What nightmares are made of

Golden hooves. The color of value, purpose...so dainty and worthy compared to the vast portion of soggy soil on which they trod. Yet again, the little doe (if one could use such terms on a creature of more bird than deer) found herself wandering alone. It was habitual now for her, to revert to something like the nomad she once was. Perhaps she was turning into her mother, who, in the setting suns of her life, looked upon Rowan with such foreign eyes. A lost old creature, bound by chains that which only she imagined.

Rowan had come from a family of nomads; aimless wanderers. Though she was not an old doe, she was not the young hapless hind she once was. She found her mind wandering more frequently, her lips moving in speech only to herself, and her legs not settling in the dust for hours on end. It was if she had lost something. It was known information that her little child had been stillborn; she frequently heard of it again and again in stinging whispers and pitiful stares. She was not looking for it directly, perhaps not even at all. Even the feathered little creature herself knew not why she wandered. Whatever she had lost, she seemed apt to wander with no purpose in hopes of recovering it.

What she found the eve after the rainstorm was not what she was looking for. Strangely, she had been holding a pleasant conversation with herself when she came across it. Oh, how it plagued her nightmares as a youngling. Even after her death, his strench would be bound to her skin. And she knew it. She was used property; damaged. As if on instinct, her virtually nonexistant left ear flicked at his arrival. This loss of ear was one of his many gifts to her.

The beastly stag hauled the nightshade behind him. He devoured the sunrays around the doe, and comanded the sun take her leave. Some things even the great mother of Earth must not witness. She retired quickly and trembled under her blanket of horizon. A thin mist had curled across every crevice of the forest. It came from his long-decayed lips, that heaved air in and out when his own lungs had betrayed him. When his heart chose to beat, thunder grumbled angrily. When he spoke, his savage rivers flooded and death was imminent. And worst of all, when he looked upon the little hind in the evening grass, she felt the wave of hurricane that was to come. This master of elements, the one who was a mere toddling corpse a a few hundred feet high...this one with lightning cracking in his chest, and venom for saliva...this was what he was to her. This was Vincos.

"What are you doing here?"

Her tone was commanding. If it startled the Godly thing, he let it not show. As he grew closer, just a few strides now, the stench of decay crawled up and nestled into her nose. Gag-worthy, everything about him. And yet, to her, he was a God of darkness. Everything about him commanded fear. His empty eye sockets, even in the lack of glowing orbs, burned a fire down her spine. As if she were begging him for punishment, she narrowed her off-white eyes and glowered at him. And he chuckled. Inexplicably the most gutteral and mortifying sound her ears had ever picked up. His bones rubbed together, and the lasting veins in his face snapped and squelched. Just as soon as it started, it was over.

Oh, my, my. We've grown, haven't we?

"I've grown. The only growing you've done is growing repulsive tenfold."

Vincos towered above her. When he titled his head at her statement, bits of his skin hung on to his receeding flesh. Sensing freedom, rivers of useless blood trickled from every orafice of the tilted head, carrying on them clumped old blood clots and unwilling insects. He smiled. She could only tell because the edges of his not-yet-decayed cheeks pricked up. Something like a tongue unravelled from his fleshless mouth. It writed now, shedding more useless bits of body on the ground.

Is that right?

Though she was trying her hardest to be strong, this was unnerving. While she gathered her words in her throat, a bat arose from his slumber and crawled from Vincos' eyesocket. It gave Rowan a wide and blind stare, before fluttering and screeching away so fast that she nearly spooked. She pleaded with her heart to be still, for Vincos knew all in his Godlike reverence. She would not be afraid.

"Who are you to deny it," she drawled with newfound confidence, "when at any moment those boney legs of your could snap, and you could wither, and die?"

They will not.

Oh. Rowan found herself in inner turmoil. She had this planned out. It was her turn to scare the God. It was time for vengeance. Or so she thought. She began to buckle underneath her sudden failure. But no. No...she could do this. Look at him, he was teetering on the ledge of death. He sensed her defeat immediatly, and spoke once again. The fog swirled the stench of death around them into the still night.

I won't die. Not until you do.

"Simple solution for that hm? What if I off myself, what will you do? Die?"

Really, now?. He chuckled again. She broke more.

I do recall a little creature sleeping in here, he prodded her stomach with the tongue-like appendage, the last time I came around.
A blow. She cringed, but flattened her ears and snarled as a response.

Shall I give you another? Another blow. She glowered. He chuckled, and she could hear his blood swirling in his gut.

Oh, what a shame for you loss. I can see in your eyes. Look at me, Rowan.

"Don't you dare talk about my children. I am not the doe I used to be, fool. As soon as you dissapear, I'll drown in the pond. And you'll die, too! Fiend!" She didn't mean it. The thought terrified her. It did not phase him; and that terrified her more. But, she suddenly came across a realization. If he could lay claim to the darkness, why couldn't she lay claim to light? Wasn't she a lightbringer, after all? With a newfound passion, her candle burned.

We wouldn't do that, would we? After all, what if I'm lying...? And not only that, but I never once breathed that I would die instantaneously after you. Now, now, tell me my little grape, how do you suppose the Monarch Butterfly tastes?

A crippling blow. The light on her candle of hope flicked so low, it might have not glowed at all. Just as suddenly though, it reared up and raged an inferno that could bring a forest to its very knees.

"If you ever touch my friends, if you ever touch him, I'll kill you myself! " She stepped forward, roaring her voice at him. He stepped back. It seemed the only thing he had going for him now was the fear that had manifested in her heart; and suddenly without it, he might be nothing. The thought made him furious...and vulnerable. She continued to throw aimless blows of anger at him.

"It's you heart isn't it? That's what keeps you alive. An immortal heart."

He flinched. She saw it.

"What if I rip it out? You'll turn to dust, useless scum. I'll make such a mess of you, no one will be able to tell who you are! Wait, that's right, no one KNOWS who you are! You've poured your entire life into my agony! You have no life left without me, do you? What did you do? Rape, murder, violence, beatings, all I suffered -- fine! Fine. But if you ever...if you EVER touch my friends, or if you ever touch him...I won't have it! I LOST EVERYTHING. I have nothing to live for. Believe me, you'll die before me, because I'm not afraid to give my all into killing you. It won't be long now before I step all over your old bones. You can watch yourself die at my hooves!"

And she lunged. She plowed into his chest. He was two, maybe three times her size, and yet he buckled anyways under her verbal and physical blows. He was blinded with rage at her insolence, and snapped out. But she was determined, and with it came power. Her first taste of rebellion against her lifelong captor coarsed her veins, and emptied out her eyes in great waves of tears. Vincos stumbled. Though she had missed his immortal heart (as it would take much more than that to kill him anyways), this raged mother was not to be messed with. He cried out.

Foul bird! Wretched thing, you! Don't you dare think for a moment that you've won. I'll kill you. I'll kill you!!

With this cry of defeat, he tripped and crashed into the brush.

Rowan sunk into the dirt and stared wide-eyed at his trail. He was weak, but it wouldn't be this way next time. She has used the element of surprise to drive him off this time. What next time? Too anguished to rise, she curled into herself and calmed her frayed feathers. She won this time; yet she thought it insignificant....why? Realizations were as plentiful as her feathers today. She mustered something like a smile. For once, she won! She won! She protected something important to her. She didn't cower and cry for help. She had stuck a blow. She could fight now. The doe had been right -- she wasn't what she used to be. Not that weak creature of doubt. Hope flared up in her. She protected something. Rowan heaved herself to her feet, those golden, half-sunken hooves. She would not cry, instead, she continued the hunt for the lost pieces of herself. Perhaps what drove her was the one she had just recovered...