, hoping for his shining knight, his Tyerk, to come to him, and make him forget what that dream had made him remember. Getting no answer, he slowly made his way toward the ruins, spying some others dancing. Perhaps some frivolity would lighten his mood - and drive away the image of the silver deer and white antlers, or the sorrowful equine tears, that still, for the time being, burned in his mind like a glowing ember.