Tiger
A story taken from an RP between stone and Rune in 2015. Not strictly canon to have happened to stone, but a distinct possibility of the experiences which have shaped the innate fear of tigers held by his subspecies.
Stone heralds from Keibul Lamjao National Park on Loktak Lake in Manipur, India; the park's name literally translates to "the vast land where tigers gather" (Kei - tiger, Bul - vast, Lamjao - large land).
“Once, there was a beautiful hind. She lived in a world much different than this—no matter how far she ran, she never found the same place twice without circling back. She lived in a herd of other deer, but they all looked much like her. There were predators and illness and other scary things, but even then, she was happy.
One spring, a stag with great antlers who was strong and brave and quick became the leader of her herd, and she decided to birth him a fawn. It was a long pregnancy, but it was not her first, and she was confident and calm all the way through. One night, she gave birth to a son.
The fawn was healthy and lively, and as soon as he could stand, he would try his best to run about, and make her job all the more difficult. But, when she would go to graze in the morning and evening, he was more still and calm and silent than any other fawn, and no one ever found him.
One day when he was a little bit older, he and another fawn were playing in a clearing in their swamp, hiding amongst the reeds and splashing in the puddles. Their mothers were grazing nearby, turning every so often to check on their children. It had been a good season, and they were very much at peace.
So when a shadow came and watched from the tree line, nobody noticed.
The beautiful hind’s fawn, just barely beginning to grow his own bumps which would become his antlers, hid in a deep recess in the reeds, playing a game of hide-and-seek. But, from his point of view in the grass on a low hill, he could see something coming from the forest.
It was orange, with black stripes. It was huge, so much larger than him and even larger than his mother. He wanted to bleat some kind of warning, but something told him to stay quiet and still, and so he did. Though it was very big, it was silent, and he had a hard time keeping track of it in the grass.
Just after he thought it may have gone, a great, giant thing leapt from the bushes right in front of him!
Suddenly, he could not see the other fawn, but the orange-and-black-thing stood very still over where he had last seen the fawn looking for him, and there was a very scary smell. His mother and the other doe were making many sounds and began to run toward him, but the orange-and-black-thing made a low rumble sound that was scarier than anything he’d ever heard, and his mother stopped. The younger doe kept coming closer, looking big and angry, but even faster than the orange-and-black-thing had leapt from the grass, it jumped toward her, and she ran away all covered in red and different than how his mother moved.
His mother stood in the grass, looking for him, but she did not dare make a sound then. He stayed more still and calm and silent than he had ever been. He watched the orange-and-black-thing turn around to face him, and he would never forget what he saw.
“Its eyes were yellow. It had big, long, sharp teeth and a huge, square muzzle. Its face was partly covered in red, but it was also orange and black and white. It had thick legs and sharp claws on paws with five toes. It looked big, and strong, and smart, and the fawn was more frightened than he’d ever been.
The orange-and-black-thing looked right at the fawn, and though he wanted so badly to run away, he stayed perfectly still and he waited, and finally the thing looked away. It lay down in the grass, and when the fawn was sure it wasn’t watching, he moved his eye to look—and he saw that the orange-and-black thing was eating his friend, and that was where the red came from.
This place was very different, and deer here didn’t feel much, so rather than being sad or angry, he was just a little bit happy that he wasn’t being eaten, and he stayed completely still until the orange-and-black-thing was done, got up, and left.
He stayed still for much longer, too. The sun went all the way away, and it was very dark. His mother had left him there, knowing she could do nothing. But he was a smart fawn, and so he waited even longer. The sun came back up and rose high up in the sky, almost directly overhead, and birds and some strange scurrying animals came and left the dead fawn, and it began to smell terrible. But still, he stayed.
As the sun began to fall, and as his hunger was becoming nearly unbearable, he heard something from the tree line. Frightened that the orange-and-black-thing had returned and this time would eat him, he nestled into the grass as quietly as he could. As it came closer and closer and closer, he thought for sure this would be it.
And just as it drew up to him and he moved his brown eyes to meet its yellow ones, he saw they were not yellow, but brown, and they did not belong to the orange-and-black-thing—they belonged to his mother. He nuzzled into her faster than he’d ever moved—“ Stone paused in telling the story to snug his face into Rune, shaking his head back and forth into the buck’s fur.
Drawing back, he continued. “—scurrying between her legs for safety and for milk, and he could tell that in a way, she was relieved too. She did not let him drink then, led him out of the clearing and very far away before she even slowed her pace, and they did not go back there for a long, long time.”