Chapter Text
JUNE
Lucifer hated nightfall.
It was so unutterably lonely that sometimes it made his chest ache with pure longing for a familiar scent…a warm body near his own.
His old herd had been one of the largest and strongest in the region, boasting almost total dominion over Eden Wood. The Wood was a glorious, beautiful old forest that had stood for untold generations, bathed in radiant sunlight and ripe with the heavy scent of flowering trees. Known far and wide as the stewards of Eden Wood, the Enochian Herd’s territory and influence was unquestioned. It had been so safe, so warm…a land of plenty.
Lucifer had spent his youth running free amongst his brothers under the watchful eye of their sire, learning the laws of their people and wanting for so very little. At night, he was never alone…barely knew what the concept of loneliness even was in those days. He would curl up in the big family den, penned in on all sides by familiar bodies and familiar scents. Safe. Someone who belonged .
What privilege he’d had back then…
The slender doe grumbled softly and rolled over on the stained sleeping pallet in his den, the space simultaneously too small and too large. It was at least a quarter the size of the den he’d shared with his family in the time before, but without his family to join him the space felt oddly cavernous. There were no friendly hands to touch him here - to pet his hair and soothe him into dreams. There was no ambient warmth from his siblings, just his poor blanket that was slowly going threadbare with time.
For a moment, Lucifer rolled onto his back in the hollow bowl of an old tree that he’d claimed as his new home, propping his hooves up on the wall and staring blankly.
From his youngest days, Lucifer had been pale.
The fine, velvety coat that covered him from the neck down was naturally a blonde as buttery yellow as the fat-bellied full moon. His flanks and shoulders were dotted with delicate fawn spots in creamy white that he never grew out of. The skin of his face and neck (and what peeked out through the thin pelt on his stomach) was an alabaster hue. Even the thick waves of hair atop his head were golden, the only dark part of him his nails and once-glossy hooves.
‘Not so glossy anymore’, he lamented to himself, flexing his ‘toes’ where they rested against the wall.
He cringed when a bit of dried mud flaked off onto his stomach.
It was difficult to keep up with his grooming here and it showed in the flecks of debris that clung to his coat…the dullness of his hooves. That was, of course, to say nothing of the knots in his tail.
Where Eden Wood had been a place of firm, fertile ground and lush grasses beneath the trees, this place…well. It was something far removed from the idyllic countryside where Lucifer had whiled away his childhood. It was still more-or-less forest, but if Lucifer was being honest with himself this forsaken little scrap of nowhere was closer to a swamp than anything else. The trees here were strange, their wood smelling sharp in his nose and their roots seeming to grow up in thick knuckles rather than down into the earth as was proper.
There was less fruit here too. Lucifer had stumbled over some specimens in the brief month he’d lived here, the first being a green thing not entirely unlike an apple. Its rind was hard, but its innards were soft and mild in flavor. Not awful, but it took some getting used to. There were also small clusters of dark purple grapes in the wettest parts of his new home, as well as an assortment of wild berries, but mostly he’d had to resort to fishing and foraging…shellfish and the like.
His mouth perpetually tasted like grit and bracken now, but he was trying to make do.
What other choice did he have, really?
There wasn’t much safety for a doe without a herd, male presenting or not. If he had stayed with his sire’s herd in Eden Wood, he would have been protected always, would have chosen a mate eventually with his sire’s approval, and raised his own fawns up in the same traditions as he had. Once he’d been cast out, though, his options narrowed swiftly down to two.
One, find a new herd and be mated in to an eligible buck. Two, find unoccupied territory and establish himself.
The first option was hardly palatable considering he wouldn’t have had much of a say in who the leaders of the next herd chose for him. Outsiders with no resources to offer to enrich the herd didn’t exactly get to be picky. They had to provide something if they expected to receive a share in return. Not to mention, he would have had to learn a whole new culture and he’d probably fuck that up just the same as he had back home.
So, no. No thank you.
That meant finding his own place, and that had proved a feat in and of itself.
Desirable territory didn’t just sit open in this day and age, and if there wasn’t at least a herd already occupying a meadow, glen, or forest, then a bachelor buck surely did. Lucifer had made that mistake a grand total of once, trying to settle down for a night in a little hollow only to find himself fending off a potential suitor. Some bucks without a herd of their own just did that…pick a prime piece of land and establish it in hopes a fine doe would need a place to go.
Lucifer might have been small, but he was nobody’s fool and the buck had sorely regretted his choices before the doe moved on.
So, with all the good territory taken or set up as a trap, all that left was the
not
good parcels of land. Hence this damn swamp that left stains in Lucifer’s fur and dull patches on his hooves, overflowing with weird food and that cursed humidity that left cowlicks in Lucifer’s golden hair.
So yes, he was lonely, dirty, homesick, and a little out of sorts, but at least this place was his.
Sighing and trying to buck himself up, Lucifer slipped from his den and out into the cooler air of the swamp night, his alert ears flickering forward and back as the creaking song of insects serenaded him. It wasn’t what he would call ‘pretty’, not by a long shot, but there was something soothing about the whining drone. Little frogs peeped and croaked in the shadowy waterways hidden in the forest and high above were the stars twinkling like little gems against a backdrop of fine black velvet.
Lucifer’s tail wagged to see them.
No matter how different the mud, food, climate, insects, and smells…the stars were still the same.
Wrapping his arms around his narrow middle, Lucifer sighed softly and traced the constellations with his coin-bright eyes, taking comfort in their familiarity.
Behind him, there was a rustle.
Lucifer’s ears immediately swiveled back and he turned his head curiously, trying to see if some of the wildlife had stumbled across his humble den. He wasn’t terribly concerned if they had, but his inquisitive nature always got the best of him. Maybe it was one of the scaly, big things that lived in the waters and ventured out on occasion. Oh! Or maybe he’d gotten particularly lucky and one of the little foxes had come for a visit.
However…what lurked behind him was no fox.
There and gone like a will-o-wisp was a flash of bright red, disappearing around a tree too fast for Lucifer to track. His tail flagged at the sight and almost on instinct, the doe found himself swaying forward a step like he would pursue.
Again.
There it was again .
This had been happening almost as long as Lucifer had been living in the swampy woodland. There had been nothing for the first day or two, but after that he began catching things out of the corner of his eye. At first he had been frightened, concerned that he had wandered into yet another creature’s territory that he would be forced to fight off before moving on, but…no. Nothing had come for him. He’d calmed by degrees as the days went on unmolested and a pattern developed.
At least once a day he would catch sight of that red flash again…never enough to know what it was, but always near to him. There was no real rhythm to its manifestations either. Sometimes it would vanish from the edge of one of the clear-water springs where Lucifer went to drink or to wash his bedding and garments. Sometimes it would be just rounding the corner as he left his den in the morning. Other times he would look up from foraging to catch a flutter of scarlet. Then it was like this on occasion, a sighting in the night.
Lucifer was baffled.
He’d never gotten a clear shape of whatever it was and it had never tried to come too close to him. Yet…it seemed to be around him with a curious frequency. He didn’t understand. Was it an animal? Another doe? Something else altogether?
As he always did, Lucifer lifted his nose to the air and tried to catch a scent, but the sultry heat of the swamp and unfamiliar flowers prevented him from identifying anything.
Strange.
Well…maybe if it was someone like him, it wasn’t approaching because he’d failed to identify himself? Perhaps if he left a calling card, it might convince whoever was out there to at least reveal themselves for good or ill.
Frankly, if things were going to get bad, Lucifer would really rather it be sooner than later.
Bounding carefully away from his den, Lucifer made his way some distance from his home and down to the dark water. He made a few short hops to a big island where more of those strange trees grew and considered the largest one. He’d seen the red streak here one morning while he washed his face, so maybe if he left a bit of his scent here they would be sure to find it? He doubted doing it next to his den would work since the thing never wanted to come quite that close.
Deciding that the worst that would come of this was another hasty relocation, Lucifer leaned in to the tree and turned his head into the bark. Humming softly, he flipped his ears back so he had room to work, rubbing the scent gland on top of his head against the trunk until he was sure he’d left his mark. Once he was done, he gave the tree a delicate sniff and was pleased to find his own smell there like a lovely little olfactory hello.
Well!
At the very least things would be interesting.
Feeling fatigue finally beginning to weigh on him, Lucifer made his way back over to the bank and trotted up to his den. He cast one last look over his shoulder to consider the tree he’d marked before ducking into the safety of his makeshift home. It would be a proper den one day if he stayed here long enough. Maybe he’d carve the walls or hang a curtain if he could get his hands on the fabric.
But those were thoughts for another day.
For now it was time to sleep
~*~
The next morning Lucifer rose with a jaw-cracking yawn and uncurled from the tight ball he had formed himself into overnight. He squinted one eye over his shoulder at the world outside and saw that the sky was still silvery grey with dawn light. The air was as cool as it ever got in the swamps and it filled Lucifer’s bones with an electric sort of invigoration. There was no scent of rain in the air, so it would be a good morning to perhaps do some fishing or go for a run. Maybe once it warmed a bit, he’d indulge in a soak in the springs.
Rolling over and slinking out of his den, Lucifer stood to his full diminutive height and stretched his whole body out like a cat, groaning in satisfaction when his spine popped pleasingly.
All around him, the swampy woods were still, the peace broken only by the throaty, churring call of a heron deeper in.
The scent of swamp jasmine clung to the light breezes, perfuming the softly sulfurous air.
Lucifer could admit that sometimes his new home was a little lovely when it wanted to be.
Smiling to himself, the little blonde doe knelt next to his den to rummage until he fumbled across the rough-hewn net tucked under his bedding. He pulled it out and grabbed the spear that leaned up against the tree, fully intending to catch a bit of breakfast before the day grew too hot. It was a short walk to his preferred fishing spot and it would be nice to soak up a little bit of solitude that didn’t feel like the miserable isolation of the night before.
Humming a tune, Lucifer struck out with every intent to follow the water on his usual path when something brought him to a halt.
A new smell.
A scent he’d never detected before that was altogether more than the normal bouquet of aromas his home provided.
Ears perked and tail flagging, Lucifer tilting his nose into the air and followed the scent until he was standing before a cypress tree just past the boundary he’d marked around his den. It was strong here and he followed the impulse to place his nose against the bark, a little surprised when he had to crane up on his hooves to fully capture it.
Oh.
Oh , that scent.
It was spicy and musky, undeniably dark and more enticing than anything he’d detected out here since his relocation. Before he even knew what he was doing, Lucifer was rubbing his cheek against the patch of bark that held that delectable scent, tail wagging furiously behind him. The scent lit up his brain in ways he barely understood and it took a force of will to pull away, pupils blown.
No animal had left that.
Like a bolt from the blue, Lucifer recalled what he had done the night before - leaping away from his den to mark a tree as a gentle introduction for who or whatever was possibly lurking in the swamps. Clearly his calling card had been received and this was the response.
Lucifer would do anything to elicit another response like this.
Smiling wide enough to display all of his pearly teeth, the concept of a new game began to form in the playful doe’s mind. It seemed that whoever was out there had chosen to mark a different tree rather than mingling their scents.
Maybe it was time for a little bit of second-hand tag.
Unutterably pleased with himself, Lucifer left behind the tree with that wonderful scent and considered his surroundings. If they were going to play, then he wouldn’t be able to just re-mark this tree. More than that, he needed to get creative! He mulled over the best way to go about setting up his new spot, trotting a little ways past the tree when he spied one of those weird roots poking up by the water’s edge. It wasn’t so close that the ripe smell of the water would cover up his own aroma, but it would force whoever was out there to work a little harder.
Chuckling, Lucifer approached the cypress knee and balanced so he could extend one hoof, pressing the scent gland hidden there against the rough bark. He dug in and rolled his ankle, making sure to leave a healthy amount of his natural musk there. It wouldn’t do to make it
too
hard to start with after all.
The game was, quite literally, afoot.
~*~
Delight didn’t even begin to cover Lucifer’s feelings as the days wore on.
Whoever it was living out there in the swamps had taken to his game with a will and the little doe’s marks never went unanswered.
It had become the high point of his day to travel out into the swamps, sometimes with no aim in mind except to find the new scent marker that had been left for him and leave one of his own. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the stranger was just as puckish as he was, cottoning on to the rules quite quickly.
The first rule being, of course, to never mark the same place twice.
The second unspoken rule was to make it just a little further afield each time (though his partner seemed to have established that one).
The third rule (and there were only three because this was a simple game) was to make it a little bit harder to find each time.
Sometimes Lucifer would find the new scent marker in one of his favourite places…his spring or his preferred fishing spot. Sometimes it would be completely random, making him think hard and give in to instinct to locate his prize. His absolute favourite times, though, were when the stranger decided to be teasing…to lead him to entirely new places he’d never seen before in pursuit of their good-natured contest.
One day it had led him to a dense blackberry thicket handsomely ripe with perfect, dark fruit that Lucifer had stained his fingers with gladly.
On another day, he’d followed his nose to the thick grasses protecting a vixen’s den where three newborn cubs gamboled and played. It had taken everything in Lucifer not to squeal in glee at the sight, not wanting to disturb the contented animals.
Yet another day, the stranger had used the game to show him to a new harvest of tubers and edible greens, some of them already helpfully harvested to show him what he was meant to eat.
Of course Lucifer did his best to return the favor.
He didn’t know the swamp as well as the stranger apparently did, so there were no secrets he could reveal, but maybe he could tell them a little more about him? It had seemed like a good idea, so he’d used their game to teach his long-distance roommate about him - showed them to where the most beautiful water lilies grew, to where his favourite swamp jessamine flourished, to where the fish always seemed to be plentiful.
Most times, Lucifer ended his days with a new treat in hand and that utterly entrancing scent lingering in his nose as he drifted off into untroubled dreams.
It was the first time he’d slept peacefully through an entire night since moving from Eden Wood.
Lucifer craved that scent and he couldn’t even figure out why.
He longed to rub it on his bedding and roll around in the smell, to luxuriate it until it sunk into his pores so he never felt lonely again. Sometimes before he slept he would lie in his den and try to dissect the scent, to find what exactly it was that lured him the way it did. There were spices in there that he’d never encountered before with his old herd, a musky warmth that spoke of an undeniable male-ness that had Lucifer’s tail flicking.
He couldn’t understand why that suddenly seemed so interesting to him. He’d grown up in a herd full of bucks of all ages, including one or two who had been interested in him. It wasn’t as if he’d never smelled a man before, but something about this man…
Lucifer kicked his hooves in the air softly to clear his head before bedding down.
But even as he closed his eyes he wondered if the stranger felt the same way about his scent? Did he want to keep it? To covet it the way Lucifer did his?
Lucifer rather hoped he did.
~*~
Lucifer was breaking the rules of the game.
He knew he was and he didn’t care.
It had been two weeks of teasing and taunting one another with scent and the doe was at the end of his patience.
He’d been treated to the best place to watch the sun set and a basket of the swamp apples that he liked, and he’d treated the stranger to the best place to watch fireflies and his favourite stargazing site. He’d learned about the peculiar roommate he’d found himself living with in the swamp. The male (because it was surely a male) seemed practical - almost all of the spots he’d selected for the game were food stores or hunting grounds. He wanted to provide, and was clearly uninterested in Lucifer failing to thrive in the swamps.
And yet despite all of their taunting games…this odd long-distance hide-and-seek they were playing…Lucifer had yet to
see
whoever it was sharing the swamp with him. He still occasionally saw the flashes of red, but it just wasn’t
enough
.
So…he hadn’t left a scent mark earlier in the day, saving it for the evening just before he curled up in his den to sleep. Before kneeling to slip into his protected place, Lucifer had stretched up as tall against his tree as he possibly could, nuzzling into the bark to impart his scent right there at his own door. It had nearly killed him to wait, but he wanted to see if maybe…just maybe…the stranger was willing to accept a somewhat more friendly invitation if he made it plain.
Lucifer’s stomach fluttered as he bedded down, tucking himself up in his blankets facing the door. He wasn’t tired, not even a little bit, but he had a feeling the stranger wouldn’t dare approach while he was still out and about. If he had any hope of seeing the other man living in the swamps, he needed to continue to be patient.
So…he waited.
Lying there in the dark of his den cuddled up in blankets gone soft from use and listening to the droning song of cicadas, Lucifer waited.
He barely dared to breathe he was so eager, hoping that he hadn’t ruined the game entirely with this change in routine. He wanted to draw the stranger closer, not chase him off entirely. The idea of losing that amazing scent forever was more than the little blonde doe could bear and his stomach swooped dizzyingly at the very idea. As the hours ticked by, the worry grew and his guts tied themselves up in knots as he convinced himself little by little that he had erred in his eagerness.
Had he ruined a good thing yet again?
Memories of his ousting from Eden Wood and the Enochian Herd rose and Lucifer squeezed his eyes shut against the burn of shame racing through him.
But then…the same as this whole game had started…he heard a rustle in the leaves.
Gasping softly in surprise, Lucifer’s golden eyes shot open and he lifted his head from his blankets, ears swiveling towards the sound and twitching.
He stopped breathing altogether when he looked to the entry of his den and there, for the first time in a month and a half, was someone new .
Standing just beyond the mouth of his home was a tall silhouette, leanly muscled and slim but broad-shouldered. It was difficult to make out any details about the towering figure in the darkness, but Lucifer could see glowing scarlet eyes watching him with unblinking fascination. The shape of alert ears twitched atop the male’s head, framing a sleek rack of dark antlers growing out of deep red hair. The male was still as a statue, watching Lucifer just as Lucifer watched him, breathless with wonder.
A buck.
The stranger was a buck!
How strange and marvelous…all this time he had been sharing territory with a buck who had neither tried to force him out of the swamp or claim dominion over him. Instead, it seemed like the buck had been playing with him. He had been guiding the doe to sources of food and entertainment instead of bullying or harming him. The flutter rose anew in Lucifer’s breast.
The frozen moment between them stretched, neither daring to move and risk shattering the fragile peace.
But then…slowly…ever-so-slowly as if the buck feared frightening Lucifer…he drew out a length of fabric from a satchel at his side. Still moving by painful increments and never breaking eye contact, the buck knelt to lay the fabric near the mouth of Lucifer’s den. He paused there for a time, head cocking curiously as he and the reclining doe were finally of a height…before rising swiftly and disappearing once more into the night before Lucifer could hope to stop him.
Making a sound of dismay, Lucifer scrambled up from his bedding and poked his head out from the den, but all he saw was a flash of red as the buck vanished once more the same as he always had.
Lucifer groaned and shook his golden head before he smelled something wonderful.
Looking down, he found himself face to face with the strange present the buck had left for him and he realized it was a small blanket. Lucifer reached down to retrieve it before the cool earth could taint the fibers and marveled at the thing; seemingly hand-woven and undeniably marked with age. Something in his instinctive mind melted at the idea he’d been gifted something new for his nest and he raised it to his nose only to realize the present was saturated in that delicious scent he’d been chasing for weeks.
His pupils dilated in comfortable pleasure, soaking up the sense of safety that wafted off of the blanket.
Covetously, Lucifer rushed back into his den and tucked the blanket over his shoulders, nuzzling his cheek against it. Another gift of caretaking, then - not food, but fresh bedding with the buck’s scent. Lucifer had marked his home in welcome and the buck had given a gift of himself even if he didn’t care to stick around and see how it was received. Lucifer hadn’t ruined anything!
His daring hadn’t chased away the stranger!
As a matter of fact, it had brought the buck right to his doorstep and, instead of being angry, the male had given him a gift .
Eyes fluttering closed as he allowed himself to get lost in the scent of the mysterious buck, Lucifer hoped this wouldn’t be the last time the male would dare to come this close again. He hoped so much. But for now? He would content himself with this.