Fawn: A Woman of the Deer People

[fawn]

Memories
The Story of Fawn, a Woman of the Deer People
PART ONE: SLAVE

I was born in a little village in the deep forest. My mother was the doe Gaia, my father the buck Hades, a great prince of the forest. It wasn't a village like the rabbits or human folk build, little houses all crowded together, but rather a loose collection of long houses scattered for two or three miles along the river. Each longhouse was home to one buck and his many does and fawns. Deep in the heart of the forest our little river valley seemed secluded and peaceful. We grazed in the meadows, gathered and baled hay for the winter, worked in our gardens and at night we all slept together in one big warm pile in the middle of the floor.

The only conflict came when one of the young bucks came out of the forest to challenge Hades for his herd, then they would charge against one another and butt heads. But Hades was strong, and nobody could defeat him. He was husband and father to us all. When the male fawns grew old enough to show points Hades would drive them from the compound and away into the forest, other than that it was peaceful, day followed day like we were asleep, like nothing could ever change.

I lived with my mother, my sister, my aunts, we were all very much the same. We all smelled the same. My mother's only worry was my twin sister Hope, who was born with a lame leg. Mother was afraid she would be unable to run fast and so she'd be caught by a predator and eaten. She would rub potions and poultices into Hope's leg, and give her special weeds to eat. They didn't seem to help, but Hope grew, and she would struggle and hop and limp along and keep up with us more or less. She had always been that way, I took her for granted, and assumed that she always would be.

Every fall there was a week of rut, a season of challenges and battles and mating, then in winter and spring we would be pregnant and in high summer we would give birth. In my first season I gave birth to a fawn... who's name I have forgotten. Indeed I can't be sure if they were male or female. Hope must have given birth too, but I forget. I have forgotten much, even now, much just trails back into the darkness and is gone. Sorry.

Next year I gave birth to and suckled two does, Demeter and Persephone. Then the next summer I gave birth to a buck and a doe, Marduk and Tiamat.

[fawn]

Marduk and Tiamat of course slept with me, wrapped in a bundle of rags. It was late summer, a season of over-ripe fermented fruits and thick grasses. In the evening the crickets called and fireflies floated between the trees. At night we slept.

I was awoken by the smell of smoke, the sound of screams and shouts. Still half asleep I grabbed up Marduk and Tiamat and ran for the door but it was already too late. A male, a wolf, in armor stood before me blocking my path. He raised his mace and clubbed me to the ground. I dropped the children. Stunned, I tried to get back on my hooves again, I could just see flashing pulses in the darkness. Through the pain I could just make out the male, he stooped, picked up marduk by his hind legs and swung him towards the wall.

There was a terrible sound, a terrible cracking sound as his head hit the wall and a splash, a terrible bright splash of blood across the plaster. "No!" I screamed and I jumped towards him but he clubbed me again and I fell back on the floor. I think he hit me again. I'm not sure. I passed out.

When I came too the male was gone, my babies lay roughly against the wall where they had been flung. I crawled over to them, but they were both dead, and already starting to cool. Above us was that terrible splash of blood, that terrible splashing curve of blood, I can still see it in my mind's eye. I think I will always see it.

I knelt over my dead babies then, licked them tenderly, and cried. I think something broke inside me that day, and I became two people, one who wanted more than anything to live, and one who wanted more than anything to die.

After a time they dragged me away from my children and took me outside and started beating me. "Call me Master, cunt," a leopard snarled, hitting me with a stick. I put my forelimbs over my head and tried to protect myself. The whipping hurt my body, bright, stinging, flashing slashes of pain, but the pain inside was worse. I looked down on myself, saw myself cowering on the ground, heard myself "Master! Master! Please stop!" It was like it was happening to someone else.

The males laughed at me, kicked me a few times, pulled my forelegs behind my back and tied them up with rope, that hurt too, then they threw me to the ground among a huddle of other broken prisoners and moved on to the next.

I don't know how long I crouched there. The shouted orders to each other, set fire to the long house and the sheds and outbuilding. I could see bodies lying around, and in the distance there were other fires burning in the darkness. Then they pulled us to our feet and tied us together in a line. They were preparing to march us out.

"Hey, this one's no good, her leg's busted." A fox shouted. He pulled Hope out of the line.

"Take her over there," a wolf gestured to some bushes. "And deal with it."

"No, please!" I shouted. "She'll keep up! She'll keep up!"

The wolf just brandished his club at me and I cowered, and curled up, Goddess help me, I turned away, and whined. I didn't want to be hit any more. The wolf laughed, a cruel, cold, snarl of laughter. Hope looked at me, her eyes pleading: Help me, Fawn! Then they pulled her away behind the bushes and that was the last time I ever saw her.

Then they marched us away through the forest, hooves tied behind our backs, roped to each other, stumbling and falling, branches slashing at our faces in the darkness, while behind us our home burned.

[fawn]

Dawn broke over the forest. They marched us through the trees until we hit a trail, then down the trail till it joined a road. Already we were further from my birthplace than I had ever been, and I wasn't sure if I could find my way back.

Morning light revealed our attackers to be soldiers, warriors. They were cats and canines and foxes, led by wolves. They weren't all flesh eaters, there were bulls and bucks and boars among them.

At the road they told us to sit. Other soldiers arrived leading their own lines of prisoners. There weren't just deer but other forest dwellers: foxes and rabbits and shy jungle cats. I strained to see the faces, some I recognized, but some were missing. Hades, and my mother, Gaia, I never saw again. I don't know if they escaped or perished.

In the clearing along the road the numbers grew and grew as the morning wore on. This wasn't a small raid, or a disorganised one; it was a business.

[fawn]

We waited there all day while more and more soldiers and their prisoners turned up. I was glad to rest as my body was bruised and aching. That night they fed us with hay from their supply wagon, the carnivores got dried meat, the same as the soldiers who had captured us, it seemed. There was no kindness in this, it was practicality: they didn't want us to be too weak to sell.

It was especially frightening being enslaved by flesh eaters, in addition to the fear of being beaten was an instinctive terror that they would eat me. I wanted to run away into the forest but I didn't dare make an attempt. I knew what would happen if I did: They would hunt me down and hurt me or kill me.

That night I sank into a deep sleep of hopelessness and exhaustion, every part of me hurt. When the morning came they roused us, fed us, then cuffed us to our feet and got us moving down the road. The road wound down through the hills, and down along a river valley and into open fields. I had never seen country like this before, so flat and green and open. We camped that night by the side of the road, and then marched on in the morning.

The fields were worked by gangs of workers guarded by overseers with weapons. None of it made any sense to me then. That night we camped outside the walls of a town. There was a strange smell in the air, tangy, like salt. Later I was to realize it was the smell of the sea. Next morning they marched us into a dusty square and sold us, in lots. We stood on a low platform, still roped together while carnivores in fine colorful clothes argued in a language I could hardly understand. Trade talk, numbers.

Afterwards different guards marched us away, over a bridge and along another road. The road was sandy and I could still smell the salt somewhere nearby. We turned away from the road and crossed a stream on another wooden bridge. then we were among bushes I didn't recognize, identical bushes planted row after row in straight lines. We came to an open space, they pushed and shoved us into a wooden shed and locked the door behind us.

Inside it was dark.

[fawn]

They had shoved food in with us, a bale of hay, a bucket of potato peelings, and stale crusts of bread. It may sound like scraps to you, but to deer it was a feast. I had never eaten as well at home, a deer could get fat on this diet. There were no carnivores with us, I guess they hadn't bought any. Carnivores make poor field hands.

In the darkness I found my daughters, Demeter and Persephone. We embraced and cried together.

There was a small fire pit in the middle of the floor and the coals gave out a soft red light. I crept towards it, then stopped as I smelled the figure crouched over the fire. Wolf. Old female wolf.  I began to back away.

She turned to look at me and saw my shivering. "Don't be afraid of me, girl. I won't eat you. The masters don't buy slaves just to have them eaten, you're safe from that at least, for the most part. Come closer, come, I won't hurt you. Let me get the scent of you. Hmmm. You're injured aren't you? What's your name?"

"F-Fawn."

"Ha!" She gave a bark of laughter. "Someone was being original. Fawn. Sit by me, Fawn, and let me see to your wounds."

"Who are you?"

"Shadow. The masters have forgotten that old Shadow was here, most likely. Now come, sit, sit..." Somehow I scented that I could trust her, and I sat, still shivering, as she applied a stinging balm to my cuts and bruises. "There. You're young and healthy. You'll live." I was almost disappointed to hear it, but she was right, my wounds healed quickly. Shadow had healing paws, everybody went to her with their troubles, even some of the mistresses.

"What will happen to us?" I asked.

"Hmm, oh not much. In the morning they'll brand you and then put you to work. Field hands, I'd be thinking."
"Field hands?"

"Work, in the fields. Growing plants."

"Oh, yes." It was work I knew, that was reassuring at least. Shadow moved me aside and treated another. I didn't know what branding meant, but I supposed I would find out, on the morrow.

[fawn]

So in the morning they branded us. They dragged us out of the shed one by one to a small fire in the yard where they did it, branded a mark on our right shoulders with a hot iron. Here, you can still see it, a  "W" mark like two fangs, that's the mark of the wolf clan, my owners.

What? Did it hurt? Yes, of course it hurt. I screamed. But mostly I just remember what a beautiful day it was. I seemed to be looking down on myself as they did that thing to me, noticing how green the grass was, and how earthy the ground smelt. It was a bright, soft morning, soft white clouds floated in the morning light, everything seemed filled with a crystal purity and beauty. Yes, I remember thinking it was a very beautiful day.

When they had finished they marched us away to the fields. The mark on my arm hurt, but the iron had cauterized it and stopped it from bleeding, and it healed well. Shadow put a salve on it that evening which helped.

So they put us to work. They got us started on weeding, which is easy work for a deer, our teeth were made for pulling up grass and plants, and some of the weeds were good to eat. It was good to sink into the mindlessness of the work, to forget who I was and where I was, and why I was here. The day rolled on, the sun moved across the sky.

About noon they stopped and let us rest and drink from a stream. Shadow hobbled up and flopped down nearby and caught me staring at her legs.

"Eh? Ain't seen that before, have you girl? I was a great runner when I was your age. A great hunter. You wouldn't know it now, would you?" You certainly wouldn't: she was an old wolf woman, her muzzle fur patchy and white, and she hobbled and limped about, her ankles were terribly scarred. She took a pull from a water bottle she carried.

Nobody questioned Shadow, she was part of the scenery. She nominally worked out in the kitchens, helping out with the cooking, but whenever anyone was hurt or sick they sent for her, even some of the Mistresses, so she could pop up anywhere.

"That was how they caught me. I went a long way, hunting in the forest, further than I'd ever been. I was a great huntress in those days, the shadow of the woods. The local tribe caught me in a net and dragged me down to town and sold me. They brought me here and... of course I ran away."

She chucked dryly. "When they caught me they did this to me, cut my legs. I couldn’t run after that."

I stared at her in horror. A wolf or a deer that cannot run is a fearful thing, half alive, worthless. To do that to someone deliberately...

"Ach, stop with your staring, girl, it was years ago. And you have to get back to your work."

[fawn]

And so our lives fell into a regular pattern, at night locked in the shed to eat and sleep, by day working in the fields tending the coffee and other crops. You can buy coffee in the market or the Inn here. It’s expensive, but even if I had the money I would not drink it because I know how it is grown. It is grown with the blood and sweat of slaves.

[fawn]

Then, after weeks or months of slavery came my first rut in captivity. This aspect of life has always taken me strongly, almost like possession, and afterwards I have few or no memories of what has occurred. I sometimes think it is like I have another personality that comes to the surface and expresses herself only in these times of unbridled passion. I woke up afterwards in darkness, black and blue, covered in bruises, every muscle and bone aching. Although I could remember nothing, it was clear that someone had used me and beaten me up while I was in the throes of rut.

Sometime later I miscarried twins, and fell into a fever and only Shadow’s skilled nursing kept me alive. Or... was that later, after my time with Master Claudio? I... I’m not sure. I lost everything for so long, and when it came back it came in bits and pieces, flashes of memory. Sometimes I wonder if I just made things up. I’m sorry.

After this, I think, I went into a decline. I lost my will to live, or maybe I’d lost it long before and just found impossible to pretend any more. I forget. I don’t remember much about those months. It seemed to be dark all the time. I remember the fear. The fear of being hurt. And the not caring if I got hurt. If that makes any sense. I remember wanting it. I remember wanting to die.

Then some food was stolen and the other slaves accused us. It didn’t make much sense because we were well fed, over fed really, but looking back I don’t know if anyone there really knew that. We were wild grazing animals, our stomachs were different to most of the animals there. We could have survived on the weeds we pulled up tending the plantation, we didn’t actually need the food they gave us, but as slaves it was one of the few things to look forward to. Then some bread went missing and the others pointed the finger at us.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I tried to explain it to the guards, to protest. Before I knew it I was on the ground and blows were thudding into me like lightning bolts, making my vision flash. Then everything seemed to fade away to a very far distance, and I thought “This is it. This time they’re going to kill me,” and I just wanted to let it go, let it all go into the darkness...

I may have passed out. At some point I became aware of a voice, deep and commanding, male, giving orders and asking questions and demanding answers. “Take her to my quarters. Send for the healer woman.”

[fawn]

I half woke up as Shadow tended to my wounds, tutting and hissing softly and muttering under her breath. I was lying in a strange dark place that smelt of stone and dirt. I was lying on soft, warm rags and there was a fire burning nearby. I hurt. I slept fitfully through that night, my right foreleg hurt and I couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep. In the morning Shadow pronounced it broken and splinted it and put it in a sling.

She lectured me for talking back to the overseers, telling me I was lucky to have gotten off so lightly: they had intended to kill me as an example to the others. Master Claudio had stopped them.

“Who’s Master Claudio?” I asked.

“I am, girl.” He stood in the door, a tall grey wolf, dressed in a long flowing robe, impractical for work. Shadow bowed to him, and following her lead I struggled to my feet and did the same, then winced as it hurt my arm.

“Easy, easy,” he said, coming over and laying a paw on my shoulder, he tutted as he looked me over. “They beat you up pretty badly, didn’t they? Oh well, perhaps you will learn the wisdom to think before you speak now, hmm? What do you think, Shadow?”

“She will make a fast recovery, Master. Her arm is broken but it should heal without any lasting injury. She is young and strong  and asks intelligent questions. She will serve you well.”

“Yes, hmm, well, very good. I am pleased.”

“Thank you Master,” Shadow intoned. I echoed her. Master Claudio left and we were along again.

“Who is he?” I asked. “Why did he stop them from beating me?”

“Who knows?” she growled. “Wh o knows why the Masters do anything? He’s Master Julio’s brother.” Master Julio was the head of the clan. He owned the plantation, and all of us. It was his mark I bore on my arm. “Master Claudio has returned from the army and Master Julio said he could choose any slave he wanted as his personal servant. He chose you. The house slaves are all hopping mad, they think it should have been one of them. You’ve been very lucky.”

“Lucky?” I whimpered with laughter. How could anyone think I had been lucky?

“Yes, you have moved up in the world above many who think they are more deserving. And what exactly have you done to deserve this?”
I looked down at her severe tone. She was right, I had done nothing to deserve this fortune, good or bad. “I don’t understand,” I muttered. This world was bewildering, all blinding pain and sudden, explosive violence.

“Then you’d better learn,” she whispered. “And quickly.”

[fawn]

And so I came to serve Master Claudio. He had been away in the army for many years and he had risen to the highest command. In that time he had handed the enemy, of whom I knew nothing, so many defeats that they had sued for peace. With the coming of peace Claudio had left the army announced he would retire to his family's farm and study philosophy.

Claudio had taken up residence in a villa at the edge of the plantation. I was his slave, I cleaned the house, laundered his clothes, and cooked his meals. Cooking was the hardest part because he ate meat, I couldn't touch the dead flesh without thinking of the spirits of the animals who had once possessed it. The smell made me want to be sick. I managed the best I could, but I do not think I was ever a great cook.

Master Claudio treated me much better than I deserved. He spoke to me as an equal, talked about a great many things he had learned or was reading. It was all highly improper: On the plantation slaves were regarded as objects to be used, like livestock, not equals to be talked to and asked their opinion. In truth I think he must have been lonely, having retired from the army and the life that he loved and entered a voluntary exile, he found that he didn't enjoy the solitude as much as he had thought. So he talked to me instead.

A couple of Mistresses came to call on him in this time, seeking advancement and a family alliance, but he gently explained to them that the rigours of war had left him unready for the responsibilities of fatherhood at this time, so they went away again.

He would read to me parts of what he was studying, although it was often had to understand. I could neither read nor write and the tenets of philosophy seemed a long way removed from my life. He ordered me not to touch his books, though, or tidy his desk, after he caught me eating some of his discarded notepaper.

Master Claudio encouraged me to start a herb and vegetable garden, which throve in the sunlit courtyard of the villa. He didn't eat many greens or vegetables, being a wolf, but they made wonderful food for me.

Eventually the real thief was found. He was a house slave, a half-feline named Petros, important enough to have his own small room, as I now did as well. He had no apparent need to steal, he was well fed and well treated, trusted with responsibility, but when his room was searched they found a treasure trove of food and tools and clothing and jewellery, all the things that had been going missing for months, maybe years. He didn't seem to need most of the things he'd stolen, or have any use for them. It made no sense to me.

They strung him up in the courtyard of the main house and assembled the entire household to watch his punishment. I stood by Master Claudio, far away across the open ground I could make out my work gang and my daughters. I don't know where Shadow was, but she must have been there somewhere.

They had Petros strung up from two poles. Master Julio said some words about stealing and how it was punished, then the guards started beating Petros with heavy whips. I shuddered, watching his life bleed out and spatter on the ground. I closed my eyes, but I could still hear the thud of the whips on his back, and his screams, which gradually subsided into grunts and gasps. When I looked up he was hanging there unconscious, but they were still beating him, it went on and on and on. It could have been me, I thought. It very nearly was me.

Master Claudio slipped his arm around my shoulder, embracing me. That simple gesture of comfort could have gotten me into serious trouble if anyone had noticed. "Right View," he whispered. "Is to see things as they really are. To understand the nature of suffering and it's causes, and to have compassion."

[fawn]

Master Claudio always treated me with kindness and consideration, although I was only a slave. It made me feel strange, self concious: what did he see in me that made him, apparently, value me so much? I could not understand it, but slowly I grew to trust him. It seemed odd, having such feelings for a male.

One morning as I was returning to the villa with fire wood a hulking figure stepped out from behind the corner of the building. It was one of the guards, a massive short faced hyena with dirty white fur and a bad smell. "Sweetling," he snarled. "Remember Growler, do you? Have good time again, yes, my little deer chew toy..."

I dropped the firewood and tried to back away, but he grabbed my forelimb. "No! Let me go! It's not that time of year!" I protested, and I struggled, trying to shake him off.

Growler was massive and his grip was like iron, my struggling just seemed to excite him, and he leered at me actually drooling. Was he going to rape me, or eat me?

"Not very friendly, little morsel. Last time was friendlier, no?"

I stared at him. Last time? I remembered the bruises and, bite marks(?), that had covered my body after my last rut. Had I actually mated with this monster? I could remember nothing, looking at him made me feel sick, but just the same sick feeling that looking at any slavering predator gave me.

"Let me go!" I screamed, but he just pulled me closer.

Then Master Claudio was there. "Release my slave," he said in a low, commanding growl.

Growler hesitated, then tossed me aside as he turned to face Claudio. "She ask for it," he snarled. "She wanted it."

"Touch her again and you will regret it. She belongs to me. Now go."

Growler saluted and snorted, and turned and huffed off, muttering to himself.

Then I was in Claudio's arms, crying, and he held me and stroked my fur. "I hat them!" I hissed. "I hate them all and I want to kill them and kill them and kill them all!"

"Don't hate them, Fawn."

"I do! I hate them and I want kill them so badly it hurts. I want to hurt them for what they did to me. But.. I'm too weak to. I'm too weak."

"Fawn, you aren't weak," he whispered, licking my face clean of tears. "You are stronger than you know. Don't hate them – that's their game. Hatred just eats you up from the inside until there's nothing left, so don't hate."

"I'll try not to, Master."

"Good girl," he whispered. "I never want to see you hurt again. I hope you will never have the need to hate anyone."

"I'm sorry, I'll try."

He held me close, his fur was warm. I rested my head against his chest. He spoke softly, "Right intention is to do no harm, to have good will and compassion for everyone."

"Even the haters, Master?"

"Especially for them."

[fawn]

My memories of that time are like a black night, split and illuminated by flashes of lightening. Shadow awoke me in the middle of the night and dragged me out of bed.

"Wake up, wake up. Persephone, her baby, very sick. You must come, girl." I remember it like it was yesterday, but was it before or after the incident with Growler? I'm not sure, but I think they both happened. I'm almost sure.

Shadow took me a small clearing in the forest that fringed the plantation. Light turned the eastern horizon milky, it was almost dawn, and I could see the others faintly. Demeter and Persephone, crouched before an idle roughly hewn from wood. Her figure was vague, head, breasts, round pregnant belly. The Great Mother, the Earth. The sick baby lay on the ground before her, and we murmured prayers. The Great Mother loved children, and looked kindly upon slaves and women. If anyone would send healing, she would.

We knelt and murmured prayers and begged for her assistance. The strange thing is that I obviously knew the child, I was probably present at her birth, but I have no memory of it whatsoever. Persephone had named her Hestia, but in my own heart I liked to call her Hope.

Suddenly Persephone broke off from her prayers and began to wail. "She's dead! She's dead! My baby is dead!"

We huddled forward to embrace her, but she would not be comforted, her grief, aching, endless.

Shadow spoke softly. "This child is not dead."

Persephone would not listend, she struggled free from our grasp, screaming wild accusation. We had killed her child. I had killed her child. I had caused the attack on our village because I would not let her talk to the outsiders, the strangers, the ones who might have taught us how to fight back.

She continued to scream and rave. She would not pick up her daughter or even look at her. Something had broken in her head. It was only with the greatest difficulty that we dragged her back to the work gang before the day's work began.

Little Hestia survived and got better. Demeter took her and raised her with her own babies, her mother would not have anything to do with her.

Was there any truth in Persephone's ravings? I do not know. I don't remember any outsiders or strangers ever coming to the village before the attack. I don't remember any of the things she speaks of. But my memories are incomplete and fallible. Maybe, in some way, I was responsible. I don't know.

Demeter and Persephone turned up years later, having made their own ways to freedom, but they never spoke of their children, and until now I'd never remembered them, or thought to ask. I do not know if they are living or dead.

[fawn]

The first I knew of it was when I heard the snarls and growls and went to the kitchen door to peer outside and see what as going on. What I saw made me shrink back into the shadows. Master and a younger wolf were facing off in the clearing in front of the house.

The younger wolf screamed and leapt as Master, then they were tearing at each other with their fangs, rolling over and over in the dirt, I raised my hooves to my mouth, terrified that he'd be hurt or killed. I had no idea what it was about.

I learned later that one of the females Master had refused had taken offence, and now her younger brother was here, filled with rage and pride, to avenge the perceived slight to the honour of his clan. From a deer's perspective it seems like a strange way of doing things – we're used to males fighting over the right to posses the females, rather than the right to not want to – but these were wolves and they lived and died by their own rules.

In any case the result was two grown male wolves snarling and slashing was one another with their mouths. I was afraid for Master Claudio, but I need not have worried. While they were both trained warriors – Wolf clan males spent most of their time exercising and training for war – the youth known as Grey Tail was a stripling fighting for his pride, while Master was a veteran soldier who fought for survival. There was no contest, Master brutally and efficiently brought the challenger down and broke his resistance.

Beaten, Grey Tail lifted his muzzle to expose his throat, and called for, demanded the killing stroke. Instead, Master touched the young wolf's throat with his paw, tenderly, like a lover. "There is no dishonour in this," He said. "You fought fairly, and were beaten fairly. I do not want your death, Grey Tail.  Go home. Right Action is to refrain from violence and killing."

Master called Shadow and she tended to the cuts, bruises and bite wounds of both combatants, and eventually Grey Tail limped away home. I think he joined Master in the war the next year. Master's brothers in the wolf clan said admired his cunning, avoiding having to pay the blood money Grey Tail's death would have cost.  But I do not think that is why he did it.

*

Every morning after he had completed his exercises and his short sword drill, but before he had broken his fast, Master would sit for a while on the ground in front of the villa. When I had done my morning chores, lit the fire and fetched water, gotten his morning meal ready and made his bed and gotten everything in order, I used to go and sit with him.

It was quiet and peaceful, I could sense it would be wrong to disturb him. Eventually, though, I grew brave enough to ask: "Master, what is this sitting that you do? What is it for?"

He smiled. He was the kindest wolf I have ever known, really. "It is just sitting, Fawn, a way of focussing the mind, learning to see things as they really are."

We sat there together and I looked down at my hooves, they seemed new, as if I had never seen them before. They were black, round, cloven in the middle, my hoof fingers were out of sight, safely tucked away behind the hoof horn. Above them my brown fur ended in a slightly uneven line, individual hairs continuing down over the surface of the hoof, then thinning out until there was just horn, rippled and patterned with lines of grain, down to the gentle curl at the base of the hoof, nicked and broken with minor scratches and cracks.

As I watched the detail in my hooves got greater and greater, individual hairs and patterns and rivers of hairs flowing together. The curves, the individual uneven curves of the quick underneath the line of hair and the unique flowing parallel lines of grain of the hoof nail. These were my hooves, unique. They had never been quite like this before and they would never be quite like this again. The fineness of the detail was incredible. My hooves were worlds to themselves. Worlds within worlds within worlds...

Time passed.

After a while Master got up, indicating the end of the sitting. I got up as well. He turned to me and smiled, and said "Right Mindfulness is to exist in the moment, to be gently and compassionately aware of all things inside and outside ourself."

I don't know if I have ever managed that, but I find that sitting and concentrating my mind on my hooves, or my sitting helps me to find calm and peace, to know who I am, to find my spirituality, my centre.

[fawn]

Fall. Harvest time. I carried load after load of produce from the garden into the house. Then there was the storing, drying and making jams and preserves. We hadn't done much of that at home but Shadow was a wealth of knowledge, having used many of the same techniques to preserve medicines.

It was a busy time, full of work and activity, but a happy time was well. The year was over, the harvest was in, and there would be plenty to eat over winter. Master liked to sit and watch me work, a silly grin on his canine face. Wolf clan males don't do any work as we know it, they spend their time training and preparing, studying for war, or else relaxing and socialising with the other males, drinking, gambling, hunting. They are warriors, not workers, that's why they need so many slaves.

He liked to sit and watch me work. "Right Effort," he said, "Is to eliminate all harmful thoughts, words, and actions."

"I guess you've got that pretty much down, Master," I replied. "Since you never do anything at all!"

He stared at me, absolutely gob-smacked for an instant, until he realized that I was joking. Then he laughed and smiled nervously. There are some things a slave just must not say, and if anyone else had been present he would have been forced to punish me. "Oh Fawn, what would I do without you?" Then he sighed and shook his head. He stroked my cheek with his paw, tenderly, as if I was precious to him. "This speaking out of turn has gotten you in trouble before. Please don't give me a heart attack by doing that again."

"Yes, master."

"We each have our part to play, Fawn. Right Speech is to tell the truth, but refrain from idle, harmful, angry or divisive words."

[fawn]

Late Fall. I'd been feeling restless for several days, but I hadn't quite twigged what it was. It's funny how these things can still sneak up on you. One morning I woke up and everything was different, there was a new taste in the air. Suddenly I knew what I needed. I went to the yard where Master was exercising, and went over and pressed myself against him. I ran my snout up and down against his soft fur. "Mmm, you smell good..."

It took him a while to catch on, I suppose my scent gave it away, a doe in heat smells rich and musky, intoxicating.

"Oh Goddess," he growled. I could feel his body responding, becoming aroused. "I can't..."

"Please," I said. "You want to. I need you. Please."

"If not me, then who? Not Growler..."

"I need you." I rested my head against his chest, inhaling his scent, his maleness, feeling the need. "I need you."

He licked me gently. "Against necessity, even the Gods contend in vain."

We locked ourselves in the house. I believe we must have made love for three days. The softness of his dark fur against mine. The warmth. The darkness. Memories.