Violence and blood warning!
Ninety-seven.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
One hundred… It is exactly one hundred hind-steps from the nearest mushroom growths to my place. It borders the birch forest and the much darker, older trees of the First forest. The small area is marked by a single tree surrounded by a barren reddish brown patch of earth. You cannot see anything unusual, perhaps the seemingly endless grasses of the bright birches world and the rolling hills and a few birds here and there. I've brought only one deer to this place, but a great many fawns. It is partly shaded by the oaks and partly exposed to the sun…all the more to love.
I suppose you'd like me to stop chasing after sparrows and tell the tale already. I must warn you that this is nothing for the younger ears. It is one of the few stories I will never tell to even the most curious of the fawns. Since you ask and persist (but mostly because you bring honey comb), I will tell you.
Sit now, and be warm.
-~-~-~-
I was born far from this forest, in a land of beauty and terror. The first thing I remember is the honey-sweet cooing voice of my mother singing a language that I no longer understand. She was a creature far different from what I am and we all are now. Yet again the name eludes me…but I think it contained “Um”; so this is what I shall call her breed. I was an Um as well, complete with the awkward forelegs and too-long hind-legs, the centered eyes and the small, almost useless nose and ears. I was always taller than the others, but I was swift and strong like my mother. The Um were hunters. We had to be silent and quick, killing before our prey could cry out, and then carrying the carcasses on our shoulders to our camp.
My respect for the deer began with my first hunt. I was quite young, still just out of crossing the thin line from what you'll understand as fawnhood to true youth. My weapon was a spear made of bone, carved from the shed antlers of a large stag (almost too fitting for my mission). It had taken days of tracking—without a good sense of smell, mind you—to track down the perfect herd of healthy does and bucks lead by a pure white stag. I was sent out on my own, as was the way of the Um, even though I was young. The chief and my mother warned me to never kill a white stag nor to harm his fawns. I was after the does, solely does, and I meant to bring back the two largest I could find. A simple (to the Um) yet dangerous task.
It is now that I know why a doe will fight so hard to stay alive…that she will kill before she allows some strange creature to kill her and her sisters. It is now that I understand that a stag, regardless of whichever he favors most, will fight for any within his herd. It is now that I realize that the deer were in fact intelligent, thinking beings, and now that I see why they killed me without hesitation.
But what did I know of this then? Nothing.
Hands tight round my spear I clung to shadows in my deerskin, moving with the slow, graceful movements of a deer and awkward tread of an Um. The first few minutes I had been mesmerized. I could hear the deer speaking, through my skin's ears; I could see as they saw through the eye holes of my mask; and I could smell all of their scents by pressing the muzzle against my little nose. The secrets of that deerskin—as I now realize—were supposed to stop me from attacking those beautiful beings.
I did not think.
Blindly, I thrust my spear straight into the heart of a doe. I will never forget the surprise in her eyes, the shock… I felt it through my spear, through the tender flesh and muscle that the sharp edge cut like a wing to the sky. I felt it through the thick, hot currents of blood that streamed down onto the grass and onto my arms like something burning. She let out a hollow cry as her spirit flew away on the wind. My skin was not yet completely off when a buck rammed into me with his antlers, the word murderer glinting on the sharp ends.
Please let me know of any spelling or grammar errors.
Really. Really. Good. I
I shamefully confess now that I hardly ever read anything online anymore, and I was about to close this when I caught the words "why they killed me without hesitation."
Instantly hooked me. You have a really powerful writing style. It's really straightforward, almost understated, so that the feeling seeps through without you even realize it's overtaking you.
Again, really nice. Can't wait for more.
♥! I shall be reading
I shall be reading more of this for sure
~Shaku~ Thank-you ^-^ I
Thank-you ^-^
I remember reading a whole article on the 'fact' that "People just can't focus on reading on-line very easily"...they said it had something to do with the cave-men's natural awareness. I have to print a lot of the things I want to read on-line.
I'm glad you like the style, though I normally don't write like this...at all o.o
~Vandetta~
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Thank-you, and I'm glad you like it ^-^
It's weird, because I used to