The Hunter and the Silver Doe

"Mother, why does the water rise?"

Summer's Reach was cold. The old seaside home where Daloran spent his childhood days, unaware of his future cares, saw that day a morning of wind.

Daloran did not care; and nor did his mother Kana, who sat above him on a stone bench while he played in the white sands at the edge of the beach.

"What do you mean?" she said, after only a moment's consideration. She had been watching the horizon, uncaring as the wind blew her dark hair this way or that. Her son was making shapes in the sand, little mounds in a circle.

"I mean..." he said, looking up and studying the nearby cliffs with a troubled look. "When we got here the water wasn't so high. Why did it go up?"

"Oh," she said. "Well... do you see the moon at night?"

"Yes," he said, "and sometimes in the day."

"That's right," she nodded. "Well, what my father told me was that the water follows the moon."

"Follows?" he protested. "Then why isn't it up there?"

She breathed in the salt spray, not answering him. After a moment, he came over and took her hand.

"Mother, how does the water follow the moon?"

She smiled and patted the stone bench next to her.

"Well," she said as Daloran sat, "if you like, I'll tell you a story..."

Many years ago, it is said, a hunter went looking for a silver doe. For the land had been dry for a very long time, and it was said that if someone were to find and kill the doe, the skies would open up again and rain would fall, quenching the ground's thirst.

So, many years he searched, through every forest he could find. But to no avail. So he searched across all the plains, then into the mountains... but he couldn't find the silver doe.

But he would not give up. The land was desperate for rain.

At night he watched the skies, looking for an answer, a sign of where to look. "I have travelled long," he began to say each night, "and I search for what no man should be able to find. Yet I will hunt until my last breath. Would that my journey be met with the smallest of aid?"

As his eyes searched, suddenly a star in the north blinked once brighter than all the rest. He stood immediately, shouting his excitement and praise; and, ever one bound by duty, he continued on his way.

He followed the star in the north for many months; through many nights and sleeping very little. Through forests and over plains he journeyed again. And finally, after crossing perhaps the tallest mountain he had ever seen, he stopped when the star brought him to the sea.

There he stood for a long while, the whisper of the waves in his ears. He thought perhaps he was to build a boat and keep going, but something stayed him on the sand. So he waited until nightfall, that perhaps he could again look for direction.

When night came, however, and the great moon was over head, something shining appeared from the waves. She strode from the wake with both grace and majesty, a silver doe, bowing to the hunter as he approached.

"I come to you," she said, and her words sang through his chest, "you who have searched for so long, that now I may return to my home."

So the hunter drew the first arrow of his long hunt, and loosed it upon the silver doe. And as it struck, the doe burst into a cloud of moonlight, lingering there on the shore for only a moment. With a final whisper of farewell, she soared upward through the clouds and into the moon; and at the moment she broke through the sky, rain began to pour down, blessing the dying land; and as the rains came down, the water came up to meet it, crashing together in a joyous thunder.

The hunter fled before the torrent, but he was not fast enough. So great was the land's joy that it drowned its savior. And though at first he thought perhaps it was unfair, he remembered the rain falling on the dry ground and the doe's flight home... and he drifted off with a smile.

Now... each time the moon comes around in the sky, the waves remember... they hear the whisper of the doe's voice... and the sea rises up to be nearer to her...

"That's why the water goes up, Daloran."