The words the unicorn had left Edward with both boggle and soothe him. He looks longingly at that place where he had seen the last of her, some flash of hoof or horn or shimmer of mane, but she is quite gone, now. Ignoring the subtle ache in his heart, he turns and looks at the unfamiliar trees around him, and at the overgrown ground, devoid of any path. He doesn't know how far they had come, and not even the direction the town was in, let alone his wagon, and he suddenly feels quite alone. Deciding that moving is rather more constructive than standing stiff and still with uneasiness, Edward picks a random direction and begins to walk, jumping at the crackling of twigs and startling at the sight of his own shadow.
However he does it the wizard might start to recognize things in the area, recognize them as blurs or little details perhaps from when he ran, the shiny and vibrant sun illuminated everything nicely. He was still in a deep part of the forest for long, more then once he'd find jutting roots or walls of nettles, but after a good hour of walking he'd see the glimmer of iron through the thick trunks.. and if he came closer, if he needed to in order to figure it out, he would recognize the once-enchanted cage.
Edward is, of course, acutely aware of the time, and as it passes, he grows more and more anxious as it does as he wanders. At one point, he tried to hum or whistle, but quickly fell silent again at the thought of demons, lizardmen and the mysterious Summer Lord, any of whom might hear him, and all of whom he dearly wants to avoid. Instead, he began to recollect lengthy poems in his mind, or muse over the nature of magic; it is while he is nervously contemplating the incantation for a mundane boiling cantrip that the cage catches his eye. He doesn't know what it is from afar, and is at first afraid of it, but he chastises himself for the foolishness and goes to inspect it. If that is the cage, surely the camp must be near--and if the camp is near, so, too, are his horses! He ventures closer with the hope of getting a glimpse of either, unfortunately rather clumsy and unstealthy in his maneuvering over and around the rich plantlife.
Edward finds the campsite completely empty again, just as he had left it. The tent standing there, with the little table and the chair, the circle of stones around a pile of charred wood where a campfire had been and then of course the cage with a hole rusted in. The only difference was that this time the birds were singing as much as elsewhere here, and the vibrancy had returned to the trees. His cart is also where he left it, a little way off from the campsite, already past the bend.
These all appear to be rather good signs, the best of all being the fact that Edward now knows where he is. A bit of a delay, that was, certainly, but entirely worth it. A giddiness wells up in his chest as he walks around the camp towards the blessed road, to follow it to the wagon.
He finds his wagon untouched, although the horses might be a bit restless. Perhaps the reason is due to the sudden absense of their master.
Despite the urgency Edward feels to place as much distance between himself and the camp as possible, he does not go immediately to drive off, but instead dashes towards the horses themselves, calling breathlessly to them as if they were people, "Muiredach! Maire! I-I saw a unicorn!" He hugs their necks and cheerfully presses Maire's face against his own, to the old mare's bewilderment, and then, grinning ear to ear, scrambles up to his seat and gathers their reins. "A unicorn! If-if-if only you had s-s-seen her! She w-was so beautiful!"
"She wasn't she!" A voice called out from behind him, the thudding sound of boots meeting the road sounded behind him as a presence draws near. "But that dress. Do I know you from somewhere?" The voice asked, it is a sneery but soft voice with a lot of intelligence in it... and familiar...
"I-it-it-it-it isn't a-a-a dress!" Edward squawks automatically, even as he feels the marrow in his bones go cold. Some awful curiosity possesses him and causes him to turn his head towards the voice of the stranger, his knuckles now white from how hard he is gripping the reins.
Before the wizard stands a lean figure of about the same size as Edward. His magnificent vest seems to be stitched from leaves at the top and even rustled like them as the wind blows through them. The lower part, as well as his pants however are the startling yellow of the sun, tucked in nearly knee-high black boots. Most notable about the man however was the wide-brimmed hat on his head, adorned with a single red plume, his light blue hair cascaded down it as completely blue eyes regarded him with queer amusement. Large long ears betrayed his heritage. "Greetings good sir." The elf-like man says, raising his arm slightly to better reveal the silvery slender blade he is clutching in his slender almost talon-like hands. "You've not, by chance, seen something of mine in the neighbourhood?"
The sight of the elf mystifies Edward, at first, and the familiarity of the face and the voice tugs at his memory in a worrisome way, but when he sees the glint of the blade and hears that accusatory question, all vague wonder vanishes, replaced instead by a peculiar mixture of chilling fear and staunch, incredulous anger. "N--no," he says, resisting the urge to speak through his teeth, but his voice wavers and shakes with obvious guilt. He swallows. "No, I--I-I haven't. I'm--I-I'm just--j-just a, er, a-a-a traveler, er--s-sir, and... a-and I'd m-m-much like to be on my way."
The eladrin raised his brows at that, his mouth tugging into the most arrogant of smiles, he looked not fooled. "Is there something you've always wanted to be?" The other wizard asks simply, eyes falling down to regard the fingers of his left hand, purplish-green wisps sprang between them. "A cat? A wolf? A bear? Perhaps a tree or a few notes of music?" He tilts his head up to look at the wizard. "Please tell me where I can find the unicorn. I am in no mood for foolery." His voice had been teasing before, but it is grim and serious, betraying the truth of the words.
Edward meets the man's eyes, though he would have much preferred not to, and it shows; he tries to make his own grim and hard, but succeeds only in looking stern, at best, and even then there is still an inkling of doubt on his face. "I-I d-don't--I don't... know wh-where she is," he responds hoarsely. It was the truth; he could have left it at that. Indeed, he dearly wanted to, but something leaps in him, some anger, some frustration, and he suddenly throws the reins down against his knees and cries, "She is a unicorn! How--h-how dare you keep her in a cage?!"
The Eladrin raises his brows when the wizard denies knowing where she is, he tastes the truth of it in his voice and slightly lowers his sword. He seems almost ready to put it away, until the wizard's sudden accusatory outburst. "She is a unicorn. You wish my reasons? I will tell you them, although I doubt a human can understand the wisdom of them." This time he does sheathe his sword, although the wisps of energy keep swirling around his left hand, his guard is not entirely down. "The Court of Summer desires the presence of this unicorn with the green mane within its summer-locked gardens." He pauses for a few seconds, as he checks if his guest is listening. " The Summer King wants her there for 100 years exact, she shall be safe there." With a slight chuckle the man gestures around him. "'This' is no worthy place for this beast. A forest in this realm? Preposterous! The Feywild is where it belongs!"
Edward glares, but it is not a very intimidating glare; it is more the angry look of a frustrated boy than it is the wrathful gaze of a furious wizard. The eladrin's haughty tone upsets him. He returns shrilly, "A-and-and-and who are you t-to decide for a unicorn where--where it is she b-b-belongs?" The horses grow restless again, sensing the tones in the voices of the two men.
"I am Darnador Brightwater of course. And I have taken it upon me to retrieve Summer's bounty." The fey answers in a proud retort, a slight smile plays across his lips again, as if he's completely oblivious to Edward's anger. "I honestly always wanted to see a unicorn. It's been a 'passion' of mine for a while."
"Well, you've--y-you've s-seen one, now," Edward says tersely, fumblingly gathering up the reins again. "You've s-s-seen one, and--a-and that--th-that wasn't enough f-f-for you?"
Darnador smiles and finally lets the magic in his palms evaporate. "I have indeed. That is not enough of course. But take me not as a mere bandit along the road. You can continue on your travels." His smile fades again. "But I will find the unicorn. If our passions clash mine will always last longer, you do not even have a hundred years left." And with that he shakes his hands, as if trying to remove something icky. "Now go. Before I change my mind and turn you into a rat. Would be what you deserve for being a thief."
"A-and she will last longer than th-the both of us," Edward replies stiffly, but the rare, defiant strength in his voice is starting to wane, as though he has suddenly grown very tired. He finally indulges the desire to bring his eyes away from the elf's, and, not as driven to argue in favor of himself as he is in that of the unicorn, silently accepts the angering jab and bitterly urges his horses to move.
The eladrin shoots a furious look at him when he brings up the unicorn will outlive him. For a moment it seems Darnador is about to pull his sword again, but then just raises his nose and heads back to his campsite. Edward has the road clear now, illuminated and warmed by the afternoon sun.
Once he is sure that he is far enough away from the elf, Edward brings his horses from their brisk trot to a more leisurely walk, the better for him to think. His shoulders relax, and soon his knitted brow does, too, only to crease again with some other emotion. He shuts his eyes against the sun and recalls with crystal clarity the look in the unicorn's own when he had freed her--wild and serene, all at once, and full of far more magic than he and the elf put together; and then he opens them again and watches Maire's nodding head, and her long mane, so soft and fine, he had always thought, seems so crass and base compared to the unicorn's. Edward wonders where she is, and whether he might see her again.
It would already be growing dark as a graceful figure steps out of the forest before him. The sun is going down but where the intense orange lights catch her mane the wizard would see it clearly now, the vibrant green of spring grass, seemingly blending into the white of the rest of her mane, like if patches of grass could melt into snow. "Your voice carried far." The beast sang abruptly, even before she was good and well near him. "The trees carried it to me. What was said, what was done and what not done." Her scent would precede her as she approached, she has taken in a memory of the forest, how long it'll last she does not know but she would not forget it lightly.
It is not Edward who first notices the unicorn, for he had grown quite weary as the day went on, and was nearly asleep on his seat when she came--but it is the horses who stop suddenly, though he hadn't given them any command, and, though heavy with their harnesses, they bend a foreleg each and bow; even haughty Muiredach gives no pause, and the old mare beside him finds a grace in her that she ought to have lost years ago. All of this wakes the wizard abruptly, and, sitting up straighter, his bleary eyes move from wondering at the beasts to searching fervently for the speaker of the gentle words. "M-my lady!" he exclaims, thoughtless in his worry, "He--y-you--h-h-he will f-f-find you again!"
Xiana lowers her head at that, weary and a bit sad. "Perhaps he shall. I know what he wants, I had made myself forget it after he locked me, perhaps I will make myself forget it once again." The unicorn nuzzles both horses and tells them to rise again in the language of the forest, which they might not understand. "A single fae court desires my presence. Should I give up my freedom for that? Have the whims of the fae enough weight that I have to leave this very realm for them?" The unicorn shakes her head andlthough her words may imply anger there is none in her tone.
"Of c-c-course not!" cries Edward, as though he had been expected to answer. He lays down the reins as his two horses stand again, and he stumbles from the wagon, but for what reason, he is not aware. He only stands there beside it, watching the unicorn with the same admiration as before, though not daring to step any closer.
Xiana trots down the road Edward had taken a bit only to come to a stop a few feet from the wagon. She blinks a few times as she seems to stare out at nothing to see, her ears flutter at words that are not there to be heard and beforelong she comes up beside Edward again, looking down at the oddly-clad wizard. "He is not on our trail yet. Unless he uses his sorcery to trick my senses as he did once before." A small caterpillar is slowly crawling down a strand of her mane as she talks to Edward, Xiana doesn't seem to notice. "Where is your road leading you wizard?" The unicorn asks curiously.
When the unicorn approaches, Edward feels his knees grow weak again, and he reaches out to grip the edge of the seat of the wagon in order to stay upright. "I--I-I don't know," he says breathlessly. "To--t-to--to a-another, p-perhaps."
Xiana blinks at the wizard a few times before she trots away again, back towards the forest edge. "It will be slightly safer if I follow you out of sight, even your own sigh. But follow you I will. I shall go where you go this one time. Whether it is to greater danger or perhaps to greater safety. It shall always be in unfamiliar land." The unicorn trots over the threshold into the forest. Now that the sun has gone down for the most part her horn emits the slightest glow, although it does not carry far through the trees and shall blend into the eventual moonlight.
It feels to Edward as though the unicorn's words hang in the air after she has spoken them, and even still after she is gone again. He watches her leave, and lingers for a moment, as if hoping to catch another glimpse, but then he turns with a quiet sigh to climb the wagon again. Rubbing his eyes and resting his elbows on his knobbly knees, some part of him urges him to ride back to Rayneth, to tell the town what he had seen--but then another desires to keep it a dear secret, and it is this one that he obliges in the end. Suddenly free of care, even the worry caused by the eladrin, he takes up the reins, whistles to the horses and is soon off again, content, sleepy and light as a feather.
However he does it the wizard might start to recognize things in the area, recognize them as blurs or little details perhaps from when he ran, the shiny and vibrant sun illuminated everything nicely. He was still in a deep part of the forest for long, more then once he'd find jutting roots or walls of nettles, but after a good hour of walking he'd see the glimmer of iron through the thick trunks.. and if he came closer, if he needed to in order to figure it out, he would recognize the once-enchanted cage.
Edward is, of course, acutely aware of the time, and as it passes, he grows more and more anxious as it does as he wanders. At one point, he tried to hum or whistle, but quickly fell silent again at the thought of demons, lizardmen and the mysterious Summer Lord, any of whom might hear him, and all of whom he dearly wants to avoid. Instead, he began to recollect lengthy poems in his mind, or muse over the nature of magic; it is while he is nervously contemplating the incantation for a mundane boiling cantrip that the cage catches his eye. He doesn't know what it is from afar, and is at first afraid of it, but he chastises himself for the foolishness and goes to inspect it. If that is the cage, surely the camp must be near--and if the camp is near, so, too, are his horses! He ventures closer with the hope of getting a glimpse of either, unfortunately rather clumsy and unstealthy in his maneuvering over and around the rich plantlife.
Edward finds the campsite completely empty again, just as he had left it. The tent standing there, with the little table and the chair, the circle of stones around a pile of charred wood where a campfire had been and then of course the cage with a hole rusted in. The only difference was that this time the birds were singing as much as elsewhere here, and the vibrancy had returned to the trees. His cart is also where he left it, a little way off from the campsite, already past the bend.
These all appear to be rather good signs, the best of all being the fact that Edward now knows where he is. A bit of a delay, that was, certainly, but entirely worth it. A giddiness wells up in his chest as he walks around the camp towards the blessed road, to follow it to the wagon.
He finds his wagon untouched, although the horses might be a bit restless. Perhaps the reason is due to the sudden absense of their master.
Despite the urgency Edward feels to place as much distance between himself and the camp as possible, he does not go immediately to drive off, but instead dashes towards the horses themselves, calling breathlessly to them as if they were people, "Muiredach! Maire! I-I saw a unicorn!" He hugs their necks and cheerfully presses Maire's face against his own, to the old mare's bewilderment, and then, grinning ear to ear, scrambles up to his seat and gathers their reins. "A unicorn! If-if-if only you had s-s-seen her! She w-was so beautiful!"
"She wasn't she!" A voice called out from behind him, the thudding sound of boots meeting the road sounded behind him as a presence draws near. "But that dress. Do I know you from somewhere?" The voice asked, it is a sneery but soft voice with a lot of intelligence in it... and familiar...
"I-it-it-it-it isn't a-a-a dress!" Edward squawks automatically, even as he feels the marrow in his bones go cold. Some awful curiosity possesses him and causes him to turn his head towards the voice of the stranger, his knuckles now white from how hard he is gripping the reins.
Before the wizard stands a lean figure of about the same size as Edward. His magnificent vest seems to be stitched from leaves at the top and even rustled like them as the wind blows through them. The lower part, as well as his pants however are the startling yellow of the sun, tucked in nearly knee-high black boots. Most notable about the man however was the wide-brimmed hat on his head, adorned with a single red plume, his light blue hair cascaded down it as completely blue eyes regarded him with queer amusement. Large long ears betrayed his heritage. "Greetings good sir." The elf-like man says, raising his arm slightly to better reveal the silvery slender blade he is clutching in his slender almost talon-like hands. "You've not, by chance, seen something of mine in the neighbourhood?"
The sight of the elf mystifies Edward, at first, and the familiarity of the face and the voice tugs at his memory in a worrisome way, but when he sees the glint of the blade and hears that accusatory question, all vague wonder vanishes, replaced instead by a peculiar mixture of chilling fear and staunch, incredulous anger. "N--no," he says, resisting the urge to speak through his teeth, but his voice wavers and shakes with obvious guilt. He swallows. "No, I--I-I haven't. I'm--I-I'm just--j-just a, er, a-a-a traveler, er--s-sir, and... a-and I'd m-m-much like to be on my way."
The eladrin raised his brows at that, his mouth tugging into the most arrogant of smiles, he looked not fooled. "Is there something you've always wanted to be?" The other wizard asks simply, eyes falling down to regard the fingers of his left hand, purplish-green wisps sprang between them. "A cat? A wolf? A bear? Perhaps a tree or a few notes of music?" He tilts his head up to look at the wizard. "Please tell me where I can find the unicorn. I am in no mood for foolery." His voice had been teasing before, but it is grim and serious, betraying the truth of the words.
Edward meets the man's eyes, though he would have much preferred not to, and it shows; he tries to make his own grim and hard, but succeeds only in looking stern, at best, and even then there is still an inkling of doubt on his face. "I-I d-don't--I don't... know wh-where she is," he responds hoarsely. It was the truth; he could have left it at that. Indeed, he dearly wanted to, but something leaps in him, some anger, some frustration, and he suddenly throws the reins down against his knees and cries, "She is a unicorn! How--h-how dare you keep her in a cage?!"
The Eladrin raises his brows when the wizard denies knowing where she is, he tastes the truth of it in his voice and slightly lowers his sword. He seems almost ready to put it away, until the wizard's sudden accusatory outburst. "She is a unicorn. You wish my reasons? I will tell you them, although I doubt a human can understand the wisdom of them." This time he does sheathe his sword, although the wisps of energy keep swirling around his left hand, his guard is not entirely down. "The Court of Summer desires the presence of this unicorn with the green mane within its summer-locked gardens." He pauses for a few seconds, as he checks if his guest is listening. " The Summer King wants her there for 100 years exact, she shall be safe there." With a slight chuckle the man gestures around him. "'This' is no worthy place for this beast. A forest in this realm? Preposterous! The Feywild is where it belongs!"
Edward glares, but it is not a very intimidating glare; it is more the angry look of a frustrated boy than it is the wrathful gaze of a furious wizard. The eladrin's haughty tone upsets him. He returns shrilly, "A-and-and-and who are you t-to decide for a unicorn where--where it is she b-b-belongs?" The horses grow restless again, sensing the tones in the voices of the two men.
"I am Darnador Brightwater of course. And I have taken it upon me to retrieve Summer's bounty." The fey answers in a proud retort, a slight smile plays across his lips again, as if he's completely oblivious to Edward's anger. "I honestly always wanted to see a unicorn. It's been a 'passion' of mine for a while."
"Well, you've--y-you've s-seen one, now," Edward says tersely, fumblingly gathering up the reins again. "You've s-s-seen one, and--a-and that--th-that wasn't enough f-f-for you?"
Darnador smiles and finally lets the magic in his palms evaporate. "I have indeed. That is not enough of course. But take me not as a mere bandit along the road. You can continue on your travels." His smile fades again. "But I will find the unicorn. If our passions clash mine will always last longer, you do not even have a hundred years left." And with that he shakes his hands, as if trying to remove something icky. "Now go. Before I change my mind and turn you into a rat. Would be what you deserve for being a thief."
"A-and she will last longer than th-the both of us," Edward replies stiffly, but the rare, defiant strength in his voice is starting to wane, as though he has suddenly grown very tired. He finally indulges the desire to bring his eyes away from the elf's, and, not as driven to argue in favor of himself as he is in that of the unicorn, silently accepts the angering jab and bitterly urges his horses to move.
The eladrin shoots a furious look at him when he brings up the unicorn will outlive him. For a moment it seems Darnador is about to pull his sword again, but then just raises his nose and heads back to his campsite. Edward has the road clear now, illuminated and warmed by the afternoon sun.
Once he is sure that he is far enough away from the elf, Edward brings his horses from their brisk trot to a more leisurely walk, the better for him to think. His shoulders relax, and soon his knitted brow does, too, only to crease again with some other emotion. He shuts his eyes against the sun and recalls with crystal clarity the look in the unicorn's own when he had freed her--wild and serene, all at once, and full of far more magic than he and the elf put together; and then he opens them again and watches Maire's nodding head, and her long mane, so soft and fine, he had always thought, seems so crass and base compared to the unicorn's. Edward wonders where she is, and whether he might see her again.
It would already be growing dark as a graceful figure steps out of the forest before him. The sun is going down but where the intense orange lights catch her mane the wizard would see it clearly now, the vibrant green of spring grass, seemingly blending into the white of the rest of her mane, like if patches of grass could melt into snow. "Your voice carried far." The beast sang abruptly, even before she was good and well near him. "The trees carried it to me. What was said, what was done and what not done." Her scent would precede her as she approached, she has taken in a memory of the forest, how long it'll last she does not know but she would not forget it lightly.
It is not Edward who first notices the unicorn, for he had grown quite weary as the day went on, and was nearly asleep on his seat when she came--but it is the horses who stop suddenly, though he hadn't given them any command, and, though heavy with their harnesses, they bend a foreleg each and bow; even haughty Muiredach gives no pause, and the old mare beside him finds a grace in her that she ought to have lost years ago. All of this wakes the wizard abruptly, and, sitting up straighter, his bleary eyes move from wondering at the beasts to searching fervently for the speaker of the gentle words. "M-my lady!" he exclaims, thoughtless in his worry, "He--y-you--h-h-he will f-f-find you again!"
Xiana lowers her head at that, weary and a bit sad. "Perhaps he shall. I know what he wants, I had made myself forget it after he locked me, perhaps I will make myself forget it once again." The unicorn nuzzles both horses and tells them to rise again in the language of the forest, which they might not understand. "A single fae court desires my presence. Should I give up my freedom for that? Have the whims of the fae enough weight that I have to leave this very realm for them?" The unicorn shakes her head andlthough her words may imply anger there is none in her tone.
"Of c-c-course not!" cries Edward, as though he had been expected to answer. He lays down the reins as his two horses stand again, and he stumbles from the wagon, but for what reason, he is not aware. He only stands there beside it, watching the unicorn with the same admiration as before, though not daring to step any closer.
Xiana trots down the road Edward had taken a bit only to come to a stop a few feet from the wagon. She blinks a few times as she seems to stare out at nothing to see, her ears flutter at words that are not there to be heard and beforelong she comes up beside Edward again, looking down at the oddly-clad wizard. "He is not on our trail yet. Unless he uses his sorcery to trick my senses as he did once before." A small caterpillar is slowly crawling down a strand of her mane as she talks to Edward, Xiana doesn't seem to notice. "Where is your road leading you wizard?" The unicorn asks curiously.
When the unicorn approaches, Edward feels his knees grow weak again, and he reaches out to grip the edge of the seat of the wagon in order to stay upright. "I--I-I don't know," he says breathlessly. "To--t-to--to a-another, p-perhaps."
Xiana blinks at the wizard a few times before she trots away again, back towards the forest edge. "It will be slightly safer if I follow you out of sight, even your own sigh. But follow you I will. I shall go where you go this one time. Whether it is to greater danger or perhaps to greater safety. It shall always be in unfamiliar land." The unicorn trots over the threshold into the forest. Now that the sun has gone down for the most part her horn emits the slightest glow, although it does not carry far through the trees and shall blend into the eventual moonlight.
It feels to Edward as though the unicorn's words hang in the air after she has spoken them, and even still after she is gone again. He watches her leave, and lingers for a moment, as if hoping to catch another glimpse, but then he turns with a quiet sigh to climb the wagon again. Rubbing his eyes and resting his elbows on his knobbly knees, some part of him urges him to ride back to Rayneth, to tell the town what he had seen--but then another desires to keep it a dear secret, and it is this one that he obliges in the end. Suddenly free of care, even the worry caused by the eladrin, he takes up the reins, whistles to the horses and is soon off again, content, sleepy and light as a feather.
