Jared leaned her head down between her spindly legs to stare at the cervine belly that she now bore. The belly that had betrayed her and locked her in the form of a doe by getting pregnant.
"No," Jared told herself firmly, brown eyes shutting, wishing that tears could be shed, but none could come. "I did this." Jared felt the words course through her mind, filling up every aspect of herself. She had caused this. She had let herself become pregnant. All that she would have had to do was to refuse the powerful buck's advances, resisted his urging to mate. But she had given in, whether from some strangely twisted desire to experiment, to wonder what the opposite sex felt, or whether from instincts that came to her as a doe, she did not know.
But a human being has a will of its own. Surely a human could have resisted the animal impulses towards such a carnal act. Shouldn't she have had that power?
Or, the more disturbing though, the one that made her flesh tremble, narrow legs wobbly, small tufted tail flicker in distress, had she wanted this to come to pass? The night before was a blur, the mounting, the repeated penetration, her mind filled with no thoughts at all but the buck that was with her, taking her, making her his own. As she searched to find an answer to her fears, she kept rushing bak into that buck's face, the fine antlers sculpted atop his brow, his firm musky scent that even now made her weak in the knees, made her whole body cry out for more.
And then, Jared snapped open her eyes and lifted her head up from between her forelegs. What was she thinking? She was beginning to yearn for that buck, the one that had trapped her wihtin the form of a doe. How could she do that? There must still be some semblance of the human male that she had been born as. The form that she had discarded in a brief moment of folly.
But that folly had now led her to be pregnant, and she would be giving birth to a new life, just as her mother had given birth to her so many years ago. Jared had been born a man though, a man with intellect, will, and understanding. Her child would be a fawn, free of all such higher mental faculties. And her child just might fall prey to a hunter's bullet, or a careless driver's fender. Her child would be thought of as little more than a trophy to be won, or a tragic accident to bemoan.
Her cloven hooves clopped along the dusty boards of the shanty. Though the day was still young, the warmth of the air filled her body with a strange energy. Though her spirits had fallen as if she'd jumped from the top of a cliff edge, her body was still vibrant and living. She did not know if her friends would come to the shack that day, but it was a chance she could not take. After all, some of them were amateur sportsmen themselves, and while they would not kill an obviously pregnant doe, she did not yet look pregnant.
Gingerly, Jared stepped back out of the shack, and stared forlornly at the forest just a short distance away. One night's foolishness, and now that forest would have to be her home. At least until she gave birth that is. Once the fawn inside of her was born, she would be free to return and take back her human life.
And then, as the sun shone across her furred body, two thoughts struck Jared. The first, she would need the medallion to change back, as well as an article of his clothing. She only had the sock, how would it last out in the wild? And the second was even more frightful. How long did a deer pregnancy last?
Hiding the medallion would be easy, she knew there was a loose floorboard in the shack. Turning about, she stepped back inside, nosed the board open, and with a gentle bite, she lowered the medallion down into the cache, where it would hopefully remain. She scooped a bit of hay on top of it to diminish its shine with one forehoof. Taking her sock, she dropped that on top as well. She did not know if it would last, but it was all she had.
It took her several minutes to get the board back in place. And then, certain that the medallion could not be seen, Jared returned once more towards the forest. Her body shivered with the loss, but what could she do about it now? She was a doe, pregnant, and that would not change until she'd given birth.
She'd gone not more than a minute into the woods when her nose picked up a tremolous scent that lifted her spirits. Her head turned, ears turning as well, to the gentle crush of leaf and twig. Her body felt rejuvinated, even though her mind was still trying to sort out what it might be.
And then it struck Jared like a truck. It was the buck.