#juneday042026

In his five thousandth year, laying in the grass, listening to the night wind hiss through the trees, he discovered the sky was wrong. A bright star called Adhara was gone from the sky. In her bright place was a hazy smear.

He sat up, heart racing with a cold, sick sinking feeling in his guts. So this was the legacy of all things, even the stars, to die? Would he witness the very last one blink out of existence leaving him in the cold, vast forever?

Tristan had convinced himself that after all these ages, he had mastered his emotions. He hadn’t shed a tear in a thousand years and now, he found himself hunched over on his knees, sobbing, snot and spittle on his face, his chest on fire with tight horror and grief.

Adhara, his beautiful star, the star that had been shining since his lonely birth, abandoned him at last. Immortality was a long road of grief and if one waited long enough, unmoving, the road changed until it was unrecognizable…but the direction never changed. Forward. Forever leaving loves and enemies behind. Forward with no destination.

He felt the air warm, night blooming flowers a thick perfume that drove away the salt scent of his tears. Light filled the glade, soft and silvery, making him raise his face from his hands.

There, standing before him, was a unicorn, slender as any cervine, coat white and shimmering. In all his long existence, he had never seen one. They only appeared to the innocent and pure of heart. He’d been monstrous since birth. He didn’t belong here and this wasn’t for him.

His ego could not stand in the face of divine beauty born of the magic of the world he so loved. He stayed on his knees, weeping because he couldn’t avert his gaze though he felt he should.

“Get away from me,” he begged. “Please…I am foul and I ruin everything I touch. I’m no innocent.”

But the unicorn only lowered her proud head and nudged him with her muzzle. You are innocent for what you are, came her soft voice inside his head.

His brow twisted in desperation and confusion. “What am I? Please…tell me there are others like me.”

The unicorn chuffed and began to graze in the glade as the moonlight broke through the canopy of trees. There is nothing like you because you carry the power of nothing. You don’t belong in the world.

Tristan felt the black tide of rage sweep over him, drown and suffocate him and the thread of reason in his mind. He stood, fists clenched. “No! You lie, creature!” He snarled like a fox with its leg in a trap.

I cannot lie. You do not belong but that does not mean you are unimportant. You will give me a name. The unicorn paused her grazing to look at him with dark, mysterious eyes.

Trembling, the anger drained out of him at such an honor. Perhaps she felt kinship with him, another immortal. She felt ancient in his mind, her magic wild and of the earth. She was the Old Magic that had been fading from the world.

“I will name you,” he said softly. A little, sad smile curled his lips. “Adhara.” He reached out to touch the unicorn’s neck.

The light of her was snuffed the moment he spoke the name. Without word or explanation, just relieved sigh as she crumpled to the ground and began to dissolve like mist hit by sunlight. He screamed in horror, on his knees again, begging.

“I’m sorry! Please! I didn’t know…please don’t…please,” he ended his pleading with a thin whimper.

He kept the unicorn’s horn. It became his secret treasure, never to be used in spells, with him wherever he ended up. It was subtle, his love of the mythical creature he had only seen once, when he was still innocent…for what he was. Little porcelain figurines hid between thick tiles on shelves. A fountain on a balcony with a marble unicorn resting through the spray of water. Brass statues in his library. Carved into his headboard, looking down at Nesnora’s sleeping face.

He felt strongly then, gazing at the two, beautiful countenances that had pierced his heart, that he didn’t belong. But how could he stay away when everything in him needed these lights. Ached and bled for them. More than death, he wanted them.

Wanted her.

He’d promised Nesnora he would never apologize to her. There could be no forgiveness for all he had done. For the first time he wished he could go back and do it differently.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her as she drifted in dreams, not hearing him.

To her he gave the only material treasure that had ever meant anything to him. On the pillow beside her beautiful, sleeping head he laid Adhara’s spiral, golden horn. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I hope this is goodbye. And if it is…don’t mourn me.”

He left in the dead of night, his magic taking him to the Shadowglade estate crawling with undead. He made his way unmolested to the dying iron tree.

Tristan kneeled in the poisoned soil and gazed up at her black branches. “I do not belong, mother. No good deed made you answer and so no evil deed has either.” He paused. He didn’t expect to hear her voice. But he still hoped. Still gave her the silence in between beats of his broken heart.

“I can’t exist. There is no place for me. I can’t…even love properly,” he said with shame, tears sliding down his cheeks. “But you can fix it. You can wipe the world clean of me.”

He took in a breath, afraid but resolute. “Name me?”he asked in the pleading voice of a child.

He returned before Nesnora and his….guests woke. Tristan never spoke of how even now, his mother refused to name him.

@wranesnora