"You protected this forest from the cat from the mountain. I do not know how to thank you except for staying with you."
Man entered the forest other than to hunt. One such hunter, The Great Hunter, has a history in the forest. When he goes missi...
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One Year Later
Spring came and went with the colored change of the leaves to darker shades of orange and brown. Winter came with the fall of the leaves.
Winter reminded the Great Prince of the Forest of the human who had died to protect the forest. It was on one of those winter mornings that he found himself at the stand where he was almost shot as a young buck during the start of his patrol in the morning hours. He looked up at it recalling when he would see the Great Hunter sitting there with a huge smile on his face as he watched the deer passing on the trails.
He thought of the human that the Great Hunter called Darby. Darby had been the human who saved Faline from the mountain lion. When he turned to return to his morning patrol, he noted something odd about the snow leading down the path the other humans had come from to find Darby's body. He walked over cautiously unsure of what he would find. He stopped before what looked like tracks, which looked like the ones he had followed to find The Great Hunter last winter, however, there was a circle in the snow that accompanied one of the prints. He was unsure of what the circle could be, but his curiosity led him to follow the prints from the side being wary enough to watch the sides to not be surprised by anything. Once he was able to be assured that the prints led to the dark road, he turned back to continue his patrol.
The prints and circle stayed with him longer than he cared to admit and usually found himself at the stand just to see if the prints were there. To his disappointment, they were not there. A small part of his heart broke. His hope that maybe the young human hadn't died as he thought shattered.
Spring came again without a trace of the prints on the snow, with it went the hope of seeing the human named Darby.
By this time, his son grew into a young buck with three points on each antler. He couldn't have been prouder of Bambi when he fought Ronno, the self-proclaimed rival, for Faline and won both the fight. It was this spring that Geno and Gurri were born.
It was upon one of his patrols, however, that his hope came back.
┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈
It had taken a long time to recover.
From what the doctors told her; she had been dead and should have still been dead. They were able to start her heart again after the miracle of her heartbeat still being there despite the amount of blood she lost. According to them, her mother called her boyfriend in a panic, and he put together a search party to look for her. When they found her, she had a very faint heartbeat, but she died on the way to the hospital.
She knew what they were talking about. She met a beautiful female doe in a bright, beautiful meadow even though she had expected to see her father. When the deer had spoken and Darby about jumped out of her skin, the doe explained that she was meeting Darby to tell her how thankful she was to her for helping Faline. She wanted Darby to know that this meadow was the place between life and death and that she was there to guide Darby to life or death. She told Darby that if she chose life, she would live for many years but would not be able to live the same as she did before the mountain lion attack. If she chose death, she would be with her father but leave many mourning her. Darby thought about what her father would want her to do. She remembered ranting to the buck about how she was jealous of him for the attention her father gave him. She remembered her father's letters she received when she was in Afghanistan. They detailed how a buck reminded him of her and how he quit hunting due to him. She had thought it was the entire buck that reminded her father of her, but upon recalling the words of the letter, she realized that it was the buck's eyes. The fear of the man that would end his life. She realized as she died that her father had been thinking of her and not of the buck at that point. She knew how her father felt. She had looked at many men in the scope of her rifle when she was patrolling the base. The many times she had to contemplate taking the shot when an enemy got to close also came to mind. She remembered the fear she felt just having someone in her scope. She knew numerous times that she had been in the scope of many enemy rifles especially since one instance ended in her being sent to the hospital with a bullet wound in her leg. She knew what her father would have wanted for her during that time and thus understood what he would want now.
