Random drabbles under cut

Night crept up insidiously in the forest, crawling up the bark of the trees. Even the vivid blues and violets of the flowers grew sombre towards the day's end. A stag stood disconsolate, staring at the cool darkness of the running waters. Tears from the weeping idol. He didn't like the darkness. The way it hushed the birds and emphasised the stillness in the air unsettled him. The anxiety he had, the burden of trying to be a good stag, doing all that a deer would do... and far more. Life in the daytime at least eased his mind and the routine activities kept the fear at bay, but would always falter at night. There were many things he had fled and he couldn't help it, with weak antlers, it was his best defense. The stag sat, pressing his face against the grass. Or rather his mask. A raven. Holes that allowed him to see, but stop others from looking into him. A comfortable isolation.

He could feel them again... like something cold slithering through the air. Sharp and burning to the touch. The stag rose quickly at the contact and fled, almost slipping into the river as he did so. He couldn't bear to look back, even when some of the deer around him looked perplexed at his terror. The terror that was all his own. The stag knew deep inside that it was bound to him like a cast shadow to a tree but he kept running...