It tickled!
He blew a breath back in her face and she wrinkled her nostrils at it; it tickled!
Suddenly her heart hurt and she thought he was going to touch to her, but he didn’t. It made her miss the slim muzzle of the doe-mother and the way she’d blow the fuzzy flaxen baby hairs back from her brow, then gently nose the tiny antler nubs she’d always find there. Fur found herself holding her breath, afraid to breathe because of how she yearned to be touched like that again, pushed in close to a side that promised warmth and safety.
“Many,” he says.
“Many,” she echoes in a small voice, as he takes a tiny step towards her then stops.
She feels small beneath the bright intensity of his eyes and she ducks her antlered head shyly.
Only seconds go by, but it feels like too many.
She looks up and cannot believe her eyes!
Why, he looks like a horse-buck! Only his antlers are far more impressive than any of the other bucks’ that she has seen. Five majestic points and how they gleam! Like bones, the moon, and snow. She realizes her mouth is still hanging open and promptly closes it, not knowing what to say or even if she is dreaming. Fur blinks her eyes rapidly to clear them, but the rack is still there and she inches closer to him. Her eyes narrow in suspicion but he looks like her, antlers and all. “How?” is all she can manage to ask him, not fully remembering how she knows that word or exactly what it means but he was like her, only not - he was still Other, more fully so than she could ever be.
Fur takes a step back, still eyeing him warily as he talks to her in a voice that is low and soothing. It cajoles her forward again and she is surprised to find that she is nodding her assent to him, maybe because he said things like forest and safe and those things made sense to her. The quick manifestation of antlers on his head still strikes her as peculiar but Fur, as does the dark thread of something that is not horse or deer that ties itself up in his scent and makes her curious as to why it raises alarm bells in her blood, but Fur takes one small step that brings her closer to his side to show that she trusts him.
“Safe,” she mumbles shyly.