[=#006400] Had I known that that rainy day was to be Poltergeist's last, I... Well, I wouldn't have done anything different -- I couldn't have, as a matter of fact. I didn't know her well enough for anything I could have done to have really meant something, or to know the signs I saw. I'd have liked to have known her better, but there are so many deer that is true for -- I don't think I could know as many as I'd want, as well as I'd like, and retain sanity.

I wish she had seen today, though -- the forest is at its loveliest. Maybe she is. The Gods had paid a visit tonight -- the world was cool and dark, bathed in a glow the color of wine or the darkest roses, casting white words purple and making my scales contrast in the dim light. And Mushrooms...It's not the best transformation for trees, but I think the change is good. The mushrooms are so sweet, but the smell in the air around them is so musky and warm. The spores fall off them, shining like the silver scales of a wild fish, drifting hazily through the air in the moonlight.
I found Saosin and Ravyn playing atop a mushroom, and decided to join them -- we danced, in, on top of, and around it, enjoying it from all sides. From the top, a red clay field, dotted with snow, and yet soft to the hoof -- as if, in the land of red clay, the ground had already melted from frost when the final snow of the year had arrived. From below, it was the delicate gills of some amphibian onto land, or the folded-up lungs of a crab, taking air from water, transmuting death to life. From the side, a playful parasol, the fantasy center of a deer merry-go-round. Eventually, though, I knew I had to see the fireflies. I bowed to Saosin and Ravynn, motioned for them to come if they liked, and went to my favorite flowerpatch.

For a moment, I was alone there -- just them and I. They sparkled and twirled around each other like tiny dancers.

Wanderers Silent Dream

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The rainy air has its own smell; it has a little rot in it, and a little bit of the promise of new growth. It smells like the bottom of ponds and, I think, of mystery. Today the rain smelled like cool northern lands, and of distant icy seas.

Today, also, it smelled like I wasn't going to be doing much. I wandered around, exchanged gifts of flowers with a stranger, watched two deer give each other spells and turn into crows, sat with a crow-deer, and wandered over to the Oak, where I sat and watched the rain for a while. Eventually, a few others joined me under the great cavern of the oak, who told me little dreams about the rain.

The rain, she told me, is the tears of a crying idol so big that no deer can make sense of it, and so they call it the sky -- we're all inside her, and her tears drip down over all of us on a day like today. The rain is music the gods are playing on the instrument of the world, shaking the water and making a gentle sound where it strikes the ground. The rain, she told me, is the often unseen sky reminding us that it exists. I may have elaborated, here and there, but that's what she said, at the heart of matters.
Eventually, I noticed the sound of Virgil -- the distinctive fall of his hooves, the little humm made from the light of his name, and so I went to see him. He was sitting with some company. Poltergeist was breathing heavily – I think her baby was finally on its way, lured out by the smell of rain. I know we know little of each other, but I was glad to be able to offer whatever feeble support I could as she shifted restlessly in the rain – eventually Virgil left Poltergeist, Trees, and I in the rain, which pittered down around us, until we all eventually fell asleep.

When I woke up, Saosin was next to me. He gave my rain-soaked back a nice rub, the ridged sound of bone on scale not unlike the sound of rain on hard treebark above us.