(As told by the elders of the Forest of Two Rivers)
Long, long ago, when the stars still whispered and the rivers ran with songs, there lived a young deer named Kael deep within the Forest of Two Rivers. He was small for his age, soft of step and gentle of eye. While other young bucks pranced proudly with antlers budding from their brows, Kael’s head remained bare.
The others mocked him.
“Where are your antlers, Kael? Are you a doe in disguise?”
But Kael said nothing. He simply looked up to the sky and wondered.
Now, it is said that once a year, when the Buck Moon climbs highest in the summer sky, round and golden as a crown, the Forest Spirit awakens beneath the Old Willow, a tree so ancient its roots touch memory itself.
On such a night, under that sacred moon, Kael wandered alone to the willow’s shadow. The wind was still. Even the crickets held their breath. He knelt in the moss and raised his voice.
“O moon so bright, why do I not grow? Have I been forgotten?”
As he spoke, the willow leaves shimmered like silver coins, and from the moonlight stepped a figure tall as a tale and crowned in starlight. It was a Great Stag, his antlers like tree branches kissed by frost, his eyes deep with ages.
“Who calls beneath my moon?” the stag rumbled, his voice like distant thunder.
Kael bowed his head. “I am Kael. I have no antlers. I seek only to understand why.”
The stag came close and touched his nose to Kael’s brow.
“Growth comes in silence,” he said. “Strength is patient. The mightiest antlers rise not first, but truest.”
With that, the stag stepped back into the moonlight and vanished, as if he had only ever been a dream.
Morning came, soft and gold, and Kael stirred. On his brow, two velvet nubs had begun to rise. Not large, not yet, but real.
Years passed. Kael grew tall and wise. His antlers rose strong and wide, not just with bone, but with grace. And every Buck Moon, he would return to the Old Willow, not to ask, but to listen, in case another voice whispered from the moss below.
And so the forest remembers, and the rivers hum his name.
If ever you walk beneath a July moon, and hear the wind say “Kael” listen well.
For some truths are only spoken in silver light.
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