Bestia sacra

The hush fell just before the flame. Not absence, but breath held. Dusk melted across the summer sky. Shadows stretched long over the grass. Around the fire, they sat wrapped in fur and bone, the scent of smoke already on them. One moved slow, steady and dropped resin into the flame.

It bloomed gold and thick. A drum began low. Then another. The ground warmed. Beneath the rhythm, something stirred. Not in the fire, but beneath it. A presence, not summoned but always there.

The fire pulsed softly, smoke rising like breath in the dark. The drums continued, low and steady, echoing through the trees like memory recalling its shape. Then out of the flame a figure emerged. Not hunted. Not summoned. Simply released.

A sacred deer, made of ember and air, stood still. Its antlers reached skyward. It asked for nothing only to be seen. The scent rose warm and bitter, like earth after rain, like something sacred returning home.

The path was quiet, but not alone. Behind you, the air held a hum low, remembered. No step, no word. Just warmth, like breath trailing the spine. The deer had not vanished. It had changed soft now, woven into the hush of leaves and gold that clung to your skin.

You were no longer watching. You were wearing it. It walked beside you, like scent does. Like memory. Like something real, and staying.