The Scent of the Usurper

"I had to do a lot of editing to save this lackluster image from earlier this year. By meticulously using the dodge and burn brush in Snapseed to highlight the textures and layering many Lightroom filters, I turned a dull moment into a moody winter scene."

 

The Scent of the Usurper

 

The scene is set. The air tastes of iron and frost. It is a brittle morning, the kind where every snap of a twig sounds like a gunshot in the silence of the cathedral.

 

I stand rigid. The steam from my nostrils joins the mist rising from the frozen earth, blinding me for a heartbeat. But I do not need my eyes to know something is wrong. The forest, my forest, feels tilted.

 

The sun is rising, burning through the fog, turning the world gold and white. It warms the snow clinging to my flank, but it does not warm the cold knot of anxiety tightening in my gut. I step forward, approaching the my Great tree. This is my signpost. My boundary.

 

I lean in, expecting the comforting, musk-heavy scent of my own gland. Instead, a different scent hits me. Sharp. Acidic. Arrogant.

 

The Stranger.

 

I freeze. My ears swivel back. I have smelled him on the wind, but he has never dared cross the stream. Until last night. I look at the wound in the tree. It is high. He is tall. Perhaps taller than me.

 

The stress floods my veins. Winter is a time for survival, not for war. My reserves are low. A fight now could mean a broken tine, a pierced lung, or exhaustion that the wolves will smell a mile away. But if I leave this, he takes the valley. Then he takes the does. Then he takes my life.

 

I lower my head. I grind my antlers against the wood, scraping violently until the Stranger's scent is buried under fresh sap and my own fury. I rub the glands beneath my eyes against the ruin.

 

I am still here.

 

I pull back, breath coming fast. The beauty of the snow, the light, the mist—it means nothing to me now. There is only the scent. And the wait.

Done