To tend toward survival.

A jewel.

There among the greenery, a rare blue dot. Salivations built over her tongue. Her jaw anticipated the tart caress of the tiny berry. A slight lift of the shrub's branches revealed a kingdom of sour citizens. She began to nibble them one by one.

"Remember to leave as many as you can spare for the bush itself, and for our neighbors to gather." Her mother's graceful voice chimed in her long ears from just up the hill. She watched her mother gracefully prodding and pruning some new shoots of sweet leaf among the bramble.

"But I am so hungry, and these are my favorite. There aren't enough for me to get full, and we don't find these very often." The young Cervidae's belly ached as she was not yet used to the grazing patterns of her life to come. A smile glistened from the wisdom in her mother's eyes.

"If we eat all of our favorite plant today, will it survive to fruit tomorrow? For us, fruit ever bears in wander. Now come along. Hikers are approaching, and I know of a healthy patch of wood sorrel nearby." The young fawn watched as her mother advanced up the wooded hillside without hurry.

'Maybe just a few more...' she thought, 'but I will leave more on the branches than that which I take.'

This is something I wrote in response to a HITRECORD.org writing prompt. 
​-NR