Tiny, determined hooves stumbled through the gold grasses of the pasture, two of the newborn mouflon wobbling to and fro as they examined the wide world under their mother's watchful eyes. They wore the same caramel coats as all mouflon, these ones spotted with a richer brown around their hooves like tiny little boots. Barely a day old and they were already walking.

The livelier of the two took its fourth tumble of the day, and – yes, that was the exact same rock it had tripped on last time. Its legs splayed out on the ground as it bleated, loud and indignant. The doe ambled slowly towards it to give its head a lick.

They hadn't moved far from the front of the barn; the young man with straw-coloured hair watched them from the shade of the building, perched on the windowsill with the third and final newborn in the crook of his arm. Last night he had cleared the birthing sacs from their noses under torchlight, soothed the exhausted doe as she pushed out her first ever children, and now they were trotting around in the early afternoon sun. Most of them. The third kid wiggled in his arms, sucking at the cloth nipple of a feeding bottle as it squinted its red eyes against the light.

Red eyes and a snowy white coat. Its colouring was nothing like its mother's, siblings' or any other livestock he'd seen – maybe that was why the doe refused to let it feed. It didn't seem to like the sunlight much either, having spent only a few minutes on the grass with its sisters before retreating back into the safety of the barn. The little nubby stumps on its forehead marked it as a boy; female mouflon only developed their knife-sharp horns when they were old enough to mate.

The kid in his arms let out a short cry and wiggled its legs in a wordless request to be let down. Apparently it was done feeding. He slid off the windowsill and lowered it to the ground gently, supporting it on either side as it found its balance. It bravely ventured out into the sunlight again and lasted a good few minutes this time before hobbling back over to chew on the hem of his trousers.

Crouching down, he lightly petted the creature's head, knuckles catching slightly on the protrusions on its forehead. After how difficult its birth was, the fact that it was even alive was a little surprising. It had been the final child to be delivered in the doe's already long labour, when she'd been exhausted and almost too fed up to push. Born legs-first with a birthing sac that burst halfway through the delivery, leaving the poor kid unable to breathe as the young man had done his best to help her push it out. She had been too pained and disgruntled to groom the kid or let it suckle when it'd finally hit the ground. The young man had washed it carefully with a rag and fed it with milk from one of the other does instead.

How unlucky, to be the odd one out in every way that mattered. The ranch already had a buck, so what would happen to this one? His hand stilled where it was petting the mouflon kid's head. He held his breath against the tightening of his chest for a long, terrifying moment, before standing up and returning to his place on the windowsill. A place that was safely out of the kid's reach.

There was no point in thinking about it. A roof over his head and food in his stomach – that was what mattered, and anything else wasn't worth paying attention to. Like the village children peeking out from the side of the barn, for instance.

"They're so little!"

"Is the mom gonna headbutt us if we pick 'em up?"

"Can I name one? You haven't named them yet, right?"

Their whispers weren't as quiet as they thought them to be, huddled as they were in the shadow of the building. He could see them clearly in his periphery, ducking in and out of sight as they fought to get a better view of the new arrivals.

"You can't name one, Ma's the one who always names 'em," the little leader explained with a proud air.

"I think the yellow one looks like a Daisy."

"It's not yellow! It's brown! And I just said you can't name it, anyway!"

The girl huffed, pretending not to hear as she stared at the newborns with longing eyes.

"Let's get closer, I want to hold one," she proclaimed. "I call petting Daisy!"

One child breaking away from the group seemed to be all the others needed to overcome their own hesitance and follow suit, emerging from their hiding place one after another. The young man's grip tightened on the windowsill.

Male mouflon were the ones that looked dangerous, with their four swivelling horns and their aggressive showboating. But the bucks were content with simply knocking others down, breaking a bone or two with blunt force – it was a doe you had to watch out for, and the approach of so many unfamiliar giggling children had this one standing stiffly in place, hackles raised and her horns pointing towards the sky.

He slipped down from the windowsill, gathering the snowy white kid up in his arms in a hurry. A doe would only attack to protect her young – if he took them into the safety of the barn, she might settle. The children would never listen to him. Warning them off would only encourage them.

As he stepped into the sunlight the loud girl stopped in her tracks, soon caught up to by the rest of her friends. Good; he spared them only a quick glance and strode forward to collect a second clumsy newborn. The doe snorted at him but still loosened some of the tension in her frame in the presence of a trusted handler.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the girl cried out, stomping one of her feet in a petulant huff. "I wanted to pick that one up!"

Disappointed shouts followed him as he moved the mouflon kids into the barn, keeping an eye trained on their defensive mother. The white kid was docile in his arms, while its sibling awkwardly kicked with its tiny brown hooves and bleated its complaints, too clumsy and weak to resist as it was hurriedly deposited on a pile of soft straw.

Back outside, the group of children were still standing in place, milling around awkwardly and unsure if they should approach the remaining newborn and risk the demon's ire. It was easy enough for him to scoop up the final kid and lure the mother away with the aid of a slightly wizened carrot from his pocket. She followed him into the barn begrudgingly, plodding over to lick at the head of her other rambunctious daughter still yelling away on the straw; the odd white kid had already tottered off to sniff and nibble at the building's wooden posts.

That crisis was averted, for now. Standing sentry outside would hopefully be enough to frighten the children away.

But upon leaving the barn he was met with a small, sharp pain – a rock bouncing off his thigh and hitting the ground. The group's little ringleader was glaring at him, one hand resting on the shoulder of a tearful, frizzy-haired girl whose own face was scrunched up in anger.

"Why'd you take them away? It's not fair!" the girl shouted. Her voice was odd and warbly and her face was becoming redder by the minute. "You always have to ruin everything! You stupid demon!"

Tears fell down her face as she yelled at him, the sort of tears only children could cry when slightly wronged, like it was the worst thing that had happened to them all week. But none of them knew that the mouflon doe was still due to have her horns filed down; that they were sharply ridged and could cut through to the bone. That she wouldn't trust strangers with her newly born kids, no matter how small, and would attack a perceived threat. Even if he explained himself he knew they wouldn't listen – not when it was the demon talking.

"You can't just do that! Those are Ma's animals, so if I say we get to see 'em, then we get to!"

It probably hurt the boy's dignity quite a bit to have his plans foiled, especially in front of the girl he was always trying to impress. Let him bluster and threaten, then; he could yell and curse at the demon until they all grew tired and moved on after venting their disappointment. Even if they tossed a few more stones, he knew he would be fine. Those scratches would heal within the week, a headbutt from a defensive doe could disable any of them for life. It was an easy choice to make.

He stared blankly ahead as he stood there in silence, arms hanging loose at his sides. The children hurled their usual insults – something something demon, something something the animals will eat you; it seemed none of them were feeling particularly creative today. Gazing out over the rolling plains, he wondered if he'd have time to pick any wild herbs before dinner.

"If you don't leave our animals alone, I'm gunna tell Ma that you—"

A sharp squeal interrupted the boy's half-formed threat, his friend having clapped her hands over her mouth. Only her wide eyes were visible, looking towards... his feet. Glancing down, the young man was met with an unexpected sight – a shock of white fur on knobbly legs; the mouflon kid was nibbling on the hem of his trousers again, ruby eyes squinting against the sun. Behind him the barn door was slightly ajar; he must have failed to close it properly in his distraction.

"What's wrong with it?" the girl yelped, moving to hide behind one of her friends. "Why's it all white? Is it sick?"

"I don't know! They're not supposed to look like that..."

"Ain't the ash wolf got red eyes, too?"

A wave of disconcerted whispers made its way across the group of children, many of them shuffling further away from the oblivious creature that was sniffing around the young man's heels. Every child knew the stories about the vicious white wolf from the mountains, the one that brought winter down from the peaks and loved nothing more than to gobble up any lazy and disobedient villagers.

Something in their faces seemed a little more genuine than usual; the play-fear from their battles with the "demon" pushed aside in favour of something truly unsettled. Slowly, the young man crouched to pick up the mouflon kid and hold it in his arms. Just in case.

"See? I told Ma demon was gonna mess our animals up!" the leader yelled, his knuckles clutched white in his shirt. "She didn't listen, and now look what he's done!"

Clutching the kid closer to his chest, the young man took a step back, free hand reaching behind him towards the barn door. His heart gave a single heavy thud against his chest.

Why? It ate, it explored, it bleated in a tiny voice just like its siblings did; it hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't even a day old.

"We don't need another freak on our farm! Stop ruining everything!"

The creature shifted uncomfortably in his arms. There was no way it would understand what the children were yelling – it didn't even know it looked different from the others, or why its mother didn't let it feed. It couldn't help the way it was born.

His heart thumped forcefully against his ribs like flint on steel, and a spark of something terrible took hold inside him.

Had there been any onlookers in that moment, other than a gaggle of agitated and misguided children, they might have noticed the sudden snap of wrongness in the air; the way the young man stood locked in place, his eyes wide and unfocused behind his bangs. How the air around him warped like a heat mirage, thrumming like a heavy heartbeat and, if one stopped to listen, was accompanied by the quiet sound of something splintering.

But none of the children realised there was anything amiss, too caught up in a frenzy of nerves. Their distress, anger and fear was feeding off that of their friends and clouding their judgment, the beginnings of a perfect little mob. A rock was clenched in the ringleader's small fist.

"Ever since Ma let you work here things keep goin' wrong!" he cried. "We don't get good money at the market but you eat our vegetables anyway! The animals keep dyin'! And now you've gone and made one of 'em evil!"

Cause and effect was too easily twisted in the minds of the young, eschewing complex reality in favour of having a grand villain to fight. The young man had long grown accustomed to it. Perhaps he would have endured it quietly again – allowed the group to grandstand and play and vent their frustrations against his silent, unaffected form as he had for so many months – if not for the creature blinking innocently in his arms.

His limbs were locked tight, body thrumming with the effort of keeping it in, the heartbeat in his ears drowning out all but the most desperate thoughts. Not again. These were nothing more than the weightless accusations of children, they didn't matter. A roof over his head and food in his stomach. Nothing else mattered.

The kid bleated weakly as his hold tightened, its red eyes wide and confused. It hadn't done anything wrong—

His insides were being brought to a rolling boil, the thing inside him catching alight one moment and blazing the next like flames in an old, dead tree; eating up his core while his body just barely contained it. He was trapped, locked in a stalemate between the children and the blaze as their words burst against him like splashes of oil and rekindled every flame he could stamp down.

"Why don't you just go and die, already!" the owner's son yelled, throwing the rock with all the strength his small arms could muster.

It was a solid throw, cast in an exact trajectory towards the young man's midsection. Where the ruby-eyed, day-old mouflon shifted awkwardly in his arms.

Time seemed to slow in that moment as the rock soared through the air; as the young man's vision clouded with red and a final resounding crack splintered through the air, the thing inside him breaking through its carefully crafted bonds, he realised it was all over. Everything he had worked so hard to build, crumbling down in the blink of an eye.

The blaze of a burning building against the midnight sky, the cries of fear, the shock and contempt, the smell of ash and charred meat. Again – he'd ruined everything again. He squeezed his eyes shut as the rock flew towards him and the world turned red.

And then, miraculously, nothing happened.

There was no burst of orange light behind his eyelids, no roiling heat and children's screams; only a quiet thump, the movement of soft fur beneath his hands, and the warm breeze coming to an abrupt halt where it had previously been caressing his skin. His eyes opened slowly, hesitantly, like if he opened them too fast the peaceful might be scared away.

A figure stood above him, tall and proud, and the young man realised distantly that he must have fallen to his knees. Their long, black hair and silver-grey cloak shifted in tandem in the breeze, back outlined in shining light as their body blocked out the sun. Colours swirled lazily in the air between them like those on the skin of a soap bubble, coating the world outside the dome that now surrounded him; the rolling pastures and the faces of bewildered children looked dreamlike behind the iridescent glaze.

The stranger knelt down, reaching for the rock that lay at the edge of the barrier and picking it up. They seemed to ponder it as they held it aloft, turning it lazily between their slender, gloved fingers before looking towards the children who watched with mouths agape – as the mysterious stranger set the stone ablaze with a snap.

When the first child screamed and ran the rest quickly turned tail to follow, all completely unprepared for something as unexpected as resistance. The stranger's head tilted slightly to the side as they watched the children run, standing vigil in front of the young man until the little mob was out of sight.

"Well," came the stranger's voice, smooth and masculine with a playful lilt. He let the fire in his hand wink out, the rock undamaged where it rested on his palm. "That was certainly a close call, wasn't it?"

The stranger's cloak fluttered in a sweeping arc as he turned to face the young man on the ground, metallic trim glinting in the sunlight and giving way just enough to reveal slender legs and a long dagger at his waist. Looking up to get a look at the face of his unexpected benefactor, the young man wondered if magic was playing tricks with his eyes, but no – with a wave of the stranger's hand the barrier surrounding him dissolved, but the sight in front of him remained plain as day. Instead of a man's features, his eyes were met with a face of coal-black fur with tall tufted ears, a narrow muzzle and two black, glittering eyes. A soot fox?

"The seal on your magic will lift on its own," the stranger spoke from behind his vulpine mask. "We don't want an accident to befall that poor creature, now do we?"

Apparently sensing that it was being addressed, the fluffy white kid in his arms uttered a short, muffled bleat; its mouth was presently occupied as it chewed on the young man's sleeve. He loosened his tight grip and moved a hand to scratch beneath the creature's small chin, his gaze fixed on the rock that lay harmlessly in his benefactor's hand.

Perhaps it was his shock at this turn of events, or perhaps it was an effect of the stranger's sealing, but the roaring fire in his chest was all but extinguished, something cool and soothing spreading within him in its wake and reducing the blaze inside him to quietly burning embers. Meeting the shining black eyes of his benefactor's mask, he dipped his chin in a slow, hesitant nod.