literature

Fate and Other Fairy Tales

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Dee woke suddenly, gasping for air. Where was she? Somewhere dark, and cold, but with shafts of light streaming in from above. Her eyes gradually started to focus and she was able to see that she was in a cave, its mouth blocked with layers of packed snow and ice but for a small gap at the top where the light shone in. Normally she avoided the harsh glare of the sun but now she lunged for it, hooves skidding over the ice wall as she tried to shove her way into daylight.

"Calm down," a voice rumbled from behind her. "You're addled from the mushrooms; have some water to clear your head."

Dee shrieked and whirled around. What she'd taken for a mound of furs was in fact a fawnling; a very huge, very dark, very male fawnling. 

"Just scrape off some snow and let it melt," he continued. "I chipped off most of the dirty stuff so it should be clean."

She continued to stare at him in horror. He was a Blackwood! And she was trapped in here with him! An attempt to back away led nowhere as she bumped back into the ice wall. 

He sighed. "You don't remember anything, do you?"

Still fighting for breath, she thought frantically. Where was she? How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was... 

... eating those mushroom.

The visions came back to her suddenly. A magnificent white stag. A growling wolverine that meant her no harm. A silent swooping owl. The Mother had spoken to her.

And she had been moved. When she ate the mushrooms she was on a mountain path, and it was afternoon. Now it was morning, she was in a cave and she didn't appear to have frozen to death. If this was the afterlife, it was a damned odd one.

Did the stag bring her here?  She wanted to ask, but her muscles were still frozen in terror.

He sighed again, this time with a hint of a groan as he rose to his feet. The stag wasn't as tall as she'd expected, though he still towered over her. There were flecks of grey around his face, and half his tail was missing. This was someone who was used to surviving.

"I found you out on the mountain. I asked what you were doing up here and you said The Mother sent you. I brought you back here. Seems to me if The Mother wanted you to die she wouldn't have had me stumble across you. I don't much believe in fate but when a goddess is that obvious it seems best not to ignore her wants."

He knew the Mother? Why would a Blackwood stag have any respect for Gealach? In her experience stags often ignored Gealach's maternal phases and focused on their role as Father to the herd instead. 

Oh, wait. No. Blackwoods were known for their treachery. He was trying to earn her trust by lying about his allegiances. Well that wasn't going to work on her!

"You expect me to believe you worship The Mother?" she shrieked. "I know you're all heathens and liars so don't even try."

The stag arched a hairy eyebrow at her. He didn't seem to have a response to that. 

"Well?" she insisted.

He sighed yet again. "What do you want from me? I brought you in to save your hide. Now we're both stuck here until the ice thaws enough to break out. I didn't ask for this."

Dee looked around. He was right about that; this cave was only equipped, and sized, for a single occupant. It mustn't be very comfortable for him having her there in his space. He hadn't planned to drag some unsuspecting doe up here.

"If I'm a liar, why does it matter what I have to say?" he mused, breaking the silence. 

She glared at him. Was he making fun of her? She wasn't an idiot. She knew she came off that way sometimes, but she wasn't.

He seemed to have tired of this game for he curled back up in his worn spot on the floor of the cave and closed his eyes to go back to sleep. 

She took the opportunity to scout the cave for additional exits. There were none.

"There's a few dried stalks left in the back under that ledge," he volunteered. "In case you're hungry."

She looked and found a meager store there. Her belly was rumbling again and she scarfed it all down without thinking. As she turned back to the ice wall to wash down her meal with some water, she heard the stag's own belly rumble. He was hungry too, and he'd just given her the last of his foodstores.

That gave her pause. Looking at her host closely for the first time, she noticed that when he was all curled up he looked just a bit like a shaggy wolverine.

Perhaps The Mother was trying to tell her something indeed.
:iconfawnlings:
Dee and The Old Man
Winter 768
The mountains near the Pale Caves, Blackwood

Dee's vision is just a mushroom hallucination, anything she deduces from that is purely her own supposition :P

She'll be facing the danger roll as a pale visitor, but since it's winter and she's got Advanced stamina she ought to be safe :3

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Portents and SignsThe old man's bones ached. Particularly his tail. He could judge the weather by it; a sharp flash that spoke of rain or a slow grinding ache that foretold a long blizzard. 
He would happily trade the climatic prognostication away if it meant the pain would stop.
His den was tucked neatly into a cave on the mountain, nearer the top than the bottom. It was a desolate, lonely place. It suited him.
He'd actually taken the cave from a bear some years before. The bear didn't mind. The bear was long dead. Life goes on.
Normally he would heed his tail's warning of an incoming snowstorm but if he was going to be snowed into his cave he needed to eat first. Maybe even stockpile some food if he was lucky and found something worth stockpiling. He found he envied the bears and the wolves who could sit on a carcass for a week or a month and stretch it into a multitude of meals. Anything he found growing up here was a mouthful at best.
He'd been watching a small patch of mushrooms; he didn't kno
 || The ThawAs it does, time marched on.
The old stag had a few more caches of food cleverly concealed from the rodents in his den. They remained pitifully hungry and iced in, but they did not starve. 
Days followed night, anxious silence followed curt arguments. With nowhere to run, their fears and insecurities bounced off of each other and ricocheted around the confined space.
Was he doing the right thing? Was he harboring the enemy? He couldn't ignore her origin; she was no Blackwood by birth and his circumspect prodding revealed that she hadn't and didn't intend to become one by official channels. Still, Uir had chosen her. For what? The doe didn't seem to know either. Then again, what was the harm? The worst that could be said was that she was taking food that should belong to the herd and distracting him from his duties. Of course, the only mouth she was taking food from was his own and he would have been iced into his cave by this storm whether he'd dragged her into it or not.
Was she
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