You know, when I encounter the show portraying a species I had previously headcanon-ed as being sapient as being an animal, I usually just ignore it. (See my giraffes vs the show’s Clementine who lives in Fluttershy’s animal sanctuary, for example) The author is dead, noone can stop me, thug life.
 
I’ve been planning an exploration of my headcanons regarding deer for a while now, but always forget about it, until MiyaTheGoldenFlower mentioned that she’s working on a reindeer adoptable and I was like… oh yeah, deer exists. I should do something with them.
 
Seeing how the comic had made me headcanon deer as sapient, only for the show to portray them as animals, I was just gonna do my own thing with them and ignore canon -but then the show made things very interesting with the Great Seedling and the Gift Givers of the Grove. So I decided to create a headcanon that sort of fit with both how the comic and the show were portraying them. Though, I’m probably gonna modify canon just a bit to make everyting fit. And slightly change the gift givers’ appearences, because it was bothering me how pony-like they looked
 

 
— Normal Deer —  
Deer (which will hereby be used to refer to all species classified under Cervidae), are normally just… deer. The same deer we have here on earth. By some quirk of evolution they aren’t sapient, even as most hoofed creatures on the planet are. They do have some magic, most creatures do, but it’s main use is to make them slightly faster and better at hiding; not exactly powerhouses of magical ability.
 
Ponies and deer live mostly separate from one another; you might see a herd grazing on a field far away, or come across them while hiking in the forest, but that’s pretty much it. If it’s a white-tailed deer, they hop away from you; if it’s a moose, you run as fast as you can away from it.
 
Now, ponies are somewhat omnivores, so there have been many instances throughout history of them hunting and eating deer-meat. Either because that’s what was most easily available in terms of protein, or just because that’s what their particular culture did (ponies weren’t always as homogeneous as they are nowadays in Equestria). In the present, they usually prefer to get their protein from eggs and milk -though there are of course exceptions, most notably chiropterasi (bat ponies) who consider venison a delicacy. Venison and reindeer meat are also staple foods for griffons, who are mainly carnivores.
 
Another notable example of ponies and deer interacting, is the cases of ponies keeping deer as pets. This is very rare for deer such as white-tailed deer, moose, etc. They are wild animals, not domesticated ones, so keeping them as regular pets requires a licence and special accomodations. They are also sometimes found in zoos and such.
 
The exception to this is reindeer. While there are wild reindeer and caribous, there is a smaller subspecies that is technically domesticated. While there are many wild herds, this is just domesticated reindeer that escaped and were fruitful and multiplied. Many ponies up north still own herds of reindeer; some of them are used for pulling sleighs, but it’s mainly for leather and meat production. Some is exported and sold to griffons, some sold to the equestrian market and some just eaten (another notable example of ponies in present time regularly consuming meat). However, this isn’t meat-production the way we humans here in the west often do it; instead, the heard roam free, traveling south during the winter and north during the summer, grazing as they go. The ponies follow along them, protecting, caring for and leading the herd to new grazing grounds.
 
Most ponies who don’t often interact with deer find them very… unsetteling. Imagine a gorilla that walks and gesticulates mostly like a human, except is still very much an animal. It’s even worse when interacting with tame deer, as they don’t just run away, and have no sense of personal space. Their owners may gush over how cute they are, but most ponies just want this strange, blank-faced, pony-ish animal to stay away.
 
 
— Mythical Deer —  
While, as I mentioned, most deer have next to no magic, there are …exceptions. Whether they actually exist or are just myths and cryptids is very hotly debated among ponies, but there are too many reports of deer-like spirits or creatures that are, allegedly, behaving like sapients, to just ignore. Stories of magical, sapient deer is found in practically all cultures that have deer populations nearby, and there are many superstitions and beliefs surrounding deer. All cultures where eating deer is common knows that you must never kill a fawn/calf (or a doe/cow caring for a one) and when you do kill a deer you must give thanks by leaving a small offering (pieces of fruits/berries, some hay, etc) behind for the rest of their herd.
 
If you find a herd of deer walking in a straight line, don’t follow them or they’ll lead you to a labyrinth forest with no exit. If you find a white deer in a forest, that’s the forest guardian, and you must not harm anything in there, lest he turns you into a tree. If you catch the deer spirit of the harvest, he will grant you bountiful yield. Don’t eat any flowers offered to you by an elk, or its spirit will posses you. Catch the black doe of the griffonian mountains and give her a pair of antlers, and she will grant you a boon for each prong on the antlers. Find the three reindeer gift givers, and they will give you a gift sure to wow the heart of the person you give it to. Etc and etc. Those who do not believe in these myths chalk this up to ponies being superstitious and trying to make sense of animals that look so much like ponies it’s unsetteling.
 
However, they are very real. Not all the stories, obviously, but there really are spirit-like sapient deer in my version of equestria.
 
They aren’t quite spirits however. When a fawn or calf is born they, as previously mentioned, have very weak, next-to-no magic. In most cases, that is. Very, very rarely, for unknown reasons, they are born with an abundance of magic. Extreme, unreasonable, excessive amounts of magic. Ponies are some of the most magical creatures on the planet, and in their case this causes their magic to project itself onto their bodies in the form of cutie marks. These deer have multitudes more magic in them, which causes their entire body to be warped accordingly. The more powerful the deer, the more changed they are. Similarly to how a pony’s cutie mark reflect their talent or personality, a mythical deer’s appearence reflects their “purpose”. This can be anything from guarding a forest, to being a physical representation of death. This will hereby be referred to as their “domain”.
 
This causes them to be… not completely here. They aren’t spirits, but they aren’t quite physical either. It’s uncertain whether they can die from natural causes, but they can be killed; it’s just extremely difficult. Sometimes they seem to be tied to a certain place, and will be extremely powerful when inside it, but very weak outside of it. Most mythical deer are very aloof or distant from any other creature they encounter, and seem to follow a set of rules only they know about -though whether this is due to them existing on a different “plane” of reality, so to speak, or just because they were a sapient raised by animals, is unknown.
 
A few examples of mythical deer:
 
King Aspen, Queen Conifer and their herd  
King Aspen’s domain is life and fertility; he protects his forest (Not the everfree in this version) and the creatures in it from harm. He’s one of the lesser powered mythical deer, and tied to the forest. As such, he can only heal minor harm to creatures and plants originating from inside his forest, and he will grow very weak when outside it. Queen Conifer’s domain is almost the opposite; decay. That word sounds disgusting, but it’s not the terrifying, slowly wilting away life, type of decay. Rather, it’s the type that turns fallen leaves on the forest floor into fertile soil. She isn’t tied to the forest, but loves her husband, so she never roams too far away. She’s also very weak, and her magic causes any dead plants and animals to more quickly become, better, more fertile soil than they would otherwise. She could also, if she wanted to, kill almost anything that touches her -but she usually doesn’t.
 
One thing Aspen’s magic allows him to do, is to gift his children with abilities: most importantly, sapience. For obvious reasons, most mythical deer try to avoid having children. But Aspen and Conifer accidentally had one once, and were delighted and relieved to find out their fawn was learning to speak. So they had more children. In the present, they have an entire herd of around 50 individuals or so. Every year, they have one or two fawns, and the average lifespan of their children are around 40-50 years old. Because that’s the thing; the children age and die just like any other creature. They also cannot leave the forest, as Aspen’s magic won’t reach them anymore and they revert back to a normal deer.
 
This leaves them with very little options in life; they can’t leave the forest, they can’t have families of their own, they can’t really do anything. Aspen does have sympathy for them over this, as he does love them, but at the same time part of his domain is fertility: he isn’t going to stop wanting to have children as long as Conifer agrees. He might be one of the most “down-to-earth” out of all the mythical deer, but he is still one of them, and isn’t quite operating on the same morals, thoughts or even existance as his children.