Authors Note: Metis is a young adult by the time she reaches the endless forest. This is a story I put together for how she came to have the appearance of a spotted owl. I have another story in the works about her ultimately being raised by the owls. Either way, I enjoyed putting this background story together on Metis, and I hope you enjoy it!



It was a warming day in spring in the scrubland. Scrub jays screamed at each other and dove through the brush. Jackrabbits stood quiet sentinel under the shaded manzanita groves, occasionally nibbling the sparse grass they sat in. The air was warm and dry, and the cicadas sang loudly in the silence. It was here, that if one looked for long enough and carefully, that they would see the occasional flash of brown - a mule deer crossing the dry ecotone from the lush creek beds to rest during the warm of the day up above the conifer line. One such deer did so slowly, and with extreme care.

At 15 years of age, the doe might very well have reason to be tired just for the daily move from graze to water, but the bulge in her belly belied another reason. She was old to be carrying a fawn - too old most would say. Yet, she still made the trudge on a daily basis to find enough food for herself and the daughter she knew she was carrying. It was a many mile walk, that she had begun well before the sun had risen, knowing that before long she would need to recline in a cool copse of fir trees. Occasionally she would pause and flinch, swinging her head back towards her flank as she seemed to shiver in the warm spring air. She had extra impetus this day to get to the safety of the woods, but her old bones could only move so fast. She knew today was the day she would see her first, and last daughter born.

The pregnancy had not been an easy one. As a young doe, she had contracted the disease that most humans know as brucellosis. Sometimes fatal, the disease causes the abortion of the unborn. Most deer only know it as the birthing disease. Sometimes deer were lucky and they were stricken only once, but as in the case of the old doe, through her many years she had never successfully carried a fawn to birth. It was against all odds and the disease she carried that here, in the twilight of her life that she was able to carry a single fawn to term.

She paused in the midst of a manzanita thicket, panting. Flies buzzed relentlessly about her face, and she snapped at them wearily, flicking her ears madly. Oh, but that cool air above would feel fine! She sighed and resumed putting one hoof after another. The sooner she was able to lie down the better! The hours seemed to crawl by as she slowly climbed. The terrain slowly changed from shrubland into true conifer forest, and she came at last to the sheltered grove of trees that she favored for resting and napping. She gracefully folded down into the fragrant bed of conifer needles, taking comfort in the familiar smell. A pain in her flank caused her to swing her head back towards her side again, this time the pain was enough to draw a gasp from her. The fawn was coming, she knew. Probably well after midnight, and deep in the early hours of the dawn, when most fawns are born.

It was in these early hours of birthing that the old doe did something most deer never needed to do. She prayed with all her heart that the youngling she carried would live, and be spared the disease that had stolen the years she could have known this daughter in. She wished the wish of a mother - wanting nothing more than to see her daughter born happy, healthy, and full of the vitality that all young things have. From her recumbent position, she laid her head on the ground, wishing for something - anything - to hear her plea, as the day slowly turned to dusk, and the crickets began to sing.

"Would you have it, even with a price?"

The old doe started, lifting her head off the ground, managing only enough strength to roll onto her keel.

"Who are you?" She barked, turning her head this way and that, feigning an alertness she had not the strength to feel. She stilled as a ghostly figure stepped out from behind a tree. The old doe felt her jaw drop. Slowly pacing towards her was a deer spirit. She tried to focus on it, but it kept shifting to her old eyes - one minute it was a fawn, the next, an aged stag with broken antlers, and in another moment, a vigorous-looking young doe. She shook her head to clear her vision, but the figure remained shifting. It smiled at her, and gestured for her to lie back down. The doe sank back into her position, keeping a wary eye on the spirit.

"Your young-lings life can be spared, and saved, old one, but there is a price to be paid. Such magic is always high in price." The spirit explained. It settled down beside her, as if to keep her warm. Strangely, she felt comfort at it's presence, even though she kept a wary eye on him... her... it.

"I know not of what price you could ask of me, spirit." The doe whispered. "I am old, and my years are gone. There is nothing left of my life I can sacrifice to make a bargain. I do not know what you would ask unless.." her eyes widened at the sudden thought. "...you were asking for the life of my youngling." She finished in a broken whisper. Out of the jaws of one disaster, straight into the jaws of another? The old doe almost wept with futile frustration.

The spirit nuzzled her cheek. "I ask for your younglings life, but not in the way you fear. The forest is badly in need of a very particular kind of guardian. A guardian that will look with open eyes, and not be given to fear. A guardian that can be trusted to inspire, and bring balance where it is sorely needed. A guardian prepared to live a long life of learning, and teaching." The deer-apparition smiled. "It is that which I would ask of your youngling, and the price for the magic that can be worked."

The old doe blinked at him. This was not what she had expected of a bargain with a forest spirit. She had expected nothing less than lifelong servitude... or something of that sort. This was much more palatable. Something she would have loved to have done if she had been given such an opportunity.

"...yes." She said at length. "My daughter can be the guardian. For this she will be granted health and long life? Even after my old bones are scattered?" The spirit nodded.

"When she is born, you will have a sign not only that the promise will be kept, but her teachers will be revealed to you, and you can be comforted in your last days that your daughter will be well cared for." The spirit leaned over and briefly touched it's nose to her flank, then vanished like the sudden bursting of a bubble.

The doe came awake all at once dripping sweat and panting, a dreadful pain now gripping her belly. The doe ground her teeth and bore the pain as tears welled up in her eyes - 15 years waiting for this fawn, she could endure anything for it! The hours dripped by slowly, and the doe rode out the contractions, ending in one last, savage push that seemed to push all the strength from her. In the dazed, comparatively painless silence that followed, a small, plaintive bleat greeted the dark of the early dawn. The doe somehow found the strength to raise herself up to view her daughter with tear-filled eyes. She turned her neck as far as it would go, and licked the fawns trembling, sticky head. She felt her eyes over flow again, this time with tears of joy. She carefully levered her back legs around so that she could reach and clean her new fawn. The fawn whimpered pathetically, already trying it's new legs under it, before falling back onto it's mother.

"Oh, my daughter. At long, long last... my daughter." The doe nuzzled her youngling, her pride helping her to lift herself off the ground so that her new fawn could have it's first nourishing taste of mothers milk. She craned her head back to continue grooming her youngling, and realized that there was something odd about the baby's coat. As she licked, her tongue could feel hard, prickly bumps on some areas of it's body. She paused, trying to see in the near-dark what they were, and remembered what the spirit had told her - was this a sign?

"Those are pin-feathers." Came a voice from above her head. The doe locked her legs to keep herself from toppling her baby over and craned her head to look up into the branches above her. A feathered shape wafted down out of the tree silently, and landed on the ground next to her. Standing in a pool of moonlight, the doe could see that it was a spotted owl. "Your daughter has feathers". It hooted. The doe blinked in sudden realization.

"You're the teacher. Aren't you."

The owl hooted in assent, and looked softly at the young fawn. It's large, dark eyes held a tenderness, and the doe knew she was talking to another mother in the forest. "Have you named her?" The owl asked.

"Yes. I knew her name as soon as I felt her within me." The doe managed a trembling smile. "Her name is Metis."