Featuring Kian with references to Nuala and Guard O'Hara
Mid-Spring, Year 763 of the New Age
Hidden Glade close to the commoners, Glenmore

He was dead, floating in a watery world. The heat surrounding him didn't comfort him, didn't heal him, didn't love him, it only left him feeling colder. It was questionable some days whether or not he would even survive the death he felt around him. Yet somehow he did. So when the day came that his little world shook and quaked and forced himself outside the restful sounds of a steady beating drum, and his nose snorted, clearing the ick out of his nose and allowing the smells of the outer-life to enter into his olfactory passages. Trembling with a new-found cold, his nose twitching this way and that, blinking his small dark eyes, he felt so overwhelmed with all the new things that came flooding into him. Blinking away the blur, his eyes swirled and darted at this thing and that thing. Tree. Grass. Bush. Bush. Grass. Dirt. Mom. He didn't know how he knew it, and he wasn't even sure what "mom" meant, but there was stirrings in him of the pale lithe shape that stood away from him, the sunlight glinting through the little tree that shaded her and made her glow with an ethereal light. She was beautiful, and everything about her made him want to be closer to her, to touch her, to breath in her comforting scent. She was also too far away.

He bleated, struggling to stand with legs that didn't want to work right. He would get one foot under and then slide in the muk that still covered him. Nearly tuckered out, the grumbling in his belly pestering him to move, he shoved all his little baby anger and frustration and heaved. Legs wobbled and weaved like spider legs, dancing and tapping this way and that furiously until he was standing, splay-legged and still wet and cold. In that moment, as he wobbled uncertainly as the world spun around him, he felt, for the first time in his life... Hope... Bright-eyed and jubilant, he bleated again, looking sharply at the pale angelic form just a little ahead of him. Teetering, but with much more control than just moments before, he took his first few steps toward her. The closer he got, the more she withdrew, her lithe and graceful steps was such a large contrast to his own that he stood in awe for a moment just watching her. She stopped near the worn out trail that led out of this sheltered glade, her pale blue eyes turning to look behind her, but without looking directly at him.

Seeing his chance, he toddled over to her, legs spread wide for balance, and just as he was coming up to her tail... Wham! Pain shot up his right cheek, making tears stream down his already slick face. He wasn't sure what happened... Maybe he ran into her tail and that's what hurt him. Cautiously he turned his head, not wanting a repeat of what just happened, but getting it anyway. This one was harder, and sent him spinning into the dirt where he lay dazed and confused.

A loud and deep voice, strong and commanding, resonated in his ringing skull. Looking up through tear-blurred eyes, he caught the vague impression of a dark shape at the opening, and watched as his mother floated to the farthest part of the glade, burying herself in shadow, and not once did she ever look at him. Cold, hungry, and in pain, the young buck cried openly for his mother, for nourishment, for love... And never to receive one of these things...


Collab with TigressDesign Thanks for the lovely lines!