In her absence, winter had fallen upon her lilac wood. Birch trees combed their naked limbs through her mane with reverence, dusting her back with snow. The animals of her wood peeked warily from the overgrown brush – too young to remember her, now, after her long journey. An unfamiliar wind rustled through the bushes, and the flowers she knew of that once-eternal spring were long since dead. The memory of her presence now lived only with the trees.
Trees, long-lived as they are, can serve as fine company to the ageless and undying. Turtles, also. The desire for such companionship was new, strange, and overwhelming.
However, neither trees nor turtles are eternal.
The unicorn tread a slow path through the snow to her frozen mirrored pool.
She thought of traveling, of continuing her journey. Perhaps the heart of the human girl beat on, in some fashion, inside her chest. It would not do to again leave her home to the endless march of seasons. She did not often start conversations with the trees – rather, she endured them – she once breeched the topic, hesitantly.
"Foo," rustled the sugar maple. "And what is the appeal of uprooting oneself constantly, of running about willy-nilly? That sort of behavior spelled the end for a cousin of mine some years ago - "
"And what of us; why, I'd scarcely know what to do with myself if a troupe of lumberjacks came tromping into our bower, waving about their axes with their hairy arms, oh!" cried the pink apple tree.
The pine rustled her needles. "Certainly it would be best if the men came in the winter; why, you both would be ignored as victims utterly, with your leaves gone and branches so terribly bare."
The unicorn lay her head down on the moss once more, closing her eyes against the indignant creaking of the seasonals' limbs, and the squawks of songbirds sent fleeing into the skies. The turtles would be little better. Even the immortal tire of hearing of the latest trends of pond convection currents.
Outside her domain, the seasons wore on, summers into autumns. She had time enough to travel, but for what purpose? Her subjects, flora and fauna alike, needed her care. To wander aimlessly about the countryside would be a frivolous affair. And would she even remember the way, over those mountains, along the dirt roads, to that kingdom by the sea?
He would be a king now, she supposed. With a queen, perhaps, and children; with their quest as a fading memory on his mantle.
The turtles told her of moss growth patterns, and she listened.
The familiarity of her days was broken, from time to time: a hunter blundering through the wood for game, only to leave empty-handed and with a quiver full of arrows blooming begonias instead of steel. Hairy-armed lumberjacks driven yelling down the dirt roads by a barrage of apples. A distinguished scholar sitting at the feet of the eldest tortoise, listening raptly to its lecture on oceanic gyres while the unicorn dozed nearby.
And two voices around a campfire that drew her near to hear.
"…'and before you set sail for Polynesia,' he said, 'you'd do well to consult the tortoise scholar that lives in the nearby wood, for by my last good eye, you'll never see a creature more knowledgeable on current events.' Pah! I spoke but a single word and his shoes swapped themselves to the wrong feet. I could never abide nautical puns."
Molly tsked and stoked the campfire's flames with a stick. "I never thought I could abide traveling with such a shiftless chatterbox, but you don't see me magicking people's clothes inside-out. Go get some more water for boiling."
Schmendrick was giddy, as he was when he'd had too much drink, or too many thoughts running through his brain. "I, toiling down to the stream to fetch water?"
Molly plunked an empty bucket on his head. "You, toiling down to the stream to fetch water."
"But don't you see!" Schmendrick leapt to his feet, clutching the bucket on his head with both hands, but making no move to remove it. He paced in a frantic circle. "The opportunities that the world now presents us! Turtles writing papers on weather patterns, and you would have me hauling water uphill! Why, a wave of my hand, and we could have a seven-course meal served by fairy royalty! Thaumaturgy, Molly, the science of wonderworking - "
"I would much rather spend a quiet evening under the stars, stoking the flames with my own two hands. And," Molly continued. "I don't have to remind you how poorly you get on with fairies."
Schmendrick snorted as he finally pulled the bucket off his head. "Terrible little insects. Jealous that they no longer hold a monopoly on the ethereal acolytes of the dawn trade, no doubt. The unicorns' return gave us that, as well."
Molly's eyes softened. "More than that, certainly."
The human heart beating within her breast urged her to race into the clearing, trumpeting her presence; to plead her way into their journey.
Schmendrick sat heavily down, and laid his head in Molly's lap.
Perhaps another time, another place. She had come to learn that moments like these were rare.
"A good, strong breeze, today," rasped the tortoise scholar, plopping one heavy leg into the water and scrutinizing the ripples. Satisfied, he plodded into the water and paddled in slow, steady circles beneath the shade of the willows. The unicorn settled herself in the shadows, and allowed her gaze to follow the ripples as they echoed out into the waters.
That, of course, was when she spotted the woman laundering her clothes on the opposite bank.
Interlopers to her wood were not uncommon, especially as of late. But they always came with some sort of higher purpose – wood for their stoves, furs for their coats, knowledge for their books. Young maidens with flower crowns, trilling loo, loo, fair queen of the lilacs, fair unicorn. (She did not dare draw near to them. Merely gazing upon them filled her human heart with such incomprehensible sorrow.)
And yet, now, this washer-woman sat at the banks, scrubbing her hands raw. She looked to be about Molly's age at the start of their journey together, with dark hair and eyes. Her clothes were of plain, coarse wool, and the woman washed them with calloused hands quick with experience. A rustling further up the bank revealed two children, a gangly young girl and small boy.
The unicorn had met others of her kind on her journey home, but the meetings had left her hollow, with the growing acknowledgement of the chasm that separated her from them. She had seen them reasserting their presence in the world in many ways: driving a horde of ogres from a blighted mining town with the light of their horn, clearing a poisoned lake, touching the lyres of poets, laying their heads in the laps of young maidens. Never suffering the calloused hand of a washer-woman to stroke their manes.
The unicorn lowered her horn to the waters. The moment the ripples touched the woman's clothes, they were as never before – heavy silk in regal purples and blues, golden lilacs embroidered by hands as fine and sure as a spider's. Dresses as fine and magical as the ones the unicorn saw flickering behind the woman's tired eyes.
The woman made not a sound, tracing the blooms with shaking fingers. She looked up, and met the unicorn's eyes.
The unicorn stood, and stepped upon the surface of the pond as a leaf does in autumn. Slowly, solemnly, she reached the opposite bank, and bent her head to meet the woman's trembling palm.
"Spring is good for my bones, but seasons are necessary for wind streams. Yes." The tortoise nodded his head, slowly. "Perhaps a season or two away, and I will be able to prepare a new meteorological textbook."
"But do remember to return in half a year!" cried the pink apple. "And steer clear of lions on your path! Oh, dreadful beasts, what if one spotted me and decided to use my tender bark as a scratching post, oh!"
The unicorn walked to the center of the river that marked the southern edge of her domain, staring off into the gray mountains. She tossed her head, horn gleaming in the sunlight, and sprang off the surface of the water, racing off into the fields.