Private Tales Whispering Winds in the Grass of the Meadow

[Hawthorn]

Scout led him through the under brush, the dog’s tail a flag he followed through thickets at a low run. The dog must have picked up the scent of the elk. Hawthorn thought they must be close now.

He held his strung short bow in his left hand, three arrows in his right, and kept a good grip on them as he raced forward. Wouldn’t be the first time he lost an arrow pushing through the forest growth.

Not here though.

This part of the forest was foreign to him. Far deeper than he normally traveled. His thoughts dwelled briefly on wolves, but the adrenaline of the hunt pushed them out. He hadn’t eaten anything but stringy squirrels in two days. They needed meat, or the coming winter would kill both of them.

Scout drew up suddenly, pointing straight toward a clearing in the trees. Hawthorn eased up next to him, smoothly knocking an arrow to string as quiet as he could, and searching for what Scout smelled.

Then he saw it - a flash of antlers.

Hawthorn drew his bow until the goose fletching tickled his nose, sighted down on the strangest looking stag he’d ever seen, and loosed.

Briar

 

[Briar]

Deep in the forest, a decaying, skeletal stag moved, her scant tufts of fur radiant against the dark pines. Her coat was white as frost, glowing faintly beneath the silver moonlight, and her antlers rose high. They were not an ordinary crown of bone, no, but snarled briar and thorn, tangled with shadows and moss. Ever step of the creature was quiet, but deliberate, hooves sinking into soft loam as if the forest itself was bending to hold her.

She lowered her head to the river's edge, lips breaking water. Ripples shivered outward, carrying the image of her crown of thorns away in the current.

Somewhere beyond the trees, a dog barked. It was sharp, distant, but was answered by another, nearer. The sound made her ears twitch, tattered velvety skin catching the night air. But she drank again, feigning calm though the soft tread of feet somewhere betrayed the truth that she was not alone. Someone was near, trailing her with patience, with intent.

The stag's throat worked as she swallowed the water, tasting not only the river, but the edge of danger as it drifted ever closer.

Then, silence broke. A bowstring thrummed, and an arrow hissed through the night, sharp as lightning.

The stag's head snapped up, droplets falling from her white muzzle as she launched into motion. Undergrowth tore up beneath her hooves, brambles scraping against her pale hide. Birds erupted into the air around her in a storm of wings, and she fled deeper into the forest's shadow, every bound carrying her further from the hunter as chase became part of the wild song of night.

 

[Hawthorn]

Hawthorn and Scout tore after the stag, rushing through the underbrush. Had he missed? Hard to tell with the way the stag lurched. It was like no deer he had ever seen before, white as snow and with a crown of thorny antlers.

A white hart.

Huntsmen spoke of such legends in tales around the fire or at taverns, but Hawthorn had thought them as much a myth as unicorns. Yet now he pounded on the trail after one.

Hawthorn did not pause to loose a second arrow, drawing and firing as he ran in the fashion of the Fal'Addas elves. Fingers wrapped tightly around his third, the other hand on his bow, as he lurched through the forest.

Scout zipped through the undergrowth ahead of him, teeth bared, trying to catch the hind quarters of the stag as if he were a wolf.

Together they would bring this beast down.

Briar