I apologize for the wait. Life is life, you know, but here is the first tiny bit of the sequel to What Curiosity Killed, A Foal's Fondest Wish.
Ch. 1
Spawn
Gump awoke with a powerful twitch as he lay in his pile of ash where the fire had been. This part of the woods was cold, too cold now, and too dark. He sat up and pulled a rabbit skin around his shoulders, looking this way and that with a nervous glance. The shadows surrounding him seemed to move with their own sort of eerie life, and circled him in discomforting silence. He stumbled haphazardly across snapping twigs into a clearing in the canopy where the stars shone down. He breathed a quiet sigh, letting the starlight warm his face—not with its light, but with its hope.
"Monoceros!" he whispered, relaxing his muscles and craning his neck back to gaze at the heavens, "The unicorn stars!"
How bright they were! How radiant to see tonight, from the lightless forest!
A shadow fell over Gump's face, and the stars were smothered. A fearsome being stood before him, with horns like a beast and eyes like a man and skin as white as the grave.
He spoke in deep tones, but the smooth reverberations of Darkness's voice were not present. Instead, the voice was hardened and rough. "And where there is death, so there is life... so too, I expect, for you, little fairy."
The being took Gump by the scruff of his neck, and the little elf kicked and screamed and wailed, "Let me go! Let me go! I want no part of it! No part!"
The being only laughed derisively at his struggle, "Oh, you do not?" He looked into Gump's frightened eyes, invading them, invading his mind and his heart with an inky, sickening feeling.
Gump tried to push back, tried to learn some weakness from the powerful being's essence as it stole from his. Xaoc, the being was called, and it was a demon. It smiled down at Gump knowingly through a row of needle-like teeth.
"Your friends have abandoned you. Oona, Jack... and the power of my brother's brood captivates this wood day by day. Your home is … disappearing. Chaos... surrounds you." He stuck a long, pointed tongue out and wrapped it around Gump's head, resting its point against his nose, and licked the entire tongue back into his mouth with a satisfied slurp. "Little elf, your time is at an end. Either change as you must, or perish because you are not able."
"I won't be a goblin! I won't be a goblin!" he fussed. Xaoc only held him higher, tightening his muscular grip around the elf's neck. Gump felt his life slipping away from his eyes.
A majestic bray echoed through the wood. Xaoc dropped Gump in a pile of leaves, and turned to see the unicorn, swollen and pregnant, stampeding towards him with her horn lowered to strike. The demon vanished in a cloud of mist. Gump coughed and pulled himself up through the crinkling leaves to look at her.
"... And where there is death... so there is life," he rasped, wide eyed, bending on both knees before the unicorn that had saved his life, as he had saved her life many years ago, "A foal!"
The mother unicorn was not like the timid creature that Gump recalled from his adventure many years ago with Oona and Jack and the traitor princess. This mare's eyes were blazing black, and she reared up on her hind legs and whinnied. Gump could just make out by the starlight that her shimmering golden horn was stained at the tip with black goblin blood.
"Easy, girl! Danger's gone. It wasn't come for your young..." Gump whispered, eyes wide.
The unicorn trotted in place, abdomen swaying as it pounded the rage out of its hooves into the forest earth.
"I see," said Gump, using a tree to help him to his feet. "But mother, you must rest now. One unicorn should not bear the burden of the whole forest. It is not your fault." Gump sighed, and thought to himself, if anything, it was his. He should have taken responsibility for the wayward humans, but he succeeded only in stalling the waves of darkness to come.
The unicorn breathed heavily, and slowly approached the elf. Its horn began to glow as it lowered its head gently. She rested the horn against Gump's shoulder, and he felt a warm, rich emotion rise in his belly. It felt like the reason to stand up for good and truth and light and beauty... It felt like life. It brought tears to the small elf's eyes as it healed the bruises forming on his neck.
"Mother unicorn," said Gump, bowing his head, "I swear, I will protect and defend you and your child with my life, against all others, no matter what I must do or who I must slay. If by my hand I can save you, your radiance shall not fade."
"Far from the forest, in a land between the Heavens and the Earth, there is a ceaseless tornado, spinning up into the clouds. In the twister is a tiny house with only one room. It bobs endlessly in the swirling grip of the winds. Inside it lives a single ancient angel, Helena the Gray. Caught between the worlds of light and dark, the angel watches her kin, the demonic and the angelic, hoping to find truth. At least, so the stories go..."
Lili, Queen of Darkness, smiled as she peered over the runic book at her newest brood of eggs. They were scaly and black and glistened with moisture. "Do you like the story?" she asked. They gave a little wobble, perhaps an indication.
"Well," She held the book closer to her face to read again, and was interrupted by an awful squawking.
"Get them, get them!" called Blunder the Goblin, chasing after a ribbiting stampede of toads. The two chefs lumbered into the room, dopily turning this way and that to collect their stray ingredients.
Blunder heaved a deep sigh, standing up next to where the dark lady sat, and still had to look up to meet her gaze. "So sorry, mistress. The Lord sure does love his toady-face pie," he chuckled halfheartedly before his tone changed to anger, "But these KNUCKLEHEADS can't seem to keep the toads IN THE KITCHEN!"
Lili laughed sincerely, eyes dancing, and scooped up one of the little toads from the nest of eggs. "What's the matter, don't be so uptight!" she stuck out her tongue, "Can't you handle a little-"
"Chaos." came the warm, rich voice of Lord Darkness.
"Exactly," Lili lifted to her feet and embraced him. He closed his eyes and purred, but then looked at her with worry.
"My brother, Xaoc, has just left us for the domain of the angels. He took no time to mention why, and Monoceros burns bright. What can it mean?"
Lili looked upon his wrinkled red face and remembered long, long ago when she had met the unicorns. It was a different life. It was a different world. Lili gave up the life of a human woman to live in the delights of Darkness, forever a demon bride. She had not kept track of how many years it had been. She walked arm in arm with the demon lord up to their nest where the eggs rested, contemplating silently.
Darkness held her close to him, "Your thoughts are transparent as the dew, my lady," he kissed her forehead. "But do not trouble yourself for the past. It disturbs the..." he reached out his hand and moved his fingers over the black lumpy mounds, "Eggs."
Lili felt a surge of lust, and sank her teeth into the demon's shoulder. High above, the celestial angels listened as Xaoc the Defiler and Helena the Gray told them the meaning of the brightest stars—that a foal was about to be born into the world below.