t h e l a s t

       ♛ // 𝔏𝔬𝔫𝔤 𝔏𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔤!

               It had been a long trip from home. A most important delivery to another town, a few           commissioned pieces of furniture tied steadfast to the wagon. The carpenter took a           handkerchief to his brow, looked up at the sun, and decided for a rest that noontime. 

              Unhitching the old horse, he lead them both out from the road, wading further into           the woods to reach a spot he knew of, a clearing with water and fresh grass for the           horse, and shade enough for a man. It was a bit far from where he left his wagon,           but Agdar hadn’t ever returned to find a wagon stolen, and so he whistled away, trusted            in the world around him, in the routine he took. 

              It was odd, then, that his routine expectations should fail him a little, For lo’, there in           his vision was a lady, alone, the sun’s rays seemingly spotlights for her. It was a sight           resplendent, a young woman that held with her a beauty that reminded him of the light           that shone through the church’s windows. Something divine and mysterious. Something           beyond reach. 

              It took him a moment to stop staring, to bring his horse with him to graze near the           water, to make himself known to a lady who, now that he could blink again, looked           herself a little unsettled, perhaps a bit frightened. 

              Had she lost her way, somehow?

              His cap came off his head when he came to her. “G’day, Miss,” he spoke, looking a           bit about as he did—she truly did seem to be without a horse or escort. “Have you           found yourself alone here, or do you come by yourself to this place? Forgive me; I only           come to let my horse graze and for a moment of reprieve.”

   A man was there, and for a moment, Amalthea believed it to be her prince, her Lír. But when she turned to look at him, he was different, no signs of the armour Lír would wear, the mop of yellow hair upon his head. She felt the sudden need to run, to hide within a bush, behind a tree trunk. She couldn’t quite put her finger on where the urge came from. 

   “Who are you?” she asked, voice light and fearful. “Who are you? Where is Lír?”

   Molly should have come along with them, or Schmendrick. They would know the right words to calm her, to remind her of who she was -- which seemed to slip from her fingers all too often. She was not just Amalthea, was she? There was another being within her, another person. Someone older, someone so old she could not comprehend it. But without her companions, she couldn’t pull at that other person, her fingertips slipping from the grasp she had on it. Molly would have known. She would have known the words to say.

   Lír had brought them so far away, so very far away from the castle. While it had felt wonderful to be away from Haggard for a time, like a weight lifted from her, she didn’t like this. How far could the prince have gone? Or... or had he gone altogether? How did she know he had been there at all? Could she had wandered here alone, believing herself to be with him? She had wandered in her dreamlike state often enough, around the castle. Sometimes she would be led back to her room by one of the four men who guarded the castle, or Molly, most often. Schmendrick was too many times kept by Haggard now -- when had she last seen him?

   Lír had taken her riding, sat before him on his trusty mare. They had entered a forest, far from the castle, away from the ocean that had so long held her gaze. But they had stopped, and Lír had been drawn away, for a reason Amalthea had already forgotten. She forgot so much these days, so often lost the memories. Or remembered things that surely could never have happened, not to her. Memories and dreams of cages and creatures. 

   Sat down in the grass, a glade with a clear pond on its each, she looked at her surroundings. There was no sign of where her companion had gone, no sound of hooves. Climbing to her feet with a grace almost inhuman, she looked around herself. There was a stab of fear in her chest as the realisation dawned on her that she was alone. 

        ✶ | 𝓉𝓌𝒾𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉  —

               The sun’s rays were of golden spots on leaves and bark and petal, an evening that           peeked through a forest, one that held its spring for eternal days. The dusk kissed the           visitor’s coat, dark and light grey hairs appearing almost lavender in the light. 

              Indeed, she was a unicorn, a wanderer of lands. To travel and meet another of their           kind was oft a rare moment, as rare as the spirits themselves, as rare as the magic           they held.

              The unicorn of this forest revealed herself from among the trees and the thickets,           and the traveler in the twilight bowed her neck to her. 

              ‘This is your forest, but I must ask for rest and reprieve here tonight. There are men           who seek my neck. They mistake my nature, and wish to lay rope upon me and have           me broken. If you would allow it, I shall take shelter here and hide my trail.’

   “You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” the unicorn replied, a part of her glad to see another of her kind without having to leave the forest once more. This one may not look like the others, but she would not judge her for that. 

   “I too have been mistaken for a mere horse in the past,” she continued, remembering well the insult she had felt in her heart when called a ‘mare’. A horse was far below their station, far below their very being. The few she had met had been dull and taken by her appearance, as many other animals were. 

         | ♞ |  𝕬𝖓𝖓𝖆  —–

                She’d been going in circles. The same trees, the same grooves in the rocks she’d            passed surely more than a few times, the skies clouded and looking as vague and           lost as she was herself. 

                Anna felt like sobbing, frustrating and fear rising up her throat, wanting to release.           She fell to her knees, one hand feeling rough bark, the other clasping at her mouth.

                A girl, out of her elements. A girl, out of her wits. She’d already shed tears with eyes           of desperation as she ran off out of her doors, a young woman who shouldn’t have left           her bed for her poor health—-but she had to do something! 

                It couldn’t be true, the news they’d heard! Surely Mama and Papa were alive           somewhere, simply lost and in need of rescuing between mountains and fjords and           forests. A girl who could not accept went off on a foolish journey, and she had already           found herself in need of rescuing herself.

                How much more shock could Anna take that evening? More than she even thought           she could, she reflected, as the ancient being let herself be known. 

                What could she do but gasp? “You—-you’re a—” she stammered, her crouch falling           backward into a sit, words ragged and unbelieving of that which she saw before her. 

                Anna saw that horn, heard those words. 

                “—-A unicorn!” A yell, a whisper, a shock, a prayer.

   The clumsy movement of the girl did not go unnoticed, and the unicorn had to hold in a whinny of amusement. There was a heaviness around this stranger, it showed itself in the set of her shoulders, the brightness of her eyes. It would be cruel to laugh at her in such a state, and cruelty was something the unicorn was now concerned with, ever since her own misadventure with mortality. 

   “I am,” she replied instead, nudging at the girl’s cheek. It reminded her of Molly, of the times she would rub at the tears spilling over her cheek, a comfort in some way. She was not cold-hearted, nor as aloof as she once was, and it tugged at her to see this girl -- surely only young, she hadn’t been away from humans so long as to forget what the young looked like -- so upset, so lost. Maybe once she would have visited this child when such a thing was her way, would have laid her head in her lap, a happy occasion. But sadness would not do in a unicorn’s forest, and so she offered what she could.

   The unicorn wandered over to the girl, of course expecting to be seen. Who would come to her wood other than someone seeking her out? The wood revealed to all that a unicorn lived there, with its ever spring magic, the animals that knew of hunters before they arrived, the ponds still enough to see reflections in. 

   Had it been a long time since her last visitor? Time seemed to pass so strangely to the unicorn, sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly. She often had little need to track the passage of the years -- what was the point? It passed and it would continue to pass forever, why even bother herself with it?

   The unicorn had had to stop and stare for a moment. Stock still in the cover of the trees, she watched the stranger, the horned beast so different and yet so like herself as they wandered. This was her forest, she had left it only the twice, once to find the others, and once to bring the man she loved to peace. And yet, she had never seen another unicorn who looked quite like this newcomer. 

   All the others, the ones from the sea, where Haggard had kept them, they had been the colour of the purest moonlight, the whitest seafoam, like herself. But the stranger was different, so very different, yet her horn put her apart from a mere horse. Or was it a trick? Some magic like that placed on herself when she had been caged for that short time, placed there to fool? 

   Malevolent wizards, evil magicians, they had not bothered her before. But the tale of the unicorns return could not have been kept secret forever, and one had sought out the creature who had, at one point, being known only as the last. In an attempt to test his own magic, he had changed her once more, to the form she had believed left behind. 

   If only she had Schmendrick here, the man who had managed to return her to her true form once. But she had no idea where to find him, and in her attempts, she had found a small kingdom, again by the sea. 

   “You appear saddened.”

   Whether the woman would recognise the unicorn for what she truly was, that was a question. Would she see a white mare? Beautiful, yes, even haunting, but still just a horse. A stab of insult still ran through her when she remembered the first time she realised she was not always recognised, nor heard. 

   The human was unexpected in her forest. It had been some time since one had last wandered there, although just how long she could not say. 

   Hidden by the shadows of the trees, the unicorn followed the girl’s progress for a short while, watching her with ancient eyes. Her head tilted every now and again, questions rising but falling again as the minutes moved on. There seemed little chance the human wished to do her harm. She did not come with the bows and arrows of hunters, nor the sword and shield of a warrior.