((Yeah, I know. Two parts in one day. But I wrote this story almost just to write this.))

The Index
Chapter 4: In Which We See That While Squirrels May Be Evil, Butterflies Are Usually Lawful Good.



As Seed climbed the Twin God’s Hill, the sun set behind him. His shadow walked ahead of him as if it were checking the hill for pitfalls. The light bathed the world in changing colors – it had been red a little while ago, but had since shifted to mauve, making everything it touched a little darker. The Hill seemed much bigger, climbing it in this place, this land-before-lands. It felt like a mountain, disguised as a hill and covered in tall plants with big leaves. As he walked, those plants broke up his shadow into a thousand little fragments.

The trees around him rustled, “You’re getting slower. You cannot make it.” “Cannot.” “Cannot.”

He picked up his hooves in defiance, moving into a quicker trot. “I. am going. Home. Whether you like it, or not.”

“Home? Where’s that?” A voice came out of the earth – a rustling voice, but also a real one. It had a somewhat sad air to it – an older deer’s voice, though not an old one’s yet. It had the gentle sounds of a whistling mask mixed in – and it dawned on Seed that the voice he was hearing was his own, coming from his shadows and the trees.

“It’s where my friends are,” Seed answered, looking down. He had always been a little obsessed with light and shadow, the same way as he was obsessed with greenery. This shadow, the one that leaned back on the hill before him, was patterned with the veins and edges of the leaves of nearby plants where all the shadows merged to one.

“Friends?” The shadow didn’t sound like it was mocking him; it sounded like it was smiling a thin, wry smile – a sad smile, even. “...You mean the people who pity you so much that they let you be around them?”

“They don’t…they don’t pity me.” Seed hesitated. “They like my company, my…” He stumbled over what else to say.

“Your pretty words? You’re pathetic. Even assuming someone cares, that someone would be upset if they heard this… You really assign yourself so much importance, but you’re really just insignificant.” The shadow’s words felt like winter winds burying they way past his fur, beneath his skin – they wriggled and froze the muscles that they touched, stabbing their way towards Seed’s heart.

“Someone would care…”

“No. They’d feel bad, because unlike you, these deer are good people… But you don’t matter to anyone, not really. You’re just like a little piece of flotsam.” He could feel them tearing, hitting perfectly-sized targets, fitting through perfectly-sized holes…

“Scape –”

“Scape must pity you more than anyone. You’re so needy, so dependant – you cling to him so desperately that he can’t bear to tell you know. He’d be much happier if he and Zerg didn’t always have you trailing around after them, asking to be part of a family you’re not.” The shadow paused and added, “You’re like a stalker, really.”

Seed remembered all those times he waited for Scape, because sometimes he had just wanted to recapture something innocent – all those times he felt just a little uneasy, not knowing where he stood – all the times feeling bad for distracting Scape from his true love…

Love. He reached for another defense, another shield. He looked at the image in his heart of a pretty young doe with a ragged ear and big blue eyes, eyes that looked up at him tenderly, like he could save the world sometimes.

“Nevilly loves me. She says so, you know…”

“I’m sure she does. Anyone will fall for a guy who writes sappy, self-indulgent prose about her nearly the moment they meet,” the shadow said, sounding almost gentle, “But you know it can’t last – she’s a healthy young doe. She has needs. One of these days… someone like you won’t be enough. You’ll have to let her go then – you’ll have to let her be happy with someone who can. Wouldn’t it be much easier, to stay here and not have to live in fear of that day?”

They’d talked about that, a little. Nevilly knew. But when they were walking and saw a doe glowing with pregnant warmth, Seed wondered if she, too, glanced a moment longer at things that maybe could never be...

“We’ve talked about this. I’m not – I’m not afraid,” Seed pleaded.

“OK, now you’re just being a liar. You always do, when things get rough – you really don’t trust anyone enough to let them see when you’re hurt. Even you don’t believe you’re worth their worry.” The shadow seemed to touch him – he felt the sheer cold of what it said burn its way across his face, meeting a wave of heat as the tears welled up in his eyes. "You call yourself a poet -- but isn't art about passion, about putting your all into everything? You, the deer who just shuts it all up, because he knows if he let anyone see -- he'd be all alone?"

"I wouldn't, I wouldn't...I..."


“If you’re not afraid, then why don’t you give her what she deserves – not a mate, but a husband? Why can’t you make up your heart? You’re too much of a coward, jerking around someone so delicate like that.”

“I…I just don’t want to be wrong.”

“What happened to love, then?”

Seed stayed silent, looking at the shadow like it had just beaten him – like his entire world had had the floor taken out from under it, and it was crumbling, crumbling away…

“As for everyone else, all your more popular ‘friends,’ they’re popular because they’re nice; they wouldn’t turn down a self-loathing, self-centered, indecisive little mess of a deer like you. They wouldn’t be so heartless.”

“Stop,” Seed whispered. The tears finally edged their way out onto his face, leaving hot, wet streaks on the otherwise bare fur like canyons plowing through the mountains.

“Unlike you; you’re so focused on a few people, to the neglect of everyone else…that’s not how the forest is supposed to be. Not how a deer’s supposed to behave.”

“Stop. Stop. Stop.” The words were gasps, desperate breaths for air – they came out buried in sobs.

“They’re all…” the shadow sounded like he was crying, too. “Too good. Too good for you..”

“Please stop, please, please…stop.”

But it didn’t stop – it couldn’t stop. Seed couldn’t tell who was saying what anymore, after a while – it all sounded like him, down to his very bones.

It was all just a lone figure kneeling on a hill, bathed in dark colors.