http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/deer-sunflower-camouflage/

It was an absolute feast. And he had it all to himself. Well, not at this exact moment. At this exact moment, it was a rotting field. But that was only because the clouds had been out all morning.

They wouldn’t stay. Already he could feel slight changes in the air. It was a little drier, the wind blew at a slightly different angle. In an hour, the first break in the clouds would form. An hour after that, big blobs of blue would push through the fields of white and grey. And then this field would turn to gold.

The deer spent the hour laying low. He hid his bulk among the densely packed flowers. Every few minutes, he raised up and sniffed the air. Scanned the little pond nearby and the open patch of ground around it. If a predator came to drink at the pond, the deer would be downwind. Staying still and silent would be enough to keep him safe. If one came through the field behind him… well, they hadn’t yet. He took that as encouraging.

The time passed without incident. A few small creatures scurried around near his feet, unseen through the visual cacophony of decaying leaves, stalks and drooping flower heads. Nothing approached the pond. Far above, the clouds raced toward the east in a long, but not inexhaustible, wave.

On cue, there was a split in the clouds. Then another. Where the beams of sun slipped through and hit the field, the big-headed sunflowers awoke. Like a fawn standing for the first time, they lurched upward. Color rushed into their faces; golden halos around brown or black orbs, and all of it perched on green. Their movements were strange and stilted, the weak and wavering sunlight not quite the solar onslaught required to grant full life.

The deer waited patiently. Already he could see more clouds breaking up to the west. It wouldn’t be long now.

For months, he’d been the only one willing to stake out the sunflower field. The others were a pusillanimous bunch, cowering in the tree cover twenty minutes away surviving on the scraps of bark and ground greens still clinging to life in their usual feeding areas. All because they feared the history of the place.

Not him. He had heard all the same stories as them, the ones passed down from elders to yearlings for centuries. Stories about the last humans to live here, and the incredible battles they fought with each other where fire and ice, stone and stick leapt at their very command. And in the aftermath, they had used their gifts to taint the land, to infect the fields with Some Bad Thing that caused the plants to never die. Instead, they wilted when they were out of the sunlight. The plants, these sunflowers included, were always dying without ever passing away.

Until, of course, the sun came out. When it did, when its yellow light washed over the field, the sunflowers returned to bloom. He sniffed the air aggressively and shook out his front limbs. It was almost time. He could smell their pollen recharging to full bloom.

Above him, at long last, the clouds broke open. Sun drenched huge swatches of the large field. And as they had done for as long as the memory of deer went back, the sunflowers came back to life. They filled with color and with water and with life, thickening and straightening.

He pranced into a patch of reanimated sunflowers, picked one at random and bit down. Delicious sweetness filled his mouth.

Any trepidation he might have felt about Some Bad Thing living in the sunflowers always went away at that first bite. This was a meal for the ages, it was available whenever the sun came out, and he did not have to share. Let the others pick at the weak greens at the forest edge. The humans and their gifts meant nothing to him. They had left him food, and he didn’t think he needed to understand it. He only knew it tasted good, and that it filled his stomach, and he would need that weight for the winter ahead.

There was not Some Bad Thing. This was too good. It was his third year in this field, and he was fine. He swallowed and bit down again, no longer in a rush. He had all the time in the world and all the food in the field.