{Whyss}{Day One} | The Endless Forest

_{...Birds-?

He wasn't sure how, but he knew birds probably didn't figure prominently in heaven. This should be a place with angels, golden streets and saints, filled with the sound of chanted hymns and trumpets...

Shouldn't it?

He opened my eyes.

He was lying in a bed of purple flowers, on the floor of a grassy green wood.

Was THIS heaven?

He looked around, trying to figure out where he was, a confused expression on his face. Then, with some effort, he got to his hooves and peered around the-

Wait.

HOOVES?

He leaped back in fright, mouth opening - but no sound came forth. The lack of vocality, however, was the last of his worries. He currently had four legs, fur, and hooves.

For a little while he just ran in circles, silently screaming, unable to do anything about it. Then, when he exausted himself with chasing his tail, he fell heavily into a large patch of tall grass and hid.

No one can see me like this. He wasn't quite sure what he'd done to deserve being given a tail. However, he gradually brought himself to realize that this was just a dream. Just a nice, peaceful dream. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the deer were running...

Deer?

Wait!

There went one, just like him! A little spotted fawn, with long gangly legs, light-colored belly, and... Was that a human face? How... odd.

He chased the fawn to an old, broken down ruin. A little scared, he told himself he should tell the fawn to get away from the place. It probably wasn't a good place for small creatures to play around.

When he approached the fawn however, he was shocked - it bellowed at him, dug it's forehoof into the ground and made some very aggressive movements toward him.

He bolted.

Hiding again (this time in the hollow of a great tree), he considered this turn of events. As he was pondering (and starting to shake uncontrollably at this point) a sudden thundering caught his attention, and he swung his head around, searching for the noise.

He tried to scream again.

The great, dark deer flew over his head effortlessly, hooves kicking high in the air. It had a dark, almost blue-black pelt, with white stripes over the back, sort of like a magpie. Over it's human face it wore a mask - a deer mask. The new fawn probably would have thought this odd, if he'd been thinking much at all. All he could see were the antlers - great, spiraling, cold gray lengths of hard bone, ready to gouge and pierce.

Well, that was enough for him.

He ran and ran and ran and dove between some large rocks. Flinging himself between them, he gasped for breath, and as he panted he heard hooves approaching.

Glancing overhead, his mouth dropped open. WHAT WAS THAT GLOWING BEACON SITTING ON HIS HEAD?

He leaped up again, but the other deer had already found him. He dove back down. The large deer circled his rocks a few times, then bowed. The fawn stared. It had... bowed?

Then, seemingly satisfied, the deer carefully lowered itself to the ground and looked away complacently.

Waiting. He thought. Waiting for me to make a move. Well you just wait, right there, cause I'm not coming...

Within moments, his curiosity got the better of him. Standing slowly, he crept quietly out from between the rocks and gave the deer a good long sniff. He wasn't sure why. His instincts told him to. The deer glanced at him out of the corner of it's mask, then looked away again.

Slowly, carefully, he edged forward, and touched it.

The great head swung around, the body lifted, and the deer turned to face him.

The fawn dove back between the rocks.

This went on for some time. Eventually, the fawn got up enough nerve to go and sit by the great stag. Then, it took him for a walk - he learned about the pump whose waters turned you into a small beast of the woods; the pond; the great tree where he'd first encountered his guide. Then, finally, it took him to two great stone columns - ivory, perhaps? He watched as the larger deer knelt, and a glowing blue light began to flicker about its head.

It hadn't taken the fawn long to learn from mimicry, so he now knelt too.

HELLO, LITTLE DEER WHYSS. HOW DO YOU LIKE OUR WORLD?

He rolled backwards, away from the stones, and shook his head until the blue stuff dispersed. What in the holy hosanna-? Who-? What-? Whyss-?

Wait. No, no, that was his name. Wasn't it? He thought he could remember...

The other stag didn't seem to notice the fawn's sudden turmoil. It turned and - with a blinding flash of light and a chorus of what finally seemed to be angels - the fawn looked down at himself. White? His once-mottled fawncoat was now a bright, shimmering white!

And that wasn't the end of it, no sir. The great stag finally led him to a tree, and then made a big show of rubbing its chest against it.

Oh... maybe it has an itch? ...Eeeh! He darted to the side as something whizzed down nearly on top of him.

It was a pinecone. He glanced up, wondering if a squirrel had thrown it, and nearly missed seeing the stag go over and pick it up. It chewed, apparently with some relish, then turned and ducked its head and-

More lights. More angels. And suddenly his head felt heavier. He rolled his eyes back - nearly giving himself a headache - and could just make out the shape of two grand, curving trumpets jutting from his skull.

He would have yelped in surprise, if he could have. But all at once, he felt a sort of inner delight. As if having trumpets on one's head were a great feat.

Trumpets. Angels. His mind wandered back to the great stone columns, and the two voices - speaking as one - that had eminated from them.

The stag turned and cast another spell upon him. Whyss - the only name he could think to use for himself now - was looking up to see what had happened now when there was a clatter of hoofbeats.

A fawn? ...no... THE fawn! It was the same one that had nearly attacked him earlier! He skittered around the great stag, who, far from protecting him, tried to get him to actually interact with the monstrous little latecomer.

Whyss hummed and hawed about for a little while longer, then realized that his legs were shaking under him. A sudden weariness overtook him, and the slumped to the ground at the base of a tree. The great stag, noticing, came over and sat beside him, and he was the last thing Whyss saw as he drifted off to sleep.}

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I'll probably have nice coding and things for these later, but I just wanted to get this one down. I've decided that Whyss will be heavily influenced by things he experiences in the forest. It may sound childish, but then, he IS only a child himself. So, from henceforth, Whyss is afraid of fawns.

The end c: