If she cannot have the sun, she will have freedom. She jumps through snatching hands and cutting tree branches, blindly. She does not believe she ever slept well. The villagers call her a ghost, accuse her of spooking the hunt. She keeps time with rabbits and egrets, eats flowers, green hostas, and white lilies. Alone, alone, all this time pursued by vain princes. Finally she lies down beside the water, the moon rises, and she becomes herself again. She grabs a bleeding ankle, wanders back to an empty bed, hair tangled and skin scratched by briars, a different princess from before. When the sun rises she will be animal again, she will leap up, wild heart beating against her thin hide. It gets easier every day, having four legs, heeding the morning glory's old song, the strange warmth of sun on her neck. This is better than a palace, she thinks, to run faster than she's ever run, to outpace her old fears, the hands that would hold her down. Her feet nothing but flashes, blue eyes still human and shadowy, peering through white pine.
Jeannine Hall Gailey, “The White Doe Decides”. Published in The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling.