”Little deer?” ”Little Deer?” ”…Seed?” The trees asked to the body that dangled, dripping blood and still smoking from its burns. The body dropped from its branch into a lower set with a great crunch of leaves. It made no sound, no twitch, no grunt of pain. The leaves brushed against his cheeks.
They were no warmer than the leaves themselves.

”Oh…” The forest fell silent.

And so they began the slow, tree-timed task of bringing him home. They passed his body, with as much delicacy as they could manage, from branch to branch. He was a sort of idea, like a word they passed along to make a chorus of sound. The body moved as if carried on an aimless river. Like a river, they carried the body down to the source: not to the ocean, but to the great Oak who was grandmother to them all. Like a river, the path of the body began to carry things in its currents: an acorn, a pinecone, a green leaf, a flower, a small bird’s nest, whatever a tree could offer up.

Because they knew what he was, in spite of themselves. They knew how an animal might tend its dead, and had but one of the options open to them. And so they carried him to the oak, who looked at the broken body, with the leaves of the trees sticking to its blood and small branches caught in its antlers and the great holes of its wounds, and heaved a hefty sigh.

”Poor sugar…Always wanting to be better…You were fine. You were...” The branches broke into meaningless quivering. ”You were so sweet.”
And she lowered, inch by inch, a branch to stroke the figure. Compared to her, it seemed…So small. So much smaller than he had been before.
”Goodnight, honey.”

She shifted her roots to the side, creating a gap in the earth. The trees shook their branches, one final dirge, and the body and its burial offerings tumbled into the whole like a falling star. Then she moved again, and sealed him away beneath the ground. There was no mark but the loose soil to show that anything had happened here.

In any other world, this would have been the end of the story.

In this world, however, the Twin Gods could come. The Red God and the Gold one, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as always, came before the little mound of loose, dark soil. The Gold one sniffed as her coat bloomed red; the Red one lowered his head so that his ears could hear the ground beneath their hooves as his coat faded gold.
And they felt something. A pulse would be the wrong word – the mangled heart, between the torn-open lungs, could not beat. But certainly, something like it – a gentle tug-and-release of life. They lifted their heads.

“Ah. He knows.” The Gold One said. His voice was smooth and warm, like a cup of dark tea. The Red one nodded.
“He knows that true death… Is beyond this place’s power. There’s still something left to know, here.” Still, she did not sound completely satisfied. The smooth brow of her moon-like face furrowed. “But there’s so little…”
“There’s enough to start. You…Are still a little bit alive, little deer.” The pair lowered themselves to the ground, and spoke to the life beneath the earth gently.

“Come, try and remember,” their voices sang in unison.
“Try and remember; what sort of creature were you?
Come, try and remember; what was it like to seek the sun?
Come, try and remember; What was it like to breathe air?
Come, remember, what life is.”

They sang to the life, pulsing and fading in the dead body, that had been planted in the ground. It stirred.
It...Could not remember. Not exactly. But all the same, at the end of its long, dark tunnel, it reached – it reached out for the voices that sounded at once warm and familiar. It did not remember how to reach – but all the same, it sought.

After a long time, a little leaf emerged from the ground. The leaf’s stalk stretched outward, haltingly, and grew. A few leaves unfurled, pale green and wet with unfurling. It twisted to find a bit of light heading down the crowded canopy of smaller trees above it.
It eventually became a small sapling, barely halfway up a deer’s leg, and stopped.

“That’s all he can do on his own.”
“That’s all that’s left...” The two gods looked sadly down at the little sapling, a shadow of what it was.

“Still, like this…There’s hope.” The two said in unison. They turned out to the forest, where the deer lived. Perhaps their voices would carry, and perhaps not.

“Come, try and help him; care for this little life. Help it grow, with tending and tenderness. Then…Perhaps a miracle will occur.”

They vanished, leaving the little sapling alone in the dark.