*Event*

The time was early morning, when a light fog hung close to the ground, waiting for the rising sun to disperse the engulfing mist. The air was chilly and brisk, and devoid of any real breeze; it made things peacefully quiet, where one could hear a twig snap or the rustle of leaves from a long ways off. What broke through the calm of dawn was the ruckus of a starling flock, taking off in alarm from a distant stand of trees...

Everest; Rosco; Sasha; Necris; Others

There was not a care in the world. Early morning, nice weather, apparently not predators nearby...apparently. Sasha sensed no danger, and it looked like at least most of the others were not alarmed either. That is, until the panicked starlings flew past. They looked like they feared for their lives, prompting Sasha to raise the alarm. "Be careful, everybody." She said just loud enough for the herd to hear. "Keep your voices low and don't attract attention to yourselves." She nodded to Rosco, Everest and Legend. "Please, scout out the area by those trees. But don't get too close, and if there's danger, get out of there as fast as you can."
"Got it." Rosco said to his mother, as the small mule deer doe rounded up her youngest fawns whom Legend sired. Necris stayed close to his mother, waiting for Aktain to reach the safety of ever-loving Sasha.
Kamir and Snowdon were between the rest of the herd and the field that led to the trees. The mule/whitetail deer hybrid brothers were ready to protect their herdmates.
When he was sure that the herd was safe on the outer edges of the territory, Rosco began taking steps toward the distant stand of trees. Everest soon followed. They had no idea what this might be and if it was truly dangerous.

Legend & Others

Legend turned his senses to the sky as the flock took off in panic. Could it be something as simple as an owl attacking the flock? No... experience told him that the starlings would have gone back and heckled such a predator, rather than flee in the sort of terror that they were right now. This had to be something much more menacing than an owl, something that could very well be a threat to the herd itself. The stag stamped one hoof against the frigid ground, a simple alarm that should get everyone's attention and back up Sasha's voice.

Aktain crowded in next to his mother, his eyes lit with panic. He was staring up at the retreating starlings so intently that he almost ran right into his brother. "Can you hear what they're saying?" The fawn asked as he traveled to safety with his mother and brother, while still watching the birds wheeling overhead. They were too far up for any of the deer to pick out exactly what they were saying, but their sharp voices conveyed definite worry.

Legend headed with the group towards the trees. Every sense of his was on fire, and every instinct was begging him to turn tail and run away from potential danger, but he would not do that when his herd's safety was in question. Whatever had scared the birds, he had to find out what it was and make sure it wouldn't hurt any of his family...

*Event* & Legend

Because the air was so still, there was no scent for the approaching bucks to pick up on. The stand of trees included many oaks as well, most of which had leaves that clung tenaciously to the branches of the trees throughout fall and winter, thus making it hard for the deer to see properly into the thicket until they were very close. ...They didn't get the chance to get close.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an arrow whistled out of the stand of trees, passing narrowly over Snowdon's head. "RUN!" Legend barked in terror, recognizing the arrow and the scent that came after it as coming from a human. And here they were, out in the middle of a field, with several hundred meters between them and the nearest grove of trees - unless they chose to go after the humans, it would be a desperate run across open ground...

Sasha & Others

Sasha was getting very nervous, and she let it show, for she knew they should all be nervous. It was a survival instinct. Better be a coward and live than be daring and die. Sasha was generally brave, but hearing the alarm calls of the starlings - and having her fawns here - she didn't want to risk anything.

Necris stepped out of the way of his twin brother to allow him some room next to their mother. He watched the starlings just as intently as Aktain, both his eyes and ears trained on the flock. With the massive ears of the mule deer, Necris had phenomenal hearing. "They're saying something about legs. Two legs! But only birds have two legs! Do they see a bigger bird?" Necris had never seen nor heard of humans, so he had no knowledge of what the starlings were really referring to.

Snowdon soon found out for himself that these were humans. The arrow went straight over his head...and straight toward the herd. Kazbek, a daughter of Everest and Sassy, was the one to be hit. It went through her neck, but by some amazing miracle, it missed her windpipe and vital blood vessels. She let out the loudest cry of pain much of the herd had probably ever heard. Her father, Everest, couldn't hear Legend over his daughter's scream, but he already had the message: they had to get out of here. "Kazbek!" The mule buck yelled. He would love to gore the bastard who shot his daughter, but he had to follow Sasha's orders: do not fight, just run. And that's what he did, soon followed by Rosco. "Legend, where do we go?" Everest shouted. Rosco was a bit jealous that Everest asked Legend that critical question, but this was no time to get angry. He respected Everest, and he tried to respect Legend. "Keep running, everybody! Don't split up!" Rosco shouted. They had to keep moving, even while Legend thought about where to go.

"MOM!!!" Janga shouted. The daughter of Rosco and Kazbek ran to her mother's side, shortly followed by her brother, Karluk, and her sister, Halti. The two daughters tried to support Kazbek, but the mother doe was in shock and very weak. Karluk, the 140 pound son, squeezed under his 100 pound mother, lifting her up on his back. The sisters quickly ran on both sides of their brother, making sure Kazbek didn't fall.

Upon seeing her twin sister shot, Tyree grew enraged. "Snowdon! Kamir!" The doe shouted to her half-brothers, "Let's go back and kill the humans!" Tyree turned around and headed back toward the stand of trees, as did Kamir, but Snowdon wasn't too sure about that, so kept following the herd. "You will NOT go back there! Got it?" Everest commanded, and just his firm voice and stern look turned his children back toward the herd.

This, Kazbek feared, would be the end. Hopefully Legend, having been around here longer than them and surely having more knowledge of the landscape in the Valley, would think of a good place for them to run to.

*Event* & Legend

Aktain was still looking up as they moved, almost as if he were transfixed by the large flock that was rushing overhead and quickly outpacing the deer below them. "Maybe it's an eagle..?" The fawn questioned with a treble of fear. He was big enough now that he didn't have to really worry about the large birds killing him, but they'd always left an impression in his mind, and he had a healthy fear of them. The twins soon had their answer to the question when Kazbek's scream rent the air. "Momma, what's that?!" Aktain gasped, ducking his head to the side just in time to see what looked like a large... stick? piercing the doe's neck.

"Don't run straight, zig-zag!" Through the fear, such an overwhelming and all-consuming emotion for many deer, Legend kept as cool of a head as he could and barked out again, giving the herd what orders his frazzled mind could bring up. Zig-zagging was a trait he'd learned from his father, and he put it to use now, springing from left to right at random intervals. Somewhere ahead of him, he heard a doe's pained cry and recognized the voice as Kazbek's. His heart twisted a little. "Tyree, keep moving!" The stag didn't let this slow him down however - he had a job to do, and that was to get everyone out of the field and in safer areas. He gave the other buck a stern order that followed up what Everest said, and then he raised his voice once more, "To the cedar thicket! We've got to get out of their sight, and across the stream!"

What the stag spoke of was a dense stand of cedar trees, some of them no taller than the deer themselves, while others were towering towards the sky. If they could just make it to the cedar thicket, the dense, dark-green branches would easily obscure them from the hunters' view and allow them to melt away unseen into the landscape. And the stream would provide a way to break the trail of blood that Kazbek might be leaving, since Legend had been warned many times how humans followed a deer's blood trail to finish off their quarry.

Another arrow whizzed by, followed by a third, harrying the herd as they ran towards their hopeful shelter. If they could just manage to avoid this last volley, they should make it into the thicket before the hunters could draw new arrows to their bows... but that was only one half of the problem.

Chido, Sassy, Kilamanjaro, Kanguskon, Sprinkles

Sassy had been grazing when all of it broke out. Her white tail went up and she started running with the rest of the herd. She heard what happened and spun around to see her daughter with an arrow in her. Sassy was nudged by her brother and she turned and moved on.

Chido moved with his sister quickly.

Kilamanjaro wanted to go and charge the humans who had struck one of his triplet sisters but he had just turned to run when an arrow lodged into his left hip. He fell but got back up and continued on slower and with a bit of a limp but was doing his best to keep up with the herd. He just wanted to run his antlers which were huge this year into those humans.

Kang kept on going.

Sprinkles yelped as an arrow pierced the ground beside her but kept going.