Chapter One
Chapter Two
~________-----------Ch. 3----------________~
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Hours ticked by and the sky grew dark. Such a warm, beautiful summer night. The fireflies flashed their lights as they floated between the trees, dancing to cricket song. A monarch-pelted youth remained curled in the underbrush, alone still and long past drifted off. It was a fit -less sleep, for once, exhaustion taking hold of the young one like never before. So much emotion to experience in one day…if he were at all conscious he’d have been thankful it had kept out of his slumber. Alas, he didn’t stir, his body reveling in the secluded comfort of his current state of being, stretching it for as long as it would last.
Someone was watching him.
A stag stood not far off, eyeing the youngster through the grass. His stocky, impressive frame was silhouetted in the darkness, his dark pelt blending perfectly with the night if not for the streaks of gold running across this back, drawing the moonlight. His eyes matched them, a brilliant golden amber that glowed as brightly as the fireflies that flitted around him. One had to peer closely to tell the difference. They held a darkness too them - a hardness, perhaps- but also curiosity. After several moments of stillness, the buck moved forward, daring to come closer to the sleeping adolescent . So innocent…and so small! This was what was meant to replace
him? As amusing as the thought was, it brought him neither satisfaction or the smallest of smiles - only pity. So vulnerable, and out so deep. It would be so easy to end the boy’s life right then. So easy to save him…
He was within feet of the sleeping youth when his head sprung up and ears pricked forward. He stared into the distance, following a small noise in the leaf litter to its source.