Lessons of Manhood

A very strange feeling was in the air, affecting the whole island with its craziness and driving every Windborne to the stage closest to madness.
Éliot saw stags chasing around does, who seemed to rejoice in their frenzied game, saw adults scramble like fawns, only with a slightly bigger amount of seriousness in their pushing and pulling, their shaking limbs, trembling muscles and the intertwined mass that was their antlers.
And with a slightly bigger amount of blood, when the defeated limped away; out of sight of the triumphant winner who then welcomed another doe in his harem.
It was rut.
Last year, Eli had still wrinkled his nose at the rut’s fury - it had been stupid madness, nothing more.
But this year was different.
This year, the heat of rut was pulsing through his veins, too.
The only problem was that he absolutely couldn’t handle it.
It was his second year with antlers - four prongs now sat on his forehead in all their glory and tried to look a little bigger than they had last year. His voice had become deeper, too, more rasp like his father’s, but with a melodic, warm sing-song to it.
The strange influence young does with their fluttering eyelashes had on him made him eager to run his antlers into every single rack that walked past, especially the big ones. But he was barely more than a sapling; he should have been more aware of his weak youngling’s body, compared to the well-muscled limbs of older, much more experienced stags…

Two years after his mother had run away, his father had started to participate again. The fights Éilias won expanded his heroism in his son’s eyes; the fights he lost disappeared from Eli’s mind as it they had never happened.
The does he fought for were few, and Eli never knew them or the fawns his father sired - those were private things. But he sometimes watched him fight, studied his movements and technique and congratulating him when the opponent was defeated.
The young guards of his father’s group were a bunch of the best fighters within the main herd, and Eli soon learned that, apart from does, there were other reasons to measure their strength.
Some of the stags had decided to spend their whole life with one single mate, so they just fought to impress them (or to be gently caressed if they lost). Others fought for prestige, some for training.
Eli saw all this bursting manhood around him - and it confused him in a way he couldn’t quite understand.

Éliot had spent the day scrambling with his friend Aro. The palomino was already stronger than him, only a little taller, but able to throw his chestnut friend over with a swing of his already very massive neck; mature strength Eli could not stand up to. Aro was also mostly the one the girls admired, Eli thought; they were falling for his dashing colour and his artistically formed crown of antlers, not the curls and curves of the four prongs that formed Eli’s headwear. Still, the chestnut didn’t know what he would do without his friend.
At this very moment, he found himself tumbling down a grassy slope, his limbs entangled with his friend’s as if they still were fawns playing on the peaceful pastures of Westhaven. Quickly, he jumped on his feet and the young stags’ antlers collided, crashing into each other with boyish exuberance until they both lost interest and parted, puffing and laughing at the same time, enjoying the carefree time that is youth.
It was already late, and the sun fell early in autumn, so the young ones soon said goodbye; each of them went back to the place they called ‘home’.
Fallen leaves, showing hues from bright yellow to muddy brown lined his way, and through the thick foliage of the treetops fell the last golden beams of a dying sun.

A sudden sound made him look around with curiosity.
It was an almost bell-like sound, fitting to the enchanting mood of the forest surrounding him. It sounded like the laughter of a young doe, who immediately assumed the forms of a beautiful, fairy-like creature in the confused youngling’s mind. It was the image of a little doe he knew from his earliest days of fawnhood - and sometimes longed to see again.
Had she returned?
The thicket parted - and a nimble doe that sadly wasn’t the independent spirit of his fawnhood stepped onto his path and smiled at him with a cheeky, coquettish expression. “Hello”, she greeted and giggled, and Eli’s mind wanted to explode.
“Well… hello”, he mumbled, barely able to utter decent sentence.
The doe’s giggling only increased over his hopeless stuttering, and she drew a little closer to him, temptingly swaying her tail from one side to the other, as if she wanted to hypnotize him. Well, she succeeded.
“I’ve seen you fighting with the other just now, and…” Something in the wood next to the turtledoves cracked, causing her to stop dead and look around cautiously.
The young stag’s mind was in turmoil, so he didn’t notice the big shadow stepping out of the thicket behind his back. He only noticed the doe back away from him (had he done something wrong? He didn’t even know her name!), so he finally turned his head - only to gaze into the anger-filled eyes of a seal bay stag that was nearly twice as big as him, and at least thrice as muscular!
“What are you doing with my doe?”, the stag huffed, spicing up the possessive pronoun with an extra emphasis.
Eli had the guts to stand up to him and puffed himself up. “I just wanted to ask you the same, old man!”, he crowed with his adolescent voice. “First in time, first in line! Heh!”
Instead of crushing the bumptious young stag into the ground, the seal bay rather was amused by his behavior - he had to admit, he hadn’t expected such backchat. But fine, if that little brat wanted a lesson to learn, he would teach him one.
“And what do you want to do, tickle me with your baby antlers?”, he teased.
That had been the final straw! Eli lowered his head and snorted furiously, taking a few steps in the bigger stag’s direction. “Do you really want me to ‘tickle’ you with those ‘baby antlers’? Better think twice!”
The seal bay laughed. With a fluent motion, he lowered his magnificent rack - and practically let the chestnut run into open arms.

The impact shook his whole body thoroughly and would probably cause a headache that would last the next few weeks, but Eli didn’t notice anything; all he saw was red.
The seal bay though, stood solid as a rock against crashing waves. Again and again Eli made another attempt; the small antlers collided with the bid ones - a feeling that made his blood run in a strange rush, an inner drunkenness he had never experienced before.
“Don’t hurt yourself!”, the seal bay exclaimed and winked at the pale doe, who still watched the proceedings as a silent spectator, giggling to herself at the attention the dominant stag paid to her.
With one last furious run, Eli slammed his head on his opponent’s.
His hooves cut through the grass and rotten leaves on the ground, throwing little parts of dirt into the air as he braced himself against the mass of muscle and manhood in front of him, trying to push him back with all his body weight.
It didn’t really work.
The other stag moved a little, just a little push to the side, until something snapped between their entangled horns…
Eli had finally lost his cheek; he wanted to back off, run away from this big bulk of walking disgrace, but he couldn’t. He could neither move forwards nor backwards. His antlers were caught!
He desperately tried to free himself, but in vain…
“Tired already?”, the seal bay joked. “How comes you are so lax at once?”
He stepped forward, pushing back the chestnut as if he was as light as an eucalyptus leaf. Éliot tried to withstand and put up at least a little resistance, but with no visible success.
The stag pushed him backwards, step after step, until he tripped and his legs yielded below his body. Now he finally felt exhaustion in every single limb. Trembling, he half lay on the forest soil, half hung from his opponent’s rack, able to look into his eyes that were close to his own.
Now the seal bay started to walk backwards and dragged the younger stag’s feeble body through earth, mud and leaves; an embarrassing position for the youngling who had so deeply wanted to impress a doe.
“Let me go!”, he huffed, struggled and kicked the air to get free.
“Giving up already?”
“I do, you stupid bunch of stag-flesh!”
“You are such a cute little fawn. But I like you.”
With a little snap, their antlers broke apart.
Immediately, Eli struggled on his feet and ran away. He disappeared in the thicket, leaving behind belly laughter and a doe’s giggling - but not this feeling of shame that seemed to be glued at his coat. 
 
His father’s few losses were one thing - but his own defeat was a loss he could scarcely forget.