Archive of Our Own ^beta

The baby deer had been born yesterday and didn’t know very many things, but he was learning all the time. He had learned that sometimes it is dark and cold, and sometimes it is warm and bright.
He learned that during the dark cold times he could snuggle close to his mother and be warm. His mother was an animal that was larger than him, but mostly the same shape. She did not have spots. She did have nipples where her back legs joined her body and these produced milk.

The baby deer had learned about milk very soon after being born. It tasted good and made his stomach feel warm and full. Milk was one of his favorite things about his mother. His least favorite thing was that she would go away sometimes. She would tell him to lie still and not move, then she would go and do things. Sometimes she was where he could see her, sometimes she was not. The baby deer learned to obey his mother and lie still when she told him too.

The afternoon of his second day of life, the baby deer heard a strange noise. His mother heard it too. She told him to lie still, then she started to run. She had not gone very far when several animals, almost as big as her came out of the bushes. The baby deer learned several things very quickly:
He learned what dogs were.
He learned what blood was.
He learned that deer can die.

The baby deer lay still like his mother had taught him to do. More strange animals came out of the brush. They walked on their back legs and had strange fur in many colors. They chased the dogs away from his mother. One of the dogs found him, and sniffed at him with a bloody muzzle. Following the last instruction his other would ever give him, the baby deer lay still. He had no way of knowing that if he ran the dog would have killed him.

“Aw shit, she had a fawn.” One of the big animals said. The baby deer had no idea what those words meant. He was about to learn several more things:
He learned what being picked up felt like.
He learned that screaming won’t fix anything.
He learned what a truck was.
He learned that the hands were not actually hurting him.

The baby deer rode in the front of the truck with the humans. The dogs rode in the back with his mother’s body. He wasn’t sure if he was moving, or it it was the forest outside that was moving. He was hungry, and scared.

Eventually the humans took him out of the truck. There was a house, and a barn. He didn’t know what those things were. There was another, shorter human. “What have you got there?” It asked. The deer did not know what those words meant.

“The dogs killed a doe, I figured we could raise the fawn, since Nanny only had one kid this spring, she should have plenty of milk for an orphan.” The human holding the deer said. He didn’t recognize any of those words either.
The baby deer was taken to a pen. There were two goats inside, a mother and a baby. The baby deer had never seen goats before, but he learned about them quickly.
He learned that the mother goat had milk also.
He learned that the mother goat’s nipples were much closer to the ground.
He learned to bend his knees in order to eat.
He learned that the baby goat was stronger than him.
He learned that the baby goat liked to hit him with his head.
He learned that the baby goat thought it was funny when he cried.
He learned not to cry.

Before the dark time came again two more humans showed up. They were even smaller than the last human he had seen. They made a lot of noise and grabbed him, but they did not hurt him. He already knew that being picked up would not hurt him and that he did not need to scream. He took this opportunity to learn more about humans.
He learned that they had some hair, but not very much.
He learned that they covered themselves in flat things that were fun to bite.
He learned the difference between fingers and nipples.
He learned that being petted and scratched felt nice.

The baby deer soon adjusted to his new life. The mother goat had more milk than his mother ever had. Even sharing with her own baby, who did not like him, there was more than he could eat. The mother goat accepted him as her own and taught him many things:
He learned how to eat hay and grain.
He learned how to come when called to the fence for food.
He learned how to stand up on his hind legs and butt his head with the full weight of his body behind it.
He learned how to jump.

When he was a few months old the deer jumped out of the goat pen. The humans put him back in the pen a few times, but soon gave up. He wasn’t trying to leave. He just needed a break from his brother who had grown horns, and liked to hit him with them. The deer had small tender lumps on top of his head, which were no match for the sturdy horns of the young goat. When he got hungry and wanted more milk he would jump back in the pen.

He would also jump back in if he saw a dog. The dogs would often chase him back to the pen. When this happened the mother goat would slam her head against the gate. Daring the dogs to come close enough for her to do violence to them. The dogs never did.

When it was day time the baby deer could hear a human voice that sounded different than the others. He was very curious about it, and the flat, scratchy quality it had. He spent several days looking for it before he realized that he would have to jump over another fence. He did so and learned more things.
He learned that there was another place beside the goat pen that the dogs did not go.
He learned that one side of the house was lined with flowers he did not recognize.
He learned that the voice was coming from a large box sitting near the window.
He learned that he could snuggle down in the flowers and listen to the voice.
He learned what music was.
He learned that he liked listening to it very much.

The smallest of the adult humans found him sitting there and called the others. “Look, the little fella’s listenin’ to the radio.” She said.
“He’ll eat your flowers if you don’t keep him out of there.” One of the bigger ones said.

“Aw he’s little he won’t eat um.” The short one argued.

“Suit yourself, at least he’s found a place where the dogs won’t bother him.”

The deer did not understand the humans’ words. But he would soon learn to recognize a few. The phrase, “Will the deer eat...” meant that he was about to be offered something that might be tasty. The children were very curious, and through experimentation they learned:
He would eat any kind of grass or leaves.
He would eat fruit and fruit peels.
He would eat bread, crackers and toast.
He would eat toast with butter on it, or peanut-butter, or jam.
He would eat anything that had sugar in it.
He would eat anything salty, including ham and bacon.
He would eat egg shells, but not raw egg.
He would eat fried eggs.
He would eat grasshoppers.
He would eat dog kibble.
He would eat dead mice.

On this unorthodox diet the deer grew large, and tame. He would follow the children around when they were home, but he still ran from the dogs. The flower garden where the dogs were not allowed to go was his safe place. When the children were in school, he would lie there under the window and listen to the radio, which was always on.

As fall came he shed the velvet on his spiky little horns. The children helped with this, scratching it loose. They fed it to him and he ate it.

The mother goat had tried to teach him how to butt, but he’d always been afraid to try. His growing antlers had hurt when his brother had hit them. Once the velvet shed, they weren’t so sensitive anymore. One afternoon, a dog charged him. He did as he had learned, and reared up on his hind legs, putting his weight behind a driving blow from his head. His sharp little horns struck the dog in the ribs.
The deer learned that dogs could die.

He stood, unconcerned as the humans talked about it. He didn’t understand what they were saying. And felt no particular relief when it was judged that he had acted in self defense. He didn’t remember that the dog he had killed was one of the ones who had killed his mother, but the humans did, and deiced that the dog probably had it coming. The other dogs stopped chasing him after that.

As fall wore on the deer learned more things. He heard sharp, loud noises in the forest, that startled and frightened some of the other animals on the farm. He did not learn what made that noise until later, after the first snow had fallen.

On that day he had wandered a short way into the woods. As he had gotten bigger and more confident he did this more often. He could always count on the sound of the radio to guide him back. On this day, the radio was drowned out by the mother goat yelling for her son to return. She had given up on yelling at him when he went out of sight long ago, but her son usually stayed in the pen. The deer ambled back to the edge of the woods, curious as to what was going on.
He saw the humans leading the young goat around to a big tree behind the barn. He was not yelling because he had his face in a pan of grain. He was eating it as fast as he could and not paying attention to anything else. The deer wanted the grain, but didn’t want to fight the goat for it, and it would be a fight if he tried to get some.

One of the humans had a metal thing in his hand. He walked up and placed it to the back of the goat’s head. The sharp noise came again, this time with a flash, and the smell of scorched hair, smoke, and blood. The goat collapsed. He looked rather like the dog had. All his blood fell out.
The deer had learned what a gunshot was.

The deer didn’t feel any particular unhappiness over this event. He and his foster brother had never gotten along, so he did not feel sad that he had died. He was now aware that guns were dangerous, but it has been put away and there was no longer anything to be afraid of. He waited impatiently as the goat was skinned and butchered. He wanted the grain. Eventually the humans took the pieces of the goat and went away, and the deer came out of the bushes to inspect the grain pan. It had quite a lot of blood in it, and a hole in the bottom, but the grain tasted ok.

Winter got colder. The snow got deeper. The deer spent more time in the goat shed with the mother goat. She was warm, and the pile of straw was warm, but he missed sitting in the flower bed listening to the radio. Eventually the snow turned to rain, the days got longer and warmer, and spring came again. Against the odds, the deer had survived his first year.

The first day it was warm enough for the window to be open, he heard the voice, and planted himself among the short green spikes of bulbs under the window. It wasn’t only the strange voice that attracted him, it was also the vegetable peelings and toast crusts that the shortest of the adult humans would toss out the window to him as she cooked.

That spring the deer learned that if he met the children on their way home from school, they would often give him the crust from their sandwiches, or feed him cough drops for the amusement of their friends. He would crunch them down paper wrapper and all. Then they would pet his velvet antlers, which were always slightly itchy, and then he would follow the children home. He knew when to expect them because of the change from music to talk on the radio at that time every week day.

Eventually summer came, and he began to follow the kids on their rambles in the woods. Sometimes they saw other deer, but they avoided him and the children, and he did not care. The only deer who had ever mattered to him was dead. On these rambles the deer learned more things.
He learned how far he could go from the house before he could no longer hear the radio.
He learned that there was a ridge behind the house.
He learned that beyond the ridge was a river.
He learned that skunks were to be avoided, though he did not learn why.

Rain came in the fall. It was early and heavy and the children stopped wanting to ramble with him. He still did on occasion, though he didn’t go as far without them. One day while rambling he smelled a strange human. It seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see it. It was carrying a long stick. It pointed the stick at him and the deer smelled gunpowder. He remembered that smell, he remembered that it had made the goat die. He was already running when he saw the flash. He heard the sound twice, too loud and too close, but he was gone in the woods, and nothing touched him.

He spent a lot more time in the flowerbed after that. He had learned that the woods were unsafe in the fall.

That winter was short, and there was much less snow. The deer was glad of this, but he could tell the humans were worried. Spring came early, and so did summer. It was hotter than the previous year, everything was dry. Other deer came closer in to the farm looking for green things to eat. The humans, and the dogs, chased them away.

The children were less willing to ramble, so the deer rambled without them. One day he had wandered off before dawn, and gone to the other side of the ridge. It was a windy day, and hot. He was thirsty and the thought of walking back over the ridge to the farm was not appealing. He pressed on to the river instead. It was farther than he had planned to go.

The river was low. He had to walk rather a long way over hot rocks to get to the water. They were the sort of rocks that had to be walked over slowly or you would slip, fall, and possibly break a leg. His instincts told him this was a dangerous place, a place where he could not run.

As he stood knee deep in the warm stagnant water, he heard a sound from beyond the ridge. It sounded like a hissing, crackling roar. There was a smell in the air that sent fear coursing though is veins, dark clouds were rising into the sky.

The deer knew he could not run. He remembered what his mother told him, and lay down, as low as he could in the water. He lay as still as he could while around him the world burned. Hot embers landed on him and hurt, but he did not run. Eventually it was over. Everything around him was black, and hot and stank. He picked his way across the rocks, and headed back over the ridge.

He wasn’t able to find the farm without the radio. He found a place that he thought it should be, but there were no buildings, just piles of burned wood. Near one he found something that smelled like the bacon the children fed him. He was hungry after the terrifying experience of the fire. He ate the charred meat. As he chewed on the small bones inside it he wondered where the children were.

He waited around until the next morning, but no one came, and there was nothing to eat, so he left. He followed the road the children had taken to school. Ahead he heard the sound of a radio, thirsty as he was, he picked up the pace. There was a building, with several people gathered around it. There were children, but they were not his. The hurried to get him a dish with some water, and he drank gratefully while they petted him.

A man on the porch of the building was watching him. The man reached over and turned off the radio. The deer didn’t like that, it made him feel less safe.

“You should call the kids in, they won’t want to see this.” The man said. The deer didn’t know those words, but he didn’t like the tone.

“That’s Harold’s pet deer, you’re not planning to shoot it are you?” A woman asked.

“Half the town is gone, we’ve got people with nothing, and they could use the food. Also Harold can’t have made it or he’d be here by now. Beside, look at those burns on its back, the poor thing is suffering.”

“Come on in kids!” The woman called, “Let the poor deer rest a minute.”

With no radio and no kids petting him, the deer had no reason to stay. By the time the man came back out with the rifle, he was long gone. The weeks that followed were lonely ones. Other deer avoided him, for the human smells that clung to his fur. He looked for his people, but never found them, wandering aimlessly farther and farther from the burn zone.

At last a hard heavy rain came, washing the smell of children from his fur and the scabs from his scars. It was autumn now, and gunshots rang though the forest. The deer knew not to be seen by humans. One afternoon a doe approached him.

He was glad of the company, though he didn’t really understand what she wanted. He hadn’t communicated with another deer since he was a day old. She wagged her tail, rubbed along his flank, and pressed her rump against his chest. He looked at her in confusion, and she stamped her foot in irritation.

The deer had seen other animals on the farm mate, but it was never something he had considered being part of himself. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, he found he wasn’t interested. He stepped away from the doe, and she followed him.

They were interrupted by a snort from higher up the hill. Another buck, about his same age and size, was trotting down out of the woods. The deer stepped back with relief. The two of them could have their fun and leave him alone. The other buck charged at him, antlers lowered. The deer jumped out of the way, and then struck at the other buck’s side like a goat would. Like he had when he killed the hound.

His alters branched now, and didn’t go all the way in, but they went far enough. The other buck collapsed to the ground. He struggled to get up, coughing up bloody foam, but never regained his feet. Soon he was lying still.
The deer learned that he could kill other deer.
The doe looked at him in horror, like he was a dog.

Eventually the rain washed the blood off his antlers. It was a long and miserable winter.
The deer missed the goat shed and the warm pile of straw.
He missed the company of the goat.
He missed regular meals.
He missed ever being dry or warm.

Winter didn’t last forever, and spring came again, and with it a craving for calcium. On the farm he had eaten the same diet as a milk goat, and there was plenty of calcium in his food. Now though the was searching for any scraps he could find, eating baby birds off nests, and any bugs he could catch. One morning he found himself grazing alongside a road near a doe and two fawns. He no longer tried to interact with other deer, but there was safety in numbers and they would usually tolerate him grazing near them.

He heard a car coming and thought nothing of it. He had learned all about cars on the farm and knew they were harmless as long as you stayed out of the way. If you were in front of them they would make a very unpleasant noise that hurt your ears.

The doe was nervous. She called the fawns to her, and started crossing the road. One came with, but the other lagged behind. By the time the car was in sight the fawn saw that the doe and the other fawn were across the road, it hurried to catch up. The car went right over the top of it, flinging it into the grass near where the deer was standing.

The smell of blood was strong, and the doe didn’t stop to look back as she took her surviving offspring away into the woods. The deer walked over to inspect the body.
He learned that cars can kill.
He learned that when they do they break the bones into bite sized pieces.
He learned that dead fawns are a good source of calcium.

He ate quite a bit more road kill after that, and grew a truly impressive pair of antlers. When fall came he hid. He knew he could not trust humans at that time of year. Another cold wet winter was followed by another spring, followed by summer. One warm summer night the deer heard a radio, and followed it. It lead him to a campfire, surrounded by a group of young men. They were surprised to see him, but seemed pleased that he was friendly. They offered him a beer.
The deer learned that he liked beer.
He heard a familiar phrase, “See if he will eat a hot dog.” A charred hot dog was retrieved from the edge of the fire.
The deer ate it.
The deer remembered the last time he had eaten charred meat.
He remembered the little bones.
He remembered the difference between a finger and a nipple.
He realized where the children had gone.
He was grateful for the second beer they gave him.
The deer spent the night by the campfire. They left the radio on for him since he seemed to like it.
In the morning he learned what a hangover was.
He also learned what flash photography was.
He learned that he hated cameras.

The humans left and he was alone again. Summer faded into fall and once more he hid from hunters. Once things quieted down for the winter, he dared to approach humans again. He found a campground. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that there were signs with large overhanging roofs that he could shelter under from the rain. No one tried to hurt him, and sometimes people gave him food. Occasionally people tried to shoo him away but they never tried very hard.

One day in late spring when he was craving calcium badly, he saw a very small human and its mother. He wandered over to see if they had anything to eat. He really would have liked some egg shells, he hadn’t gotten very many of those since he left the farm.

“See if the deer would like a brownie.” The mother told the child, handing it a bread like thing that smelled unlike anything the deer had eaten before.

The toddler held the treat up to the deer, and the deer sniffed it. It didn’t smell like it had much calcium in it, but he remembered that little fingers had little bones in them, and that would do. His teeth, sharp enough to cut branches, had no trouble amputating a few fingers along with the brownie. The child started screaming, but they often did that anyway so he wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with him.

The mother scooped up the child and ran to the ranger shed. The deer watched them go, chewing on his mouth full of blood, chocolate and crunchy little bones.

“The deer ate my child’s fingers!” The woman screamed.

“Mam, feeding the wildlife is against the park rules.” A bored looking ranger said, not looking up from his book.

“No, Look!” The mom screamed, shoving the child’s bleeding limb though the window.

“Oh Shit!” The ranger exclaimed.

The deer decided it was time to leave.

Later that summer the deer began to feel sick. He had no way of knowing that he had picked up an illness from a road kill deer over a year before. All he knew was that he was hungry, all the time, like he never had been before. No mater how much he ate it was never enough, to satisfy him, or even to keep weight on. He ached, and his senses felt odd. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.

One night he followed the sound of a radio into another campsite. He remembered the men, and the beer. He’d liked the way beer had made him feel. He wondered if these men had any beer. He wondered if they had any hot dogs.

These men were less friendly, they acted nervous around him, and didn’t offer him anything. He became frustrated. Remembering how easily human fingers came off, he lunged for one man’s hand, and managed to get two.

The man screamed, this is seem to happen every time you bit off a finger. They got in a car and left. The deer found a bag of marshmallows at ate it. He tried to sit down next to the radio but his antlers knocked it into the fire and it made a bad smell. He wandered back down the road.

The deer heard something coming. It was a car with a light on top. It howled like hounds and the light flashed like wildfire. The deer knew that lying still would not save him this time. He remembered what he had learned from the goat. He stood on his hind legs, tipped his head and went though the windshield antlers first.

The blow sent him sprawling across the floor. He scrambled to his feet in confusion. He didn’t feel sick any more, or in any kind of pain which seemed unlikely. He was in a room. There was a table in the room, and a dog was sitting at the table. The dog had three heads. He didn’t like that. It only had one heart though, so he figured he could still kill it.

The dog looked at him and said, “A deer? What are you doing here little buddy? You’re not going to last five minutes around here.”

The deer had never understood a dog before.

A moment later a human in a blue uniform appeared on the floor next to him. The man sat up and looked at him. “A fucking deer?” the man exclaimed.

The deer understood exactly what the words meant, and was offended. He’d never done that and never wanted to.

The man kept talking. “The reason I don’t go home is a fucking deer? I’ve fought crazies and druggies and gangsters and what takes me out is a god damned deer?”

“Yes.” The dog said, “It appears so.”

“Well fuck that!” the humans said, rising to his feet and pulling a metal object out of its holster.

The deer knew what that was, and he didn’t give the human time to use it. He charged, antlers first. The man stepped back, so the deer did not stab him the chest as he had been aiming for. Instead his alters pierced the stomach and the groin. The human screamed, and collapsed.

The deer jumped on him with his sharp front feet, he struck again and again until the muscles between the ribs gave way and the things they once protected were reduced to a bloody pulp. Then the deer stepped back, and licked the blood off his front feet.

His face was different, flatter, with sharper teeth. He had fingers now instead of front hooves. He still had his back hooves, and his ears, but he could stand on two legs now, as tall as a human.

“Never mind, I think you’ll do just fine here.” the dog said.

The deer, or, former deer, looked at the dog. It would be even easier to kill him now, but he had a feeling he had a lot to learn. Perhaps he shouldn't kill the dog just yet.

“You got a name?” The dog asked. Gesturing at the book on the table in front of it.

The deer tried to remember how humans talked. He opened his mouth and repeated the phrase he had heard more often than any other, “My name is Alastor, thank you for tuning in to WSCR”

“That works for me.” the dog said, writing it down, “Looks like you’re a cannibal, so just take a left and you’ll get to cannibal town in about a quarter mile. Good luck out there.”

The deer, Alastor, learned a lot by listening. His voice was familiar to many people, and they would tell him many things, sometimes without meaning to. Everyone loves a good listener.

One day he found himself sitting in a bar, snacking on salted peanuts. The demon tending the bar, a scaly creature that the deer did not recognize growled at him, “You just here for the salt, or are you going to order something?”

“Oh, I’ll have a beer thank you.” Alastor said, grinning back at the bartender with teeth just as sharp.

“Alastor, is that you?” A small woman called, climbing up on the bar stool next to him. “It’s me, Mimzy! Wow you sure look different, but I recognized your voice right away.”

“You look different as well.” The deer said, it was an excuse he used often.

“Yeah, I suppose I do.” She rubbed her shoulder against his in a way that reminded him of a doe. “You can forgive me can’t you, for leaving you? After that last job went south, I knew I had to get out before I got hurt. And Harold offered to take me away from all that, I had to go. I knew you’d be ok, you’re tough. I listened to your show every day, I had a radio by the kitchen window.”

Something about the woman’s voice was familiar, though that was impossible. No one who knew the human Alastor could possibly know him. “And where’s Harold now?” He asked.

“Oh I’m sure he and the kids are in heaven. He was a good man, not that you’d know what that’s like.”

“No, I wouldn’t” Alastor agreed.

“Oh but it was a little slice of paradise, at least until the fire. We had a little farm, the kids even had a pet deer, it probably died in the fire too.” The woman said sadly.

“Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if it was ok,” Alastor assured her, “Deer are tough.”