AW; looking for other deer...!

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the crows had not yet dared his field.
soffinas stood beneath the skeletons of trees, all leafless and hunched with the weight of age. his body was obsidian, carved from storm and shadow, antlers like twisted ruin reaching toward a sky choked with dusk. the earth split beneath his hooves, not from malice but inevitability— he was a creature meant to break what he stepped upon.
his breath misted in the dying light, curling like spirits into the air. he grazed not out of need but ritual, tongue slow against blood-warmed roots, the grass flattened in reverence. and when a raven called overhead, he did not lift his head.

SKILL: ORATOR (1/5)

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The world tasted wrong.

Damp. Unclean. Like wilted lilies crushed underfoot by something that did not know their worth.
The ground was too cold. Too soft. Beneath her. She had not laid down there willingly.

She rose slowly—legs long and trembling, unfamiliar hooves sinking into moss and mud. The ache in her limbs was not pain—it was indignity. Her breath left her in pale ribbons, curling upward like incense without altar.

C’est une erreur… she murmured, voice delicate but hoarse. Zis is not my place. Zis is not my body.

Her ears flicked instinctively at the sound of silence—thick and eternal. No courtiers. No lutes. No fanfare. Just the creak of trees that did not bow, and a dawn that dared arrive without her.

She stepped forward, unsteady, shoulders stiff with refusal. Her coat caught the light—faintly—and for a moment, she pretended it was the shimmer of a sun-kissed gown. It wasn’t. She was no longer draped in silk, but in fur.

Then, she saw him.

The figure stood among the mist like a statue that the forest itself had shaped from grief. Dark. Massive. Antlers like shattered crowns. He grazed slowly, reverently, a ritual she did not understand. And when a raven cried above him, he did not even look.

She looked around, a queen displaced in a kingdom of ghosts and bark, her eyes half-lidded against the dawnlight filtering through the pine.
A crownless monarch. A reflection with no mirror.

She approached, unsure for once in her life how to handle this predicament she had found herself in.

What world is zis… that greets me not with fanfare, but fog?

---

he did not answer her at first.
he had heard her coming— smelled her before that. the breath of blossoms where none yet grew. foreignness, too fine for dirt, made flesh.
his ears flicked once, the only concession to her question. and still he grazed.
the grasses here were bitter with frostbite, half-revived in the thaw. they tore when chewed, too loose in the root. he tore them anyway, and swallowed.
not until the next mouthful was swallowed did he lift his head.
the black stag turned slowly, and his eye found her.
dainty thing, he said, voice like tree-bark breaking, unused and half-rotted.
his one antler curved like a sickle against the fog.
he regarded her— her gilded hide, the way she carried her sorrow like perfume.
it will remember your scent.
his breath hung like smoke.
eat, soffinas said at last. or it will remember your bones first.

SKILL: ORATOR (2/5)

---

She did not move when he turned to face her.
Not at first.

The fog curled between them like breath not yet exhaled. And yet, despite the chill, she felt heat. A slow-blooming ember of something—not anger. No, anger was familiar, hers to wield. This was insult.

Her long ears flicked once—an unconscious twitch, quick and sharp, betraying her tension. She blinked, once. Slowly. Regal even in her disbelief.

Dainty… she echoed, the word landing like a shard on her tongue. Zat is what you see?

Not sovereign. Not flame. Not awe.
Dainty.

She stepped forward in light, calculated steps, hooves landing with surgical grace despite the unfamiliar terrain. Her neck arched slightly, a habitual gesture of dignity that now mimicked challenge in this new form of hers. She lifted her chin, exposing the delicate line of her throat, not in trust, but in silent defiance.

He did not flinch. Merely spoke once more with a voice like crumbling wood:
"Eat. Or it will remember your bones first."

Let it remember, then. Her voice was steady now, but cool—too cool.
Let it remember ze perfume of a bloodline zat ruled suns.

The indignity struck like cold water.

Her muscles tensed. She felt her hind legs shift—a subtle, instinctive motion, a step backward disguised as poise. Her tail flicked once. Sharp. Irritated. It was the kind of tell she would’ve punished in a courtier. She felt it now in herself.

For a long moment, she only watched him—this creature made of ruin and dusk, one antler like a broken crown curved against the sky. He did not fear her. Did not marvel. Did not kneel.
And neither did the trees.
Neither did the fog.
Neither did the world.

Her muscles tensed. She felt her hind legs shift—a subtle, instinctive motion, a step backward disguised as poise. Her tail flicked once. Sharp. Irritated. It was the kind of tell she would’ve punished in a courtier. She felt it now in herself.

"This place… it will not bow," she thought. "Not because it defies me. But because it does not know me. Not yet."

There had been a time when her name alone parted rooms. When courtiers adjusted their posture to mirror hers. When light itself bent around her figure in the mirrored halls of Cyrelienne.
Here, the trees did not whisper. The air did not shift.
This forest did not care what she had been.
It would not fawn. It would not flatter.

Not unless she made it.

Her head dipped—not in humility, but calculation. Neck slow and curved, like a dancer descending into the bow that precedes a killing act. Her hooves parted frostbitten grass. The first bite was small. Reluctant. She chewed slowly, ears angled toward him still, like blades still half-unsheathed.

It tasted like mourning.

Zis world… it is not ruled, she said softly, bitterly.
It devours.

She straightened again, this time with steadier grace. Her flanks tightened beneath her gilded coat and her gaze no longer begged for recognition.

"Then let it learn to choke on me."

---

the broken-crowned stag did not stir.
he watched her through the veil of fog, as if through smoke rising from some ancient pyre. golden she was, coiled in silk and disdain, but it did not move him. the world had once bowed to others like her— he had watched it. and he had watched it end.
good, soffinas rumbled, voice like velvet dragged through stone. the work begins.
he turned back to the bark he'd carved, rubbing slow and seething. his musk bled into the marrow of the tree. a warning. a monument. a name written in scent instead of song.
but you’ll eat, he murmured over his shoulder, not cruel but certain. even the proud chew, when they wish to live.