Mother,

It has been a long time. I did not forget to pray. I simply chose not to.
There were a lot of reasons not to pray.
But I'm here now. Ready. Ready enough-
To see you. To know you.
In the end we always yearn for the things we can't have.
In the end, we never learn how to stop.
So I'm ready now, for you to teach me somewhere beyond my body.
Teach me, so that I can wake up from this dream once and for all.

Just wait for me a little while longer, so that I can get my final fill of magic.

It's the last thing I will ever ask of you.





It's like sensory overload except it's nothing physical.

The younger ones don't listen to me, except for the Baby, who is too wary of the world to be rebellious yet. The others don't listen. I am not an authority figure, only a friend, at most, no matter how hard I try to be the protector.

Still, that knowledge doesn't make me want to keep them any less safe, because I love them, have watched them grow and on some fragile level they are mine. Aren't they?

I try to keep them safe but one follows me, the other does not come when I call, and the third runs after the second, right into the mouth of danger. A sharp toothed, foul smelling canine. My stomach drops and I panic.

I think they all saw me panic. I want to fight the thing but I realize the Baby is too close. They are all too close and there are too many of us. Too much at stake. I want to rip the thing apart or let it shred me to pieces but there is too much to lose. This is why Lady Roughhouse is so angry with Lady Candles, and I feel myself falling into this pattern. Forgetting the others, letting the fury act before my mind.

I manage somehow to leave. I try to tell the younger ones to follow me but they don't. So I go off alone. I need to be alone to try to understand this feeling in my chest. Guilt? Is it my fault the thing is following us, though it isn't acting, is just sitting, staring. Did I do something wrong by trying to bring Brazen to us? Or do I just feel that way because no one listens?

In the end it doesn't matter, though the questions weigh in my chest. It matters though that no one gets hurt unnecessarily - right? It matters that I don't jump into battle and risk the safety of my protectors - and the younger ones who, like me, want to shine too?

Of course.

I look at the Baby and she is nervous. Frightened. Confused. I do not want her last memory of me to be full of bloodshed. I do not want that trauma in her eyes.

But now I am angry and there is a knot in my stomach. Too many of us.

I need to breathe.




I was reminded today of how beautiful it feels to be made to feel beautiful.

Since you aren't here the best I can do is think these thoughts and hope that you can feel them, wherever you are.

I fell in love with you before I knew that's what it was. When I finally figured it out, you were already gone.

Now I know that's what this feeling is and I am left with it, on top of resenting the stag who I was once my father, on top of trying to come to terms with losing Darcy. On top of feeling like the only thing that could ever make me happy again would be the world ending so that I end with it. I am left being in love with you and I know, somewhere, there is a problem in that.

Most days I try not to entertain the knowing. I'd rather hope, you know? But today I was made to feel beautiful, even when that rascal was calling me ugly. You know, it's difficult not to see your face when Ciel throws all his energy into trying to act in control. Don't get me started on what I feel when the Monarch Runner looks into my face like he's trying to see through me into the forever part of my soul.

You follow me everywhere. Your colors. Your laughter. Your anger. Your confusion. That silly way you jerk and twitch when I brush my cheek against your side. I close my eyes sometimes when I'm alone beside our tree and see the orange flecks in your eyes glittering beneath a hot afternoon sun and I burn for you.

There is a problem somewhere in there.

So when Ciel tells me he likes that I play hard to get, I am reminded of you and I hear your voice saying those words to me and I no longer want to play this game. Not with him. Not with anybody but you.

And you aren't even here.

There is a problem somewhere in there - because you see, though I have been broken for the longest time now, I know that beyond that I am strong. I was raised to be powerful and independent. Raised to be courageous. Yet you are there even in those moments when I am trying to be an island. When I fight, I imagine you watching me and being proud of how I move in the face of danger. You reduce my strength to a mere disguise for an overwhelming desire to have you urging me to be...stronger.

So I wait for you still, though I am beginning to feel you will never return to me. Someday I will stop waiting and I hate myself for knowing that even when I do, you will continue to follow me.

It's hopeless, really.




Jo says it's not my fault. That they were already damaged.
That it was brave of me to try to bring them all together -
But damaged things just keep getting damaged -
And it isn't my responsibility - wasn't...
I do not know if I believe her.
I want to, but I would be betraying myself if I did not admit that I played a part in all of this.
I carry some of the blame.

It is bitterly cold tonight.
My fur, though growing thicker for the season, can hardly keep the sting at bay.
I wonder if I am damaged. If so, did I become damaged, or was I already damaged?
I look at Jo sleeping against the wall of the Old Oak and I know she is not damaged.
No, not damaged. Just steady and far away.
Less so now than before.
I look at Henna meditating across from me, some of the snow piling up at her tail where the oak can't cover it.
Not damaged. Solid, but fiery like her candles.
Little Brazen, the Little Man, breathing softly into my fur.
I saw that look in his eyes the other day; familiar and painful.
I do not want for him to be damaged.

I lay my chin on the ground and shut my eyes.
I am tired from playing. Jo and Henna, both of them together -
Seeing that, it made me want to play again.
Helped me forget the mushrooms. The aching in my belly.
I smiled and laughed.
I am not sure if this feeling inside of me is hope or longing.
They seem like they would be the same sort of feeling.

We left Dinah sleeping in the birch.
When she came to me, I greeted her.
I touched her.
I love her like all the others.
I do not know if I have forgiven her or if I am just resigned.
But I know she was damaged once.
I hope she is not too cold right now.




I used to pray for snow.
Now the snow is different. Heavy. It does not sparkle the way it did in my memory.
I do not sparkle either.
He thinks I do not understand but I do.
I just cannot accept it.
Nor can I live feeling only half a part of something I should have been wholly a part of from the beginning.
So I turn Syahi away. Because I do not want to be bitter toward her.
Though I am. Already. A small but powerful part.
It isn't her fault. Nor is it the fawn's.
But I know that when it comes into this world any last memory of me will be overshadowed -
By rebirth. By second chances.
So I eat the mushrooms. So many mushrooms.
Too many mushrooms.
And I see colors and shapes and distances.
I run.
Run forever.
Through the snow and undying flowers.
Run forever.
Through the rolling in my stomach I run
Forever
Through my tears and memories I
Run
Forever

And I am glad Jo and Henna cannot see me
Running.




Mother,

Those shadows in the distance - the ones that disappear behind the sunrise and break apart the sky on clear summer days? Those things, they're called 'mountains.' I did not know that when I left, and it was Mateo who told me, who said the word softly, non-judgmentally, as I stood, broken and aching, staring up at one from the base. I wondered how, in all my time living and all the things I've learned, there was still so much I did not know, could not even imagine. These 'mountains' - they're taller than the hills in the forest. Taller than even my beloved Red Hill. Mateo looked at me and said, we're climbing up, mia nipote, and even though my bones were broken and my body tired, he made me climb the mountain.

He did not let me stop climbing. He said we needed to do it. So we did it, painfully slow, his shoulder pressed to mine to keep me standing and steady, his face soft and patient as if he knew some grand truth I could not then grasp. When we finally stopped it was only because my legs gave out to exhaustion. By then we had made it halfway up the mountain. He said, good job.

Then I slept for two days, and when I wasn't sleeping I was crying. Sometimes he left me to my sadness and other times he stayed by my side and let me soak his leg with my tears. On the third day, I woke with dry eyes and a light head, and as I lay there watching the dawn creep up along the horizon, I thought of that contraption the Monarch Runner had described when I last saw him, the thing called a 'chariot' with four rounded rocks supporting a flat slab of stone. And a creature tied to the front to make it go fast. I spent the rest of the day looking for one. Mateo humored me then too.

He is grand, you know, but in a different way than either Lady Candles or Lady Roughhouse. His magnificence is quiet and warm like a small flame burning precariously among gathered twigs and leaves. Dangerous, because it could spread and grow at any moment, but tempting to watch and wonder. He told me many small and insignificant stories about small and insignificant moments of his life. He told me about Dublin, the little green bird that I have only ever met once and who, I suppose in some way, is my other grandfather. I asked him once how he goes on even though he misses him and my grandfather, he looked at me with a tenderness in his eyes and said, I don't, but I pretend I do.

Halfway up the mountain, I learned that the closer you are to Heaven the colder it gets. One night I looked up at the remaining half of the giant wall of earth we'd inhabited and I suddenly wanted to keep climbing. Mateo sleeping, I scaled the cliffs in the dark of the night until I reached a ledge further up than I thought I could reach. From there, I could see the base of the mountain - and the top of the canopy that hid the forest from the sky. But I saw beyond the forest too, a whole expanse of field and hills that I had never even imagined could exist. I stayed there standing on that ledge, watching time warp the shapes and the light of what is my home and the mysterious space beyond it. Then, as the sun rose, I thought again of the Monarch Runner's chariot and I imagined what it might be like to sit atop the strange contraption from this point on the mountain and let my creature pull me away into the sky, into eternity. I saw my father's face, Syahi's ink, Dinah's fiery temper, Darcy's crazed gaze, Jokerman's unsmiling face and Henna's candles burning bright against a starry sky. I saw Bishop's mask shining beneath a golden stream of sunlight, and I saw the orange flecks in his dark eyes melt into glowing pools. In that moment, my mind and heart were heavy with understanding and I saw myself flying off the ledge of the mountain.

I wanted to fly on Rook's chariot, into the clouds and beyond.

But then I heard Mateo whisper, Eraline, and he was standing on the wider side of the ledge, watching me watch him with a look on his face that made it seem as if he could see into my head. See all the pictures and the memories and the burning desire for a home among the clouds. Not yet, he said, and then again, more softly, not yet, mia nipote.

We returned to the forest late at night and I slept beside him on his favorite patch of hyacinths one last time. He was still sleeping when I awoke and it was snowing. I kissed his cheek and left him to his rest, imagining for just a moment two pairs of soft white wings folded elegantly against his back. I wanted to thank him. I forgot to thank him.

It is still snowing, Mother. I stick my tongue out to catch a few wet flakes on my tongue. They melt against the heat of my tongue and remind me of the day we all sat beneath the willow, me and what is now my fractured family, laughing and tossing the glittering mounds of white powder with our hooves.

I wonder, Mother, did you make it snow for me?




There was a day recently when I almost killed myself.
Do you remember? Probably you don't...you wouldn't remember it like that, at least.
I never told you. I never wanted to worry you.
That day we were with Idelle. Then Dinah showed up too and I watched you playing with them.
All three of you were happy.
But I didn't feel happy. I tried but I couldn't.
Instead I kept looking at my reflection in the water.
It was the first time I had ever really looked at my mask.
I felt like a fraud. An imposter. And there was a voice inside of me that said, someday...
It pulled me forward into the water. I tried to wade in it. I wanted to walk into it slowly until my hooves could no longer reach the ground.
Then I wanted to sink.
But you saw me. You stopped me, though you did not know you were stopping me.
You pressed yourself against me on the lily pads, and then on the shore, and you didn't leave me.
You knew, even though you didn't know.
And that is why I know that we are connected, because you always knew, Mister Butterfly, and you always know.

But I suppose it's silly now to think about these things when you are mad, except for now, with Reed standing above you and Talla, that little doe whom I've never really met, at your side, where I had tried to be until you wouldn't let me.

I wish I could have told you this to your face. And thanked you.





Where do I stand, when there are friends on either side? One a sister, the other an esteemed ally, and in the middle a little blue pigeon with a tongue like a whip and a heart of metal.

How do I function when the pigeon brings out all the cruelty in my heart?

Bested by a deceptively beautiful bird.

The Red Hare stays by her side, faithfully, and it boils my blood to see it. I do not understand them as a unit. I do not understand the Red Hare's will to love so freely, even those who have hurt. I wonder whose side she would take if it came down to me and the bird. I am afraid to think about it, because I fear I know the answer.

The feeling it leaves me with is the same as when Dinah chose her too. Over me. I should have known. What good is my love and loyalty when it can be tossed about so freely in favor of Something so frivolous and unkind?

In my father's fur I smell familiarity. He is warm and alive and here. I cannot say the same about Lady Peace, who is as elusive as the Monarch Runner, though I have called her my mother. When I think about it my mouth turns sour and my throat bitter.

I can breathe steadily now but my body still aches. I remember caring for Mister Butterfly when he was hurt and wondering how bad the pain was. How it could last for so long. I think I understand now. Yet it is difficult to resign myself to my wounds. There is a drum pounding somewhere deep inside of me and in the back of my head, a beat that makes me furious, makes me burn and want to turn the world to pieces with my hooves. A dark and twisting urge to protect and to prove to them, to everyone, that I am here and I am grown. See me. Take notice. And if you so dare, engage me.

I breathe in my father's scent once more. I wonder if he is proud, though I do not ask him. Cannot bring myself to speak. Behind me, the Stag Morikiah, my uncle, who is magnificent in a way that makes me want to bring him down a few notches, because as glorious as he is, he is foolish too. I remember his foolishness. Still, I cannot help but wonder if he, too, feels any sort of pride for the woman I am. I am loathe to admit that somewhere deep down, I yearn for his approval the way I do everyone else's.

My mind is filled to the brim with thoughts. It makes me tired in a very different way.

In my ear a gentle and familiar buzzing. I open my eyes for the first time in a while and the sun is bright and uncomfortable. Hovering just inches from my face is a bumble bee, its legs powdery yellow with the nectar that will someday become honey. Then another ache. This time, my heart.

I have been waiting patiently and faithfully. So faithfully that I am beginning to frighten myself. Most days it's easy with so many others to tend to. A whole web of loved ones and me, the spider trying desperately to hold it all together. But the bees remind me that he is still not here. They tickle at the tips of my ears and whisper, do you think he'd wait for you?

I wonder, and I ache. I am not sure it is a happy feeling. I imagine what he would say about me fighting; whether or not he would watch over me the way he did so loyally when the Big Orange Oaf was unconscious. I wonder if he would laugh at my mask, or if he would find me beautiful with it - and either way it would not be a satisfactory response because I want to be beautiful without any of it on.

I close my eyes as the bee comes closer. It lands on my mask where my nose might have been. Stays there, dangerously, and I am not sure if it will try to sting me. I want to catch it on my tongue the way I did the snowflakes, so long ago. But then the touch is lifted and I do not have to open my eyes again to know it has left, the buzzing faint and busy. I do not want to open my face to the world with tears burning wells in my eyes.

I suppose I miss him and all the moments we could have had. All the things he has missed, and all the things I am missing.

I am exhausted. Adulthood is a conquest that I have hardly begun to dent. For now, with my uncle at my side, and my father on the other, both warm and different and solid, I bring my head to rest on the ground and I leave it there. I want to sleep forever.




Hello Little Butterfly.

You don't know me. Or maybe you do. Probably you do. I believe that you are always watching, no matter what Mister Butterfly says. I almost wish you weren't, though, because if you have been then you must see all the bad things too.

He misses you, you know. I don't think he's ever known you in the physical but I'm sure he knows you well enough now, after all this time, and all that talking back and forth. He misses you. Sees you everywhere and in every little fawn he meets.

Do you love him? I feel that you do even though you were never given the chance to curl up against his chest like any baby with her father. I hope you do, because he needs it. I think sometimes he blinds himself so much with his cynicism that the love you send him flies right over his head like a passing bird. Unremarkable. You shouldn't give up though - even if he thinks what you two share goes only one way. He'll realize it eventually, and it will fill those holes in his heart.

So keep trying, because he needs it.

He told me once that he imagines you would be something like that me, at my age. That scared me. How could I ever measure up to someone no one has ever had the chance to know? Someone who is already a part of something greater - of the real life above us, resting soundly on the tines of the Gods? I could never. And in any case, I bring him too much misery to ever do the job. I knew it then, when things were perfect still and our friendship, like the earth beneath us, was solid.

I'd like to believe that there is still some of that keeping us above ground.

You must be angry with me, if you've been watching all along. I'm sorry, Little Butterfly. I never meant to cause your father trouble. He and I are so alike sometimes that it frightens me. I imagine that's why we were drawn together to begin with. He understands the side of me that wants to watch the world burn and I...I know that somewhere beneath that playful facade there is a darkness raging in him too. But our similarities...I wonder too sometimes if they have driven a wedge between us...or if it's just me.

Just me. Like it always seems to be, with the males I surround myself with.

Your father and my father, they're very much alike, too. But maybe that's not something I should get into today. Not with my father still absent. He hurts to think about most days.

You're probably fed up with all the guilt I carry, anyway.

I came to you today just to remind you that you are everything to Mister Butterfly. I hope, despite your new life in Heaven, he is still everything to you too. I hope too that you'll allow me to remain his friend, and to clear these weeds out of your garden when he is not around to do so.

It is the least I can do.




You are tired and riding the waves of love, so I'll give you space, Lady War, and say these things to you from a distance.

Do you remember when we met, Lady? I was a fawn, no taller than your knees and I happened to stumble upon you in the hyacinth - the Stag Tieff on the side opposite of you. You invited me to stay, and together, the three of us, we watched the green doe - the scarred doe who I know now was the same doe we recently watched die, your friend - we watched her give birth to her fawn, the Red Stag pacing back and forth, more so than even the father. I was too young then to understand, but remember the beauty of it - the closeness, the crowd. Now it's your turn. And I am grown, watching.

Today the crowd was scattered - the Red Stag made sure of it - and I helped as best I could, because I knew it would make him feel better. But the empty space around you was no less precious. You and him at the center of your own stage, and that little thing suckling at your teat the unknowing star of this production.

So beautiful.

And you, I see you glowing. No, I see you shining, like finally the stars have aligned and their light, though distant, shining in one powerful beam unto you. Your baby, it soaks in the light so that you will always have it to guide you through the darkness.

My family. My sister. My something. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. This happiness you're feeling - it is well deserved. I hope that smile on your face tonight never fades.




We know very little, you and I. But you know a little more than me. You understand things like kindness, which does not always come easy to me. I am grateful to you for that; your light casts a shadow that keeps me warm and hidden, that lets me melt quietly into the darkness of the night.

She likes you - the little Spitfire. I'm glad to see it. You're good with her, you make her laugh. And I see she brings the smile out of you too. Sometimes I fear I am too steady with her, and in trying so hard to keep her safe - something that I think I want her to need more than she really does - I forget how to play, and laugh, and grin. But watching you two, as she knocks your head with her hoof and you feign cowardice behind your mask...I am reminded of how easy it should be.

And I am glad that you can still feel joy, when there are so many bad things all around us. That stag, Morikiah, who is my uncle, and your something, healing and then bleeding all over again. While bits of me are missing, scattered about the earth somewhere. You fill many of those holes, you should know - although maybe I should keep that to myself. That kind of knowledge...would it give you more power over me?

Forget it. A silly thought. Here you are, playing with the little girl whom I have become so attached to. And then you come to me, and she comes to you - attached, for now, though I know she hasn't forgotten me - and I welcome you both, nuzzle my masked face into your fur and she leans herself against you, tired. She is still just a baby.

We were babies like her too, once. I didn't know you then of course. I knew the Monarch Twin. Sometimes I wonder if you were anything like he was. How much alike you really were. Would we have gotten along then? More silly thoughts, useless questions.

Forget it. You're warm, and everything about you radiates joy tonight. I want to wallow in it. I want to be happy with you. Both of you.

I look at you and smile.




In the water swim jeweled fish
Who brush my legs unconcerned as they -
Pushed by the gentle current - drift on by and I
Think about what it must feel like to not
Know how beautiful you really are - with no reflection -
No understanding -- or is there?

I wonder too sometimes when,
Nestled in the hyacinths and the
Butterflies settle on the tip of my nose -
If they can see the colors in their wings
In my eyes - and if they can, do they smile?

In my reflection I am plain,
Like the trunk of a birch - slim and pale --
Mostly unremarkable; but sturdy, but strong -
except for my eyes the color of
Honey; of sunshine dancing on ruby poppies --
And in them something soft;
And in them something beautiful.




When I was a fawn, the White Stag was the Grey Stag. He had a mask too then. He ran from me when I thought we were playing. I was too young to understand the signs. But then one day he stopped running from me; instead we ran together, shoulder to shoulder, and played like friends. That's what I thought we were, anyway: friends.

But I guess he does not want to be my friend.

I sit looking out toward the Red Stag's poppies, concealed by the golden grasses of the birch, and I wonder who my friends are.

Lady Candles, Lady Roughhouse, the Red Hare...they are all a certain kind of friend. An important kind. The kind that protect and teach and model. They are like my Father, and Lady Peace. Lady War too, perhaps. The Red Stag, too, perhaps. They all watch me grow and they teach me things and tell me what not to do.

Maybe Mister Butterfly...? But Father told me once that he also wants to be like him, like them, and that's why Father doesn't like him.

The Monarch Buck is my friend, but he is also something else. Something entirely above that. I wish I knew what but it is only a feeling. A subtle, unattainable understanding of some higher plane of existence glittering at the edge of my mind like the surface of snow on a sunny day. So even he is different.

The Monarch Twin? Yes...if my memory is true, if he really is that fawn I once played with, then he has been my friend for a long, long time. But even him I do not see much of these days.

So I sit looking out toward the Red Stag's poppies, wondering who my friends are. Wondering what the difference is between "friend" and "family." What would I tell a friend that I could not tell my family? What games would I play with a friend that I could not play with my family?

If the distinction is so small, why do I feel so lopsided? A spider trying to walk with two broken legs on one side.

Does it hurt to lose friends the way it hurts to lose family?

No...no...of course. That's why I am thinking this right now, right? Because it hurts that the White Stag doesn't want to be my friend?

I was smarter when I was a fawn. I knew then that life is easier without attachments. But I took a risk, and now my life is nothing but attachments. Every day more and more about staying...attached.

The day is cold. No bodies pressed against my side to warm me. No heartbeat racing in time with mine. No more silly mask that reminds me of him. Bare faced, the hands of the Gods fanned across my eyes. The wind chills my cheeks without it.









Mother,

I dreamed that he was suffering. His brother - my...friend - too, suffering.
Both of them crushed beneath my hooves, their insides like poppies melting into the grass.
Are you angry with me, Mother? You must be, if you want so badly to torment me with him.
Undoubtedly, I have found a happiness I never thought I would ever know.
For a while now, there have only been smiles.
But you are trying to remind me, aren't you?
Reminding me that my happiness comes at the price of my duties.
I forget to pray these days. I forget to sing your name to the Heavens.
All because I am happy and consumed by my new life.
Forgive me, Mother, I see the error of my ways. I won't forget again.
I promise I won't forget.
So please, lift this punishment off my back and carry it away on your tines, torn ribbons in the cool autumn wind.
I cannot bear to see him suffering. Not even in my own head.
With my promise, allow me this happiness for just a while longer.

And if you should be so cruel as to persist...
Know that your name weighs heaviest on my soul.





Another day. Another bittersweet ache.
It feels like I will never escape that feeling.
I watch you try to discipline the Fawn Amelia.
Good luck with that, she's a little spitfire.
I watch you sit beside the bullied one, the only comfort you know how to give in those situations.
Good luck with that, fawns don't always understand limitations.
I watch you watch them as they finally make nice. Both of them happy.
But good luck with that, they'll be fighting again soon.

Seeing you with them - I'm glimpsing my past self for the first time in a very long time.
You've never been good with kids but you were always good with me. As good as you get anyway.
I am always learning things from you. You have so much to teach, after all.
I know it's selfish of me to ache when I see you take on a new young challenge.
I shouldn't feel this way. Your wisdom is too bountiful to be kept with me and me alone.
You are a rock. My Sister Jo. And you will never stop teaching me things.

So I watch you watch them. Watch the spitfire curl herself against you.
Little thing, wanting so much out of the world...and I wonder:
If...someday, the Gods bless me with my own child, will you be there to teach it all the things you taught me and more?

If so, good luck with that.
Any child of mine is bound to give you headaches.






Another death. Another deer I didn't know.
Three legs...scarred...still beautiful, even at a distance.
Her fur, the color of my fur.
She looks like me. Like I could be her someday.
Strange...she is surrounded but not the way the Stag Blue had been.
I can't help but wonder what her life had been like.
Did they love her? Did anyone love her? Or did she die alone...and lonely?

But then Dinah comes barreling at me. At the crow. Nostrils flared, chest heaving, a fury of unmatched proportions. And Gustiro...he is sitting...staring...so still.
Peace, Lady War, peace. Your fury will disrupt the passing, don't you see?
And you will regret this later, your last memory of her buried beneath the weight of your vengeance.

Find peace, Lady War. Find it pressed against the Red Stag's side.
Find it in your love for him, and for her.

And my peace....my peace...




He makes me see angels without mushrooms.
With honey, he brings me closer to Heaven.
The sweetest thing I've ever tasted still isn't as sweet as his lips.
I watch him sleep and wonder what this means.
Wonder if I have been branded by this night -
If, somehow, we have been changed.
In the morning, will we be the same?
Will I look at my reflection in the water and see the girl I was yesterday?
Or will I be glowing, beautiful, the way I am right now?
I feel his breath on my neck and I think about the lips that part to let the warmth out.
What is it even called, this meeting of the lips? It must have a name if it makes us fly.
I wonder. I imagine. I doze, and for a moment he is glowing too.
Buzzing in my head like a busy little bee.
Landing honey kisses on my chin.
Even the sweetest thing I've ever tasted can't compare.




Seeing angels.

Two days in a row, sweet buzzing angels.

Today with Henna, her proud hooves cracking the earth as we blaze through the forest, the world ours.

Later with Darcy. Maskless. Then all sorts of colors. Poppies on all our heads.

Feeling everything. Hearing everything. The light in the distance - all around us - warm like Heaven must feel.

Wondering if Daddy will be happy again if we eat some together. Wondering if we would all be happy, then. All of us, stampeding through the hills; a happy unit; a small army of love.

Maybe too...someday with him...?

And then the down. The coming off. Slow...ever so slow.

That's right. The feeling has to end.

Two days in a row. A dangerous crutch.




I had tried to explain my 'family' to the Monarch Buck that night he left. It had seemed so important then. Now I am left to wonder if I ever really understood what 'family' meant. If I have misinterpreted the word. If I have been trying to twist it into an ideal that is failing. Because that is all that's happening now. This circle of love that I have worked so hard to link together is not a circle at all; it lies around my hooves in fractured pieces, and I have been stepping on them without ever realizing it until now, when it all came full circle; the Stag Xetkal, my father, staring me down with pain-filled eyes. The disappointment. Always, it's the disappointment.

I had always thought that families were a single unit. That everyone in a family loved one another. And even if they didn't at first, I thought that I could make them, that somehow I could bring them peace by bringing them together. How naive of me to think I could do that. To forget, even for a moment, that I am only one small doe in a forest that thrives on tension, that lives on hatred. Where is that beauty I once marveled at? Had that been a fawnhood illusion too?

I am beginning to think that the Doe Jokerman had been right to try to distance herself from us. It seems now the most logical approach to life. Perhaps...that's the way I should be, too. There's no more snow. No togetherness. Every day is a fight.

The experiment was a failure. Myself more so. Family hurts, and I have hurt my family.






Your jealousies excite me but I am loathe to admit it, because in seeking to possess me you are hurting the ones I love.

Still, when you dig your hooves into the earth, when you plant yourself above me, when I can feel your heart racing against my back, it's as if I'm being swallowed whole by a fire I don't want to extinguish. And yet I resent it. I resent your need to own me. To push my friend away. I resent that when I am with you, I am forced to be wary of my own family. I don't know how to fix this and I am beginning to believe the fault lies with me. Their hostility makes me wonder if I'm even doing the right thing - the smart thing - by staying so close to you. My chest aches in those moments of doubt.

Then I look at you, your eyes glittering in the twilight through the mask, and I forget about all of that. Make me want to defy them. The thought is frightening. Why do you make it seem so simple? Why...do I feel this way when I'm with you?

The world is off center tonight. My family, though hiding it well, is fractured. I can taste the tension in the air. No matter how hard I try to put us back together it always seems to come undone. I am tired, so tired.

You curl yourself around me and I am left to wonder whether or not you will ever be a part of this broken unit too. Sometimes I think you're already there. I just can't say for sure.





So you're the brother?

I suppose you don't need me to tell you how alike you two are - forgive me if I looked a bit confused before, I wasn't expecting to...see him and yet not see him. Though I admit the feeling is hardly unfamiliar in regards to him.

(I was watching from the hillside, seeing them both at the same time - feeling like I was glimpsing into his feral life through his brother. What a strange double existence. I suppose that must be what he looks like, a prince at the center of a crowd of queens. My stomach turns at the sight, but only because I forget for just a moment that it isn't him, it's the other one.)

You're kind, just like your brother. I wonder how perceptive you are. I sit at a distance when your females crowd around - I am not one of them, after all - but you come to me, eventually. You leave them behind and I smile at you by way of a second greeting; you take it, we play. Your body is strong like his, hooves like thunder breaking hard against the ground. I lower my nubs that should have been my tines and you follow suit, welcome my lighthearted display of power. You laugh. It makes me laugh.

But I do not dance with you, because you are not him.

(He comes to rest beside me. He smells so much like him but there is something off, something distinctly not him that reminds me of how cold I am without his warmth pressed into my side. This one, the other one, he falls asleep curled around my smaller body, breathing hard into the earth and I watch him, quiet, trying to understand this strange familiarity. Long ago there was a fawn I met who stayed close like this beside me. Who left the others for me. Who played me into exhaustion. I wonder...is this him? Life experiences seem to always come full circle.)

Hm? No...it's nothing. Go ahead and sleep. I'll stay here for a while, watching, if it'll bring you peace of mind. You are very kind, Buck Rook. And so very much like your brother. Perhaps we'll be good friends someday.

(I think about how I could not dance with him. Their similarities, it seems, do not make them one.)





I ask him what he thinks of you and Darcy says to me, "...seems like a punk." and I can only laugh because it's true.

Trying to explain you. I can't. You are a strange and insistent boy. I remember how we danced the day we met, your eyes alight with playful passions and mine...unable to leave you. You are a thundering beast that carries the world on his back, gladly, though you hardly understand it. Yes, I see through your forced calm. Half the time you're only trying to get it aren't you?

No, don't stop. It's...endearing.

Press yourself against me like you always do. I cannot play with you today but please, stay with me.

(But you know how selfish that is of me and you resent it, don't you? That's why you leave. You're ready to be a man and I cannot hold you here, forever a boy beside me - forever a girl. So you leave and I watch you leave until I close my eyes and imagine your body pressed up against some other sweet and gentle creature, a creature who can spare the time for you; and I imagine you proud and grown when it is all over, expecting a small population of little versions of you in the near future. In this fantasy you no longer look at me with those sweet dark eyes that make me burn on the inside. You are grown, and I am still just...a little girl.)

I tell myself it's for the best. I already cannot bear this aching in my chest. I do not want to yearn for you.

But it doesn't help, and I do.




His name was Blue Boy. I know that now, but only because I've picked bits and pieces of his name up off the floor where the cries of his loved ones left them. There was nothing blue about him when I, with my father at my side, came upon his final resting place; he was pale then, his pelt bald in most places except the few small patches of fur that clung determinedly; and he was rotting - falling to pieces like week-old carrion. I could not see his face - there were too many others, too many legs around him, my own father's surrounding me in four corners, cage-like. But I could smell the putrid, dying scent of him carried over to us by the breeze, and I remember feeling nauseous - still cannot shake the guilt that overcomes me at the memory. I had been woefully unprepared to bear witness to this transformation of body, soul and self. That stag, Blue Boy...

We watched him die beneath the light of a golden afternoon. We all did. I saw his back muscles quiver in a last ditch effort for strength; I saw his belly rise, his skin stretching to accommodate the breath; I saw the poppies tremble beneath the weight of his final dying sigh.

Suddenly stillness...

And then his mother wailing. His loved ones praying.

The memory burned into my mind by sweet yellow rays of sunlight.

So that is what death is like?

It seemed natural. Appropriate. The profundity of it did not hit me until my father's mind became lost in delusions. Denials.

I suppose that in this place, this forest of the Gods, something like death - real, irreparable death - is as unnatural as being aware of ourselves the day we are born. It was the kind of death that could not be interrupted by the abundant magics of this place - and perhaps it is due to this inexplicable reality that my father's mind rests in futile hope of the stag's reawakening. Why so many of us will be branded by that day forever.

I fear there is a creeping death inside of me as well. My body is changed - limbs longer, fur completely overrun by a moss-like color that is still disconcerting when I see it in my reflection in the water. There are two hard nubs sprouting from the top of my head that I imagine must be the first growth of my tines. No one is explaining though. I have no way of knowing whether or not these changes should be hurting this much. I am always heavy. Always aching. I yearn for things I did not know I could ever want, and I hurt over things that had never bothered me before. There is this mood - dark and unrelenting - that overcomes me, relentless in its assault against the space in my heart that keeps me content. I am constantly struggling against myself.

Indeed, I fear the last vestiges of my fawnhood are being crippled beneath the weight of this transformation. I feel it dying in the pit of me somewhere - the tiny me with poppies on her small round head; the tiny me which often cowered beneath the bellies of my protectors in the face of danger. I recently dreamed of my newer, bigger, different self nuzzling into final slumber the weakening body of my former self.

Still...I do not fear the changes themselves, only the threat they place upon those whom I love the most. If I cannot predict myself, even less they. But I stand facing the slow-rolling tide of growth willingly, ready, for there is no other option to face. I feel that the Stag Blue, who in his final moments managed through the pain in his body to bid his family a kind and knowing farewell, released unto the world a whisper of his bravery and I caught it, kept it close to my heart. Through the violent shifts in my mood, the unfamiliar desires that grow hot in my belly and travel to unspoken parts of my new body, and the overwhelming desire for a new kind of validation, I am slowly bidding my fawnhood a kind and knowing farewell.

I only pray that what becomes of me will only be better than what I was once.




I am sitting near the stream that leads away from the Crying Idol. Pressed against either side of me are the females who keep me in their company when the Stag Xetkal – no, father – is away. My face resting in the space where their shoulders might have met had I not been here, I can no longer smell the earth around me; the water; the grass. Instead it is their scents that consume me, wrap around every inch of my being. It comes to mind that this feeling is a bit like breathing in icy winter air during a violent snowstorm – the way it hits deep down in my lungs, sends a chill down my back – though why it is this image that comes to mind is unsettling. It is more like a distant memory, one made up of words and physicality. Myself, on two legs, dancing on a mound of white powder. It comes to me immediately, the knowing in a single human word: snow.A distant but slowly reemerging knowledge of who I must have been in a past life.

I am not sure I really want to remember. If I should ever really know. But these thoughts soon fade into the shadow of the affections of my protectors. I shut my eyes, take another full breath of them, forget for just a while longer this disquieting revelation.

To be like this with them, the Does Henna and Jo, is a necessity. I realize this now. I have tried to understand this need but it is as mysterious as my love for the red stag who calls me Daughter. Perhaps it’s the vitality with which they live their lives. I have witnessed more than once the caution with which the Doe Henna approaches confrontation, the way in which she weighs the value of her life against every dangerous moment. In my earlier days, I had idolized her ferocity when backed into a corner. Her passion. Her fight. But perhaps with even more frequency I have felt her tenderness during my darkest hours.

She has been for as long as I care to remember, the golden ray of light that leads me out of the sadness where my heart tends to wallow.

I turn my head and nuzzle my cheek against the Doe Jo’s roan fur. It is coarse, the kind of texture developed during long periods of stress. Indeed, where the Doe Henna is my golden ray of light, the Doe Jo is a well-oiled flame burning steadily at the center of my darkness. I come to her for the warmth that does not intrude upon my melancholy. I let it singe the ends of my fur, sometimes, though she does not know it. I still do not understand the pleasure that results from it. I have seen the relentless ferocity in her while fighting alongside the Doe Henna, and I continue to see restrained glimmers of it when we play together - I with my bare head lowered in defense and her with her antlers at my level, prodding me firmly but carefully into the correct position.

I listen to these females breathing softly into the earth and wonder if perhaps someday the strength in them that I have come to not only rely on, but admire so much, will find its way into me as well. My chest swells at the thought of it. I curl into myself between them, blocking out the rest of the natural light. I let my love for them cast a blanket over me and in my last waking moments I think of my father and that something in him that seems to transcend all of these things.

I try to give the something a name; instead I doze to thoughts of him, of all of them, some heavy passion aching inside of me.





Mother,

I know you exist. Or once existed. I know because I dream of you almost every night. It is always the same dream, though; a fragment of a scene so normal that I wonder about the creativity of my subconscious. In it, you are always sitting in a warm green field and I am with you, tiny, smaller than anything that has ever lived on this earth, maybe. I can never see your face, only your broad white chest rising, falling to the rhythm of the life drum banging, beating just below our bodies somewhere in the dirt, in the core of all living things. I cannot see your face but I smell you, smell the poppies we must have rolled in together, must have adorned on our heads. I breathe it in and imagine what your face looks like, but can never get past the curve of your mouth. It is always like this. I've never seen your eyes.

I suppose you know this, though, if you are watching out for me. I'd like to believe that you are, to believe that you aren't just a figment of my imagination, that the dreams, maybe, are the one thing I can truly cling to that is you. But then I suppose if you know all this, then you must also know that dreaming of you is always a prelude to my darkest visions. Why is that, Mother?

Do you send me these visions?

Last night I dreamed of you, and then my world turned red, littered with the torn, mauled bodies of everyone whom I have come to love in the short time I have been conscious here without you. I saw their limbs torn and cracked, rotting into the soil; saw dark winged carrion birds eating at their eyes. I heard myself, faintly, the way I always do, chanting a cruel, unholy prayer. I awoke with the sense that I had caused it all. Do you warn me, Mother, by sending me these visions of the monster I am supposed to become?

Or is it something else entirely? I implore you to tell me, because I do not understand and I fear with each passing nightmare my reality twists to meet them.

I wonder, Mother, if before me, you too had a family who raised you, cared for you?

I thought I had one, though I hadn't been looking for it. I suppose I felt I had been placed here by the Gods who must have taken you to repent for your mistakes. Then I found these others, whom I grew to need the way I need to see you in that dream every night, even if it means the darkness afterward. Now, though, I'm not too sure. I think maybe I have been too rash, gotten too comfortable, and now the Gods are punishing me for having forgotten what my living purpose is.

The stag whom I called father is estranged to me. Much in the way you are. The difference is that you are unattainable, while he is here and will always be here. The situation is different. I hurt not for him in the same the way I hurt for you. But both these types of hurt are unbearable.

Family.

I kept the word on the tip of my tongue for a while, there. It tastes strange dancing between my teeth now, rolling over my taste buds. What does it mean, if these bonds we form here are so loose, so flimsy, so arbitrary? What is family, if I have never seen her face?

There are others, Mother. They are not as near as the stag but they are getting there. What will I do if ever a time should come when they wish to call me their 'family'? My fears have been reduced to a single word that I hardly even know the meaning of.

I implore you, Mother, if you are real, and you are watching me; if, by chance, you know what I know - then I implore you to give me respite of these terrible dreams, both the dark, and the ones of you. At least for one night. I am weak and do not think my heart can bear the yearning for you, which reminds me so much now of the yearning for the stag who I called father, not too long ago.

I lie here with my protectors, these strong and glorious females, who I love though I wish I didn't. I pray to you to find the mercy within yourself to relieve me from these bizarre and uncomfortable feelings. I don't want to miss someone who might not even really have existed, though the dreams tell me you did. Maybe. Once upon a time.

I am already missing too much.