The Lightning Doe

Whiteleaf’s Fairy Tales

The Lightning Doe

Draft 3

By: Chase L. Currie

A tale was written down by the Bard Harrison Whiteleaf of Whispering Oaks.

Once upon a time …

                In a time when the Realm was young, and the three kingdoms were still waring among themselves, there was a Hunter who lived deep in the forest. He was a lonely squirrel who spent his days walking the woods and cared nothing for the Nobles and Kings at war with each other. He cared for himself and the great hunt at paw during his life. He spent all his time hunting the great hunting the great legend of the Lightning Doe.

                Legend speaks of a doe who roams the Realm as white as snow with a bolt of lightning running down it’s back. The doe is said to be just as fast as the bolt rushing down its back, and the Hunter wanted to hang her head on his wall. If he could find the doe, he would go down in history as the greatest Hunter in the Realm.

                One day while out in the forest hunting for the doe and his dinner, a battle was being raged over the hill and in the treetops. A battle he moved to avoid, not wanting to see the war, not even wanting to hear it.

                He traveled far from the sound of the steel song unhappy with how wide the war has spread. As he moved away from the fighting, he found a pratol of Knights dead in his way. Among the dead, he believed he saw a white Warrior Princess of some Lord he did not know the name. He checked to see if she was still breathing and to his amazement, she was still alive.

                She begged him to help her, and the Hunter tired of the war said, “No.”

                She told him she would marry him making him a Lord if he would save her life and he would all her Hunters under his command. She would give him power and children and his bloodline would reign for all time. But he didn’t care about the riches or the children; he wanted an army of Hunters.

                The Hunter agreed thinking only of his quest to find the doe but also, deep in his heart there was a tad of loneliness like black ink spreading over him. He took her to a Witch deep in the forest, told the witch what she had promised, and begged for her to heal the warrior.

                The Witch agreed to heal her telling the Hunter the only way to save her was to link their lives together.

                The Hunter was fine with the spell.

                The Witch warns the Hunter that the spell was protected by a curse. A curse if the Knight or he broke their word they would both met their end.

                The Warrior Princess was saved inlaid in bed for days with the Hunter going back into the forest to hunt the doe. The more he played over the idea of having an army at his side the more the glory he longed for would be taken away. He planned never to return to the Warrior Princess and to live out his days alone in the woods.

                The Witch went into the woods one day to gather food and went she return the Warrior Princess was awoken. She became scared of the Witch chopping off her head fleeing into the forest with her sword and armor and the plan never to marry the Hunter who saved her life. She ran for days until she was lost deep in a forest she did not know.

                The Hunter return to the hut wanting to check on the Witch and the hopes she could break the curse but found her dead on the floor. He followed the tracks the Warrior Princess left but quickly lost in the woods. A storm had come from the north raging against the Realm and stopping the Hunter from finding any more tracks. He still hunted in the night trying to find her, not sure what he would do but in the depths of the night, he saw his prey.

                There on top of a hill was the white doe he had longed to kill. He aimed at the deer let his arrow loose and watched with a creak of thunder as the beast fell to the ground. He rushed to the side of the doe only to fall to the ground beside his prize. He watched as the life faded from his body as the doe turned back into the Warrior Princess. He died with her in his eyes.