AN: Yeah so I'm not as pleased with this chapter as I could be . . . I'm not exactly sure what happened with it. Oh well, next chapter I'm planning on a little more action. Hope everyone enjoys. Oh yeah and if anyone has a suggestion for a title, that would be great. Latahs!

Visions

"We must find you a name then." Lir had said, and the unicorn looked to him expectantly. Her father looked back and then said, "Gods, I have no idea how that wizard came up with one for your mother so fast."

"Then why not name her after her mother?" Rhett suggested.

Lir looked to Rhett for a moment, then back to his daughter. "Thea. What do you think?" he asked.

"I think it suits me fine." She replied a smile gracing her near perfect features.

After that day things seemed almost perfect. She had found her father, and for the first time in her life she felt like she belonged. Among humans there were several different degrees of personalities. She didn't have to worry about getting angry, or sad, or even being too happy. She wasn't expected to be perfect in this place. She was what she was and it was fine with everyone, fine with the townspeople, fine with her father, and fine with Rhett.

But like any good thing, it doesn't last forever. And Thea could feel the winds of change coming down upon her, and those around her. She could feel them coming, the ones who had taken her before were, like they'd said, returning for what they had been sent to claim in the first place.

"Thea?" She jumped at the sound of Rhett's voice and looked up from where she had been sitting beneath the oak tree in front of her father's house to see Rhett standing over her. "Are you all right? You looked as though you were in a completely different world."

"I have a bad feeling, like something horrible is coming." She replied pulling her shawl tighter around her as the wind began to pick up. "They're coming back for me."

"Are you sure?" he asked worried.

"I may not be full unicorn, and I may be in human form now, but their blood still runs through my veins. I can sense it. It may be the difference between my mother and I, in human form. She lost her immortality. I can't because I was never completely immortal to begin with." She replied.

"I won't let them." Rhett said calmly. The worry completely gone and he now sounded absolutely certain.

"How will you do such a thing, Rhett? They have power, beyond what you know. They've been doing . . . horrible things to the creatures of legend. I never told you how they caught me." She said.

Rhett took a seat next to her. "No you didn't."

"They caught be with ropes strung from unicorn's manes. Who ever they are, what ever controls them . . . it has no respect for such creatures, for anything, any life. They take what does not belong to them, what cannot belong to them. It – it frightens me, Rhett. They could take hold of me like they have so many others."

They didn't say anything for a time, just sat there without looking at each other. "Sometimes I fear I will follow in near exact detail, my mother's footsteps. So much that I've done already seems to be so similar. I'm worried, about so many things, but what I fear most is that what happened between my father and my mother will happen to me as well."

Rhett sounded surprised. "You are afraid to love?"

"No . . . not to love. To lose. I don't know how it is that she can bear knowing love and then losing it. I, because of my heritage, have known love since the moment I was born, but had no one to share it with and the thought of finding that someone only to lose them. . ." She began shaking her head and sighed. There was no reply from Rhett, so she turned to look at him.

"Thea if I – well I mean to say I . . ." His hands were shaking and she could see he was avoiding looking at her.

Thea took his hands in hers to stop the shaking and said, "I said I felt I was following in my mother's footsteps." She said then trailed off. "Well you know the story." And she smiled and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder.

Rhett woke up that night, in a cold sweat, from a nightmare to horrible to recount. All that he was willing to acknowledge was that there was so much death, and blood, even he, a man trained to be a hero, by a hero to kill any beasts that would threaten the town they now lived in, was horrified. He ran his hands through his hair and looked to Thea sleeping peacefully beside him. Was this dream a sign of the horrible things Thea predicted would come?

It seemed like only yesterday that he had come to help her that night in the square, but in reality she had been living in Lir's house for three months now. Looking at her now he could hardly believe she was really there. Lir was a prince and a hero, it made sense that such paths would cross. Yes Lir had been adopted but he'd been raised a prince. Rhett had been found, a peasants son, and raised as an assistant hero. What sort of role was that?

Thea's eyes fluttered open in that moment and she looked up at him. "Are you all right?" She asked.

"I had a nightmare." He said.

Thea sat up pulling the sheet around her and took his hand. "About what?" she asked worried.

"I can't remember now." Rhett lied. Thea continued to stare at him worry still in her eyes. "I'll be fine, I promise. I was just thinking for a moment."

"And what were you thinking about?" she asked.

"About how it is you came to be here with me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean. What you are and what I am . . . we're not exactly on equal terms." He explained.

"That's foolish. You can't compare the two of us to my parents." She said as though reading his mind. "We're under different circumstances and we're completely different people. Now I know what I said before, about what has happened being very similar to what happened to my mother, but it was still different. Don't ever think you don't deserve me. My father deserved my mother . . . she just made a different choice."

"It just seems almost like a fairytale what happened to them. A fairytale without the happy ending." Rhett sighed.

"Nothing has a happy ending. We must just take things for what they are."

"And what are they?"

"Complicated."

Thea and Rhett were sitting beneath the same tree in front of Lir's house that afternoon when they saw him returning home in a hurry. "We need to go."

"Why? What's going on?" Rhett asked.

"The caravan has returned. They're in town now asking around for a young woman with long black hair and a star-like scar on her forehead." Lir replied leaping off his horse, somewhat out of breath.

"What should we do? Where can we go?" Rhett asked.

"For now, anywhere away from here. Once we get Thea to a safe place we'll have time to think. There isn't much time now, we must grab whatever we can that we need and get moving. It won't be long before someone tells them that Thea is here." Lir said.

The three ran about the house, grabbing whatever they could find and in a few more minutes were off on their horses riding away from the town and into the surrounding forest. They rode non-stop for hours until finally Lir raised his hand signaling them to stop. "This should be good for now. They are in a caravan so they'll be much slower than us. But the more distance between us the better."

"Where do we go from here?" Thea asked.

"I'm not sure. But if you are ever to be free of these people Thea we must find out who it is that is looking for you. I should have been more cautious. I should have known they would be back for you sooner or later. I let my guard down for too long." Lir sighed shaking his head. "I have an idea of where we can seek help though. We'll be there by noon tomorrow if we start riding again at first light." He continued looking to the setting sun.

"The wizard?" Thea asked.

Lir nodded. "You'll find him quite different from how you mother may have described him. Hopefully he won't turn us away."