The Heartwood They say Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow.

@Osiris

The tempo of something thin and lissome dashing through the weald startles a cluster of starlings from their roost. They burst from cover in a frenzy of screeching, gathering a moment later within the upper boughs of another old tree. The stag does not stop; although the noise spooks him further, thus he veers in another direction and vanishes in to the dark.

A few moments later something white-washed streaks along its path, sides heaving.

Mesa had been tracking the damned thing for hours. He knew it was stupid to try and take on something like a mule deer on his own. He was hungry, it looked young—he'd thought it was a doe first, it lacked the crown of a true stag—and in the end he'd misjudged its capabilities.

He eyed the birds as they shuffled their little bodies overhead, glaring at them as if it were their fault, then turned his attention back to the sun-dappled woodland to stride across the new growth that sprouted in his path, either oblivious to it or uncaring, and tried to sniff out a trail.