Ignoring the quiver in his chest, a spark of electricity racing down his bones, the great buck moved with a quiet ease through the tentative ground, deep waters splashing up against his belly. Where once the river had snaked through the valley, no only a swampland stood, stretching out into the shadows of the tangled trees. Many of the smaller creatures had vanished from this once peaceful grove, taken to higher ground to wait out the floods, wait for the rains to stop and the river to recede. But there were some who endured, his eyes catching sight of a Margay slinking along the branches overhead. There were others, monkeys rostered amongst their colonies high above, their black heads lowered against the onslot of rain. Perched on his antlers, numerous small birds took shelter in the knotted prongs, adorned with dark hued olive leaves.
Yet, where others attempted to outlast the waters, Herne found no issue transversing the delta, long, sturdy limbs keeping the buck from getting washed away by the strong currents. The Thambai had been his home for numerous wet seasons, both in the solitary moons since last he had stepped foot amongst the E'leond, and during those trecks when he had set out in the wandering path his kind was prone to in the summer months. While the does would stand amongst their herd, nesting down in the glades with their fawns, the bucks who gathered with them oft left, moving through their territory and those surrounding. Herne had known the vastness of Idris in the long years since his birth. He knew her temper, her rage. He knew how to console the tantrums. His crown lifted, the great sprawl of his rack gleaming like tree limbs, gnarled and twisting. Ahead, the bend where the Thambai had laid just east of a sprawling meadow twisted off into the distance, leaving behind a birth of open ground. It was there he would find what he had taken this path to find.
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