The buzzing was loud, annoying and right inside his ears. He groaned lowly, drifting back towards the waking from the insufferable insects deciding to make his ears their home.

“Bastard Gods," he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.“Don’t even have the decency to allow me peace after my death.” He raised a paw to swipe at his ears but his leg stiffened up, unable to bend as it used to.

His eyes slit open and he turned his head looking at his leg, oh that’s the reason, it wasn’t his leg. There was no paw or thick gray fur covering the muscles of a wolf’s leg. This new leg was a deer leg, all thin, gangly and hoofed.

It took a second for the reality to sink in and his eyes widened...A deer leg....He turned his head slowly gazing down the rest of his body. He was sprawled on his side in a bunch of leaves, back pressed to the rough bark of a tree, and he had the body of a deer. Well, technically a fawns, but it certainly wasn’t his.

He screamed and leapt to his new stick legs, they wobbled and twisted and he stumbled backwards. Wolves worked differently then deer, and he had no practice with being one so it wasn’t a big surprise when he fell. His legs came together, catching on each other and he fell, heel over head, down a hill all the while still screaming. Birds screeched and scattered, frogs croaked and splashed, and into the water he went. He came up coughing in the shallows, gasping for breath, his short fur dripping wet.

“Are you alright? Oh you poor thing, come on out before you catch a cold.”

His gaze shot up, meeting that of a does. They were clear, a mixture of blue and green, like the sea he had once seen in his younger days. He flattened his floppy ears the best he could and growled, it was pathetic he knew it, deer were not meant to growl.

She blinked; he could see her confusion and then she smiled at him. His growl stopped and he felt embarrassed, that smile made him want to sink back into the water with shame.

“Tough guy huh?” She laughed, it was a heavenly sound and Halden felt himself blush even more. Who was this doe!?

“Come on out,” she said again, watching him as he climbed from the water. Water poured off him, his fur slicked back the mud on the bank making it hard for him to walk. He wobbled and tumbled, almost falling again but she was suddenly there lending him her strength and balance. “New, I see,” she smiled again at him and he nodded his head slowly.

“Where am I?” His voice sounded the same, well almost, it sounded like it had when he was a pup.

She guided him to a willow tree, lying down beside it. He followed in suit, she was warm and he was freezing from his little tumble into the lake. “The Endless Forest,” she said softly and glanced at him, “do you have a name?”

He frowned slightly, now seeing her clearly; she was not a real deer. No...She wasn’t like any deer he had ever seen before, she was beautiful and magical. He could taste the magic in the air.

“Halden,” he said looking away across the lake. In the distance he could see other deer, all shapes and sizes, what kind of place was this? This Endless Forest.

“Well Halden, I am Kita. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She smiled again, but this time he didn’t feel embarrassed or shy.

“The Endless Forest...what is it?”

“Well,” she tilted her head, gazing up through the thick crying branches of the Willow thinking. “It is a place outside all other places, where those who find it or those sent live. A place of magic and harmony...Most of the time.”

Halden frowned, that was the most confusing explanation he had ever heard, a place outside all other places? Well that was impossible, but then again he had died and ended up here in the body of a...well some sort of fawn. “So I am stuck here?”

She laughed again, angel bells chiming, “I wouldn’t put it that way Halden but...well yes; there is no way to leave.”

Halden sighed and laid his head on the ground, those bastard gods had a very strange sense of humour. He closed his eyes suddenly very tired. There was too much to learn now, to much put on him at once. He fell asleep curled against Kita’s warm side.


Blood...He tasted it again, his teeth slashed across the throat, tearing out the remaining life from the creature. He felt the joy of the kill, trembling as the warm life liquid slid down his throat. Tossing back his head he howled, one paw resting on the two legged beasts chest. He howled again and again, shadows laughed and danced around him, red and black, blood and darkness.


“Halden!”

He jerked awake as something dropped on his head, catching in his antlers. He gazed up into the ocean eyes of Kita. “I’m awake what do you want?”

She smiled and stepped back, tilting her head to look at him from below her skull mask. “I want you to come and play with me and my friends.”

He raised his head, a flower petal falling across his nose. “No,” he gazed up toward his antlers seeing flowers tangled in them. He growled and shook the large rack, flowers raining down around him. When he looked back up she was giggling at him, she seemed to find joy in such simple things.

“Come on you never want to play! Two years and you only know me!” She was pouting, he felt his resistance fading.

“I will come,” he pushed himself up, “but I will not play any silly games.”

“Yay!” She bounced around him laughing, “you will like them Halden, trust me!” She rubbed against his side fondly, her grin permanent across her small pretty mouth.

He rolled his eyes, feeling his heart skip a beat at her touch. She was so small now, he remembered the time when he was smaller than her...it seemed like ages ago. “Don’t be so happy, it is embarrassing!” He looked away and walked forward, some petals still falling from his antlers.

“I can’t help it, it is who I am,” she said. Trotting along beside him, her head held high, the sun glittering off her snowy coat. “Don’t forget to bow alright?”

Halden grunted, and glanced at her. She was giving him that look; those sad doe eyes that she knew would let her get her way. “Fine! But I do it only because you asked...” he looked away, “none of those stag friends of yours better get to close.”

She sighed and bumped him in the side, “I am not a child you Wolf, I am older then you!”

“I shall believe that when you act it.” He said back, as serious as ever, but Kita laughed. She always laughed; she was always happy, always kind. Halden looked away, a blush spreading under his Magpie mask. Those Gods were bastards...