Everything hurt. Her tail hurt, her paws hurt, her legs hurt, her back hurt, even her eyes hurt when she opened them. If her fur itself could hurt, she was sure it would hurt, too.

  “Be careful!” A gentle, but firm pressure held Black-Leap in place, and the frightened kit froze as her mind slowly caught up with reality. “You are by far the smallest creature I have ever helped, and I don’t want to hurt you. You are safe, I promise.” The creature standing over her huffed and sniffled anxiously, not a hint of malice in its expressions.

  “Okay…” Black-Leap peeped, fighting back against her instinctual panic as hard as she could.

  “This is going to sting for a moment, but the pain should improve quickly.” Something long and thin scraped across the back of her neck, parting her fur before something cold and sticky was applied to her skin, immediately causing whatever wound was there to burn terribly. The pain resurfaced a memory. An impact. Tumbling across the mud and stone. Sharp pain as a beak and talons latched on to whatever loose skin they could grab. Anger and despair at the betrayal of a dear friend. Smothering darkness as she was covered and taken someplace warm and dry. Delirious pleading with unfamiliar animals for help finding her mother as pain and exhaustion finally caught up with her…

  Laying there as the burning sting of her wound slowly faded to a distant, dull ache, all Black-Leap could do was whimper.

  “Hey… Mender, right? I think I could help.” The light tapping of something hard on the floor nearby expressed the statement confidently, despite the unsteady irregularity of the rhythm.

  “Child, you need rest–”

  “I AM NOT A CHILD!” The clatter of hooves and a high-pitched, honking squeal startled Black-Leap out of her depressed stupor, causing her to bolt upright and look at just who was making all the noise. Standing protectively over her was a bulky animal with thick fur the same color as her own, and broad, long-clawed paws. The nearby source of the commotion, however, was a much smaller, spindly-legged hoofed animal with sandy brown fur. It was panting and unsteady, clearly unwell. Black-Leap could only assume that it was of the same species as the creatures that brought her here, and despite its insistence to the contrary, it certainly looked to be extremely young.

  “That is not the–”

  “I understand, I really do. ‘Keep the sickly reindeer fawn healthy and safe’ is at the forefront of yours and the rest of Dawn-Herd’s minds,” The fawn whined as it lowered its head, its thin legs trembling with each labored breath it took as it tried to calm itself. “But I’m also forty-three goddamned years old and the father of three wonderful children of my own. I’ll be dead in the ground before I let that experience go to waste when it counts.”

  Black-Leap’s eyes widened as she realized just what the deer was. The way it expressed itself, the way it struggled to move naturally, the experiences it drew upon. It was like her mother and the others: A former human, inhabiting a body that wasn’t their own.

  “Besides, a bear may not be the best animal to try and comfort a baby squirrel. I’m the smallest one here.”

  “Fine, but be cautious. Do not exert yourself,” the black bear conceded with a nervous growl, moving towards the exit of the small, wooden-walled room before turning around, its eyes assessing the two juveniles. “I will inform Caretaker Fir that I’ve treated our guest’s wounds as best I could.” With that, the two of them were left to their own devices.

  “So!” the fawn wheezed, nearly collapsing as they settled back down into their bed. “Sorry about all that. You can call me Sly. What’s your name?” Despite everything else about it, Sly’s eyes gazed at Black-Leap with a gentle kindness she had seen from few other people outside of her own mother. But while Quiet-Dream’s kindness always seemed to hide pain or sadness, something else was unmistakable within Sly’s.

  Desperation.

  “I’m Black-Leap,” she squeaked.

  “Black-Leap...” The deer’s lips silently moved in an attempt to sound out the name in noises they could no longer make. “That’s a wonderful name.” Pausing for a moment, Sly awkwardly shifted so that they could point to their left with their right foreleg. “There's a trough with clean water over here. You should have some. I’d offer you a cup, but I’m afraid I’m all-hooves.” They clicked their front hooves against each other in clear amusement at their strange joke.

  “Thanks.” The kit stiffly walked over to the trough, trying to work out all the kinks in her muscles from sleeping in an awkward position for too long.

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  “I heard that your mother went missing,” Sly tapped as Black-Leap reared up on her haunches to get her head over the edge of the trough. Thankfully, it was full enough that she could just stick her muzzle in and drink her fill, taking the time to splash water on her face with her forepaws in an attempt to cut through the dark cloud lingering over her thoughts. It didn’t work. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Mother was… taken,” the kit murmured, sitting down in front of Sly after she finished with the water. “Someone attacked a Guardian and then just…”

  “That’s terrible, I’m so sorry.” Despite the kindness in their expression, the platitude did little to improve Black-Leap’s mood. Sly swiftly changed tactics. “You know, ‘missing’ is not the same as ‘gone.’”

  “What?” Black-Leap tilted her head, unable to wrap her head around the distinction.

  “What is missing may be found,” Sly recited, closing their eyes as they rhythmically tapped the floor. “And only the forgotten are truly gone.”

  The squirrel didn’t respond, as she found herself stuck ruminating on the idea. The first half made sense. She shouldn’t lose hope, Quiet-Dream was still out there. But the second half… What if something was neither missing nor forgotten, but lost all the same? It would be awful.

  “It’s a mantra I came up with in my time here,” Sly explained, deciding to continue when Black-Leap didn’t speak up. “I repeat it to myself when I struggle. It holds me steady when everything feels wrong. It keeps me going when…” They trailed off, the desperation in their expression getting reigned in somewhat as they realized they were in danger of broaching topics they shouldn’t. “Maybe if you think about it some more, it might help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Hmm…” Sly sighed, eyeing Black-Leap with growing concern. “Something about me is bothering you, isn’t it?”

  Black-Leap nodded.

  “I’m sorry, can you tell me what it is? I want to help, not make you more uncomfortable.”

  “My mother is like you,” Black-Leap blurted out with an awkward chirp, too emotionally spent to care about subtlety or caution anymore.

  “In what way?”

  “Human.” The sound of the word as spoken by Maggie rang in Black-Leap’s mind as she expressed it. She had heard it from the myna more than enough times to lock the association into her memories, but right now that association was just a reminder of her recent betrayal.

  Likewise, Sly did not respond immediately. Their face fell flat as they processed the revelation, the increased trembling of their body being the only indication of whatever turmoil they were experiencing internally.

  And then they grew incredibly still.

  “Are there others?” the fawn eventually asked with a silent tilt of their head. Their eyes bored into Black-Leap’s own, that desperation from before now having consumed whatever else Sly had been feeling.

  Black-Leap just nodded, paralyzed by her own unease. Sly was in a kind of pain she had been seeing every day for as long as she could remember. She wanted to help, she considered herself to be good at it by this point. But it was the desperation that scared her. A desire for something. An unstated intent that she Understood as clearly as Sly’s deliberate expressions. The intent to do whatever it took, no matter the cost, to get it.

  “Are any of them… children?” Sly swallowed. “Young children, between the ages of six and nine in their former lives?”

  “No,” Black-Leap squeaked, fairly certain of her answer. The only child among them had been the bat, and they had often been referred to as “a teen,” older than twelve. An absolutely absurd age to still be considered a child for most species, apparently. “Maybe somewhere else? Mother said that lots of humans are out there, spread out.” The reindeer was briefly disappointed, but seemed to be ready for that answer, quickly pivoting to another question.

  “Did your mother ever tell you where she was before coming here? Her last memories before waking up here?”

  “No, but…” Black-Leap closed her eyes and wracked her brain, trying to recall details gleaned from half-heard conversations and off-paw comments. The humans did speak of their past lives on occasion, though it was rarely a comfortable or happy topic for them. They almost never addressed their final moments as humans beyond vaguely referencing “when all this happened.” Everyone seemed to have their own reasons. Some had given up on going home and didn’t want a painful reminder, while others still clung to that hope and likewise feared having those hopes dashed by some hypothetical truth. Sometimes she even got the impression that a few even believed they had died, Garden-Blessing and Chase, mainly.

  She did manage to recall one thing she’d heard about it, though. Not from her mother, but from Ink-Talon, the night after he had been taken and hurt by the Guardians. He had nested with her family that night, on Quiet-Dream’s insistence that he be watched as a precaution, The crow had woken suddenly in the middle of the night, accidentally rousing Black-Leap in the process.

  “Ink-Talon told me he dreams about it sometimes. Traveling on a long, black road through a forest, mountains in the distance–”

  The kit's explanation was abruptly interrupted as Sly swept her forward with their forelegs, performing an ill-advised, pouncing lunge to do so.

  “Thank you,” Sly bleated, pulling Black-Leap into as tight of a hug as their weak and awkwardly splayed legs could manage. “Thank you. It’s not random. That same place took all of us. I can find them again. They’re going to be out there. I’ll find them…”

  Despite it being discussed often among the adults, Black-Leap had never really gotten a grasp on what “irony” was before, or why anyone cared about it. Things happened differently than she expected all the time, after all. It seemed to be a normal part of life. But now? Having to figure out how to comfort a crying adult who just moments prior declared themselves best suited for comforting her? It all made sense.

  Black-Leap decided that she hated irony.

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