[Submission] raw
The doe’s ears fluttered and nose trembled at the smell of something familiar.
How long had she been laying there? Above her, she could see the clouds passing through the trees, creating shimmers and speckles of sunlight onto her brown and white-dotted fur. The birds above sang in incessant, swooping melodies; she wondered whether she could still bleat or cry for help, as if that would be worth it. Beneath her, a bed of red and yellow leaves covered the forest floor, cracking and crumbling beneath her weight when she shifted. The wet mud was beginning to stick to her languid body, she hoped that it would swallow her up into the earth before she would be found.
She decided it would be best to decay rather than to run. If she closed her eyes and gave in to it, perhaps it would be over soon– that sharp pain where the bone had broken in her leg would go away with the rest. With the world turned on its side, she decided to let it be, and she began to give in to sleep, more hopefully to death.
Yet, her body twitched, head rising upon hearing the snapping of a twig a few feet away from her. The pain in her leg amplified, brittle shards of bone rubbing together with the waking jolt that ran through her body. The doe’s ears fluttered and nose trembled at the smell of something familiar. Someone familiar.
His breathing was measured and his hands were shaking. The boy she had met before, once then twice. He was always the same: scared, alone, and too small for the weapons he carried. They sent him with a bow and arrow today, and always with a hunting knife at his waist. He seemed more determined than he had been in the past, and she hoped that the state she was in might make it easier for him.
“You,” she said, “thank goodness.” The boy was taken aback to see her, only now recognising the deer he had met before. She wasn’t a friend, but not quite a stranger either. “Not you,” he apologised, “I’m sorry, I can’t,” and began to shuffle backwards.
She panicked, he was her chance to die peacefully. The doe tried to sit up to meet his eye, but the motion strained as her hoof pressed into the ground, bending her broken leg further. “Of course you can, of course you can,” she pleaded, as he started to put the arrow back into the intricately painted quiver. “Please! My leg…,” she attempted to reason with him, the boy shaking his head all too forcefully. The boy hooked the bow over his head and neck and began to turn, “You can’t trick me. I’m scared, but I’m not simple.”
The doe fell back to the ground, the pressure on her hoof too overwhelming. The boy turned back when the thud of her body met his ears. A glinting of blood flowing from her leg caught his eye, and he realised it wasn’t a trick. He felt his throat thicken, “It can’t be you.”
“Why not? It would be easy. I can’t run very far, and I’m willing. Wouldn’t that be best?”
“No, I don’t,” he began, but resolved to put her out of her misery. To put himself out of his own misery. The boy drew in a breath, sniffed, and swung the bow from his body. He faltered then, drawing an arrow with a shaking hand, and nocking it on the string. Turning to aim for her chest, he looked almost entirely serious, like the Men who had taken Deer before him.
“Fine,” he said, and wondered, under her fur, which organ he might hit; what would be most fatal, gentle, and quick? How long might she sit bleeding before he could remove the arrow, and begin to carve? Perhaps it could be medical, impersonal. He stretched the string taught just before she quietly uttered a “thank you.”
“Stop it,” he begged, knowing that it may break him.
“Really, thank you-”
“No!,” he exclaimed, releasing the arrow into the ground just under her heart, piercing a few decaying leaves as it sank into the mud with a thump. The boy threw the bow against a tree and crumpled to the ground, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to stop any tears that may begin to flow. Her nerves froze and blood rushed through the doe’s weakening body; perhaps dying wasn’t as easy as she had hoped.
A decaying leaf fell between them. A mouse skittered into a tree, through the bow that the boy had dropped. The doe exhaled and began to move closer to him, but he held out his hand. “I can’t hurt anyone.”
“I’m not anyone, I’m a doe.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m…?”
“I can’t hurt anything.”
“You could, you’ve got that knife.”
He wiped his face again before reaching for the knife at his side. It was a beautiful thing, virgin as he was in killing. The hilt had been carved and stained with care, a reminder of who was waiting for him at home. In the thick metal of the blade, he could see his own reflection: reddened eyes and trembling lips. “You’d prefer the knife?,” voice cracking as he inquired.
“If you’re offering.”
“I’m not offering.”
“It would be faster than the bow.”
“I’m not offering.” She let her head flop to the ground in disappointment, wondering what would entice him to end things sooner rather than later. “Or your hands?,” she hoped, yet the glance she received from the boy chilled the skin beneath her speckled fur.
“You want me to kill you?”
“Are you offering?” she brightened up.
“No!”
“Then why are you here?”
“Why do you want to die?”
“I asked you first,” she pointed, then both sat at an impasse. Each glanced at the other, unseen, and listened to the wind shaking more leaves to the ground. He ran his hand along the sharp edge of his knife, breaking the skin on his index finger. “Ah!” he exclaimed, before bringing the bloody digit to his lips and sucking the blood in. The metallic taste sickened him as he thought of the duty he was yet to perform.
“They made me,” he finally opened up, yet she did not move. “You’re a Man,” she stated, puzzled at his answer. “That doesn’t mean they can’t force me,” fully removing the reddened finger from his mouth. At this, her ears perked up, “I didn’t think anyone could make a Man do something he didn’t want to.” Of the Men that he had seen, none appeared to be tameable. Each was relentless in the hunt of her brothers and sisters, taking trophies of their antler crowns and pelts. The only Man she had met whom she did not fear was this very boy, unable to kill her on two occasions.
“There are all sorts of rules,” he explained, breaking her from her thoughts. “And that’s how they made you?,” she asked, unsure of the rules of Manhood. “Yes, I… It’s something I’ve got to do if I’m going to become a man,” he spoke as he dropped the knife to the ground.
“But you’re already a Man.”
“No, a grown man.”
“And you want to be…?”
“I have to be.”
“Well,” she began, as she lifted herself onto her three good legs, and stumbled over into his lap. The boy tried to move away, but stopped as he realised she was baring her neck. His throat tightened again, and the hairs on his arms rose. “I already told you, I won’t,” he attempted to dissuade her, but she could not be convinced. “But you’ve just said that you have to kill me,” stretching her neck even further across his lap. Her wide, brown eyes could barely see his face, her nose buried in the dirt.
The boy inhaled quickly, “your turn,” changing the subject, “why do you want to die?” He placed a hand on her back, and felt the instinctive jolt beneath her skin. She hadn’t yet considered what his touch might feel like. “I don’t necessarily want to die, but my leg is broken. I won’t get very far before something else comes for me.” At this, he removed his hand from her back. A bird sang in the distance, then another replying. The wind stopped for a moment, and the boy wondered whether he could reach his knife.
“Fine, then I don’t have to kill you,” he croaked, looking for the weapon in the foliage-covered silt.
“A wolf wouldn’t be so gentle… or a bear, or…”
“I see,” he said, finally spotting his knife and reaching for the stained blade.
“So kill me. Your knife,” she began, as she felt the sharp point at her throat. “How do you know?” he asked, pressing the blade into her, nearly drawing the blood that would save them both. She didn’t dare to move, fearing that she may scare him away from finally ending her life.
“That I would be so gentle?... More than a wolf or bear or-”
“Because you don’t want to do it.”
“What if I’m not? What if it isn’t quick?”
“You wouldn’t,” she pleaded as he moved her head up with his free hand to clear his view of her neck. “No? You can’t run.” The birds stopped chirping. “And I need to kill you. Eat you.” Her ears perked again, and her hooves rustled, creating mud tracks in the ground. Her wounded leg cracked again and she bleated; for the first time to him, she seemed just like an animal.
“Eat me?”
“Just your heart, but…”
She stilled, looking him directly in the eye. “Please,” was all she could think to ask.
“You wanted to die, I’m helping. Have you changed your mind?”
“Yes!”
Releasing her neck, the boy lay to the ground, flat on his back. He could feel the cold, wet mud seeping through the leaves into his hair. Once she was free, she stumbled away from the boy, resting herself against a tree. “Maybe you are a Man. Cruel as I’ve seen.”
“I’d have to be cruel to give you what you wanted.”
“Couldn’t you do it quickly? Even if you had to…” she trailed off, thinking of what the boy had said about eating her. The doe figured that if she were dead, she may not mind. She wouldn’t know, would she? She certainly wouldn't feel it. Right?
“I just don’t want to kill. I don’t want to take away what something else has been given. It seems foolish. What makes me grown about killing an innocent thing?”
“If I’d smashed an ant, would you like killing me better?” she asked, and the boy chuckled. Putting his head in his hands again, his fingers cold from the wind and frost in the air, he sighed. “Maybe I’ll just starve out here. We can sit and rot together,” he suggested.
“Starve?”
“Yes. They won’t let me back in ‘till I’ve done it.”
The doe collapsed again on the weight of her fractured bones, feeling the column of calcium crumble beneath her. This may be her last chance, and she knew that in the end he would not leave her to suffer for long. “It seems a simple choice. Maybe you are a fool,” she spat. His eyebrows furrowed, was it her turn to be cruel? The boy rose from the pool of mud he had been laying in, letting his quiver of arrows clatter to the ground. The boy fidgeted, twirling the knife in his hand.
“You don’t mean that.”
“You’d rather starve in this place alone than put a poor, dying deer out of her misery. You’re more simple than you think.”
“I see you, you won’t get me.”
She pushed herself from the side of the tree, immediately missing the stable feeling that the sturdy oak provided. Hobbling forward, the doe asked, “Won’t I? You’ll never be a Man. Maybe you’re the Deer, the Ant.”
The boy ran his thumb along the hilt, feeling the inscription that had been carved especially for him. My heart. Would that still be true if he returned empty handed, empty bellied?
“Coward.”
“No,” his voice broke.
The doe shook her head, she had to be the Man for both of them. She breathed in, and rushed at him. The boy froze as she tackled him to the ground, nearly crushing him. In a struggle between flesh and fur, the boy pushed up into the doe’s chest, slicing her open with the knife that he was clutching onto so fiercely when she threw herself upon him. The doe roared, bleated, screamed, knowing that she might have spent her chance on being killed quickly.
The boy was woken from his panicked state when he felt the warm blood flooding from her chest onto his. Dropping the knife to the ground, he skittered out from under her, feeling that he could hear every chirp, rustle, and whistle of the wind blowing right through his head. Had he done it? Was he a man, or even a Man?
Looking down at the heaving doe, the boy shook, gagged, and attempted to compose himself before asking, “your neck, do you…?”
“Thank you,” she said, and truly meant it. The boy was not so cruel after all.
“Thank you,” he said, knowing that he could never do such a thing on his own, or indeed ever again.
Swiftly, and blindly, the boy found her throat, working hard and fast to end her misery. When her breathing stopped, the boy looked down from his knees to see the doe’s eyes open wide, as if she were still watching.
My heart. The doe seemed to whisper, and the boy wondered if she had ever really spoken to him at all. Before he returned home, he knew he had only to carve, remove, and eat. He would do it all, raw.
This work was submitted to the White Lily Society for the limited time submission prompt “fairytales”
Sabrina Scott is a Scotland-based historian, theatre artist, and self-proclaimed vampire enthusiast. She writes nightmares and dreams alike for fun. She can be found online as @ _venustheplanet_ on Instagram.
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