She dropped her head, her seashell horn dragging designs in the dirt of no purpose, no importance. If she dug into the soft ground hard enough, flipped her head backwards fast enough, the tip of the horn would break off, interred forever in the lilac wood; but what good would it do? She was too mortal to make spring come again. Her head was heavy and her joints felt old.

Her knees slowly folded beneath her, and her body followed, and now she watched the horn fall into the water. The water split around it into a kalideoscope of color and the subtle sounds of flowing liquid. When the forest moved, the water rippled. Squirrel eating an acorn: ripple. Petal falling from a flower: ripple. A smell wafting through the air: ripple. The pounding of hoofbeats on the road: ripple...

"Lir."

He was coming.

Did she want him to?

Lir knew she was nearby, knew with as much certainly as if she stood before him now, nebulous mane descending in an alabaster cloud over her slender neck. He had been impatient and snappish throughout the entire journey, directing Schmendrick as a spoiled child might any normal servant. Well, now she was in a clearing nearby.

A unicorn blocked the path.

Not his unicorn; not his Amalthea. He didn't know how he knew, but he did: the tiny differences in height, in muscle, in breadth of clear eyes, in the way the sun streaming through gossamer leaves of a weeping willow bounced off the horn in rainbow hue. "Where is Amalthea?" fretted Lir, too high-stung, almost a parallel to his formal self, that killed dragons and only read of unicorns.

The unicorn spoke unto them, and the voice was definitely male: "She has told me the story. What makes you think she would see you?"

Lir was busy sorting out the significance of his beloved Amalthea having a male companion, so Schmendrick took it upon himself to reply. "Story. Who are you? How do you know who we are?"

"Because he's a unicorn," announced Molly Grue, surprising no one as Lir was too preoccupied and Schmendrick knew Molly too well to expect her to stay behind. "He knows. Leave her alone, Schmendrick; can't you see she has found a love at last?"

"She has a love!" roared Lir, shaking his fist, but not at the stallion, but at the sun, and he stared at the glowing orb unblinking. "She has one, and she does not need another! She will see me!"

"My name," said the unicorn to Molly, recognizing her as the only salvageable human in evidence, "is Koshayn. The unicorn Amalthea - "

"I will see him," came a quiet voice, a voice heavy with wisdom, and regret. And there she was before him in all her splendid glory, the creature of legends stuffed into a cruel reality, with lilacs in her eyes and in her tail. "Hello... Lir."

Koshayn switched his tail but maintained his calm demeanor. "You will not lay a hand on her," was his stern warning as Lir reached to stroke her nose, and to the shock of everyone present, she pulled away of her own accord.

"Why?" screamed Lir in the cracked whisper of a man near broken, "why do you shrink from me? You love me still; I feel you love me! You care nothing for this Koshayn - " he spat the word with contempt " - so let Schmendrick change you back, so that you may be happy!"

She looked at Schmendrick; he said, "I will do as you wish, my lady."

And she said this: "The part of me that is mortal loves you still. The part of me that is immortal loves you but understands that you are but a mayfly to me, and Koshayn is of my own blood. A unicorn's love is not a light thing; this you know. Two unicorns in a lilac wood..." She trailed into silence.

"What do you want?" breathed Molly, resisting the urge to run to her, to warm her cold hands on the fire of neverending life.

"I want... I want..." She didn't know. She didn't know.

"You want to be human!"

And Lir lunged at Schmendrick and caught the bungling magician by the cape; a knife flashed into existence, pressed against the man's throat. "Say the spell or die!"

"Lir, you are mad," quivered Amalthea, her breath coming in short gasps, "you are not the Lir I know!"

"No!" he cried in anguish, watching a rivelet of blood trickle like a man mesmerized even as he spoke. "I am not the Lir you know, because I am not Lir without Amalthea! Damn you, magician, say the spell or we shall both perish in a pool of blood."

"Rather melodramatic," said a passing butterfly, "don't you think?"

Schmendrick studied lir. He glanced at Molly. He looked at Koshayn. He gazed deep into the eyes of the unicorn herself.

He knew what to do.

"Magic!" he yelled into the sorcerous winds, "do... as... SHE WILL!"

And the magic rushed out the Schmendrick's fingers

and it spun in with visible, near tangible beauty about her body

and it embraced her mind and sought her desire

and it could find no decision. How could she choose between the love and life she had had and new could never be, and the love and life she had now but that could not resist the temptation? So the magic reacted to the paradox in the only way it could.

And when the smoke cleared, and the dust parted, and natural light shone once more, there were two figures lying in the dust where once were one.

One was a young woman.

The other was a unicorn.

To be continued? Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe I should end it here and let -you- try to figure out what happened... and what -will- happen... all depends on the reviews. ^_- i'm shameless, i know.