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The late-spring warmth nearly makes wearing his hood unbearable—the sweat-damp fabric sticking to Lilia’s nape. Still, he adjusts his hood further to cover his face, his other hand gripping the hilt of his magearm as he cuts through the maze of Briars. For a moment, he wishes he had brought his old mask. There’s no one present but him, that much Lilia is certain, but the idea of revealing himself in such a cursed place is enough to chill the humid air around him.
Lilia slices through a knot of thorns, clearing enough of them to reach the throne room finally. He can’t help but recoil, his nose crunching in irritation. The castle had reeked of Diurnal fae magic from the outside—it was absolutely suffocating now.
This was surely a mistake—he has no real reason to be there. The humans had taken everything from the castle and claimed it for themselves. Nothing of any importance would be there four centuries later.
Lilia walks forward, the moonlight streaming in to light his path. The magic is stifling, but the Briars that blocked the castle from the outside world were strangely absent, besides for the few that clung to the walls and floors.
And the peculiar ones that towered high at the far end of the throne room. Growing from the cracked concrete as if they were intentionally made to deter any thieves from approaching.
As he gets closer, Lilia realizes the massive bundle of thorns has curled around an abandoned bassinet.
Vaguely, he can recall the centuries-old gossip—that Bladevalle had welcomed an infant prince mere weeks before the kingdom fell to invaders. If the queen and her knight had perished, there was no chance the child would have survived.
He moves to leave when a high-pitched cry pierces through the otherwise silent room. His ears twitch as he snaps his head to follow the source of the noise—something buried deep within the briars beside the empty crib.
The shrill cries get louder as Lilia carefully slices through the curling vines—the magic in the air getting thicker with each cut he makes.
When the thorns finally sneak back into an opening, Lilia freezes.
Curled in the hollow where the stone has cracked to let the briars grow is a fawn.
Its coat is pure white, almost silver, glowing faintly beneath the scattered moonlight. Its legs are folded awkwardly beneath its small and trembling body, and the poor thing’s breath comes in short, panicked bursts.
Large eyes blink up at him, like pools of shifting morning light, and Lilia knows at once that he has stumbled into something that shouldn’t have been disturbed.
A white hart. In the oldest tales he could recall, they would appear as an omen. Sometimes they brought about great fortune and adventure, others they prophesized the fall of once proud lands. Human kings had hunted them in arrogance and lost more for it.
It was drenched in diurnal magic.
The fawn lets out another pitiful cry, its legs scrambling uselessly against the stone as it tries to stand. Lilia winces when he spies blood trailing down its fur where it had been tangled in the surrounding thorns.
“You poor thing,” Lilia murmurs before he can stop himself, and suddenly he’s crouching down to meet its gaze.
The fawn’s ears flick, and its crying quiets. Large eyes peer at him with the innocence of an infant. The image brings to mind Malleus when he first hatched from his egg.
He should walk away. Whoever had left this fawn here had left it for a reason—there was a reason no other living thing was left in the castle. Lilia couldn’t even sense the presence of a mouse.
When the fawn approaches him slowly and brushes its head against his hand, Lilia can feel the layers of ancient magic cast on the small creature. The fae who had left the fawn here had made their mark evident. Every sense in his body screamed at him to leave.
The tiny little thing nuzzles deep into his chest as he picks it up and carries it out of the castle, and it suddenly dawns on Lilia that the briars may have not been there to trap the fawn.
They were there to guard it.
The fawn stays with him for one week.
It's long enough for its legs to grow steady—no longer shaking helplessly as it flanks Lilia’s side, but not long enough to get attached.
Lilia tries not to notice how it never strays further than a pace away. Or that whenever he woke from slumber—it slumbered quite a lot surprisingly—the thing had somehow pressed against him, its tiny form nuzzling into the fae's thigh. Against his better judgement, he never pushes it away or urges it to stray further.
He casts glances over his shoulder for the diurnal fae that would surely go after him with vengeance after taking what they had left. The magic was cast in the castle was certianly disturbed by his presence—nocturnal magic never mixed well with diurnal, and to take something so sacred as a white deer would surely anger any rational fae.
When the fawn's keeper never shows, Lilia is only half surprised. The magic in the castle and on the animal, was fading but present—the magic's owner is old, but certainly alive. Why would they leave their fawn in such an unpleasant place to never be found?
He comes to the conclusion that the poor thing was probably abandoned. It was taboo to slaughter a white deer, especially one so young, so leaving it to slumber for eternity in an isolated, but safe, spot was likely an act of mercy on the other's part.
What a cruel fate to be trapped like that, Lilia thinks.
As he watches the fawn graze off the berries from the fruiting bushes, he decides that it's time to let it go. It would be wrong for him to keep the fawn trapped beside him.
Lilia travels to the dense woods, in the isolated land between Briar Valley and the neighboring human nation. The fae know better than to strike down a sacred animal, and any smart deer would know to never stray too close to humans—the forest would be safe.
Beneath the canopy of tall, dark trees, he kneels and pets the fawn's head one last time. Eyes that rivaled the dawn stare back at him.
"There you go, little one," he says, standing back up. He gestures to the woods and the fawn follows his hand. "You deserve to be free and live out your life as you want—you don't have to belong to any fae anymore."
Its ears flick before it turns its head back to stare at Lilia again, butting its head against his thigh.
With as much softness he can muster, Lilia pushes it away, waving his hand towards the forest. "Don't be silly—you don't want to stay with me. Your home is out there."
The fawn stills, as if waiting for Lilia to say something else.
Then it turns and bounds into the forest, the small white form vanishing into the trees.
Lilia remains there for a while after it's gone.
When he finally makes it back to Briar Valley, he is certain that the white fawn with beautiful eyes will be nothing more than an interesting story he can share with Malleus.
The pub is thick with the scent of smoke, stale ale, and humans. Lilia had only meant to take a brief respite in the human town before heading back on the road, him cradling his own drink as he sat in the corner with his hood drawn.
But the laughter at the table across the room draws his attention, his keen ears picking up the sharp and grating laughter.
Three men, hunched over their own mugs and with guns slung at their side, were talking way too loudly for Lilia's poor senses.
"What are we waiting for?" The first says, a younger man than his compatriots, as he slams his mug onto the wooden table. "It would be worth a fortune if we killed and skinned it straight away. Imagine the thaumarks we could get for selling its hide."
"Don't be hasty," the second one counters, his beard longer and streaked with grey. "Let it grow for a season or two. By then, it'll be bigger and meatier. It could fetch triple the price."
Across the pub, Lilia scowls. Hunters. He himself had hunted his own share of game before—a necessity to survive in the harsh realities of war—but he would never disrespect the life he took like these men spoke of.
The third man leans forward. "Or, we wait longer, try to breed it with another. Imagine a herd of its kind—we could just keep selling the young ones."
His eyes glint with cold greed. "I heard that in the olden times, white deer prophesize great fortune. We can be rich forever."
The words make Lilia freeze, his drink half-way to his lips and his grip nearly shatters the handle. The silver fawn's eyes flashed in his mind—the innocent and small thing trembling under the forest canopy.
Breathing slowly, he slides out of the pub and into the street—the offensive sound of their laughter spilling out of the windows as Lilia waits patiently in the alley way.
Night falls by the time the three men stumble drunkenly out of the pub—their voices loud as they cling to each other. Lilia doubts that they'd sense him following them even if they were sober.
They lead him directly to their camp, and Lilia hears him before he sees him—the same wrenching cries he had heard in the long abandoned castle.
Even in the light of the campfire, the fawn's normally pristine and silver coat is caked with grime. It is bound to two wooden stakes, rope and wire biting deep into its legs and neck. The thought of slaughtering humans flashes in Lilia's mind for the first time in centuries.
The three men circle the fawn lazily, half-drunk and grinning. The youngest and drunkest one kicks the fawn's flank with a cruel laugh. Small hooves scraping useleslly at the dirt as it thrashes. Cries fill Lilia's ears.
"Watch it," the old one said. "If you damage the hide too much, it'll lose its value."
Lilia's nails bite into his palm. The knife he kept hidden in his sleeves was no mage arm, but it would suffice.
Eventually, the humans grow bored. They argue again over what to do with it in the morning, before one by one, they stumble toward their tents.
When Lilia hears snoring, he steps into the clearing, his steps silent against the forest floor.
When he kneels before the trembling fawn, its eyes closed in terror-filled sleep, Lilia restrains himself from accidentally startling it.
"It's me," he says softly and those dawn-bright eyes lift.
The fawn jerks towards him, but lets out a cry that Lilia has to shush quickly, the rope and wire digging further into its legs.
Lilia cuts them quickly, the fawn all but collapsing in his arms.
"It's okay, little one." Lilia can feel the body in his arms tremble. "I have you now. They can't hurt you."
Carefully, Lilia sets the fawn down, inspecting the dirtied fur and angry lines left by too-tight bindings.
Knife in hand, Lilia turns towards the first tent—he had killed men before for less.
Something warm presses against his leg before he can take one step further, and Lilia is met with the fawn's striking and pleading gaze.
Somewhere within the purples and blues, all of the rage he had felt slowly dissipated and Lilia takes the fawn into his arms again—his knife tucked away in his sleeve.
"Let's go, little one."
Even after leaving the camp behind, even after the sound of the hunters' snores fade, Lilia continues deeper into the forest until he's at the outskirts of the valley—never once letting the fawn part from his arms.
It's still trembling in his arms. Exhaustion likely claiming it, but its body still jerks, and Lilia can only hope that the small circles he rubbed in its flank did something to soothe it.
But he had been walking for miles, and Lilia settles beneath the roots of an old oak, its trunk wide and ancient, and Lilia can feel the ancient magic of the fae flowing through the tree itself.
He lowers himself carefully, arranging his cloak around the small white body. The fawn presses instinctively into him, its snout nudging under his chin.
"You're an odd thing, you know that?," Lilia murmurs as exhaustion begins to catch up with him. "You're safe now."
His head tilts back against the oak as he falls asleep, but his arms never fall away from the warmth in his arms.
Morning light reaches Lilia's eyelids, and Lilia tries to shield his face from it.
Tries. His right arm is pinned to his chest and the left is wrapped around a warm bundle.
Lilia's eyes open slowly, instinct sharpening before awareness does. His hand tightens automatically—expecting to feel fur and thin fragile legs.
Instead, his fingers meet soft skin.
Lilia goes still and his eyes fly open.
It is a human child.
An infant no older than a few months, small and pale, wrapped in the warmth of Lilia's cloak. Silver hair spills messily across his forehead. Tiny fingers are tangled in the fabric of Lilia's shirt. The baby breathes softly, lips parted in its sleep.
And on his head—
Two small, fluffy deer ears. The same silver as his hair.
They twitch faintly and Lilia stares in shock.
Slowly, Lilia lifts one hand and brushes a finger against one ear—warm and velvet-soft.
The ear flicks under his touch, and the baby stirs, making a confused sound. Dawn-colored eyes blink open.
Two-fold recognition floods Lilia, as the baby lets out a soft coo and presses closer, nuzzling into Lilia's chest in a motion that is already achingly familiar.
The baby falls asleep again and the shock that filled him bursts forth into a fit of bubbling laughter.
"Of course," Lilia snorts as he brushes his hand through feather soft hair. "The fae never do something simply. They just had to give their little prince nature's blessing, hm?"
Against his chest, the child coos in his sleep, and Lilia's hand shifts from silver hair to the delicate fur of his ears.
"Silver. Your name will be Silver," the words roll off his tongue and Silver's ears twitch.
"You may keep these ears that they gave you," Lilia said tracing his ears with the lightest touch before hugging Silver closer to his chest. "But you're coming home with me."
With an exhale, Lilia rises carefully, gently cradling Silver as he goes deeper into Briar Valley's woods. He wonders if the abandoned cottage he had found years ago was still standing.
Lilia grins. Yes, that would make a suitable home for them.