Twist eye had not noticed until recently that some of the deer were different from the others. Sure, there had been the obvious differences in color, antlers, and behaviors, but to the genderless mistchild there had never been much of a distinction between male and female.

The season of the rut was a time in which such things became much more important. The deer she had seen sticking in large groups with fawns were seeking out the larger, somewhat more solitary ones. The does were looking for stags to sire the next generation, and prospective fathers were ready to fight for the opportunity to mate. It was a fact of life, a fact that had never occurred to the lone fawn, born of the air. Not until recently.

Twist eye had been watching stags fight. They weren't fighting over it; the mistchild was too young, and lacked a doe's gift to bear life, but she watched with an artist's eye, listened to every clack of antler and every step, smelled the emotion in the air- Twist eye was inspired. They only barely seemed to notice it watching, but by the end of it, Twist eye had been as exhausted as the stags, having tried to imitate all their best lunges and parries with invisible opponents.

Now back beside the pond, Twist eye looked down at it's- no, his reflection. The mistchild's shifting abilities had morphed it's previously ambiguous form into that of a youthful buckling, widening his frame, thickening his neck and slimming down his underbelly. There were even two false buttons where horns or antlers might be on a full-grown buck. It was a temporary change, yes, but the mistchild was proud of it. It wouldn't be long, it thought while it's form returned to normal, before Twist eye would be able to fight like the big stags.