[B] Stags Can Do What?! (Sea of Butterflies, Fishbones)

[Anhelisk]

Winter. Cold, awful, mis-er-a-ble winter, with humid weather and trees that blocked the sunlight even with their leaves down and piles of snow and awful muck and damp and no good food to make it worth it winter. Sea of Butterflies had long-since sickened of this season. He'd tried to leave at one point, before being helpfully told that he had made a thankless, one-way trip and condemned himself, his beautiful puppy, and his perfect, wonderful vision of a sister to this purgatory.

He'd holed up in the first thing that looked like a semi-public but still dry alcove, and there he sat, unbudged, wishing for the days to pass faster as his pup idly groomed at his side. Nothing, he felt, would cheer him up.

Nothing!  

[Anhelisk]

It took until a voice penetrated his sulking reverie to realize he wasn't alone,a ringing that finally seemed to pierce his thoughts even though he hadn't remembered hearing it.

He must have been distracted. The buck turned, seeing a pair of distant-seeming glows– it must have been a kimeti! Or maybe a Zikwa.

"Hello," he replied softly, his voice far more subdued than any Acha's had a right to be.  

[Anhelisk]

Once again, Sea of Butterflies found himself with the curious sensation of realizing what the buck had said without recalling having heard him actually physically say anything to him. The acha turned slightly, and gave a small, gusty sigh.

"I'll survive," he said. "I'm just not used to this interminable damp. I'm used to dry, dry, dry, punctuated with downpours sometimes more than a year apart. Freezing nights, and burning days. Not this... ucky, mucky, awful damp cold. Not snow." The reality of the swamp was a tough meal to swallow for the acha.  

[Anhelisk]

The third time the buck's voice seemed to float unbidden without an actual sensation of hearing a voice, Sea of Butterflies turned, tilting his head in a scrutinizing fashion as he tried to make sense of what was in the darkness with him.

"Are you..." he wasn't really far away, he was really small. Another blink, and a squint....

"Are you a talking squirrel?"  

[Anhelisk]

The acha buck clearly didn't follow this line of reasoning.

"You're a what now?" Evidently, certain bits of lore and rumor hadn't gotten to him.  

[Anhelisk]

This was interesting. Better than interesting, though, this was a distraction. At this stage, the buck would probably eat a mouthful of dry sand on a dare to break up the monotony that he was suffering.

"May I see? How you transform, or how you would bless a clutch, or how you perform whatever your potential other abilities are?"  

[Anhelisk]

At first there was a foxbun... and then, in no time at all, there was a buck. The acha reared back a little before giving a small laugh! What a trick that was, if a less complex, involved, or time-consuming one than he would have hoped.

"Sounds like a skull might be difficult to find. I wouldn't know where to get one," he said, considering.

The other option, though....

"Well, I do want kids," he said, slightly emboldened by the idea. "Does that count for anything? Is that enough?"  

[Anhelisk]

The buck thought for a few moments, choosing his words before he spoke. "Well, drought was hard on mothers and babies in the desert. And sometimes, if she didn't have enough water when she was pregnant, the eggs wouldn't... thrive. They wouldn't even hatch." Quite the grim topic, but he'd been asked of his worries!

"I expect there's unique problems here, too, that impact the wellbeing of babies. So, I mean, as long as they're healthy, everything else is really just luck and personality, right? I want lots, I don't want to lose any, and I want them to be healthy and happy! And I can work on the happy."