The Fawn and the Turtles (6)

Watching from a distance, Cornflap studied the perplexed deerling, not even a yearling yet. With their many years of experience, Rnfl was no nearer an understanding of what had happened than the fawn, but they felt sure that the sphere from a few installments back had to be from another place, perhaps another world. In all their years, they'd never seen its like, nor had anything else been able to effect such changes in living things or the snow. There was something mysterious going on, and without even realizing it, the baby deer was now involved in it, perhaps changed more fundamentally than mere physical healing.

It was walking unsteadily into the clearing where the secondhand tarps were sold, looking this way and that, blinking, dropping tears. Rnfl saw what the fawn could not: despite the soft, deep snow, it was leaving no footprints--because it was not touching the surface of the snowfall. This was inexplicable; I'll tell you why.

Unlike some FICTIONAL deer at the North Pole, real ones can't fly.

Truly.