Story: Into The Wilderness

 bismillah,

With trembling hands, Melissa wrapped the heavy blanket around the barely breathing deer fawn and held it to her chest.

"Its..its alive right?" her younger sister, Leila, asked.

"Yes, But the mother is not" Melissa replied, referring to the dead body of an adult female deer that lay a few feet away

Her dad, a wildlife Rehabilitator had found the fawn, and knew that it needed help, but as he wanted to show his daughters how to care for wildlife, he let her carry the fawn under his supervision.

"Now girls, you both take the fawn to the garage and make it comfy, while I bring some feeding things"

Melissa nodded, and she walked towards the garage as if she was walking on eggs, with Leila trailing behind.

"So first, we need to do uhh check-up or something yeah?" Leila asked

"Yes, I need to see how weak it is, and gender, and if it has any injuries, and why he is so weak"

Melissa begin studying the deer, she pinched its back, looked at its teeth, and many other things

dad comes in with some things, and Melissa begins telling him about the deer

"He is very dehydrated, and hungry, a reason he has fainted, he has some wounds on his legs, caused by thorns, and he is almost uhh a few months old, I think two months" 

"yes, you got it all correct, we need to feed him, would you like to?"  Dad asks

"I think we must make him warm first" Leila says

"yes, I almost forget" Dad answers

Mum comes in with a hot water bottle

"here you go" she says and sits near

While Melissa pours the fawn replacement milk into the bottle, her family get in the work of warming the spotted deer fawn.

The fawn moved, and mom took the baby deer in her hands and lifted its mouth, Dad carefully connected fawn's mouth to the nipple of the bottle. He sucked hungrily and opened his eyes, but still continued to drink, after the feeding bottle was finished, did the fawn finally stopped and dozed of into sleep.

they left the fawn in the garage for a while to make more arrangements, and so the fawn got some peaceful sleep.

"DID YOU ACTUALLY SEE THAT? HE LOOKED SO CUTE!" Leila exclaimed, practically shouting.

"Yes, he looked amazing! what could we name him?" Melissa asked

"After a few days, we are going to get him in our garden, then we will release him into the wild, i think dots will be a nice name" Dad explained

"Dots is nice! we will name him that!" Leila agreed

Melissa and mom nodded and smiled

The family was eating, but Melissa wasn't hungry, she got into the garage and as soon the door was opened, dots got up and bleated.

Melissa giggled and took out some bandages.

"Ok good boy, now sit down I just need to fix your wounds"

Dots looked at her and sat down

Melissa cleaned the wound with cotton wool and wrapped a bandage on the biggest one. she had did this a lot of times with animals a lot of time, they would always follow her orders.

"feel better?" Melissa asked

Dots just bleated and licked her hands.

Melissa smiled.

It went like that for a few days, Dots became stronger and Melissa became his caretaker.

"I think we should feed him solids now" Dad suggested

"Yes, he is stronger, what about chopped carrots and apples?" Mom asked

"I think that will do, We could boil the carrots, so they are soft"

Leila boiled carrots, while Melissa chopped the carrots into thin pieces, mom gave some oats and rye to mix, when the carrots were boiled, They mashed 'em and mixed them with the apples and oats and rye

dots loved that and eat the whole thing they had made and imploringly looked at Leila for more.

"he ate the boiled carrots, maybe tomorrow we could give him raw" Melissa suggested

dad nodded

the next day, they fed dots goat milk in a bowl, and gave him raw chopped carrots, the day after that he was given a whole carrot, both days dots ate without any difficulty.

After a whole day of playing with dots, Leila and her sister got tired and laid in their beds at night.

"you awake sis?" Leila asked

"hmm?" Melissa replied

"I was wondering if we could do a party for dots in the garden, dad said all the grass grown there is deer safe, and we could give him some toys to play with and things like that?"

"That's a nice idea, we need to make dots run, a ball would be nice"

Leila opened the lights and took out a box

"what's in there?" Melissa asked

"Uhh, there are things in their that would be nice for the party" Leila replied

saying that, Leila took out a picnic blanket, a straw basket, a ball and some other toys

"That all are the discarded things belonging to pearl"

pearl was their cat, and at the mention of her name she sprang out of her bed and sat near the ball, a bit torn.

"I think pearl could enter the party too"

"yes, tomorrow lets go and find some more deer safe grass from the woods for the party, and some acorns too!" Melissa suggested

"we have rescue grass, winter grass we need witch grass and panic grass and some acorns" Melissa said as they were collecting things for the party

"oh here it is!" Leila said and cut some witch grass and put it in the straw basket

Pearl mewed and went away, coming back with a few acorns in her mouth.

"good girl" Leila said and gave pearl some treats from her pocket as a reward.

Melissa laid out the grasses on the blanket, While Leila put the acorns and fruits, in a bowl they put oats and rye. Dad let Dots out and he looked around, sniffed the ground, eyed pearl warily, his natural instincts kicking off, then came near the food and ate some. 

Dots wasn't paying attention to the food a lot, he was curios about pearl. He came near her, and sniffed her. Leila threw the ball and pearl ran after it, with dots following her and also running behind.

"I think its time to let him go into the wilderness, there's a spotted deer herd nearby, they will except him"

"Not this week, we will get him to graze our garden's grass, he needs practice" Melissa said

"Ok then"  

That week, Dots learnt to graze grass and the family stopped seeing him a lot so he doesn't bond with human beings too much.

Melissa put dots in the traveling container and set out with dad to the nearest spotted deer herd. 

A majestic deer with big antlers ran in front of them, and when they pushed some stray bushes out of the way, they saw a big deer herd with fawns, deos, and male deer, the air was filled with bleats and neighs, some were grazing, some were running, some were sitting, and some were just watching around.

"we had a nice time with dots, but now its time for him to go into the wild" dad said

Melissa nodded, and with the same trembling hands she had picked up the orphaned fawn a month ago, she opened the carrier door and saw dots leaping into the wild, to the place where he truly belonged.