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In honor of finishing the "shitty first draft" of my book today (all 165,000 words -- 623 pages), I am publishing another scene. This time it is a dream sequence. Enjoy!  I move silently over the moss covered ground, my weight making slight crescent-shaped impressions underfoot as I walk. Damp air, a prickle on my body, smells of earth, and rain, and lichen. I reach out to touch a tree with my nose, brown fur on white bark...I do not recognize the way and move forward slowly along an ancient, worn path, set deeply into the mossy wood. I am following him nose-to-tail now, his magnificent antlers dipping slightly with each step. We move out of the forest cover to a ledge, and from this elevation, I see a vast expanse of water. The sun and moon are rising in the west in the same course, and even in the dream, I note that this is impossible and that I must be dreaming. There are two islands, far in the distance. I can see much farther than any animal can see and am amazed at this power. One island, illuminated by the rising sun, is covered in forests and wildlife; another is barren, with rocky, bouldered shores. And to the left of them both is a green land. In front of me, he raises his head and turns his face, eyes locked on me. But now he is a she. She is not a stag anymore. She is a woman, still bearing a rack of antlers like an enormous crown. There are patches of woad under her eyes, carefully drawn over an ash-painted white face. She is human, or at least she has a human face, and as she turns toward me she stands tall, taller than any human, growing as she moves with her hands outstretched toward me....eyes fixed on mine. She wears a blue-black cloak with a spiral design felted into its border, with a fur-lined hood and the ancient script running up and down the cloak's edges. I cannot read it, for it makes no words that I understand. After a time, perhaps only just a moment, she says to me, slowly, using my voice to speak back to me,“The Three reweave time. You are the rod.” She pauses for what seems to be a very long time, watching me attentively in my deer form. I look down and watch my hooves become feet, and then wake…
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