Weather to Fly was doing what he did everyday: preparing for take-off.

He'd found a suitable incline, with a suitable drop-off, a suitable windspeed, and - just in case - a suitable place to crash.

So, same as always.

But today, unlike always, everything was going wrong.

And he knew why.

It was because his mind was preoccupied, and, for once, it was wasn't with flying.

That was why he'd already crashed three times.

(Dear reader: that was not why, he crashes every single day.)

He tried again, launching himself into the air with an aerodynamic wriggled of his tailfeathers aaannnndddd...crashed into the marsh below.

Sigh.

He'd have to dry off before trying again.

Pulling himself back onto the solid slope, he allowed himself to indulge in these thoughts that were not flying while he dripped.

Yes.

These thoughts were about a doe.

A really cute, if somewhat unusual, doe.

Unusual, in that she looked like a fish.

But a really cute fish.

He'd never really thought about whether fishes were cute before, being more of a bird himself, but if there were cute fish, this doe looked like one.

He'd heard other bucks calling does cold fishes.

But he'd thought she was quite a warm fish, himself.

Anyway, he really liked her.

And things happened.

And now he couldn't get his mind on flying.

[imgright]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... uncert.png[/imgright]

Distant Thunder had looked up at the first thunk while he was drinking out of the stream nearby, but thought nothing of it until the third thunk, which established a Pattern, and thought perhaps that it might have been a very clumsy lynx, wherein that would be dinner. The fourth thunk had occurred when he trotted closer, and he hurried up to see an Acha dripping from the muck of the swamp instead.

"Have you seen a lynx?"

In the short distance he travelled, he became quite enamoured with the concept of a fatty lynx smacking itself into trees, dazed and edible.

Weather to Fly blinked up, dripping, at the big Kiokote that had suddenly blocked out the sun.

"Can't say I have," he said.

"Well, what were you chasing then, getting all soaked like this," Thunder frowned, disappointed he hadn't gotten here first.

This soggy kin did not look capable of catching even a fatty lynx, all wet and pathetic.

"A fish?"

"Ohhhh," Weather gasped.

"Oh - oh, oh!" he wailed.

He shook his head - it was hard not to be judgmental when there was such an easy target to judge. Getting all emotional about a fish.

"You can see it on my face!" he wailed.

"Yes," he watched the swampwater drip off his chin, "yes, I can.

"Just a fish though," Thunder dismissed, "you can get another."

A vision of the cutest fish in the world (i.e. the doe) floated into his head.

"NO!" he passionately declared, "I can't just get another fish!"

Besides, he imagined it wasn't all that easy to keep running into does who looked like fish.

"But you've eaten it?" the judgment was turning somewhat quizzical.

His face crumpled all at once, as he slumped into the grass.

"Ohhh," he sighed, "must you make me sound like such a cad?"

"I mean...after that, I think it..might?? not come back??"

He was pretty sure it was not coming back, but the buck seemed incredibly distressed, and Thunder supposed he should be a little gentler now.

"Don't say that!" he cried, "not after all we've - do you...really think she might not come back?"

The fish was a she now? And after all they'd what? He was almost afraid to ask, but he was also incredibly intrigued (and horrified).

"After all you've...what?"

Wary, but interested.

"Well," he turned bashful, scraping a hoof into the grass he'd collapsed on, "we might've...I might've...she might be...with child."