🌑 Owl x Deer Angst – “The Eggs Beneath the Roots”

The forest was never silent. Beneath the canopy, whispers of the cultists echoed like wind through hollow bones. They bowed to the Deer, their antlered god, but their devotion had twisted into something crueler than the Deer himself ever intended.

🦉 The Owl’s Loss The Owl had nested high in the blackened pines, her eggs glowing faintly with the pale shimmer of moonlight. They were her future, her fragile hope in a forest that devoured everything. But one night, while she hunted, the cultists climbed the trees with hands stained in ash and blood. They stole the eggs, cradling them like offerings, and carried them deep into the roots of the Deer’s shrine.

The Owl returned to an empty nest. Her cries split the night, a sound that even the Ram stirred at from its den of broken stone.

🦌 The Deer’s Ignorance The Deer, towering and solemn, walked the forest paths unaware. He did not command this theft—his gaze was fixed on balance, on the endless cycle of prey and predator. Yet the cultists, drunk on their own interpretations of his will, believed the eggs were a sacrifice to strengthen their god.

When the Owl confronted him, her wings trembling with rage, the Deer only lowered his head in confusion.

“I did not take them,” he said, voice like creaking wood.
But the Owl’s grief was too sharp to hear truth.

🐏 The Ram’s Shadow The Ram, the newest terror in the forest, was drawn to the cultists’ rituals. Its horns scraped against stone as it emerged, a beast of punishment and frenzy. The cultists believed it was the Deer’s enforcer, a sign their offering had been accepted. They placed the Owl’s eggs at the altar, chanting as the Ram circled, its breath steaming in the cold night.

But the Ram was no servant—it was hunger given form. When it shattered the altar with its horns, the cultists screamed, and the eggs rolled into the dark earth. Whether they cracked or were swallowed by the soil, no one could say.

🌙 The Rift Between Owl and Deer The Owl’s sorrow curdled into hatred. She saw only the Deer’s shadow behind the cultists’ crimes.

• To her, his silence was guilt.
• To him, her accusations were a wound he could not heal.

The forest itself seemed to mourn, the nights stretching longer, the air heavier. The Deer still walked his endless path, but now the Owl followed from above, her eyes burning with grief, her wings whispering vengeance.

And in the distance, the Ram still roamed—its horns stained with the remnants of the cult’s altar, its presence a reminder that the forest devours even devotion.