The Balinor Chronicles: The Celestial Herd
Chapter Forty- Seven: Time
This Chapter is dedicated to Dark Unicorn Lurking: 46 chapters in one night!
Turning, turning, turning through the years.
Minutes into hours and the hours in years.
Nothing changes, nothing ever can:
Round and round the roundabout and back where you began;
Turning, turning, turning, turning, turning through the years!
Turning, from Les Meserables
Recall if, you will, the Tale of Acheates and Adonis.
More than Arioch entered through that door.
The Valley changed slightly. Just enough not to be noticed. Grass yellowed and dried out. Trees stopped budding and left behind old, rotting trunks. Unicorns felt life slowly fade, as joints became stiff and backs became swayed.
Days had passed in the Valley before. But the funny thing was, no one had noticed. They just seemed to keep going, as if each was over 48 hours long and each week had forty days, and each year and ninety weeks. A year in the Valley could be hundreds in the Mortal Realms.
But now, it was as if the Goddess of Time had suddenly let her nocked arrow loose.
Deep in the woods, a Unicorn died. Not from battle. Not from foal-birth. Not from a fall. Simply because she was old.
Time had entered the Valley, and left the back door open for Death.