In The Still Of The Night, You Had To Say Goodbye

Rannoch hadn’t been with this strange herd for very long but he almost felt like he belonged here with these grazers almost as well as as he did with his own kind. By now he had realized, like mrs. B he was the last of his kind. She gave him a gentle comfort he hadn’t felt since he was at his mother’s side. She radiated a sense of safety that the young stag hadn’t felt since he was a very young calf. However short his time with her, Beru would remain a shining memory within him.

That was why the sad realization that morning hit him rather hard. Oscar was insistent that he and Kyren go and graze, though Rannoch did far more thinking than he did picking at the grasses around his hooves. He thought about their last night with the warm grandmotherly rhino. He wouldn’t forget her stories, he wouldn’t forget her name, the last of the wooly rhinos would never be forgotten. Or, he hoped he would be able to preserve her memory because he would want someone to remember him. The last of the great elk.

The young deer struggled with his own mortality, something he often thought about when he was alone. No one was promised tomorrow, and Beru had seen her last sunrise. She lived a long and fulfilling life, her death hurt him personally but he felt the loss keenly in the broader sense. The rhinos were gone.

Eventually Rannoch returned to their camp, they should have already been gone from her, but none of them were eager to leave their old friend behind. Oscar was the first to speak up, offering his suggestion. Now, Rannoch was a young deer but he knew better than most the way of nature. "She deserves a monument none of us are capable of delivering.” The yearling elk started, however young his deep voice whispered the wisdom of the forest. "Covering her in rocks feels unnatural.” Maybe it was just his youth, or maybe his deeper instincts.

When one of the herd was taken by the wolf you didn’t stop and ask the predator to give your loved one a respectable burial. You honored them by fleeing, by living, by escaping to run another day. Rannoch had never witnessed a death by old age, but he would want Beru to have the same honor. That her body might keep the predators at bay so her herd would live on to keep running.

"Rannoch"