“this is my design…,” sun!will whispers down at the world from his high platform in the sky, where he can look down at the world and see all the stags grazing on the blood of other deer.
one of them’s name is hannibal. stag!hannibal raises his head and brays at the sun. “i love you,” he is saying, “and i would eat you too if you weren’t so high up.”
will feels tears in his always-burning eyes. that’s so sweet, he thinks to himself. i like that stag. maybe we can be friends. he says as much to hannibal, who smirks and nods.
they continue this relationship for many days, months. it’s almost been a year when one day will falls from the sky!!! hannibal runs to him!!! “are you okay!?!?!?!” he asks!!! eyes shining!!! with worried tears!!!
“i don’t know,” chokes the sun. the stag stares at the molten blood, then is overcome by desire. he starts gnawing on will.
“what are you doing?” demands the sun, gasping for helium that is not there.
“mmmm, you’re so hot. and so…tasty. you look like a sorbet, taste like a…”
“like the sun?” asks will dryly.
“i suppose the only way to describe it is sun-like, yes,” the stag agrees, and dips his head to nibble at will more. “i really did like you, will, and i’ll like you even after you are gone.”
“how…sweet of….you….to say…,” the sun wheezes, “while…you are…eating me.”
hannibal smiles, and takes a chunk out of will’s bulging yellow-golden-orange-red belly. a few seconds later will has lost all his helium (which i actually think may be the incorrect ingredient but it’s 1am leave me alone) and dies.
hannibal stays there and eats as much as him he can, scaring off the other stags by shaking his giant, dark antlers at them. he leaves the rest of will to sink into the soil, to float into the air. he feels light himself, really.
“you were a good friend, will,” hannibal murmurs down to the gooey blobs left. “the only friend i had, really.” he feels heavy now, not only with food but with emotion. “i am going to miss you dearly.”
he curls up next to will’s remains to sleep. when the stag awakes, no trace of will’s existence is there and he is left to think that maybe he has imagined these many months of friendship.
he isn’t, after all, the most sane of the other deer, for talking to a sun and risking getting burned for some tasty morsel. he usually only eats the rude, but today he’s eaten a friend, and what does that say about him?
no wonder they don’t like me, he thinks, staring out at the green pastures and trees reaching up for where a new sun has been placed, but sometimes you have to honor a friend’s memory the best way you can. he frowns, and munches on the liver of a particularly rude deer who had once treated him.
when he looks up at the sky, he sees will’s face in the sun again, and blinks. the face appears to smile, and he blinks again, and again, and again.
“this is my design!!!” the sun shouts, and it’s like thunder and lightning lancing through the stag’s heart. he grins up at the sun, which touches him with its warm light, and forgets about the rude.
he thinks only about friendship.