DISCLAIMER & AUTHOR'S NOTE: At last, the title is explained! (Sort of, anyway. Don't worry, there's more coming) You know who's mine and who's Marvel's...or *do* you? BWA-HAHA! ahem Anyhoo, I saw both "A Knight's Tale" and "Shakespeare in Love" for the first time on the same day, so blame this on them. (If you read with music playing, might I suggest "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues? It goes great with this chapter.)
Unicorn: Part VI
by Misty (Neblina2000@aol.com)
While they had eaten, night had fallen on the manor house. The sky was layers of dark silk, flowing from a pale purple at the horizon to the deepest black high in the clouds. A cool breeze rustled skirts and hair, bringing with it the smell of rain and flowers from the garden. Tiny pinpricks of light dotted the sky as the stars winked into being, one by one, as if shy of their simple, tranquil beauty. If he had been a poetic man, Logan would have compared them to diamonds nestled within the folds of a black velvet cloak whispering its way into infinity.
But alas, he was not, and the only way he knew to describe the night was perfect. As was the feeling of walking arm in arm with Nichole. He felt a calm peace fall over him, and allowed himself to relax, letting the tension flow out of him on the breeze. Life, at this moment, this particular breath of time, was perfect, and nothing could alter it.
"All right, Logan. You have delayed long enough. I want to know what happened in there. Why were you so frightened of that man?"
Did he say nothing? *Dammit!*
Logan stiffened. "I wasn't afraid of him."
"Ah, I see."
He dropped her arm and stepped away slightly, distancing himself from her. "It was nothing. Just forget it ever--"
Nichole slowed to a stop and caught his arm, and he noticed how the moonlight cought in the highlights of her hair. Staring deep into his eyes she murmured, "I am sorry. I never should have suggested you were afraid." At his hard stare, she shrugged, but her voice remained steady and firm. "I understand what admitting to fear means to you, and men like you. You think it means weakness, and weakness cannot be tolerated if one is to survive. I don't see it that way, I'm afraid. I feel it is a trademark of humanity to have feelings, to be afraid or happy or sad... It makes us who we are. Know this, Logan: I vow that nothing you ever say to me will make me think less of you, no matter how horrible you may feel it is. Do you understand?"
He wished he didn't. That little voice was in his head again. *She's lying. She doesn't know it, but she's lying. If she knew what you know, if she knew what you *are*--*
Logan pushed the familiar paranoia back into his mind, where it belonged, and answered her first question, in order to avoid the second. The odd feelings that seeing the priest had evoked had long passed, and Logan was well aware of how strange he sounded -- and hated it. His voice was a bark of sound as he pushed the word between clenched jaws. "Death."
Nichole blinked, obviously shocked and confused by his answer. "What?"
"I have no other way to describe it to you, but the man smells like death. Old death...*Bad* death. I've seen it enough to recognize it, and it clung around him like a leech. It stank so much it was painful."
Nichole looked away from him and began to walk again, her forehead creased with worry lines. Logan fell into step beside her and prayed to a god he wasn't sure would listen that she wouldn't dismiss his confession as mere fantasy.
She looked up at him after a moment. "The Bishop said that Father Desmond was coming from the east, where there are rumors of plague. Perhaps he was administering to the ill there?"
"Yeah...You're probably right. I was just overreacting." The open boils developed by victims of the plague smelled horribly, and it was very possible that a man just coming from tending them would carry the scent, especially on his unwashed clothing. Logan did his best to assure himself that that was all, he had only reacted to something he wasn't expecting -- or wanting -- to come into contact with.
"I suppose... Strange how no one else noticed. In all the commotion I didn't sense a thing."
They strolled for a moment more in silence, each thinking their own thoughts of priests and plagues. Logan was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and decided to change the subject. "You know, I don't think I've ever met a woman like you."
Nichole laughed. "Thank you, I shall take that as a compliment. Exactly how many women *have* you known Sir Logan? And noble ones, no less?"
He knew sarcasm when he heard it and smiled. "No, not like that. I just mean that you're different. You never do what's expected of you, and I respect that. Like you damn near pouncing on Buckethead at dinner." She snorted rather inelegantly, yet again proving his point. "And you reading in the yard this afternoon. What were you reading anyway?"
"That? Oh, it's a beastiary."
"See! At first I had you pegged for the poetry and prose type. You're just breaking expectations all over aren't ya?" She blushed, a smile curling the edges of her mouth. "Now what could possibly interest a woman -- and a noble one, no less -- in a book full of animal tales?"
She grinned at his gentle gibe, as he had intended her to. "My mind should not be limited by the sex that it is encased in, Sir Logan. My father taught me that, and every day I thank the Lord for his foresight in allowing his daughter to do and be as she wished, be it weaving as expected, or educated as it is most definitely not."
"Your father sounds like a good man," Logan said, unable to stop the memories of his own father from rising to the surface. The last time they had spoken...had been less than affectionate. "You must have been heartbroken when he died."
Nichole sighed. "Yes, I was. I was eleven, and felt as if the world had dropped from under me. To this day I wake from bad dreams and expect him to wrap his arms around me, telling me it will be all right...it seems as if I always have bad dreams now." She took a deep breath, banishing the memories and pain back to the depths of her mind, and focused on the man walking next to her. "But to answer your question: there is much a woman like me finds interesting in the animal world. I find it fascinating. Take the unicorn for example -- one cannot find a more interesting story then *that* animal's biography."
"Unicorn?"
"Surely you've heard of it?" He told her that he vaguely associated the word with a goat-like thing he saw on a lord's banner once, and didn't think it warranted *any* interest at all. It was rather ugly now that he thought of it. She smothered a laugh with the back of her palm and went on. "It must have been a bad weaving. In most stories, a unicorn is the most beautiful animal in all the world, exhibiting a grace like unto an angel, with a pearly white mane and coat and a horn of golden bone protruding from its forehead. Normally they are elusive, and have a love of solitude, never straying from their forest home. The legend goes that the animals gathered at sunset to drink from the Great Water only to find it fouled undrinkable by the venom of a serpent. The unicorn arrives and dips his horn in the water, and instantly it is pure and cleansed. It is well known that the horn of such a beast contains magic, and has the power to cure sickness and poison in any who possess one."
"Sounds like a pretty useful animal. Why hasn't anyone ever caught one?"
"That's what makes it so interesting. The horn isn't used strictly for making ponds drinkable. The beast is extremely aggressive, and is too fleet and fierce to be captured. The only way to lure it out of it's forest is to use bait -- a young virgin, can you believe it? This ferocious creature will meekly surrender itself to her innocence, entranced and helpless before it. And then, when the unicorn's head is lying in her lap as though a loyal dog, the woman breaks the horn in half, and the hunters come to kill it with a spear through the breast. The horn and hide are sold to the rich, and the woman, virtue proven in the capture of the beast, is married to the highest bidder...It's very sad really, such a beautifully dangerous animal trapped by innocence..."
Logan, who had been absorbed in the distant look in Nichole's eyes as she spoke of the unicorn, understood entirely how the animal felt. "I never knew that."
She smiled. "Well, now you do. Where did you come from Sir Logan, that you have never heard tell of unicorns?"
He sighed and looked about him at the garden. "Far away from here, my Lady. This is all new to me."
Nichole shook her head in bewilderment, smile firmly in place. "I have never met anyone like you before, either. I look at you and I wonder: who is this man, that would dare challenge a knight, then let him live only to take his *horse*? His manner and appearance is course and unrefined, yet he holds his own in dignified company, and has proven to be a most splendid person to stroll through a garden with." She giggled when he couldn't stop the blush from rising in his cheeks, then grew serious. "But there is a sadness within you, Logan. A deep, fathomable sadness. And fear as well. Forgive me but I am not afraid to say it, though I believe *you* are... And in a man whose honor and strength are easy to see, that hidden turmoil is frightening."
They had stopped walking, and stood a mere handsbreadth from each other. Logan's mouth betrayed him and opened to tell her everything; the war, the pain, the church, *everything*. "Nichole, I --"
Her hand covered his lips. "No. Don't say something that you will damn yourself for later. I told you I would listen and understand you, Logan, I did not say that you must go against your instincts. What you feel must be kept secret *will* be, until you decide when to tell me, and are not compelled to in a garden under the stars..."
Her concerned ranting wore down to a pause, and his hand came up to cover her own, his thumb stroking a slow circle on her fingers. He pulled it away from his skin far enough to place a warm kiss on her knuckles, the flutter of his breath across her arm making her shiver. She closed her eyes as he bent his head toward hers. She could feel his hot breath on her face --
"Nichole? Are you out here? Nichole?" Alicia's voice tore through the pair like a knife through butter, and each took a staggering step backward. Logan cleared his throat and ran an unsteady hand through his hair while Nichole began to furiously fan herself. In a thready voice she called out to her brother's wife.
Alicia swayed into their midst, huge belly swaying gently as she walked. Jon couldn't keep her abed forever, and she had used the excuse of a stroll to stretch her legs to get away from him. She followed a hunch and was glad to see her suspicions had been correct: here stood Logan and her sister, flushed, blushed and unwanting company. *My, my,* she thought with a smile, *what have I interrupted, I wonder?* She smiled and greeted them happily. After a grunted "h'lo" from Logan, she turned to Nichole and suggested that the two of them depart inside, as the weather was turning chilly and it was getting very late in the night.
Nichole turned to Logan, a blush firm on her cheeks and a slight glint in her eye. She curtsied and smiled demurely, as if sharing a private joke. "I am afraid it *has* gotten a little late, and 'women like me' must get our rest. Goodnight Sir Logan. Perhaps we may meet at breakfast, and continue our discussion then?"
Logan grinned wolfishly and performed a surprisingly gracious bow. "I would like that very much my Lady."
------------------------
I've just given you readers a lot of healthy foreshadowing. Can you guess where? evil grin To be continued, if I'm not wasting my time...coughfeedback!cough cough
Unicorn: Part VI
by Misty (Neblina2000@aol.com)
While they had eaten, night had fallen on the manor house. The sky was layers of dark silk, flowing from a pale purple at the horizon to the deepest black high in the clouds. A cool breeze rustled skirts and hair, bringing with it the smell of rain and flowers from the garden. Tiny pinpricks of light dotted the sky as the stars winked into being, one by one, as if shy of their simple, tranquil beauty. If he had been a poetic man, Logan would have compared them to diamonds nestled within the folds of a black velvet cloak whispering its way into infinity.
But alas, he was not, and the only way he knew to describe the night was perfect. As was the feeling of walking arm in arm with Nichole. He felt a calm peace fall over him, and allowed himself to relax, letting the tension flow out of him on the breeze. Life, at this moment, this particular breath of time, was perfect, and nothing could alter it.
"All right, Logan. You have delayed long enough. I want to know what happened in there. Why were you so frightened of that man?"
Did he say nothing? *Dammit!*
Logan stiffened. "I wasn't afraid of him."
"Ah, I see."
He dropped her arm and stepped away slightly, distancing himself from her. "It was nothing. Just forget it ever--"
Nichole slowed to a stop and caught his arm, and he noticed how the moonlight cought in the highlights of her hair. Staring deep into his eyes she murmured, "I am sorry. I never should have suggested you were afraid." At his hard stare, she shrugged, but her voice remained steady and firm. "I understand what admitting to fear means to you, and men like you. You think it means weakness, and weakness cannot be tolerated if one is to survive. I don't see it that way, I'm afraid. I feel it is a trademark of humanity to have feelings, to be afraid or happy or sad... It makes us who we are. Know this, Logan: I vow that nothing you ever say to me will make me think less of you, no matter how horrible you may feel it is. Do you understand?"
He wished he didn't. That little voice was in his head again. *She's lying. She doesn't know it, but she's lying. If she knew what you know, if she knew what you *are*--*
Logan pushed the familiar paranoia back into his mind, where it belonged, and answered her first question, in order to avoid the second. The odd feelings that seeing the priest had evoked had long passed, and Logan was well aware of how strange he sounded -- and hated it. His voice was a bark of sound as he pushed the word between clenched jaws. "Death."
Nichole blinked, obviously shocked and confused by his answer. "What?"
"I have no other way to describe it to you, but the man smells like death. Old death...*Bad* death. I've seen it enough to recognize it, and it clung around him like a leech. It stank so much it was painful."
Nichole looked away from him and began to walk again, her forehead creased with worry lines. Logan fell into step beside her and prayed to a god he wasn't sure would listen that she wouldn't dismiss his confession as mere fantasy.
She looked up at him after a moment. "The Bishop said that Father Desmond was coming from the east, where there are rumors of plague. Perhaps he was administering to the ill there?"
"Yeah...You're probably right. I was just overreacting." The open boils developed by victims of the plague smelled horribly, and it was very possible that a man just coming from tending them would carry the scent, especially on his unwashed clothing. Logan did his best to assure himself that that was all, he had only reacted to something he wasn't expecting -- or wanting -- to come into contact with.
"I suppose... Strange how no one else noticed. In all the commotion I didn't sense a thing."
They strolled for a moment more in silence, each thinking their own thoughts of priests and plagues. Logan was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and decided to change the subject. "You know, I don't think I've ever met a woman like you."
Nichole laughed. "Thank you, I shall take that as a compliment. Exactly how many women *have* you known Sir Logan? And noble ones, no less?"
He knew sarcasm when he heard it and smiled. "No, not like that. I just mean that you're different. You never do what's expected of you, and I respect that. Like you damn near pouncing on Buckethead at dinner." She snorted rather inelegantly, yet again proving his point. "And you reading in the yard this afternoon. What were you reading anyway?"
"That? Oh, it's a beastiary."
"See! At first I had you pegged for the poetry and prose type. You're just breaking expectations all over aren't ya?" She blushed, a smile curling the edges of her mouth. "Now what could possibly interest a woman -- and a noble one, no less -- in a book full of animal tales?"
She grinned at his gentle gibe, as he had intended her to. "My mind should not be limited by the sex that it is encased in, Sir Logan. My father taught me that, and every day I thank the Lord for his foresight in allowing his daughter to do and be as she wished, be it weaving as expected, or educated as it is most definitely not."
"Your father sounds like a good man," Logan said, unable to stop the memories of his own father from rising to the surface. The last time they had spoken...had been less than affectionate. "You must have been heartbroken when he died."
Nichole sighed. "Yes, I was. I was eleven, and felt as if the world had dropped from under me. To this day I wake from bad dreams and expect him to wrap his arms around me, telling me it will be all right...it seems as if I always have bad dreams now." She took a deep breath, banishing the memories and pain back to the depths of her mind, and focused on the man walking next to her. "But to answer your question: there is much a woman like me finds interesting in the animal world. I find it fascinating. Take the unicorn for example -- one cannot find a more interesting story then *that* animal's biography."
"Unicorn?"
"Surely you've heard of it?" He told her that he vaguely associated the word with a goat-like thing he saw on a lord's banner once, and didn't think it warranted *any* interest at all. It was rather ugly now that he thought of it. She smothered a laugh with the back of her palm and went on. "It must have been a bad weaving. In most stories, a unicorn is the most beautiful animal in all the world, exhibiting a grace like unto an angel, with a pearly white mane and coat and a horn of golden bone protruding from its forehead. Normally they are elusive, and have a love of solitude, never straying from their forest home. The legend goes that the animals gathered at sunset to drink from the Great Water only to find it fouled undrinkable by the venom of a serpent. The unicorn arrives and dips his horn in the water, and instantly it is pure and cleansed. It is well known that the horn of such a beast contains magic, and has the power to cure sickness and poison in any who possess one."
"Sounds like a pretty useful animal. Why hasn't anyone ever caught one?"
"That's what makes it so interesting. The horn isn't used strictly for making ponds drinkable. The beast is extremely aggressive, and is too fleet and fierce to be captured. The only way to lure it out of it's forest is to use bait -- a young virgin, can you believe it? This ferocious creature will meekly surrender itself to her innocence, entranced and helpless before it. And then, when the unicorn's head is lying in her lap as though a loyal dog, the woman breaks the horn in half, and the hunters come to kill it with a spear through the breast. The horn and hide are sold to the rich, and the woman, virtue proven in the capture of the beast, is married to the highest bidder...It's very sad really, such a beautifully dangerous animal trapped by innocence..."
Logan, who had been absorbed in the distant look in Nichole's eyes as she spoke of the unicorn, understood entirely how the animal felt. "I never knew that."
She smiled. "Well, now you do. Where did you come from Sir Logan, that you have never heard tell of unicorns?"
He sighed and looked about him at the garden. "Far away from here, my Lady. This is all new to me."
Nichole shook her head in bewilderment, smile firmly in place. "I have never met anyone like you before, either. I look at you and I wonder: who is this man, that would dare challenge a knight, then let him live only to take his *horse*? His manner and appearance is course and unrefined, yet he holds his own in dignified company, and has proven to be a most splendid person to stroll through a garden with." She giggled when he couldn't stop the blush from rising in his cheeks, then grew serious. "But there is a sadness within you, Logan. A deep, fathomable sadness. And fear as well. Forgive me but I am not afraid to say it, though I believe *you* are... And in a man whose honor and strength are easy to see, that hidden turmoil is frightening."
They had stopped walking, and stood a mere handsbreadth from each other. Logan's mouth betrayed him and opened to tell her everything; the war, the pain, the church, *everything*. "Nichole, I --"
Her hand covered his lips. "No. Don't say something that you will damn yourself for later. I told you I would listen and understand you, Logan, I did not say that you must go against your instincts. What you feel must be kept secret *will* be, until you decide when to tell me, and are not compelled to in a garden under the stars..."
Her concerned ranting wore down to a pause, and his hand came up to cover her own, his thumb stroking a slow circle on her fingers. He pulled it away from his skin far enough to place a warm kiss on her knuckles, the flutter of his breath across her arm making her shiver. She closed her eyes as he bent his head toward hers. She could feel his hot breath on her face --
"Nichole? Are you out here? Nichole?" Alicia's voice tore through the pair like a knife through butter, and each took a staggering step backward. Logan cleared his throat and ran an unsteady hand through his hair while Nichole began to furiously fan herself. In a thready voice she called out to her brother's wife.
Alicia swayed into their midst, huge belly swaying gently as she walked. Jon couldn't keep her abed forever, and she had used the excuse of a stroll to stretch her legs to get away from him. She followed a hunch and was glad to see her suspicions had been correct: here stood Logan and her sister, flushed, blushed and unwanting company. *My, my,* she thought with a smile, *what have I interrupted, I wonder?* She smiled and greeted them happily. After a grunted "h'lo" from Logan, she turned to Nichole and suggested that the two of them depart inside, as the weather was turning chilly and it was getting very late in the night.
Nichole turned to Logan, a blush firm on her cheeks and a slight glint in her eye. She curtsied and smiled demurely, as if sharing a private joke. "I am afraid it *has* gotten a little late, and 'women like me' must get our rest. Goodnight Sir Logan. Perhaps we may meet at breakfast, and continue our discussion then?"
Logan grinned wolfishly and performed a surprisingly gracious bow. "I would like that very much my Lady."
------------------------
I've just given you readers a lot of healthy foreshadowing. Can you guess where? evil grin To be continued, if I'm not wasting my time...coughfeedback!cough cough