Sokonei walked to the pond and walked into the water, not stopping until the water was up to his shoulders. He stood there and waited, ignoring the curious looks the other fawns and deer were giving him. Koi started coming up to him in the water--well, not to him, but to the tadpoles around him.
He waits patiently until a small golden koi comes up to the surface and then snaps it up in his mouth. A deer nearby gasps. He keeps his mouth tightly closed with the little fish swimming round and squirming frantically. Sokonei proudly walks to a willow near the pond where he's already dug out a nice little pool about knee-deep for his fish full of fresh rainwater. He spews the little fish into the shallow little enclosier and trots around it, his head and ears high.
It swims in dazed circles until finally the little fish is still.
...Very still...
"Are you happy with it?" He puts his face down close to the water.
The little fish doesn't move at all. It sinks to the bottom of the little pool and the young stag watches it worriedly.
"Do you need something?" He paws at the surface of the water. "OH! A name!"
He sits beside the pool and thinks.
...thinks...
...thinks...
...
"Fish!" He stands up and says excitedly.
The fish doesn't move.
"Um...Little fish?"
Nothing.
"Little Gold Fish?" A stag calls as he passes, and then he laughs.
The koi moved a fin.
"That's it!" Sokonei jumps. "Little Gold Fish!" He looks to the stag. "Thank-you!"
"With each rutt comes an odder generation." The older deer shakes his head. "I'm very glad I'm not your father."
If the fawn hears he doesn't care. He calls to the little fish over and over again, for almost two hours. The stag walks to the pond all during that time, shaking his head at the little fawns futile attempts at calling his fish.
He stops beneath the willow and sits there. Sokonei doesn't even bother to bow as he's waiting for his fish to come up so badly.
