The Doe and Her Fawn

A short fiction, bed time story.

The Doe and Her Fawn

                There was a little girl who liked to play in the hills among the lilies, through the pink and white of the flowers she danced and frolicked, and with a misstep, the girl fell to disappear from sight, and emerge into another realm. The tall stocks towered to hide her from the world she had been born to and here, in a wonderland all her own, she crawled about through the green of the leaves and undergrowth; soft blades of grass felt cool on her palms and tickled between her fingers as they brushed by. Broken rays of light shifted about with the breeze and in the sway of things she caught glimpse of a beaming light that did not dance about with the others, shining down on a most beautiful lily that waltzed with the wind. Unlike the rest, what she spied seemed unique among all the flower patch, and slowly, the girl stood to rise in fascination. A solitary, purple lily, it’s petals aglow in the light of the sun to cast violet hues upon all those around; the little girl’s face alight with its shade as well. I should pick it, she thought,  it is so beautiful that I must have it to show others it’s beauty. Yet, she then thought that should she pick it, surely it would die and never again could she look at its beauty, and leaving it where it stood, she returned home to dream of the flower. When the sun came to wake her the next morning, the girl could not wait to see it again and out into the hills she ran into the dawning sun. Over three hills and two gullies she ran fleet of foot and finally she had come to the flower patch. Stopping quick, the girl became startled as a doe quickly raised her head, a smaller head popping up as well; a fawn and his mother laying in the patch. The two had found the flowers to be the softest of comforts and their height shielded them from being too cold, though, frost still glistened off of the doe’s coat in the morning light. A billowing mist lifted from her snout into the chilled air and the two stared at the girl, and the girl could only think, I should have picked the flower for now they’ve smashed it. But then she thought, had I picked it, I would not have returned here to see yet another beautiful sight, this doe and her fawn.