It's just the wind darling...
...as it echoes through the trees...
"Hey, fawn?" Something pokes his ear. "Fawn?"
Sokonei sleepily opens his eyes and stares at the antlers so close to his head. The stag yawns and sits up.
"Rise and shine, fawn."
He stares.
"What's wrong with you?" The stag yawns again and gets up to stretch. "You're so quiet. A bit ago you wouldn't shut your trap."
He stares and starts shaking a little.
"Fawn?"
...stares...
"You can talk now if that's it."
Sokonei breathed. "What did you do to my fish?"
"Nothing,"
He walks to the pool and looks down; a channel has been dug, connecting the pool to the pond. It is now empty.
"My fish."
"What? It's still alive. I let it into the pond again is all."
"My fish." He paws at the edge of the pool. "You let him go."
"Of course I let him go," The stag laughs. "He wasn't your fish."
"But I caught him."
"Yes but he's not yours."
"How?"
"That fish has a family, fawn. He's theirs not yours, understand?"
He says nothing and stares into the pool.
"Hey, listen to me."
He looks up, his ears back. "I am."
"That fish has a mother and a father just like you and I do."
"I don't have a mother or a father."
The stag laughs again. "Everyone does. Come here, I'll prove it to you."
Sokonei follows the stag to the old oak. It is mostly empty save a sleeping fawn in one corner. High up near the tip of the stags antlers are many, many, many symbols. Sokonei reconizes them as names, all seemingly burned into the tree. He looks up and around.
"How many are there?"
"As many as there are deer." The stag says. "Now I don't know if you're an orphan to not have your mum following you around but hop up onto my back and we'll find your parents right with your name."
He jumps up and puts his front legs in the stags antlers so he can see higher. "I don't see my name here."
The stag walks to another section. "How's about here?"
"...No..."
He walks to the next.
Sokonei walked to the pond and walked into the water, not stopping until the water was up to his shoulders. He stood there and waited, ignoring the curious looks the other fawns and deer were giving him. Koi started coming up to him in the water--well, not to him, but to the tadpoles around him.
He waits patiently until a small golden koi comes up to the surface and then snaps it up in his mouth. A deer nearby gasps. He keeps his mouth tightly closed with the little fish swimming round and squirming frantically. Sokonei proudly walks to a willow near the pond where he's already dug out a nice little pool about knee-deep for his fish full of fresh rainwater. He spews the little fish into the shallow little enclosier and trots around it, his head and ears high.
It swims in dazed circles until finally the little fish is still.
...Very still...
"Are you happy with it?" He puts his face down close to the water.
The little fish doesn't move at all. It sinks to the bottom of the little pool and the young stag watches it worriedly.
"Do you need something?" He paws at the surface of the water. "OH! A name!"
He sits beside the pool and thinks.
...thinks...
...thinks...
...
"Fish!" He stands up and says excitedly.
The fish doesn't move.
"Um...Little fish?"
Nothing.
"Little Gold Fish?" A stag calls as he passes, and then he laughs.
The koi moved a fin.
"That's it!" Sokonei jumps. "Little Gold Fish!" He looks to the stag. "Thank-you!"
"With each rutt comes an odder generation." The older deer shakes his head. "I'm very glad I'm not your father."
If the fawn hears he doesn't care. He calls to the little fish over and over again, for almost two hours. The stag walks to the pond all during that time, shaking his head at the little fawns futile attempts at calling his fish.
He stops beneath the willow and sits there. Sokonei doesn't even bother to bow as he's waiting for his fish to come up so badly.
"Look!"
The stag snaps to attention. The rain has stopped and the sun has come out. The hollow of the tree is almost empty. Only a few sleeping fawns remain. He can still smell the rain, and lingers. Something odd happened to him. He's sure he hadn't fallen asleep.
"Look! Look!"
He sets his head down and flicks his ears.
I didn't sleep.
"SOKONEI! LOOK!" His friend bellows in his ear.
"What?"
"Mud!"
He can't say anything to that.
Echria steps on his tail. "Didn't you hear me?"
"Yes." He winces. "Mud."
"MUD!" Celeste trots over and cries loudly.
"Mud." He nods to them both.
"It's the first mud of our lives don't you want to see?" Echria asks.
"Not really."
"But it's MUD!" Celeste cries louder.
He nods again. "I know. Atu said that after rain there is mud."
"So you don't want to play in mud?"
"No, sorry."
"You sure?" Echria asks.
"Yup."
"Okay." She trots off. "C'mon Celes."
Celeste follows. "I think he's been hanging around Atuutluk too much."
"Atu likes to play though."
"...really?"
"I think so..."
"Jergens?"
"No not Jergens."
"Oh yeah, Jergens tells nice stories."
"Who else does he hang around?"
"NightShade."
"Who's that, do we know them?"
"Don't ask me. I don't know her either...but they say she's cursed by the Gods."
"Cursed?" Celeste looks in all directions and then up as if something might fall from the sky.
"...I don't know if it's true though."
He listens as the two get out of earshot and rises from the damp earth.
NightShade? Cursed?
drip......
......drip
The young stag shakes his head vigorously, dashing for the shelter of the old oak he'd deemed the Great Tree. He lays down on the cool earth surrounded by other deer and a few fawns, all seeking shelter from the rain. He loves this new scent in the air...it's as if all the earth is breathing...
A faint unfamiliar smell comes to his nose. It's followed by a call that's low and mournful.
It can't be a deer, he reasons, no deer sounds like that.
The other deer hear it but they don't bother themselves with it. He stays calm like they do...and listens to the faint sound. They almost sound like words...he listens...
......tandè yo ap machè.........
.............tandè voi yo ki ap chantè.....
........Tandè chase a ki pral vini......
........Gadè yo, tout fet pral fini.....
~
"Do you understand me, little ones?" A calm voice says.
I nod, my eyes are shut tightly and I can hardly smell.
"You both must look after each other, pran swen youn lot, because our time is short."
I'm aware of someone beside me. They are smaller, weaker... but whomever is speaking I feel is strongest. They must be far larger than the both of us. It takes me a long time to open my eyes, even so the lids are heavy, the world is dark except for a circle of pure white right before me. I reconize it as a face, glowing eyes staring at me...through me.
"Your eyes open so soon little one..."
I stare...I feel so weak...I cannot do anything...
"But I must be sorry...I've scared you..." The voice came again.
It has no mouth....
I felt a strange sense of fear rise in my belly.
What is it....
