She has been a true doe by the sheer willfulness of magic. Turned so, by a stallion that became a buck to run with her through the trees. That single small taste of rightness in a shape that was not wholly hers had left her aching ever since. For what, she could not say since she’d never been much for speech in the first place.
Language came to her in the emotions that moved across the glossy dark of her eyes; in the threat of her eight-point antlers in their majestic rise from her head; in the cant of her small feral head - all these, a language that she knew how best to speak.
Then came the excruciating violation of a most sacred part of her. The same part that saw further hurt and struggle as life squeeze-pushed out of her. That one bore more resemblance to the deer she chased after than even she did, antlered and cloven-footed as she was. But she loved her; essence of deer and daughter.
It made her remember, how she had been a daughter once and briefly - -
Ru-an.
Because their tongue troubled her. It was not the warning chuff of a doe or the fawn’s bleat. This was the strange pattern of sound into something else that mere breath and noise alone could not convey. It was her stuttered pathetic attempt at his name because it was not as simple to her as grass, water, or nut.
Except, she remembered.
The smidgen of courage she had felt at the feathery brush of a wingtip from sister-Heda. Fear and the strong presence of wolf in their midst. Even stronger was the memory of the very thing he swore to her - safe.
It is that and the tantalizing allure of a bygone scent on the air that pulls her from one forest to another in search of the Others, the not-deer kind that she has trailed diligently after all these years. Trailing after her, is a Fur-in-miniature with budding antlers and a slim graying build: Lichen-daughter.
She recognizes this forest of tall old trees, knows that they have seen and endured much. Talks of it to Lichen in gestures of head-flick and eye-roll. Of bear-wolf-ruin and how she’d run off (away!) in the midst of the confusion. Fur tells how she’d not come back since. The memories too painful for her slim shoulders to bear. She can see the question of why now in the nutty brown of her daughter’s eyes.
“Ru-an.”
she says, by way of explanation.
@[Ruan] couldn’t resist! <3