Well hello! Here's a new chapter of The Forest's Princess-fanfiction with some inspiration from the ERASED-manga, Ginga Densetsu Weed-anime, and The Lion Guard-series, which I don't own the rights to.
"Mom, do we have to go to the meadow now?" Clarice asked as she walked with her mother in the forest one early spring day when the snow had already started to melt.
The sun was going down.
However, the beautiful weather didn't lift Clarice's spirits at all, because she knew what would happen to her mother today if they went to the meadow, and if there was a hunter there now. That's why Clarice didn't want to go to the meadow today, but tried to prevent it as best she could, lest her mother fall prey to the hunter, and lest Clarice lose her mother, and lest Gallant's heart be broken by his mate falling prey to the hunter.
"Why did you ask that?" Tinker Bell asked her daughter.
"I don't want to go to the meadow. What if there's a hunter there again?" Clarice asked.
"Then we'll run away", Tinker Bell said, stopping at the edge of the meadow. "I'll go first, and if it's safe, I'll give you permission to come to the meadow".
Clarice stayed close to the trees as Tinker Bell went to the meadow, and like Tinker Bell looked warily into the meadow.
"If only the hunter who was in the meadow at this point in the movie Bambi, had stepped directly into the snake's winter nest, or had been caught in the fox trap he had set himself!" Clarice hoped.
"It's safe!" Tinker Bell called out to her daughter, who was walking into the meadow, trying to imitate her father's lofty walk at the same time. "Heh heh! What are you doing, girl?"
"I'm practicing a walk fit for a future queen", Clarice said.
"I see", Tinker Bell said, then looked to the top of a nearby mountain to see her mate standing there. "You can practice more later".
Tinker Bell couldn't help but smile, and then walked forward until she saw grass among the snow in the meadow:
"Clarice! Clarice, come here. Look. New spring grass".
Clarice looked around, and listened for a while for sounds of hunters, but then walked in front of the grass, and then started eating grass like her mother.
After eating for a while, Clarice had an unpleasant feeling that something was approaching Tinker Bell, and Clarice was very fond of it, and it gave Clarice the chills, because she knew what was going to happen, and that's why Clarice was ready to run away as soon as Tinker Bell would tell Clarice to do so.
Finally Tinker Bell raised her head when she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and looked around cautiously:
"Clarice! Quick, to the thicket!"
Clarice took off running with Tinker Bell towards the forest while Gallant ran to the edge of the forest after seeing the danger.
Clarice jumped over the frozen river with her mother, running away as fast as she could.
Bam! The first shot from the hunter's gun rang out, causing Clarice to run even faster, her mother running behind her.
"This is a scene from the Bambi-movie, that I hate!" Clarice thought with a quick glance at her mother before looking ahead again.
"Faster! Faster, Clarice! Don't look back! Run Clarice! Run!" Tinker Bell yelled when she saw Clarice looking behind her just now.
Shah! Snow flew forward as Clarice ran forward like her mother.
Bam! Dhak! The second shot of the gun, and the sound of the crash, and the distinct smell of blood penetrated Clarice's nose, and ears, but she continued to run, not realizing that she was running right past her frozen father as they reached the forest, or that Gallant's freezing was due to what he saw the hunter to do to Tinker Bell, because that matter reminded Gallant very vividly of the fate experienced by Amara.
Clarice ran through the forest until she finally arrived at her cave as the sun was setting. Clarice ran into the cave, and took a deep, exhausted breath before looking at the mouth of the cave:
"Whoah! Whoah! We did it! We did it, mom! Mom...!"
"That's why I didn't want to go to the meadow today!" Clarice thought in shock when she realized her mother hadn't come into the cave. As a result, Clarice immediately remembered what had happened to Tinker Bell in that scene from the movie Bambi, but then Clarice tried to think of things from another perspective after remembering something:
"Hold on! Mena now has 2 faws, unlike in Bambi 2 where Mena was meant to be Bambi's adoptive-mother after Bambi's father asked Friend owl to find a suitable adoptive-mother for Bambi, so maybe the mother managed to escape from the hunter but is wounded!"
Clarice was worried, and left the cave to find her mother:
"Mom! Mom, where are you?!"
The ominous silence of the forest scared Clarice as she searched for her mother. He inevitably remembered the events of the Bambi movies, and even what had happened to Gallant's mother Amara, or more precisely Clarice's grandmother, in such a situation.
"Mom! Mom!" Clarice wandered in the forest as the snow fell, and the weather turned colder.
"Mommy!" Clarice shouted as she ran forward. "Mom! Mom! Yh!"
Then Clarice stopped, looking around until she saw her father standing before her, and startled a little:
"Sir?!"
Actually, Clarice knew what her father was going to say to her now, even though Clarice was hoping in her heart that Gallant would announce that Tinker Bell was now resting in Gallant's cave after being badly injured after a bullet from a hunter's gun hit Tinker Bell in the leg.
"Your mother can't be with you anymore. Hunter has taken your mother", Gallanti told Clarice. "Now you have to be brave, and be able to walk alone".
Clarice lowered her head sadly, and closed her eyes as she understood her father's recent words. Opening his eyes, a single tear fell from his right eye before he looked at his father with his ears drooping.
"Come, my daughter. Come", Gallant told Clarice, starting to walk forward.
Clarice started to follow her father, but stopped, and then quickly looked back like her father, and then Clarice started to follow her father again, who started walking forward after seeing Clarice following her father.
At last the wind began to pick up, and Clarice walked with her father forward through the forest, lowering her head a little so that the snowflakes flying with the wind would not fly directly into their eyes, until they arrived at Gallant's cave. Clarice looked at her father, and saw sadness in her eyes, even as Gallant tried his best not to cry. Nevertheless, Clarice could see traces of crying on her father's face, so Clarice understood that her father had cried recently, probably because of Tinker Bell's fate.
"Mommy isn't coming back, is she?" Clarice asked, laying down on the leaves of the trees on the floor of the cave. "He wasn't just wounded by a shot from the hunter's gun hitting his leg, was he?"
"No", Gallant said, and now Clarice could hear the sadness in her father's voice, even though Gallant was clearly trying not to look sad.
"This is where my as a princess-training begins. I will become a flawless princess that you can be proud of one day, father", Clarice thought, confiding to Gallant that she was sleeping while listening to the sounds she heard from outside the cave.
"I came as fast as I could, sir", Friend owl said to Clarice's father as the Friend owl Flew to the spot, then perched on the branch of a fallen tree near Gallant's cave.
"Friend owl", Gallant said when he saw his friend.
"I'm sorry, for what happened to your wife Tinker Bell today. It must have reminded you of your mother Amara. Your daughter is now in the same situation you were in after going through what your daughter went through today", Friend owl said. "Clarice would clearly still need her mother".
Gallant looked at Clarice sadly while thinking of his mother Amara, and Tinker Bell.
"If I could help you somehow?" Friend owl asked, and turned around to go home. "I told Clarice earlier about your father Julius, and about what happened to your mother Amara after your daughter asked me about it a couple of months ago".
"Wait", Gallant said, causing the Friend owl to turn around again to look at Gallant.
Clarice opened her right eye, and listened more closely now, and saw Gallant walk in front of the tree trunk under a Friend owl's feet, and Clarice listened to the conversation between her father, and Friend owlin, after which Clarice closed her right eye so that Gallant, and Friend owl wouldn't see that Clarice was still awake, eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Right now, Clarice needs a female-deer to take care of her and train her to adulthood, so could you find a suitable female-deer for her?" Gallant asked.
"Well, food is scarce in the winter, and during that time the females can hardly take care of themselves, let alone their own fawn, so it's not very likely. How about you be Clarice's mentor for a while? After all, Clarice is the future queen of our forest, so who could be a better example for her, like her own father so that she would one day be an excellent queen, because she clearly wants to be like you? So who better to raise the young princess of better himself than The Great Prince of the Forest? Remember how your father Julius did to you, when you were yourself in the same situation, where your daughter is in now. Try to imitate your father Julius in training your daughter. I do know how much Clarice admires you. Clarice is much more mature than you can even imagine", Friend owl said thinking about it.
"Me as a mentor? I will never be like my father. And I said to me that it's the females job to take care of the fawns", Gallant said. "What happened to my wife today is my fault. What kind of prince can't even protect his own wife from a hunter, but freezes in place in fear before he even arrives at the meadow after seeing something that said prince's own mother experienced sometime long ago? Clarice needs a mother. A prince should NOT raise a child!"
"It wasn't your fault that the hunter was in the meadow today. Why on earth do you even say such a thing?" Friend owl asked.
"Well, when I was running towards the meadow earlier today, and I saw what happened to Tinker Bell in the meadow, I froze in fear at the edge of the forest before running into the forest myself to look for Clarice", Gallant said.
"I told Clarice that you were told it was a female's job to take care of the fawns. I didn't say you should be like your father. Have you Forgotten how your father told you how to listen to others? You wanted to a long time ago be like your father. Your daughter might feel like an outsider if a female-deer adopted your daughter. My father once told that one of our Forest's Great Princess, more precisely Princess Anne Accused her father Felix of abandoning Anne, when Felix was trying to find an adoptive-mother for his daughter, when the hunter had taken Anne's mother from our forest. Anne was your your grandmother, sir. However, Anne managed to reconcile with her father. Give me time until spring to find out things," Friend owl said.
"Until spring", Gallant said.
"Thank you", Friend the owl Flew away, and Gallant then went to his cave to sleep after checking on his daughter.
"I guessed", Clarice thought after overhearing the conversation between her father and Friend owl. "I will start implementing my plan first thing in the morning".
When Clarice saw that her father had fallen asleep, she opened her eyes and looked at her father before closing her eyes:
"Daddy, I promise I'll be a perfect princess that you can be proud of. I'll do it by trying to act the way Friend owl said a perfect princess should behave. When you see me act like that, maybe you'll give up on finding me an adoptive mother. I just have to not say a word of mother, in your hearing, so that you do not tell me that princes and princesses must leave the past in the past".
Clarice finally fell asleep.
What Clarice, and her father didn't know was that someone, a strange male-deer, was looking at them sadly from afar.
"Hopefully their father-daughter relationship will improve as they spend time together", Stranger male-deer thought. He felt so powerless now that he hadn't been able to do anything today to help Gallant's wife, and Clarice's mother escape from the hunter.
"Mena, Ena!" Severely wounded female deer wandering in the snowy forest said falling to her knees in the snow as she saw the said females talking in front of her. His left kneecap was bleeding a little into the snow, and he was exhausted, for he had been running all evening in the forest.
"You're bleeding! What happened?!" Mena asked worriedly as she ran in front of the wounded deer like Ena.
"I'll tell you later. Will you take me to the Tree of life?" Wounded deer asked.
"Alright. It's on the other side of the forest, so we need to get there as soon as possible, and we'll probably be there first thing in the morning", Ena and Mena helped the wounded deer to his feet, then started walking forward, all the while walking on either side of the wounded deer, supporting him as he walked forward.
"It's been a long time since we visited the Tree of life before", Ena said.
"Yes", Wounded deer said.
"What are you going to do when you're properly healed?" Mena asked the wounded deer.
"I should clear things up with two deer that are very close to me. Now that will have to wait, because the wound on my leg needs to heal first, and I'm not sure where the deer I just mentioned are now", Wounded deer said crying, worried about the safety of the deer in question.
Suddenly, the wounded deer, Mena, and Ena saw a Friend owl flying in the sky, which seemed to be exploring the forest.
"Friend owl!" Mena, and Ena screamed, and as a result that owl saw wandering deer.
"What's wrong?" Friend owl asked.
"Our friend is wounded, so we're taking him to the Tree of Life to heal", Mena said.
"Could you not tell my husband, and my daughter about this?" Red-eyed, wounded deer asked.
"Why don't you want him to know?" Friend owl asked.
"Well my leg needs to heal first, and my daughter clearly wants to spend time with her father", Wounded deer said.
"I'll come with you", Friend owl said.
"Thank you", Wounded deer, and the owl continued on their way. Wounded deer said, worried about his partner, and his fawn. "I hope my daughter, and my husband are alright".
"Your daughter is now with your husband in your husband's den", Friend owl said with a smile, relieved that the newly found deer was perfectly fine except for one wound.
"Thank you", Tinker Bell said.
"Please. Today was hard for them and I believe your husband cried", Friend owl said.
"Did Gallant really cry?" Tinker Bell asked in disbelief.
"Yes, she cried. I saw clear traces of crying on her face when I just went to her cave after Gallant took Clarice there", Friend owl said. "The following situation ensued:
(Flashback)
"I came as fast as I could, sir", Friend owl said to Clarice's father as the Friend owl Flew to the spot, then perched on the branch of a fallen tree near Gallant's cave.
"Friend owl", Gallant said when he saw his friend.
"I'm sorry, for what happened to your wife Tinker Bell today. It must have reminded you of your mother Amara. Your daughter is now in the same situation you were in after going through what your daughter went through today", Friend owl said. "Clarice would clearly still need her mother".
Gallant looked at Clarice sadly while thinking of his mother Amara, and Tinker Bell.
"If I could help you somehow?" Friend owl asked, and turned around to go home. "I told Clarice earlier about your father Julius, and about what happened to your mother Amara after your daughter asked me about it a couple of months ago".
"Wait", Gallant said, causing the Friend owl to turn around again to look at Gallant.
Clarice opened her right eye, and listened more closely now, and saw Gallant walk in front of the tree trunk under a Friend owl's feet, and Clarice listened to the conversation between her father, and Friend owlin, after which Clarice closed her right eye so that Gallant, and Friend owl wouldn't see that Clarice was still awake, eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Right now, Clarice needs a female-deer to take care of her and train her to adulthood, so could you find a suitable female-deer for her?" Gallant asked.
"Well, food is scarce in the winter, and during that time the females can hardly take care of themselves, let alone their own fawn, so it's not very likely. How about you be Clarice's mentor for a while? After all, Clarice is the future queen of our forest, so who could be a better example for her, like her own father so that she would one day be an excellent queen, because she clearly wants to be like you? So who better to raise the young princess of better himself than The Great Prince of the Forest? Remember how your father Julius did to you, when you were yourself in the same situation, where your daughter is in now. Try to imitate your father Julius in training your daughter. I do know how much Clarice admires you. Clarice is much more mature than you can even imagine", Friend owl said thinking about it.
"Me as a mentor? I will never be like my father. And I said to me that it's the females job to take care of the fawns", Gallant said. "What happened to my wife today is my fault. What kind of prince can't even protect his own wife from a hunter, but freezes in place in fear before he even arrives at the meadow after seeing something that said prince's own mother experienced sometime long ago? Clarice needs a mother. A prince should NOT raise a child!"
"It wasn't your fault that the hunter was in the meadow today. Why on earth do you even say such a thing?" Friend owl asked.
"Well, when I was running towards the meadow earlier today, and I saw what happened to Tinker Bell in the meadow, I froze in fear at the edge of the forest before running into the forest myself to look for Clarice", Gallant said.
"I told Clarice that you were told it was a female's job to take care of the fawns. I didn't say you should be like your father. Have you Forgotten how your father told you how to listen to others? You wanted to a long time ago be like your father. Your daughter might feel like an outsider if a female-deer adopted your daughter. My father once told that one of our Forest's Great Princess, more precisely Princess Anne Accused her father Felix of abandoning Anne, when Felix was trying to find an adoptive-mother for his daughter, when the hunter had taken Anne's mother from our forest. Anne was your your grandmother, sir. However, Anne managed to reconcile with her father. Give me time until spring to find out things," Friend owl said.
"Until spring", Gallant said.
"Thank you", Friend the owl Flew away, and Gallant then went to his cave to sleep after checking on his daughter.
(End of the flashback)
Gallant clearly blames himself for what he believed happened to you today, Tinker Bell".
"Too bad Gallant has to take things so seriously", Tinker Bell said. "Amara's case was clearly difficult for my husband. Maybe it's only good for my husband if he can spend time with our daughter. Clarice really admires Gallant, and maybe Gallant could become more open when he spends time with our daughter".
"Hope so", Friend owl said. "You know what your husband is like, Tinker Bell".
Tinker Bell nodded.