"Iaurdagnire... Iaurdagnire, it is time to wake up."

The voice was viscous; tar that choked its way down my throat and strangled my lungs to awake. My heart quaked as if a glob of that crude, sticky voice had smeared itself over the flame that keeps me alive. Falling back in a flurry of confused legs and a dizzied mind I could see my world had changed - everything was dark - cast in a haze of red and olive smog that seemed to soften the ground and make the trees look as if they were hot to the touch. The air was immovably thick and my breathing slowed to a crawl, yet, I was not afraid.

"Do you know me?"

A question I had heard one too many times before. My eyes stung horribly as I looked up into the chemical eyes of a giant deer standing just two trees away; ‘twas not Winter who had asked me this question again.
"No, I do not." I wheezed, still only half-standing. The strange air pressure had given me an irrational vertigo, and I feared a black-out if I lifted my head up past my shoulders, "But I can take an educated guess, Autumn." I hissed, refusing to let this creature install the same vomit-inducing fear that Winter once had.



"How very clever..." The voice confirmed, unmoved and unimpressed. Wisps of blackened mist moved like sludge up and down its legs, taking the green from the earth. Unlike Winter, this Season Spirit was clam and didn't seem to move very much, and of course the main difference was that this – Autumn - was antler-less.
"You are a Doe." I stated blankly, "You are not a Stag, like Winter." Autumn stared intently and seemed to contemplate my hidden question as to why she was female. Only after considering words did she give a concise answer,
"We are Seasons; we have no gender. From one of your many lives, you gave us gender; you are the one who wove my female form."
I didn't know which I was more shocked by: the fact that she gave me an answer without an ounce of malice in her voice, or that she was conscious of the fact I knew my place on her agenda.
"... You are not so bold as Winter, perhaps." I baited, "Do you not see me as a pound of flesh? I can tell you now that your precious time is being wasted, Autumn, for I know I have more to give before you can take me."
“I am no fool like my brother,” Autumn continued, her words almost seemed to drip from her mouth, “but we are all still wrought with jealousy. We love you, dear, sweet Iaurdagnire, and we want nothing more to be like you. To be real and to be seen by others as you are. Our only pleasure is to take your life time and time again, to hurt you and feel gratified when we steal all the knowledge of your years only to watch you grow from a fawn again. To grow wiser, stronger every time in the hopes that one day you will show how us how to be exactly what you are among the living: flesh and blood.”
“Impossible,” I spat, my voice bubbling; “the seasons are what life depends on, therefore you can never become it. What you dream of is beyond comprehension; if the God’s granted me for such a benign wish then you are a jester to their court.”
“Ah, so you do believe in the Gods.”

A raging hurricane swept through my mind. I refused – no – I wanted to refuse them. I wanted to be deemed insane to explain the spirit of Winter, to explain why my eyes saw day when it was night. But in my heart of hearts, I could no longer deny it. However, that is not to say I will accept such a purpose to these creatures.
“While that may be evident, it doesn’t mean to say I need the presence of any God to justify you and your torments.” I was tempted to run blindly in the direction of the Pond to wash myself. The hair on my body felt sticky, and I had given up breathing through my nose as my nostrils felt impacted with what I can only describe as the feeling of wet ash and smoke. Fire. I could feel fire, but not in the literal sense.
“Are you angry, servant?” Autumn asked, her voice dull and monotonous like rain hitting rock. Angry would not be the word I would choose, in fact, I wouldn’t have been able to choose just one.
“Why are you not trying to kill me, like Winter. That’s the only reason you’re here.” Part of me wanted her to try, just so I can prove that my will to live is stronger than the power she has to take it away.
"The rut was interesting, wasn't it? The deafening voices making it easier for the trees to persuade their leaves to die and let go... but if only the likes of you - the beings with hearts - could hear the sound those trees make when I tell them their leaves must die. T'would break you all." Autumn laughed at her own little joke, but her face didn't move and her eyes did not - perhaps could not - blink. I could not read this creature.
"Did the absence of the Doe you call Oseaan make your heart grow lustful? My charge did well in restraining himself in front of all those pretty hinds..."
A black mass fell from my mouth as I coughed to clear my airway. It was a hard mass, bitter and rough to the tongue. The noises that followed as I tried to dislodge whatever else was blocking it were vile, grating on my own ears. The smog… I had to get out. Her words confused me,
"N-No," I stammered, the corners of my mouth wet with the dark syrup seeping from my throat. "I felt nothing."
"Now isn't that interesting..." Autumn moved forward, just a step, but in that step I took a breath and could taste her. My face tightened as I was suffocated in that one inhale, falling back almost to the ground when I saw another treacle-like limb slithered forward,
"... do you know why?"
I had denied it for so long. I knew why I did not succumb to instinct, I knew why I felt nothing, I knew why I did not feel the desire, the temptation. I knew all along that it simply wasn't there.
"Y-You took it from me." I snarled maliciously, "Our purpose - every animals purpose - is to simply survive. Make sure our blood is carried on. But you... y-you took it because my purpose is predetermined. You all re-birth me whenever you can take me for your own selfish needs, so I have no desire to follow the natural call."
"You are indeed wise, my darling Iaurdagnire." Autumn crept closer until she was on top of me, shrinking as she slithered. I was on the ground, now, too weak to move, wheezing and gripping at whatever air I could force down my smothered airways. The black ooze... it kept coming.



"I have a little secret, my servant." She whispered in my ear, her hot breath piercing through and into my skull. The pain of her poison was almost too much to bare,
"The fawns you love so dearly. You wish to some day be a father, do you not? It's a wonder why you have not adopted every fawn you befriend and help grow, like the rather handsome Virgil."
My eyes were beginning to roll back into my skull. I felt... dizzy, sick, like I had no control over anything. I couldn't speak anymore, not with her smothering fog over my body. All I could do was listen.
"Does it not make you jealous? The "Noble" Stag adopts even though he has the means to produce offspring like so many others... But not you. Hm-hm-hm." Her patronizing chuckle burned my ears, like I was being stabbed by a hot poker with every word. But I could do nothing.
"No desire... no instinct. Oh my precious Iaurdagnire, you are correct in more ways than on. Your purpose is predetermined; you'll never need to breed... your blood belongs to us."
"N-No..." It couldn't be... as much as I didn't want to listen, as much as I wanted to get up and run as fast as I could, those words... I feared them more than anything.
"The Gods - in granting you to the Seasons - are the ones who took away your means to sire children, Iaurdagnire. You cannot, and never will, be a father."

Great tears tumbled down my cheeks as I clenched my eyes shut. Those words were a dagger to my heart, and in that moment I felt betrayed. But ultimately... jealous. Jealous of the forest, jealous of my friends expecting their own sons and daughters while I, with all my hearts desires, stay stationary. Perhaps it was the reason why my relationship with Oseaan is unmoving; they had taken it. All of it. Could I even feel love? Was it all a rouse?
"But it's not like that will effect you now, will it?" Autumn said callously, "You are the safe one. The calculated one who never lets his emotions get the better of him. A... Mountain, to an ever changing valley, and one who will - even now - not bow to even the will of the heavens, hm?"
I opened my eyes slowly to see the very pits of hers. White, empty voids as blinding as the sun.
"I," My voice was not as loud as I wanted it to be, "I will not let you fill me with jealousy and hatred for my friends... that is what you're trying to do, isn't it. I-Infest my mind with dark thoughts so I can be persuaded to let go. I am not a leaf you can simply pluck." Gathering whatever strength I could find from no-where, I managed to pull myself onto my ankles before straining my legs to stand. The black ooze poured from my mouth, and I could see more of it coming from a growing number of non-existent holes over my body, trickling down my stomach and making me feel heavy. That was it. This poison, this is how she was killing me.
"No-one can escape such thoughts. All that needs to happen is for someone to point them out... even now you are wishing desperately to be Virgil, aren't you."
"NO!" I drove my head into my tree, pushing my tines into the bubbling bark as far as possible. She was succeeding; the seeds of jealousy already taking root. I began to question all my friends, which only threw me into a depression. I could see their faults, as always, except this time I could not justify them. They shone so perfectly out of the black.
"Hm-hm-hm," There was that laugh again, "I'll let your mind bleed you dry on its own. Wisdom may come with time, but time also kills, especially when you're on your own with such destroying thoughts."
"W-When you're... on your own." I repeated, pulling my antlers from the tree slowly and turning to look at her. She was the same size as me, now, confident I would fall under the weight of the world.
"N-No matter how many times you or any of the other seasons have tak-k-ken me, your t-time will always be endless, alone in endlessness you are. Y-You are jealous of me, of my kind because we have the release of death when our time has come, but for you, time will never come! You must have tortured every one of my lives for the satisfaction of knowing that I... That I because of you will never, can never rest!" Convulsing beyond my control, my stomach sent a rainbow-ed oily substance spilling from my mouth. It was so hot I cried out in pain and had to fall against my tree, my... my tree.

No, I could feel my knees caving.
I will not fall down.

I roared a cry of both rage and despair so forceful I could now taste blood in ribbons coursing up my dry, shredded throat caked in blackness. My hooves tore up the ground in frustration, wanting to shred the her face as her very form threatened my life with every breath.
“Coward!” I screamed, thrashing my antlers, “Show me what jealousy can really do! Kill me, WOLF!”

Laughter. Manic, unforgiving laughter... but it was not coming from me. Autumn's form had melted down to nothing; all that remained was a wall of fog that shrouded everything in darkness. I could not see, hear, smell, all my senses were shot. Antlers, hooves, every part of me riled and lay into the nothingness mercilessly until my only option was to run. It didn't matter where, in what direction, just run.

But I didn't get far.