The Rare Gift
SUMMER IS ENDING.
Soon the cold will sit in the grass and in the stones and it will stay. Then the opportunity—and the means—to defeat my enemy will fall away from me, like the snow from the sky.
Now. I need to challenge him now. To challenge them all.
He has herded all the females up behind him. He is a fool. He has no idea that we’re fighting for a prize far greater than them.
I have never played as they do. I have always been too small to compete with them — that’s what they think. They have ignored me like they would a youngster, while they rucked and rutted for mating rights. I am content with that, mostly. But I am full grown, no matter how they look down on me, and a rare prize awaits today’s victor, as Autumn walks into the trees and warns us to be ready.
That prize will be mine.
Runt, lack-horn, long-face, half-born: it will be mine, all the same.
He makes a sudden dash and runs me down; prancing in front of the watching females, his head proud, bucking, expecting me to rear up as he does. But I have never played as they do. I am small and have a gift for finding my own way. I bow my head, as in submission, keep my body low to the ground and put him off his guard. Still, he rears over me, hooves drawn up to strike; he knows no other way to battle and is still readying to meet me in a stand-off.
Except I don’t stand, don’t throw my head back, don’t rear up to face him. I push my head forwards and drop it even further, until the tips of horn are sliding into his soft, exposed belly. And then I keep going. Tearing downwards. He drops his hooves onto my back with the shock of it. Only then do I rear; buck my head up and bury it inside him.
I tear him out.
Biggest, strongest of them all, he slumps off my shoulders as the watching females stamp their hooves in agitation. His weight is enough to pull my antlers clean away, the coming of the cold days having loosened them almost to the point where this would not have worked. All that is left on my bald head is his blood; shining, running crimson over my nose and mouth.
And at the edge of the clearing, the man with white hair points at me.
He says
You, and beckons me to follow him.
And I fly.
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