ORIGIN

Himmel became acutely aware of the ache in his lungs - rather, the presence of his lungs. He remembered the feeling of the water filling them. There had been a moment beneath the waterfall where he had felt nothing, just after waking up and emerging from the chrysalis; his stone prison had been full of water too as it had gathered water as it had formed, and so for that span of seconds he had not noticed any danger. His lungs had been full of the pond water as they'd formed within the chrysalis. The pond had, effectively, been a womb.

But he also remembered the roar of the falls and the terrible strength of the water as it pushed him down, down, down. The scrape of his skin upon rocks in the dark. The struggle of kicking and clawing at his obscured surroundings until something in the wall gave way, pushing him from one pond to the next.

Himmel's eyes had closed as he'd begun to reminisce; these flashbacks overpowering everything. Now they flew open and he gasped raggedly, kicking a spastic hind leg out and spidering to his feet, off-kilter and wild-eyed. His entire body was shaking. The anxiety coiled in his gut now dominated every inch of him as erratic energy, but at least he'd forgotten about the fish.

The feeling gradually began to recede as Himmel focused on other things - mostly on how adamantly he loathed the water and wanted to be away from it. He began to wonder if there were other places he could go, because any place would be better than this one. Unless there was more water in this new place - then he'd be stuck, and knowing his luck he would only drown again.

He wanted to sleep, but he was also hungry. Fighting with the fish and failing in each attempt to catch them had worn him out, although nothing had worn him out more than the brief but powerful panic attack he had just experienced. Yeah, he needed to leave this place.

Himmel got to his feet slowly. His withers quaked with the effort and once he was standing he felt like he should lay down again, at least until the room stopped spinning a little bit. His legs began to make careful strides alongside the pond's embankement. It felt like someone else was controlling them. He was a passenger within his puny body and nothing more.

A sweeping wave slipped over the edge of the falls and as a result the pond expanded beyond its boundary, much to the surprise of the deer. It was like the pond was reacting to his previous panic; it certainly did not help, the cold seeping all around him like a big sloppy lick from a cold tongue. It was forceful enough to push him off his hooves; thrusting him one way and then another, as it drew back, almost like an ocean tide - it was certainly the closest thing to it within these caves. He reacted as any child might to a force such as this: wild-eyed and flailing, trying his best to swim against the sensation. As it subsided he managed to stab his cloven hooves in to the mud and hold himself firmly in the shallows, panting heavily, his breathing a ragged whistle from his snout while he panicked all over again.

He sat there, rear end bobbing with the irregular flow of the pond as it adjusted to the extra fluid, staring above the edge of the water.

It took this wave of chaos for Himmel to really understand what he was feeling. It was all physical. The feeling of the mud clinging to his slender legs up to his knees; the grit of the pond's shallow edge grinding on his chest but not his belly, because his rear end was floating in the deeper water; he could kick his hind legs and even though he was not adequately designed to be an aquatic beast, he had some control. His kicks pushed him closer to the pond's edge and if he worked hard enough at it, he could push his chest free. Breathing was hard at first but each time he kicked, each time he was nearer to the edge, he could gulp down air a little more freely.

And so this was how the deer learned how to swim.

The issue arose when he tried to remove himself from the water entirely. When it got too cold for his skin, clammy and dirty because of all the pond scum collecting on his thin coat. When trying to hoist himself out he found that his forelimbs were jammed too deep in to the mud. When he tried to squirm and get them out it felt like he'd sink deeper; bracing with one limb and pushing or pulling with the other, soon his forequarter was wedged deeper against the mud. The water crept higher on his neck, grazing his cheek. He arched his head away from it and kicked with his hind legs but that didn't do anything to help.

He was, effectively, quite stuck.

Swimming was a struggle in and of itself; he did not have the body for it. Not enough strength in those little limbs yet. So he bobbed there with his forelimbs wedged in to the mud up to his elbows at first, then to his shoulders as his struggling and pushing drove him in to the dirt until something miraculous happened - he hit rock.

He wasn't sure what he was feeling at first with his toes. He knew he was scratching against something hard and while the soil was slick wherever it touched his skin, the solidity was a shock that served to wake him up a bit from his panic. The water kept slapping him in the face which was unpleasant - especially when it went up his nose or made him cough - and after a few spasms he shut his mouth and swallowed some of the pond water.

As he waited for the water to calm a little bit Himmel realized something else. Aside from how buoyant his hind limbs were and how easily they floated, if he concentrated and tried to draw them beneath his body he could sort-of manage it. It helped to kick at the mud, although it was a strenuous task. Every time he missed with his cloven toes his balance would slant and he'd struggle for a few minutes. When that happened and he began to porpoise in the water his leg would be drawn back to float awkwardly in place again.

It took a few tries before Himmel managed to dig his heels in to the mud. It felt wrong to have all four of his feet stuck there. He wriggled and struggled a bit more, blowing bubbles out of his nose whenever the water sloshed over his face, freeing one leg and then another. As soon as he could adequately move three of them he began to claw at the pond's edge.

Fast forward about twenty minutes and there is Himmel standing clear of the pond, shivering, covered nearly head to tail with mud and pond scum. He's breathing raggedly, coughing, and spitting bits of mud that he'd tongued from between his teeth on to the rocks. The cold slowly descended across his body as the mud cooled. He felt numb - and dirty, but free.

After a rest (a good distance from the water's edge this time!) Himmel got to his feet and began the slow ascent along the nearest ridge, and onward, eager to be away from the ponds.