Black eyes glimmered against the dawn sun, its unusual brightness creating dewdrop-like lights that danced across his lashes. His head raised, feeling heavier at the neck. It seemed that the stag had been visited by the Gods overnight, leaving him with a thicker coat for winter. He smiled, resolving to go to them on the hill to pray post-breakfast. Moss tested his legs like a fawn would, finding their fur slightly longer as well. Still, though, they were cold. He locked their knees, forcing the warmth into them as he shook his whole body. As expected, the golden dust of magic flew away in a golden halo like dust off a patchwork quilt.

Starting through his morning routine, the stag decided to forego the morning shower, considering that he could see his own breath rising in ghostly tendrils of steam from his nose and mouth. The tendrils traveled over his cheeks and vanished as he moved over the frost-coated landscape. Moss noted that each blade of grass had a spun-sugar appearance, standing as still as a corpse and crunching beneath his splayed hooves. These crunches ceased abruptly upon his coming to the stone bridge.

He studied the accumulated frost, watching it crackle when exposed to the sun's weak warmth. He traced the cracks with his gentle gaze, like bloodlines, crooked and never straight and many-branched like a winter tree's evergreen spikes. The crackled surface was quickly ruined as the beast stepped on the frost, leaving a large hoofprint behind. He as the only on his family tree. Lonely. No, he had friends to give him proper company! The stag shook away the negative thoughts and crossed the once-contemplated bridge without another thought.

Icy chills traveled down his throat from the inside as he guzzled water from the pond. The tiny, temporary floes that bobbed in the current were as fleeting a phenomena as the stag's negativity, melting in the sun. Mushrooms followed, coated in frost, making a light meal before the stag continued on and up the hill.


He bowed forward and made an action of falling to his foreknees, the blue smoke slowly engulfing his head and clouding his vision. Moss allowed his body and mind to fall free, whispers from his lips thanking the gods for his winter coat while simultaneously cursing them for gifting him the very voice he prayed with. 'His words did not show his heart's emotion well enough,' he continued on, praying...

Crack.

Moss found himself standing in the mist that had surrounded his vision, staring at the now-separated statues he had been praying to. One laughed, the other looking sternly at their creation. "So, Awel, you don't like our gift?" It asked, voice as harsh and gravelly as one thought a statue would speak like.

"They call me Moss, here." He replied, ears back. There was little trust left in the stag for the Gods that had cursed him with a voice. "And no, I do not. It has done nothing but bring destruction."

"Well then. We have watched you talk to Ryff about it all. She is your friend, yes? Why would you give up your voice when you have a friend that likes hearing it?"

"She assured me that I speak better without it, as I already knew."

"You can give it back, but under one condition: You have to get used to introducing yourself as Awel, as that probably is the only thing you can pronounce after we take your human speech."

The statues each reached out a stone-cold hand to pet the stag on either side of his neck....

Cough.

The stag choked as he cleared the smoke from his nose. Moss raised on cramped forelegs, stretching and shaking until things were back in-place. He would have to drink again, as his throat began to feel raw once more. Before he left, he tried a 'thank you.' It came out as a grunt. Awel-Moss grinned widely and bowed deeply to the statues before kicking his heels up as he raced down the hill. Finally, he could be a part of this world without having to worry about his voice hurting anyone else anymore.