Conversations of Moonlight and Fire
It had been centuries, but the Unicorn, now no longer the last of her kind, took no notice of the ebb and flow of the seasons. Not that any other than spring touched her lilac wood now that she had returned. She could see small signs of age, of the ravages time made in her home while she was questing with the strange man and barren woman.
Who were they? They had names, she remembered, but those names were painful, full of regret for a past she was never meant to have. She had forgotten those names, but sometimes late in the night they would come to her. It had been fewer and fewer as of late, but when she remembered too strongly, longed for that past life and a love denied her by magic and immortality, that he came.
He was the only constant, the only remaining link to that old history and she resented him for that as well as cherished it. He no longer frightened her with his large red bulk and pointed scar-colored horns. She never lost her glow in his presence now that he no longer hunted her. Ever since the first death, he had ceased to frighten her. She had found something greater to fear then the Red Bull. Strange irony that what she feared now would never touch her, she the beautiful immortal being with a human heart.
She waited in the usual place by the placid lake at the edge of her wood. The soft breeze blowing the scent of wildflowers and musk over the rolling meadow that stretched out before her. He came softly, as he always did. The light of the still night gradually lightening in intensity until everything around her was illuminated and tinged with red haze. And then he was there, as if she had blinked in one moment and the next as if he had always been standing there. His blind eyes regarded her, the air between them solemn.
Had she always been so solemn, she mused, her amaranthine eyes returning that immeasurable gaze. She didn't think it was so, she had not always been so serious, there had been happiness, a quiet joy and pleasure she'd taken in her forest; even on the quest she'd endured there had been good memories.
"Does sorrow always follow joy?" she asked. She knew the answer before he gave it, a rumbling bellow; a sort of indifference not meant cruelly but because he honestly could not say. She tossed her mane, "Never mind," she said softly. A pause, then, "I am glad to see you." It wasn't entirely a lie; it was even, for that moment at least, a truth. The Red Bull snorted and she whickered in response, "Perhaps I am still a little human, somewhere inside. But it is good to have a friend, even a strange friend, such as you." She watched the bull rock his head from side to side as if in agreement with her. They were both strange companions: one a creature of awe, the other of terror. They stayed in companionable silence for most of the late hours of the night. No words needed to fill the space between them. Theirs was a kind of complete understanding and unfathomable unfamiliarity.
The Unicorn wondered why he came. What pull could she have on something so ancient? She wondered if he even knew himself. She never asked. Finally, as she felt the first fingers of false dawn touch on the horizon she broke the silence, "He died, long ago." The bull rumbled a deep vibration of sound, compassionate and knowing. "It was a good death, and he was old. He forgot there were two hearts." She lapsed back into silence, "He never did fear death," she said softly, almost to herself, her eyes lost in memories of centuries past, "My Lir, my beloved Lir."
The bull shifted his weight and she asked, "How are they?" He rumbled once more, shaking his massive head. The Unicorn watched his horns sway in the new light. She nodded, her head feeling suddenly as heavy as her heart. She wanted to rest, to dream. She was very tired. As if knowing their time was at an end the Red Bull walked slowly away, disappearing into the early morning light like he had on the first day he'd come to her, challenging and terrifying. She watched him go, a strange mix of melancholy and relief mingling inside her, and she knew he would come back.