"Moo", Moosey bellowed, staring at the bright lights coming for him as he stopped to chew on a very tasty patch of grass on the human-smelling gravel clearing.

It's coming for me, came the unbidden thought, as bitter as the bile he felt when the metal monstrosity driven by a human crashed on him.

He sighed. At least it is warm. Dammit, that's the bastard hunter that tried to murder me, he thought.

Turning on his hooves, he tried to flee but it was too late. He felt the sharp metal pierce him as his lifeblood seeped into the snow and mixed with the metal monsters's.

Moosey looked up and saw that his hunter was in as bad a predicament as he was. He also noticed a black band of that material the humans liked to cover themselves with stretched at the side of the hunter. For some reason, Moosey thought the hunter should use that band, like some other humans he saw driving those monstrosities did.

Moosey felt a bit of dark satisfaction. To a moose, head-to-head crashes were a part of their life. A tie against such a mighty enemy was as good as winning.

"SOOO, bored. Worse yet, it's Freya's B-day and I got her nothing!" A voice sparked Moosey's consciousness; Then nothing for an indefinite period.

"My, you're a boring one, aren't you, Moosey?" A sharp and annoying voice caressed his entire being, and he tried to stand on his hooves.

"Bah, don't bother. If you must wait one second," The male voice said. "There, that should work."

At first, nothing happened. Then a sickly light filled his vision. In a moment, it engulfed him and he found himself in a lavishly decorated room.

Every surface was covered in ice, gems, and ever-shifting stone. Tall statues of monsters were arranged in alcoves about the huge room. It was so frightening and maddening that Moosey thought he had to bolt from there. But his attention soon found the source of the voice.

And what a sight. Moosey tried to think of all the humans he saw in his decade of life that was as frightening or dangerous-looking as him, but came up blank.

"Why, thank you! It is not every day that I get that kind of honest reaction," The entity said as if answering Moosey's thoughts.

I knew I shouldn't have eaten that mushroom! Moosey thought.

"Not exactly what I had in mind to spite Freya, but I'm splitting hairs here. I don't want to be late for the party but I can't miss the opportunity to mess with Freya on her birthday. Or the window to piggyback on her transfer. You want vengeance against your murderer, I'll call that favor with Víðarr. Yes, that'll work," He hummed out loud to himself.

The god of mischief was lying sideways across a large chaise lounge. His legs dangled from the side, his stance lazy as he looked at the moose in front of him.

Moosey stared at him with a single desire to flee. His instincts told him to just go away but his body wouldn't respond. He was frozen.

"Let's not waste more time on this. You are smart for a moose but not as smart if you couldn't figure out you should stay out of human's roads. So I'm just going to check everything on this list of sacrifices except your stubbornness, your aggression, and your wish to enact vengeance against your killer," Loki, the god of mischief said. "That should give me enough energy to hide you from Freya as I send you with her chosen champion.

----------------------------------------

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Moosey groaned and tried to stand up. His hooves felt soft and he feared he'd got that funky mold that once spread through his herd. What the hell happened last night? I really should stop chewing those mushrooms, Moosey thought.

He tried to stand up and his front paws entered his sight. They were weird. Instead of his solid and reliable hooves, he had squiggly appendages coming from the paw, and they were too articulate and soft for his tastes.

Worse yet, they had no fur or a thick hide. The skin was soft and had a pale cream color. Just like his uncle when that disease struck him and he lost his fur. Right before the herd left him behind to be eaten by wolves.

Moosey looked around and found himself in a forest. Tall trees, bigger than any he'd ever seen and some underbrush. Faint sunlight filtered through the foliage above.

Sensing no predators, he ignored the environment to focus. He was grazing, and then... rage seethed in his chest. That stupid human! Moosey vowed to get his vengeance!

Pressure started to build in his bowels like he needed to evacuate but it was different. A cramp stronger than the one when he ate those lichen-covered bark overtook him. He felt warm wetness and the scent of blood.

Moosey panicked. Was he wounded? A hunter? He didn't hear the thunder of the humans' boomsticks or the wheezing of arrows.

"Mooo!" Moosey bellowed in panic, his head throbbing before his world froze. His vision was filled with blue boxes that had the same squiggly drawing he saw on humans' signs. But Moosey was illiterate and couldn't read.

The signs flared in front of his packing face and he couldn't do anything but thrash around. He couldn't see anything.

Moosey thrashed and bellowed more before he finally got himself together and focused. He would draw a predator if he continued like that.

He tried to interact with the boxes and after a long time, they changed. Some other boxes with less squiggly symbols showed and he kept on interacting with them to see if they would disappear. They finally did and Moosey sighed with relief.

The next hours were spent with Moosey trying to stand up. His forelimbs were too short for him to stand on all fours comfortably. His body had changed. With a wave of discomfort, fear, and uneasiness, Moosey walked next to a tree and wove his head in front of it. When his antlers didn't strike the bark, his fear became panic!

How was he going to defend himself without antlers?

He thrashed a bit more, trying to get used to walking with those too-short forelimbs and moving the squiggly appendages to look more like hooves. He got the hang of it and felt something dangling behind him. Moosey looked below and saw two protrusions coming from his pectorals. They were round and ended in some pink tips.

They looked like udders but there were only two of them. He felt another cramp and saw blood running down his inner haunches. The blood was too little to be a big wound. Moosey knew it would scab soon.

"Moo!" Moosey bellowed his frustration. At least he knew he wasn't being actively hunted or mortally wounded again.

He wagged his tail and it didn't answer. Great, I'm the unluckiest moose ever, Moosey groaned to himself.

----------------------------------------

A few hours later, Moosey was hungry, hurt, and very angry. He found out he'd become one of the humans he so disliked. That's why his hooves were now hands. Worse yet, he suspected he became female.

He was about to get used to standing on his rear limbs like he saw the humans doing when Moosey heard movement. A trio of humans appeared from behind some trees, running from something. They looked scared like does running from wolves.

"ANOTHER DRYAD!" A male shouted.

"Get her, Thaylor!" The female of the trio shouted.

The lead male drew a spike of metal that was sharp at the edges. Rage overtook Moosey's mind. He felt his sight go red and ran toward the humans. It wasn't his murderer, but he would have his vengeance all the same.

"I think it's a berserker," The third human said. "It's using an ability. Take care!"

Moosey lowered his head and charged the lead human. He forgot his antlers were gone. He barely registered the sharp metal slab striking his body and cutting his delicate flesh.

"Kill her Thaylor!" The female shrieked.

"Surround and flank! Distract her!" The other said.

Moosey headbutted Thaylor and felt pain on his head. Without antlers and his massive weight, he couldn't force the stronger and heavier human to move. Still he fought and thrashed.

Stabs and slashes came. Moosey bit the human but he was covered in thick leather. He went for the face and clawed the human's cheeks.

He felt weak. His strength faltered. The humans didn't relent on their assault. Moosey died for a second time.

"You know," Thaylor said as he wiped his sword with an oiled rag before sheathing it. "I don't think it was a dryad. Looks like it was an elf or half-elf waif."

"She had no pith, not anything," his traveling companion said after he used the Harvest pith on the body. "Weird. How did she come here?"

"Let's keep moving. This forest is too dangerous. We shouldn't keep the boss waiting," The woman said.

----------------------------------------

From his domain, Loki watched Moosey die from exsanguination. "Oops. Guess I should've given him language skills or something like that. Well, since I gave him nothing and his sacrifices paid for the transfer, it cost me nothing. How did the humans call that? Fail fast? Yes. Maybe the next time things will go better."