Changing out the mask or the coat lets a deer make choices as to the mood or friend they are with that day. Royal deer come from the very cells their body happens to be made of so some parents deer love making session created a fawn who from the day of birth choice has been taken from. Within those realms limited choice becomes accepted in exchange for wealth of the forest. Within that herd a hierarchy established by ancient deer who knew how to create rule systems that last long after an ancient deer 's death maintains territory. As good as that all becomes for some the lack of choice and over generations not being the center of such a group has a high toll and price which often involves the taking of life of a fawn. Constraints do make creativity as royal deer know but mostly of the wicked type done with a gleeful play, friendly tug and if circumstances merit a removal, cut or entanglement to maintain the system. In the forest freely frolicking from group to group leaving some things unknown creates opportunities with few consequences. Adding a royal layer to mold deer to a purpose not of their own making enhances a type of creating that results in vast changes to relationships and a threat to royal power. Enslaved deer either submit or they elevate to a game. There can be only one in those games...

im not sure if you'll see this, but im the little fawn you've been with! the other big deer is my friend, just thought i'd say hi!

my mother told me "tama" meant "jewel," whatever that means. maybe how my lips squeeze together and barely touch as I pronounce the "w" or how the "l" sounds so much like an "r." my mother knew a lot about a foreign language, and she tried to teach me, keeping her face close to mine, as if she was smelling my cheek, and trying to look me in the eyes as she airily whispered to me when i looked at different things. who was my father? idk? my mother, perhaps. i'm tempted to say no one taught me to sneer, grunt, or spar, but if that were the case, i guess i wouldn't know how to right now. "tama" means the fortune to have had them; if not for them, i would not know. "tama" means my past, stored in the box of my mind or straw left to dry between a crooked pine's roots. "ttaammaa" i breathe, looking for the smell of forest fire in the air.

edit:
i'm resting my head next to my torso, where i smell that same snow-furred buck, like the ash from that forest fire. "father? mother? me?" except the curve of his back is different, and one moment he might be here, and the next gone. "where?" except no matter; i still smell the straw under the crooked pine's roots festering. i'm tempted to blink, to check whether i am asleep or awake, but if my eyes are already closed, maybe i will mistakenly open them. if what i see is the same, i could have been dreaming about reality or i was awake the whole time. "what do you make of it?" the snow-pelted buck asks. i hadn't noticed him approach. "make of what?" he's looking at the ground again. "this." he points to a strange track. finally i say, "it looks like a crow's." he smells it next.

~
these r 2 sep moments in time