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When a faceless, stalwart buck found Bambi in the middle of a blistering blizzard, his calls for Mother came to a hard stop.
“Your mother can’t be with you anymore. Come.”
An enormous shadow of dread came over him; a dread whose sheer weight he did not know how to process. It was a question he did not know how to ask, so he didn't. The roaring, snowy wind wrestled them as they climbed the hill back from the meadow, and as they did, he had the vastest impression that he was leaving something behind. He felt that something was deeply and terribly wrong. That something was missing.
Young Bambi just could not place what.
But that dark, dark day ends. With each one passed, the snow starts to melt.
Fresh grass burgeons in the clearing patches of damp soil. It’s safe for does to bring their fawn into the meadow again. They prance about with pent up energy (about a season’s worth,) wild and boundless.
At the end of February, the sun’s rays are finally strong enough to pierce through the clouds, painting the evenings gold. They were like beams of hope reaching for the gray earth, frozen over in winter’s long, stagnant clutch.
By mid-March, the forest was on the cusp of springtime. This is when Bambi thinks of his mother the most. And with a sidelong glance at his father’s countenance as they observe the herd frolicking in the meadows, Bambi can tell that he does, too.
His soul felt dilapidated, like an old, shedding oak. Bambi surmises, it must’ve been chiseled away by years of resisting the natural woe that pervaded life as prince of the forest. It was a sad, sad thing to look at. So he didn’t.
And instead of confronting it head-on, the Great Prince lifts his gaze to the snow-dusted rolling hills, ignoring that Bambi knew. He finds something more worthwhile there in those hills every time, it seemed. Once, Bambi had even tried finding it for himself.
(He hasn’t found it yet.)
~
One morning, on a walk to the stream for a drink of spring water, he mentions as much to his friends; Flower, Faline, and Thumper. He has a sinking feeling of regret when he sees their despondent expressions. No one knows what to say. No one ever does.
(…Except Thumper. Thumper always had something to say.)
“Sometimes, when I’m missing someone real bad, talking about all my memories with ‘em helps me feel a whole lot better,” The little rabbit helpfully suggested.
“I’ve tried, but… dad says it’s best to ‘let the things of winter, be of winter.’” He tried straining a prideful smile. To ward off the sadness, he drew circles in the snow with his hoof. “I guess he’s right. I …just. I feel so alone-”
“Bambi.” Called a voice from the nearby thicket.
Bambi’s ear involuntarily twitches in its direction. His friends swing their heads toward the sound, but Bambi doesn’t have to see to know who the voice belonged to. After all, there was only one buck in all of the forest who had a voice as masterful as such.
Such a voice almost always completely stunned him. It straightened him out when he felt himself veering off the path of a stoic prince. Yet, all the same, he deeply revered it. In the forest, there was little to be certain about. The only predictable thing was nightfall and sunrise. But there was his father’s voice, calling him to responsibility. How sure he always sounded; never faltering and never shaken by anything at all. Bambi should be proud.
“Oh, uh, coming!” He trotted over to his dad. As he went, he said to his friends, “I’ll catch you guys later!”
The trek to check on the West Meadow was steep, but Bambi had since grown acclimated to the daily task. It’s just normally, the journey isn’t this quiet.
After, the duty takes them into the complete opposite direction. The reward always came when they finally reached the top of the hill overlooking the South Meadows. Bambi liked this one better than the West because there were always more deer there, running the fields or grazing on spring grass. It was also the one he and his mother would visit most. Bambi thinks his father liked this one better too, because they always stayed a little longer and watched the does playing with their fawn.
Besides the bitter cold, there was one other reason Bambi wished winter would go faster. Those were the times when he and his dad would go into the meadows and play together with all the other deer. Bambi would trip over his long legs as his father playfully chased him. Their laughter would be melodious and nothing else in the world mattered at all.
But right now, there was none of that. Just quiet. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Until…
“Bambi,” it was only his name, but it was loaded with expectation.
The young prince stared up at his father, overcome. His ears flit down.
“It’s important to remember that a prince is never alone. He has the herd. He has every great tree and every small sapling that sways in the forest,”
…That faraway look in his eye. He seemed so tired. The sudden dump of wise words might’ve seemed unrelated to anything if it hadn’t just dawned on Bambi that his father had overheard his earlier exchange with Thumper. This was his response.
“And he has the deep reverence of every fawn and every doe.” The long pause after he says it is far too punctual for the young prince to miss that the silence was a message in itself. The forest is tangible. Mother is not.
“Do you understand?” The sideways glance that he casts toward his son is watchful. Unwittingly stern.
Bambi stiffened, and he looked away. A vast, unknown emptiness clutched at his heart. “Yes, sir.”
Secretly though, it was in all truth that Bambi did not want the deep reverence of every fawn and every doe. He did not want winter, spring, summer, or fall. He did not wish to hear the birds singing from the nests, nor did he want to feel the rush of quails at his hooves if he had to do without his mother.
Had he been anyone else, would his father’s words dry up an ounce of the sadness that flooded his heart?
The Great Prince knew everything; from the tremble of hooves in the fields, to the direction of the wind and the valleys through which its breeze would flow.
But the Great Prince did not know this. He didn’t know grief. He didn’t know loss or how to navigate the world of hurt that it abruptly thrust him into.
On the walk back to the den, he kept his eyes on his father’s cloven-hoof prints in the snow. It was a slow and quiet journey; one that Bambi ought to be used to by now. But as he trailed behind his father, not uttering a word, things felt exactly how they did on the night that things changed forever.
“I wish I was like you.” Bambi said ruefully, tail tucked and his ears held back. Everything about him was drooping, like a sad rose losing clutch of its dying petals.
The heavy snowfall between them is almost the divide he felt, manifest. His expression. That otherwise gentle look in his eyes, gone hard. “What is this about, Bambi?”
Bambi looked to him searchingly, pleading for a companion to walk beside him in his grief. He searched deep in his eyes for someone to guide him out of the loneliness he’d braved by himself for so long.
He just needed to know he wasn’t alone.
But when he looked at the Great Prince, a savior is not what he saw. At least not in the way that Bambi needed.
Instead, he saw the stoic protector of the forest, standing tall, respectable and imposing. His stature was but a fraction of his commandeering presence, maintaining rule over his evergreen domain with fierce determination and authority. If he was ever hurt, no one had known. If he was ever afraid, no such words were ever spoken. Therefore, it was not even a conceivable possibility that he had ever been sad.
Bambi wished he could have a modicum of that kind of passiveness. He wished things didn’t bother him. He wished things didn’t make him sad.
He wished loss wasn’t a necessary part of life.
“A prince ignores his feelings. He does what’s best for others, even if it means sacrifice…” Bambi recited, and he was so proud of knowing it by heart that a little smile appeared on his face. But his eerily misplaced mirth slips away almost as soon as it comes. He confesses like acknowledging that was something wrong with him; that he was broken for still letting it make him sad after all this time,
“My feelings just swallow me up.”
There was a palpable change in his father’s disposition after that. But even so, Bambi doesn’t wait for a response to finish his retreat to their den. Maybe that’s because he knew he wouldn’t get one. He proceeds, trying to emulate the way he’d seen the Great Prince do it; calculated strides. Always display dignity. Walk with pride.
And the Great Prince lingered behind, like always. What he thought about while he stood there hadn’t become any clearer to Bambi for as long as they’ve been together.
There was the feathery beating of wings; a common sound that was the harbinger of a visit from the wise (but grumpy) owl. He swooped down from his flight, perching onto a branch that neighbored where the Great Prince stood.
“So young to be without his mother…” The owl’s lament was faraway and muffled from where Bambi lay. He curled up on himself and tried not to listen.
His father’s voice was a deep sound, dark like the deepening shadows closing around the forest as the short winter’s day gave way to night. He closed his eyes, nudging relentlessly against the imperceptible wisps of sleep, hoping it would take him away to a forest where his mother still chewed fresh spring grass in her glade.
(How troubling it was for him that a sound he often considered comforting could quickly turn dreadful.)
“Three winters have come and gone,” A gusty, white cloud billows from his nose - the warmth of his sigh mixing with the snowy air.
“It looks to me that the young prince is still stuck in that very same winter in which his beloved mother was taken from him.”
“Friend Owl…” The Great Prince looked at him sorely. With an uncharacteristic desperation, he says, “Truly. What is there in my power that I can do for him?”
Owl turned his gaze downward, not able to look him in the eye. For the first time, the wise bird does not have the immediate answer that the Great Prince despairingly sought. For a long while, they were quiet. But then, tentatively, Owl starts…
“Perhaps …what Bambi needs is the permission to allow his grief to exist.” He held his wings close to his body.
He sounded slightly defensive. “I don’t ask that he hides it.”
“Why, not outright...” The Owl countered respectfully.
The dignified buck cleared his throat. “…Well, he talks about it plenty with his friends.”
He held up a single feather, “Sir… uh. I-I fear you may be missing the point-”
“Then tell it to me exactly, Owl.”
There was a slight pause where he grew hesitant. He hated being the bearer of bad news, but he was moved that this was something that needed to be said. With a sigh, the Owl dismisses his reluctance.
“While good that Bambi can discuss the matter with friends, I’m afraid you greatly underestimate your importance in his life.” To minimize room for misunderstanding, he spells it out for him. “He needs to hear it from his father that it’s okay to be in mourning.”
Suddenly, the Great Prince fell ill with realization, as if just now coming to his senses. It was involuntary when he turned his head toward the den, finding inside it his sleeping son, a pile of quiet and lonely suffering that he’d subjected him to. Now, an unbearable and heavy accountability stiffened his breathing.
“But, sir… before you can do this for him, you must first do this for yourself.” Counseled the owl further in a gentle but important manner.
Just the mere thought of it had hurt him to his bones. Accept it? That she was gone?
The melancholy on his face was not an easy thing to see for the owl. In a weak attempt to lessen the damage, he stammers, “These are all just… suggestions, of course. Pay no heed to my squabbling, your majesty… if it be that.”
The Great Prince doesn’t seem to hear him, his gaze thoughtfully cast to the ground. Friend Owl could see that he needed some time to think. He untucked his wings, slowly preparing to take his leave. “Right. I—I shall be on my way now. Uh. A good night to you and your fawn. And best of luck.”
The patter of wings broke him from his daze. A hollow feeling filled his chest as he watched the friendly owl fade with distance into a silhouette amidst the falling snow. His counseling words were left like a vivid, urgent stain in his memory. He looked at Bambi again, who had admirably found sleep, even through the hurt.
‘Before you can do this for him, you must first do this for yourself.’
~
The next day, he found Bambi in his mother’s glade. Quietly, he approached his side.
“Thinking about her?”
“O—Of course not,” Bambi said reflexively. As he stared at his reflection in the stream, he recited in a voice hollow of heart, “A prince doesn’t dwell on what once was. Only on what is.”
“No more of that, Bambi.” His dad said, firm. He cleared his throat, pushing past some deep rooted difficulty with admitting something as vulnerable as; “…I was wrong.”
The Great Prince was… wrong? Bambi stared, suddenly trembling in awe. He said nothing.
“Starting today, I want you to forget everything I’ve said about being a prince.” It was always easier to keep his voice even when he wasn’t looking at him. So that’s what he did. He avoided looking at Bambi and instead focused on the little yellow butterfly drinking nectar from a violet by the stream.
This behavior from his dad always perplexed Bambi. He’s always being told that he’s going to have to start doing things on his own now, so he does. He tries to figure this out on his own. But like always, it is seldom to much avail. “W…What? Why?”
“I realize, now, that I’ve been …depriving you. Of your chance at becoming a prince the forest has never seen.” With a shy type of certainty, he added, “And quite possibly, your chance at becoming the prince that the forest needs.”
The young prince cautiously allowed excitement to burgeon in his chest. “You really think so?”
“I do.” The sour downward curl of his mouth twists into something softer. It reaches his eyes with imperceptible tenderness, the twinkle thoughtful and timid, like he’d always been told something bad would happen if he let anyone see it. Bambi feels a little less tense. They reach a placid silence.
The Great Prince sank serenely into his thoughts, which have become sensitive in a way that they did, only when he fully embraced this part of fatherhood. This part of him, still evolving (but rapidly so,) clashed with the greater part of him that would never let his guard down.
He reminded himself of the reason he’d built this fortress around himself in the first place; to keep himself safe. To prevent pain from ever befalling him the same way it had before.
But when he looked at Bambi, he saw hints of the doe he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, shining through their son. He felt a deep twinge of regret that for three winters, he’d tried to forget her.
(It turns out, when everyone thinks you’re the bravest deer in the forest, it’s hard to let yourself be anything else.)
“What’s wrong?” Asked the little voice beside him.
He hadn’t noticed he’d begun to frown again. “I tried erasing the parts of you that remind me so much of your mother.”
“Isn’t that good though?” Bambi shrank. “Aren’t reminders just… distractions?”
“Far from it. That’s just another defective way of thinking I’ve put in your head, and… I’m very sorry.” Guilt shepherds his gaze elsewhere. “If you’d ever forgive me, it would be my honor. But in the meantime, I have something important to say to you.”
This buck was taller and prouder than the others, and his mighty antlers were like a show of royalty atop his head. And for the first time since he’d known him, he seemed… apprehensive. His mouth opened to say something, but no words came out. He quells his hopelessness with a close-eyed sigh, and he tries again.
This time, there isn’t a day's worth of thought put into it. For once, the Great Prince simply spoke to his little fawn.
“To acknowledge how you feel. It’s …the most difficult thing you’ve challenged me to do,” He cleared his throat, avoiding his gaze. “…And it doesn’t take a genius to see that I haven’t yet mastered it.”
The same sorrow that had plagued Bambi seemed to have gotten him now, too. It was a rare, forbidden thing to witness. Bambi felt himself quiver and his thin legs went wobbly. His heart sinks deep into his stomach.
Finally, he looked him in the eye.
“Bambi… Your whole life, the forest has asked more of you than you’ve ever had to give. To be perfect from the day you first open your eyes, to know the names of everyone that bows to you, to be a leader one day. It’s hardly fair. Nor is it fair that I ask something of you, as well.” He takes in a long breath that puffs his chest out. “…It’s that you bear with me as I become what I must: your protector. Your guardian. Your-”
“My father?”
“…Yes.” After a dubious pause, a jaded smile crosses him. “Yes, your father.”
Bambi felt his sensibility adhering to the familiar feeling. And he wondered, bravely, if they’d break out of these quiet moments—these half-thoughts with so much to say—together. He wondered if they’d look for a way out and leave behind this prison they share.
“The brave doesn’t spend his days running away from danger. He charges toward it, even if he knows it will hurt him.” He says proudly. “Such a noble thing you’ve taught me, son.”
“I taught you that…?”
“You do, everyday that you choose to remember your mother rather than leave her in the past. Like I did.” He dropped his head, having a weary expression and muttering under his breath, “What a coward I’ve been.”
“You’re not a coward. You’re just… sad.” Bambi said intelligently. “Thumper’s mom says everyone deals with loss differently.”
That was the first time he’s ever lent credence to the idea. With some thought, he admitted, “…Thumper’s mother would be right.”
They settle into another bout of comfortable quietude. Wind stirs around them gently, rustling the leaves and brushing the high grass on its way through. Their gazes lazed where the sky hung, watching a single butterfly ride the breeze upwards into a stream of golden light that splayed through the canopy of trees.
A small emptiness pricked the Great Prince’s heart once he could no longer see the butterfly. For the small duration that he’d allowed himself to be perceptive to the world and its feelings, he’d already become so attached to something so fleeting. He lacked control. It was out of his hooves. He felt powerless.
(This was going to take some getting used to.)
However, there was no denying that this new openness he'd allowed himself felt… relieving. It was miles better than how he’d carried himself before. He’d been like a flower that closed its petals off to the sunlight, inaccessible and cold. What at first was meant to protect him quickly spiraled into something that came with more loss than gain. He would chew the spring grass, but he did not let himself taste it. He watched over the deer in the meadow, not to rejoice that they were alive, but to see to it that they weren’t going to die.
Most regrettable of all, Bambi was maturing with the rapidity of a sprout; bobbing his way out of the soil and up toward the sky, leaves sprouting and flowers blooming. Every season passed was another spot on his coat faded away. Another few centimeters his antlers grew.
Life was passing the Great Prince by, and he was passively allowing it to. All because he was afraid of what the very act of living naturally implied.
(An ending.)
“I miss her.” Bambi sounded resigned as he said so.
An ear flicked toward the little voice and the noise of his thoughts halted. When he saw the small and feeble thing that was his son, his heart sank.
It was of secret but normal occurrence for the Great Prince to strain against his paternal instincts. But this time, for once, he gave in. Craning his neck down, he touched his nose to Bambi’s face, letting himself feel the cloud of sadness that emanated off of him like heat. His coat was hot and his weak pulse gently thrummed his shaky body. Bambi leaned into the rare touch, nuzzling his dad.
“I miss her, too.” The Great Prince’s voice, an unshakable rock, trembles. His voice trembles. “With all that I am.”
Bambi feels his eyes sting with great sorrow and relief. Tears mat the fur around his eyes. “Then… we shouldn’t hide it from each other anymore. Right?”
It settles in for him that there is nothing he can do to protect Bambi from such plaguing sadness, except be by his side. That’s when he gives the feeling permission to be real. That’s when he let himself truly bask in just how bad it felt that she was gone, and that no amount of composure or stoicism was going to change it.
There was nothing he could do to lessen the distance that death creates, and to acknowledge that, at long last, was one of the heaviest weights ever lifted off his back.
“We won’t.” That was for certain. “Never again.”