Rarity- Ch. 1 (DP Deertaur AU)
So. I decided to start posing stuff that i havn’t finished. so that i can at least show i do stuff. Soooooo. Deertaur Danny Phantom AU. ~Enjoy~
(Warning for mild blood/gore, slavery, and captivity)
He should have listened.
“Over there!”
“This way, I heard it!”
Branches whipped by Danny’s face, scratching his bare chest and arms. His hooves beat furiously through the undergrowth, trying to outrun them, darting in and out of the trees. He glanced back and saw torches already lit in the shadows of the late afternoon.
He shouldn’t have gone to the edge of the forest.
“I see it!” Danny’s heart beat faster as he ducked his head- not that the dark hair and new, small antlers was what they saw.
He hadn’t covered his coat well enough. The young deertaur’s bright sky blue fur was a beacon in the dark greens and browns around him. There were still spots of dirt where he’d tried to cover it up, badly, not caring enough. He didn’t have time now.
There was a twang in the air and something whisked by one of his ears, nearly nicking the soft flesh. Danny let out an involuntary bleat and covered his head, darting around another tree. They were getting closer if they could shoot arrows. But how? Danny thought humans were supposed to be slow, even in open land- they couldn’t run through the undergrowth like he could! So why were they so close?!
There was another twang, and Danny ducked again- Pain blossomed on his back left leg, and he fumbled on his hooves, letting out a yell of pain. He wobbled upright, glancing back to see a trail of red dripping down his lower leg. The arrow was sticking out from below his hip.
Danny gagged, trying to run again before realizing that that wasn’t going to work. Looking around, he found the biggest, thickest bush and tried to shove his way to the center of it. He hunkered down, taking handfuls of dirt and throwing them over himself, trying to not be seen. His leg ached every time the arrow shaft knocked on the branches, but he couldn’t cry out, not again. Danny curled up in the tightest ball he could around the base of the bush, silently praying to the spirits of nature to protect him.
He hadn’t meant to get their attention. He was just so curious about humans… His parents seemed to know a lot about them, but they hadn’t seen them in years and years and told Danny and Jazz to never go near them. They lived too deep in the forest for the humans to reach them.
But Danny just had to see them. He just had to travel out of the protection of the inner wood, towards the human village on the edge of the trees. He hadn’t thought of hunters, or one of them spotting him. He hadn’t thought-
There was a crackle of crushed twigs and shifted leaves. Danny hadn’t thought, and he might not think again.
He heard the sound of hoof beats, and perked his ears up. “Dad?” he thought. Was his centaur father coming with others to save him?!
Danny listened intently, still as a statue as the hoof beats neared. From under the bush, he saw the source of the sound break through, four large hooves- but wait… those were black, and his dad didn’t have black fur… And what was that metal stuck to the bottom?
He heard a whisper of steel and fell silent. What was going on…
There was a whoosh of air and something was cutting through the bush- it hit his right antler, making him scream in pain and fall out of his leafy hideaway.
“I got ‘im boys!” Danny put a hand to his head, looking up through the tears of pain at the human astride a horse. Humans rode horses!?! What animal in their right mind would-
The world came back into focus as a dozen more hoof beats approached, and Danny tried to scramble to his feet. Just as he did he ran headfirst into another horseman, who tossed a circle of rope around his chest, restricting his arms.
Danny yelled and bleated in fear, trying to kick them but unable to stand on his back leg, which instead made him stumble. He tried to yank away from the rope, but then another hooked on his neck, and another round an antler, yanking him from three directions and forcing him to a struggling stand-still, crying bloody murder in the Common Tongue.
“Please, stop, leave me alone! Let go of me! Someone, help!” But the men didn’t say anything. In fact, he was pretty sure they were laughing as he slowly became more distressed.
“We don’t want this one hurting himself- tie ‘em up.” Danny didn’t understand very well what they said, but he soon found his forelegs swept out from under him with a stick, causing him to fall to the ground when he couldn’t move to stop it. He screamed in pain as the fall jostled the arrow deeper into his leg, and he heard angry cursing and someone dropping to the forest floor.
One of the men was on him, grabbing his flailing legs and holding him still- tying his legs together, until with the other ropes he couldn’t do anything more than struggle in place and scream.
He heard the humans let out whoops and hollers, slapping each other on the shoulders and jumping down from their horses to gather around Danny. The young deertaur was in tears by now, weekly struggling, bleating for help.
“Mom, Dad- anyone! Let me go, please, I’m sorry!”
The men stood in a circle, and one whistled low. “Got quite a pair of lungs on him, doesn’t he?”
“Lord, shut it up! Can’t stand that wailing-”
“You shut it, I can’t believe we caught one of these things! And lookit that pelt…”
“Don’t get any ideas, they like ‘em alive.”
Danny barely understood a word, slowly losing energy to do more than sit and sob quietly. Jazz had tried to teach him human’s language- they didn’t speak the Common Tongue, only their own language. And his parents tried to keep him away from them. He should have listened to his family.
Danny snapped back to focus as one of them kneeled next to him and reached out a hand. He let out a bleat and tried to squirm away, shivering terribly as the man stopped him with his hands on the deertaur’s back. The man ran his hands through Danny’s fur, making Danny shiver in disgust, and stopped just short of his leg.
“Who the hell did this!?”
Silence. Danny saw some of them looking guiltily at the others. He lost focus when the arrow shaft in his led was grabbed, letting out a gasp of pain.
“I said unharmed, not with an arrow through it! Gotta carry ‘im back now, stead of a lead. Now, who did it?”
Someone raised their hand and the man tossed the leftover rope at him. “You’re loading him on your horse, then.”
“But-”
“Should’a thought about it before shooting the thing!”
“We wasn’t gonna catch it-” the other man was cut of with a snap. Before Danny knew exactly what was happening, two of them came over and started to pick him up.
Danny promptly freaked the fuck out.
He terrified the men by screaming in their ears and thrashing about, which made them drop him harshly. Danny tried to catch his breath when they came at him again, one grabbing Danny around the torso, and the other picking up his legs, carrying the struggling deertaur to one of the horses. They roughly untied and retained his legs together under the belly of the horse, behind the saddle, leaving his arms tied to his chest.
“Let’s head out.”
At the sound of departure, Danny struggled even more, turning back to watch the forest of by behind him.
“Mom! Dad!” He screamed, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they might hear him. The man in the saddle in front of him reached back and elbowed Danny in the chest, silencing him. He doubled over, trying to remain upright as the horses rode away. Away from his home, and his family, and his life.
They soon reached the human town. Now Danny didn’t have to see it from the treeline, as the group of hunters rode right down main street. The town was much larger than Danny had thought, but he regretted his curiosity as he looked around warily.
All the humans walking down the street noticed him almost immediately, and he saw most of the children pointing in awe. Danny ducked his head, lowering his ears and eyes at the unwanted attention. He’d always been odd, but nobody ever started at him like they were, like he wasn’t really alive, jsut a object.
They rode through the town until they got to a large open tent at the other end of the town, fifty feet from any other building. As they neared, Danny’s heart sank further, if that was even possible. He saw other creatures tied to posts or in cages, lined up under the tent. Selkies, pixies, satyrs, nature spirits. He saw a centaur straining against the heavy ropes keeping him tied to a post. He saw a terrified nymph curled in a ball in a small cage. He saw other deertaur, tied to posts and being inspected. He even saw Fae, in their pixie forms, trapped in jars and bird cages. But when the group of hunters came up to the tent, all of them turned to stare at Danny.
He swallowed hard, trying to shrink inside himself at the awed stares from the humans, and the worried looks from the other creatures. Some even looked like they pitied him.
He looked back at his dirty coat, stained in dirt and blood and covered in leaves and twigs. He knew he was special, ‘rare’- deertaur are usually had the coloration of regular deer, not a coat the color of a clean river on a sunny day, or hair that contrasted with their pelt like his ink-black mop did. He stood out immediately. And it looked like he was one of the youngest ones here to boot.
The procession stopped, and everything went very fast from there. They took him to some other human, who took the arrow out of his leg. It hurt, and he screamed- loudly. He wasn’t used to pain. Everyone winced at the sound, one of the men finally muffling it by shoving a rag in his mouth. They didn’t take the rag back until they had finished cleaning and treating his leg. They treated him roughly, and nothing seemed to have any real care in it.
Finally, they left him in a small cage, allowing him to be untied and ungagged. Danny took the minute to wipe his eyes and look at the white cloth they covered his leg with. It was stiff and rough and made it hard to move his leg, but that was probably the point. And they’d washed all the dirt and stuff from his coat, leaving it soft and silky.
As he looked back up, he saw the creatures in the cages next to him studying him worriedly. He wasn’t able to say anything before someone addressed him though.
“How old are you?” Danny looked up in surprise to see another deertaur. The others were glaring at him, and Danny guessed it was because he wore human clothes, and even had on a collar. Was he with them?
“W-what?” Danny asked in Common Tongue. The Deertaur glared at him from over the scroll of paper he held.
The other sighed, and switched languages. “You don’t know English?” Danny shook his head, and the other tsked, jotting something down. “I was asking how old you are.”
“A-are you… helping them?” Danny asked, confused. No deertaur would be that daft, would they? But Danny’s confusion only grew as the other nodded shortly, repeating his question.
“I … I just got my antlers this spring…” Danny muttered dejectedly. He’d heard terrible things about humans. Skinning creatures and using their pelts as clothes or decorations, cutting off creatures’ horns, making them work all day and night to build their towns and farm their crops if they were old enough. Danny shivered at the thought.
The other deertaur only nodded, writing something else down. “Wild-born fourteen year old, newly matured, exotic coloring-” He paused and looked at the bandage on Danny’s leg with a scowl. “Injured.”
“Why are you helping the humans?” Danny asked quickly. “They’ve hurt everyone here! All these creatures- why aren’t you helping them?!”
The deertaur looked at Danny coldly, as if the younger was beneath him. he snorted, shaking his head. “I was born and raised to work for my masters. they treat me well. This is just how things are, boy- some are lucky to be important, and some are lucky to live. I just ended up on the right side of the treeline. You’ll see, once you’re given a master.”
Danny couldn’t say anything else as he walked away. The young fawn was overcome with confusion and betrayal and hate. He may not have known that deertaur, but how dare he betray his people! And the creatures of the forest! Of all creatures, deertaur were some of the most loyal to the forests they inhabited, aside from Nymphs, who partially were their forests. It went against everything Danny was told growing up. Humans corrupted not only nature, but its inhabitants as well. It shook him to the bone.
“Don’t listen to him, kid,” the nymph to his right whispered, brushing a lock of holly leaf hair from her face. “Poor souls born with humans are always messed up. They’re never told about nature or anything but how to serve. But we’re okay.” Danny looked at her, the weight of everything closing in on him. She tried to smile kindly, but it came out looking sad.
“Just don’t forget where we come from, alright?” Danny nodded weakly.
The sun was setting, and the humans seemed to be thinning until there were only a few walking down the rows. These had swords at their hips, and didn’t bother studying the creatures like some of the more extravagantly dressed people. Guards for the night, the nymph told him later.
“Get some sleep,” she told him. “They’ll be auctioning a bunch of us tomorrow. I don’t know if you’re one of them, since you’re hurt, so that might buy you some time. But it’d be good to sleep.”
Danny couldn’t reply, he couldn’t think of what to say, so he simply laid down on the cool floor of the cage. Everything still hurt from his head to his leg. He guessed the fear had run down all his energy, because his body felt as heavy as a fallen tree. He wasn’t awake to worry about where he was for long.
