L
E
I
F

A call snapped him from his reverie. Leif jolted, head snapping upwards and pointing royal tines towards the heavens, ears twitching forward as the sound echoed through the air. It was a response to his own only a few moments prior, a beckoning, searching. Instinctively the stag froze, standing still, scenting the air for any hint of danger. Nothing, save rain, wet leaves, and damp soil rose to meet him, and Leif swallowed hard against his anxiety.

Who? Had it truly been such a good idea of him to call out a beckoning bugle in a strange, foreign land?

Before he could even think to continue on his way, a darkly shape emerged from the nearby foliage, its movement catching Leif's wary gaze immediately. The white stag stared, unabashed and unashamed, nostrils flaring and wide blue-green eyes lingering on a form that he recognized. A deer. It was just a deer. Oddly colored, like himself, but more of the earth-tones that suited his kin and ilk. Browns and blacks, and as he eyed the small deer, Leif couldn't help but feel as though it looked oddly intelligent...

Another form broke into sight, however; a streak of golden glory and ivory tresses. This animal, however, Leif had no idea what to make of.

The elk inhaled sharply, wondering what sort of world he had stepped into. A... A horse? Leif had seen horses, encountered a few during his travels, but this was no horse, for it had horns protruding from it's cresting poll, twisted, as though of his species. What in the world?

The golden stag stood behind the smaller, earthen deer, watching him with careful eyes as though he was the weird one. Then, surprisingly, he dipped his head, the gold not-horse, and Leif swallowed once again.

Did he run? Or stay? The surprises, as it were, did not end there, for another joined them, nearly slinking in unnoticed.

Pale and alabaster she was, a female, with wet earthly colored tresses. She slunk from the protective embrace of a tree, surely there to avoid the rain, watching the white stag with a look of genuine surprise... The same feeling that Leif himself currently felt, but nothing could have prepared him for when a third creature joined them. Had his call truly attracted so many? At the moment, he was furious at himself for pulling such an idiotic move.

Another male... He thought? While these not-horses he could place, this... Other not-horse was justly that. His front half looked familiar enough, the neck and head... But his back half did not. Yet, who was Leif to judge others on their appearance? He wasn't. Still, the half-horse half-thing spoke, and it made him none the more comfortable about the situation. Leif detested such close scrutiny, such bulbous, wondrous stares. It made him uncomfortable, self-conscious, and scared.

In an action of false bravado, one born of fear, Leif tucked his head towards his chest, showing off the rack upon his head, and lifted a cloven hoof only to stomp it upon wet soil with a loud 'smack!' Upon his rump, the tuft of his tail flicked in muted distress.

"I... I mean no ill-will," the majestic stag stated, tones an octave lower beyond the norm, "I am merely passing through. I know no knowledge of this land, and..." Leif paused, swallowed for a third time in only moments, and went on, eyes darting from the female to the male and his earthen deer, then to the odd third member of their abrupt gathering. "I am Leif. Could... Could one of you, perhaps, inform me as to where I am?"