~Winter's Stag~

Winter’s Stag

My breathe was lost against the white snow that fell heavily against the mountainous snowscape. Trees towering like giants in a forest that time forgot. My hands, wrapped thickly in layers of cloth and bandages in an attempt to keep my warmth. A cloth wrapped around my head acting as a makeshift hat, covering my short black hair to keep it from falling to my eyes. Most have never hunted past the border of the ridge; to scared of the consequences of what could be on the other side. But, I didn't have time to be scared. My life consisted upon fresh kill. The deer and elk that grew to the size of horses past the ridge of the mountain were a rumor dismissed to legend. Yet, each day I remain hopeful. That one day if I was lucky, and blessed by the gods, that I would manage to shoot something that would let me escape from the poverty stricken streets of my home town, Aurus. That place was hell, a prison ever since I was old enough to remember. I was only a child when both of my parents were killed mercilessly by the ‘Fever’ that tore through the town like a wildfire. I had always been the child everyone pitied. The child that everyone looked at and thought, “That boy is going to die alone.”

The sound of branches snapping immediately broke my own thoughts; my spruce bow, dark and strong, immediately in my hands. An arrow was already notched faster than I could blink. My breathing, steady and even. The small clearing I had been staking claim too had been a bust, no animals of any sorts, until today. I almost couldn't comprehend what stalked from those woods, the beauty far too extravagant for someone like myself. As if my eyes were simply not meant for such a sight. A stag, silver and sleek, fur that shined like that of a newly polished shield in the sun. Far larger than anything that had been rumored about. My bow string was taught; a heavy iron headed arrow ready to fly at any moment, and strike the creature down where it stood. But it did not move.

I watched for a few moments, entranced by it’s elegance and beauty. The majestic creature walked to the center of the snow cloaked clearing and began to eat nimbly at the fruit tree that grew in it’s center. Black orbs, no greater than the size of stones, that thrived in the harsh environment of winter. I had tried them before, their flavor sweet and tangy. I don’t know how much time I spent watching the creature, but it didn't stop my surprise as it’s head raised, looking directly ahead. Gaze transfixing directly with mine. The world felt like it was locked in time in that very moment. My hand still holding the arrow from running the stag through, and the stag’s blue crystalline eyes that seemed to pierce through me. Describing it would have been impossible. Like someone seeing past that facade you put between yourself and others. Like someone was seeing directly into your heart, your soul, your very being. It was almost like a moment of understanding. The beast's eyes seemed sad, heavy as it’s gaze was aware of the weapon that was lying armed in my fingers. As if it knew what was going to happen, and was accepting it’s own fate. It did not run, nor try to escape. It just stood stagnant, as if waiting for what was to come next.

For the first time in my life, my hands shook. I felt the brief sting of tears begin to well in my eyes. This beautiful creature would have been able to raise me from the poverty stricken slums I had brought myself up in. It’s fur would have made thousands of coins in creating something fit for a king to wear. The stag took one last long look at me before closing it’s icy blue eyes, waiting for the arrow to end it’s life. So was the cycle and way of nature. The prey and hunter looped in a never ending war that bordered so close on survival and brutality. My teeth were clenched tight, the decision on whether to let the string loose racing in my mind. Everything I ever wanted, ever dreamed of having, relied on this single shot, this single moment.

And I did what could considered the most valiant, or the most stupid thing in my seventeen years. I slackened my hands, bringing my once taught arrow towards the snow soaked ground. My gaze remained on the motionless stag, watching as those blue eyes opened again, gaze meeting my own. It’s icy gaze did not feel cold. Eyes of sympathy and gratitude. The stag’s head lowered downwards, as if bowing formally in either respect or gratitude before rising back up, and turning back towards the way it had came. I sank to my knees, burrowed deep in the snow that was still falling fresh from the cloudy skies above. Like the tension the stag had brought with vanished as it left. My bow fell from my fingers, arrow still notched around it’s string. The arrow that could have earned me fame and glory. I should have felt regret. But that wasn't what I felt. My heart was a swirl of emotions, a mass unbound to one in specific. All I wanted to do now was go back home. My eyes rose upwards, towards the now setting sun, mumbling under my breath, swearing towards myself. I had lost track of time. I rose from the silken snow, and began look for the snow covered path that lead to the large set of mountains that made up the ‘Ridge’. I found the path’s edge, and began to move, bow in my hand, arrow now at home in it’s quiver.

Darkness and shadows soon began to emerge from the forest, the sky bleeding colors of crimson and orange. I had made the mistake of pushing my luck to this point, and now I was taking my punishment for hunting out past the ridge. My breathe was still ragged as I tore through the path, stumbling at the rocks and branches the now thickly falling snow covered. It was coming down far too hard not, the canopy of titanous pine trees offering no protection now to the roaring storm that had begun. Pure white snow blanketed my vision, blocking out the path before my eyes. The storm wasn't ever supposed to be this bad. The small rucksack on my back only held a mere piece of bread and cheese, along with a small candle and a bottle containing a mixture of flammable solution I had hoped I wouldn't need to use.

The howls made my blood run as cold as the ice around me. Everyone heard the stories, and still grew to fear them more and more. The reason no one ever was foolish enough to ever hunt past the ‘Ridge’. Direwolves. I took off into a run, praying that I was moving in the correct direction, unable to tell with the flurry of snow. I could hear them now, even past the roaring winds. The pattering of feet, tearing through the snow behind me, the ragged beastly panting. My mind raced, numb with both the mixture of fear and adrenaline. I forced my body to run faster and faster into the the white void. Snow stung coldly against my cheeks and eyes. My arm reach backwards, awkwardly grasping the glass bottle in my bag. I kept running, not daring to stop and come face to face with one of those creatures of death. Every single boy and girl of Aurus had nightmares about the direwolves. Their claws sharp enough to rip through steel, teeth large enough to shred through a man with ease. I kept running. Some said that they could smell fear, that they fed on it the same way a demon would. If that was the truth, I was a feast.

I had not saw the wall of grey until I almost ran headfirst into it. The steep incline of stone and rock towering far higher than my eyes could see. I swore loudly, the howling and the roaring winds stomping out my words. The deep beastly growls were close now, feet away behind me. Twisting around I pressed my back against the cold stone, holding my bow now in one hand, and the bottle of liquid in the other. I dropped the bow to the ground, left hand searching my pockets now desperately for the single fire starter I had bought. I felt it in my fingers. My eyes kept sweeping the trees that surrounded me, the blurred dark shapes moving in streaks. The snowstorm made everything a mess of white and grey. My left hand went behind my back, praying that the stone behind me was not wet, and that the stone would spark into a flame like it would normally. The growling was far louder than the winds now, snow cutting against my cheeks that were now long numb from the icy winds. I hit the strikerock once. Nothing. My eyes could see the yellow eyes now piercing through both the snow and shadows. Large predatory eyes waiting to strike me down with hungry malicious intent.

My hand moved faster, hitting the strikerock harder against the hard surface of the cliffside a second time. The rock felt like it was about to break, snap in two. If it did that, I was dead. The beastly figures took steps out of the treeline, only feet away. Teeth blackened with what looked like blood, bodies twice the size as normal wolves, thick with grey black fur, lined with thick scarred muscle. Their mouths seemed pulled into a smile as they took slow steps towards their cornered prey. I drove the strikerock into the rocky face once more, with everything I had, and felt the sudden rush of heat as the rock engulfed in flames. It burned, the flames licking my hands past the bandages, but I couldn't feel much. I raised the flaming stone, touching the flammable cloth that poked from the top of the bottle. It engulfed in fire. In my hand, I held the closest thing I had to a weapon that would frighten a direwolf. Fire. I took aim throwing it with some force at the almost shocked looking direwolf. It seemed larger, stronger, the obvious Alpha with first taste of the meal. The glass bottle hit it directly in between the eyes. It was as if a bomb went off. Fire exploded the wolf going up in an inferno, the howling sound of pain almost haunting. It dropped desperately trying to quench the flames, but they were simply too fast. The fire seemed stained the trees, some splashes of the extremely flammable liquid sticking to the fur of several other direwolves. They were far busier putting their flaming pelts out to concentrate on me. It gave me time to climb.

My hand quick as lightning grasped my bow, putting it around my neck and shoulder. Hands moving against the rocky surface, finding footholds and nooks for my fingers. I was already several feet upwards, hands moving flawlessly from rock to rock, even in the heavy blizzard that cascaded around me. That was what made it difficult, fingers numb from the cold, the snow making the cliffside icy and treacherous. About thirteen feet up, and my mistake came. The hold I had grasped with my left hand tore away, rocks falling towards the ground below. I dangled from my single arm, grip like iron, but the wet of the melting snow slowly making my fingers slip. My eyes looked downwards, fear ripping through my body. The pack of wolves were smaller now with the height, but crowded at the bottom of the cliff, looking upwards, as if waiting for their prey to make a fatal mistake. I managed to grab onto a hold, clinging desperately to the rock face.

I had never been one to pray to the gods, so many misfortunes had happened to me I assumed they had turned their backs on me. That didn't stop me from praying for safety, not this time. Only a few more feet. Only a few more to get to some distance. Maybe, just maybe I would be lived. Below me, tree branches stuck out, almost touching the cliffside, barely visible under the gusts of snow. I was at the point where I could feel nothing, my fingers so numb I could barely bend them. I was so close, my next reach was for the ledge that hung out on the rocky cliff. Inches away from safety. Safety that I would have been able to reach, if the ledge hadn't have been coated with a thick layer of ice. I lost my grip, right hand instantly slipping off the surface, beginning to plummet towards the ground.

It was strange actually. When I was falling. It was like the world began to slow down. Snow.
Snow, that was once a blur, slowed so I could see each individual flake, crystalline and beautiful in the darkening sky. Was this what someone saw before they died? I couldn't tell. The world sped up again, air tearing around my back. My back broke through branch after branch. Each snap I wondered if it was the limb, or me. Eventually I slowed until a thicker limb made my body ricochet, throwing me like a rag doll onto another limb. Only a few feet from the ground. The wolves circled the branch hungrily, waiting patiently. The world was a swirl now, a mix of blurring white and other colors. My head ached, the taste of blood filling my mouth. I remained suspended by a single branch connected to a large spruce tree. It groaned and creaked, threatening to snap at any single moment.

This was it, the end. The tree snap was deafening, as I fell towards the snow covered ground, and the wolves that were about to rip me limb from limb. Like before, I saw the world in slow motion. Everything slowed, the wolves, the snow, everything in the dimming forest, as I watched my slow descent into the direwolf pack.

If I would have been moving at full speed, I would have missed the blur of silver from the treeline. But I didn't. I saw it with all it’s majesty. The stag, ornate even in the dying light that tore straight through the pack of wolves, silver antlers flinging one of the wolves away before it could even react. The wolves turned but it was all too late. Crimson blood stained those sterling silver horns, as the stag tore through the pack like it was child’s play. It was strange, seeing a creature of prey, even one as great as the stag, turning on the hunters. Those who had not been killed by the silver stag, turned, fleeing into the safety of the woods. The stag remained still, among the corpses of the direwolves, head raised into the air. Head raised at me. As it watched me fall to the ground.

My body landed against the ground, breathe instantly lost upon the impact with the earth. The snow did nothing to protect me from the long fall. My body had been tossed with a sickening crack, as I hit the ground rolling awkwardly until I came to a stop in the sterling snow. Now I was staring at the dark sky, which the stars had begun to appear from their slumber. A fall like the one I had just taken was fatal, regardless of direwolves or not. I could feel my bow had broken, snapped from the fall. It seemed appropriate that the only thing that had helped keep me alive all these years would die with me. Everything was numb. I couldn't feel the icy coldness from the snow that I had used to hate. I couldn’t feel the pain of the wounds I knew I had. It was something terrifying about how calm it felt. How calming it was for the whisper to be heard in the edges of your mind, death waiting for the final kiss.

My vision blurred and faded as the dark blue sky loomed over me. The vastness so immense, it made me feel tiny, insignificant. The snow covered my body, as if winter had begun to pull a blanket over me, to draw me into a deep slumber. Maybe I was ready, and it was time to sleep. My head turned slightly to see the radiant stag barely a foot away. Even in the darkness, it seemed to radiate like a star in the night. It’s eyes watched sadly, looking at me with a deep grieving stare. Almost as if it was in pain as well.

I blinked,, and my vision faded once again before I saw the stag once again. But the stag was gone. But something was in it’s place. A maiden, beautiful and radiant stood in the creature's place. Dressed in a gown that looked like it was created from pure moonlight. Her silver hair fell downward, long and beautiful. Silver antlers rose from her head, etched with elegant markings. Eyes that could only be described as winter, icy and chilling, yet both kind and sympathetic. Her steps were slow, as she approached me, falling onto her knees beside me. I turned my gaze back up to the sky, the stars seemed brighter. Beside me, I could feel her presence, comforting, calming. I felt her take my hand, cradling it with hers, warmth slowly spreading throughout it. The snow seemed to fall slower now, swirling with the stars like they were meant to.

The young woman watched me, staring with sadness at my broken body. Her hand squeezed gently, but I couldn't squeeze back. The maiden’s eyes now shone with the shine of tears, as she kneeled there, watching me slowly die. I could feel it now. The flicker of life leaving my body. Like a candle’s flame slowly burning out. A breathe that would never be reached again. I kept staring at the stars, even as I couldn't take another breath. Hoping maybe their light would guide my way. The world began to grow dark. Everything so numb, I couldn't feel anything. A few seconds and I would be departed, into the unknown. That was when I felt warmth blossom against my lip. Raw warmth flooding through me, as the girl leaned over my body, pressing her lips against mine. A single tear fell, against my cheek, silver hair laying gently on my chest. Her lips said all she wanted to say. ’‘I’m sorry…’ With that, the world faded into nothingness. The warmth of her lips, still calming even as everything went dark.