The forest had never been as calm than in the aftermath of Man's next attempt to raze its serenity - and no one was happier than the young fawn, Bambi, who had proven himself to be quite the brave deer. His father, the Great Prince of the Forest, seemed to concur, and despite his initial apprehensions about raising a child (something which he believed should be done solely by does, a mindset he'd come to realize was... misguided), he was proud to call Bambi his son, and perhaps the next Great Prince in seasons to come.

He did miss his mαte, however. Bambi's mother. And the Great Prince knew full well that his son felt the same. He... he wished he'd been there for them sooner.

For now, though, Bambi simply enjoyed being a child; playing with his friends Thumper and Flower, learning more and more from his father, trying not to get too 'twitterpated' (a word the deer still hadn't wrapped his head around yet) around Faline, and doing his best to ignore Ronno's teasing.

Ronno was a jerk. He knew it, everybody knew it; but Bambi figured the best thing to do was to just let the bully's taunts fly over his head. It made it funnier when he couldn't get a reaction.

One morning, as Bambi trotted through the forest, he felt something beneath his hooves - feeling the forest, as taught by his father. Following his nose, he poked through the shrubs to find a clearing, where another deer around his age meekly approached the water to get a sip.

But perhaps the most eye-catching thing of all was that Bambi didn't know them. He wanted to bound over and ask a million questions until he recalled how frightened he'd been the first time he met Faline - a fright which turned into... well, something else.

Maybe he'd take a note from his father and subtly approach them.

They looked up, mildly wary of him, but Bambi kept that disarming smile on his face.

"Hello!" he cheerfully greeted. "I haven't seen you here before. My name's Bambi! What's yours?"

Please don't be mean like Ronno, please don't be mean like Ronno...!