the
Laurelin

The warm sun shifted on his golden back and brought a long low sigh from him. A cloven hoof absent mindedly pawed at the dry dirt below. Harks speak of ill thoughts and his head turns away from the dust in disgust. There were too fowl a memories in this weather, dry and hot. And he had been followed by to many of those lately. Snorting out, he roused the deer standing not far to look up from his own meal. The patient deer had felt the growing weight of those old times lately, and spoke nothing, knowing their true cause. Still even he was tiring of them. His time on this earth was growing finally long enough to notice change. Notice in himself the loose of playful exuberance, and he missed it. The past few days he drug the gold from the hollow to out here, hoping to spark….something.

It turns out, today might finally be his chance. The sharp deer hears them first and the he draws it to the gold’s attention. Coming just in sight, a small pair of figures moves closer. The gold cocks his head, but with familiar movements, reaches back and throws his black cloak over his back. Haldir’s questions are answered to do the same, and the dark deer, still small because of his class, slips into a thistle bush. The twins may have sought prey to trap, but they were walking into one as well.

As the bounded forward the gold watched with dull curiosity. He was not always a fan of babes, their cutting gazes and jumping conclusions were like those of companions, seemingly always on his trail. Their instincts were always so highly tuned, so that where adults could brush it off, their minds and bodies seemed to scream it. (There was also the continued foul presence of memories…but he was loathe to mention those.) The twins flirted past him, but his gaze followed. Their markings…The filly was hard to place but that colt’s marks could not be mistaken. He was clearly the child of the elephant, and the northern thief. How those two came together was beyond the gold’s comprehension.

”Haldir, tolio.” The deer heard the command to come, to move on, but he was loath to go. In his desire to find something lost of himself he watched the girl with envy. Her light dancing feet, and fine face spoke of a filly of folly. The flames along her back only told of a liveliness. He wanted that, the dark deer. He wanted to feel something lighter than the dark pressing weight the gold always marked him with. So he begs the invisible keeper, who was already walking away, to wait. The filly’s voice breaks the golden’s rebuttal. And earth eyes turn to watch the scene unfold.

It draws him back in as he watches with increasing concern that all was not as it appeared with the pair. She calls him brother, and they share the darkest of grins. To poor Haldir this all goes unnoticed. Instead in his willing eyes he still watches the girl in wonder as she slips down in the grass to play with the bunnies. His smart grin knows just what to do. He would join them, and pull the gold from his secluded dark day as he had done before. So as the filly settled down, and the colt took in a deep breath the deer steps from his hiding towards their turned backs. Into his horror.

The gold was more curious and pleased than horrified. He too had assumed the twins were of lighter make, but was pleasantly surprised to be found wrong. His skin did twitch to see the young rabbit go limp, but his eyes rolled over the scene with hunger. It was a neat trick, and clearly these twins were not made of typical mother’s milk. He liked that. They were different, odd, curious, possibly even wrong? and he never missed an opportunity to meet Helovia’s stranger inhabitants. They always proved a lovely distraction, and given the obvious lineage of at least one of the foals he was drawn closer.

The dark small stag shifts behind them, wishing he could disappear back, but it was unlikely. Here was yet another lesson for the small deer, born so innocent and carefree, that the world was never as it seemed. The gold, standing behind his deer, watching him so foolishly step out, does nothing. The stag he thought should know better after being bonded to the gold these past years. So when the deer watches one of the kittens go limp with death and the malice grins rise on the twins he turned back to look where he suspected the gold to be.

Thranduil though was no immediately outright savior. His hidden earth eyes met the deer’s tender ones with a hard gaze. It was the deer’s fault for stepping out in this. He would have to figure it out on his own. The deer turned back, frozen, but trying to wipe the fear from his face. He had been infected from the gold with enough pride to not want to appear weak and defenseless. Though still he pleads some mercy from his own bonded at what was surely his fate before him. ”Tad dan min [two against one],” The deer gulped. The golden only rolled his eyes at the foolishness of the deer again.

Haldir looked down at his own hooves, smoking with their usual whisps and curls, as he tried to seem normal and not let the lonely fear and abandonment seep through. He was indeed very foolish. To his side though he sees two cloven hoof prints appear from seemingly nowhere. The little deer’s chest swelled, and he looked back to the twins with a higher head. The gold wasn’t going to let all the effort of saving the deer’s butt in day’s past go to waste now before some foals. It was perhaps the sweetest thing the deer had ever heard through the gold’s thoughts.

"Talk."
OOC:: So excited! =D
Haldir stepped out behind Kianzo just as he sent out the ash, but Thranduil (invisible) steps up beside the deer.

thranduil

and

Haldir