******Author's Note: I was really hoping to have this finished by now. This is meant to be a short fic, but more and more has come to me as I have been writing it. There will be at least and most probably only one other chapter after this.***
Jack nodded, and Lili helped him to his feet.
"Lili," Gump called to her, "Lead the unicorn, it will follow a maiden who is pure of heart." he helped support Jack from the other side, and Lili came toward the unicorn. It recoiled from her, rearing up on its hind legs and turning away toward the far wall, away from the door.
"She is ruined!" Gump scolded, "She's not pure! Look at it, it hides its face from her!"
Jack gazed at the unicorn, and glanced helplessly at Lili, who looked flustered.
"She's corrupted! She's corrupted!" the elf cried, as he was joined by the other fair folk of the forest. Oona uttered a small cry, bolting toward the human girl in a sparkling magic blast.
"You beastly creature!" she squeaked at the princess, shooting golden sparks out of her hair,"You don't deserve his heart!" She gritted her teeth, gripping the stiff black collar of Lili's dress tight around her neck, "I should kill you now..."
"No!" Jack staggered from Gump's shoulder to Lili's defense. "She's... my best friend," he smiled at Lili, "And even if things don't turn out just as we think they should, it doesn't mean it's all over. How many girls go on being innocent their whole lives? You can't expect Lili to be perfect, and I certainly won't let you kill her for this. I mean it."
"Jack," Oona gasped, letting Lili go, "You stubborn fool. Are you so blind?"
Jack took Lili's hand. "Well if you're so innocent, then, Oona, you lead the unicorn out."
Oona looked taken aback, "Me?" the thought had never occurred to her that she might be judged by the same standards as a mortal girl.
"No, the other you," Jack laughed. Lili smiled a little. For all that she had said to Jack, she knew he cared about her. She cared about him too, deeply, but there was something missing: an unbridled compulsion, a magnetism that somehow, before, she never realized he lacked.
Oona looked around, as if hoping that some other Oona would appear out of thin air and take up Jack's challenge, then folded her arms, "Do you know how ridiculous you sound?" she sputtered. "Me?"
"So you're not pure then," said Jack, nodding. "And I'll be the first to stand here and say that I don't think any one of us is. The fact that Lili was pure yesterday was exceptional, not something expected of her."
"Then what do we do?" Gump hissed, looking every bit as put off as Oona, though not showering angry golden sparks at them all. "The mare does not know her way out of the tunnels, and she isn't safe here. There are still goblins and evil spirits about who would do her harm."
Lili thought for a moment, "We could scare her out. She would be frightened, but for the unicorn's own good, it could be the only chance we have. Each one of us could take a corridor, running one ahead of the other, until she's ran to safety."
Gump looked away, folding his cheeks in his jaw. It was a good idea. He didn't want to admit how good of an idea it was. "It doesn't feel right. It's a dirty thing, to scare a gentle unicorn."
"Better than leaving her to die," said Lili, turning to the mare, "Unless you have a spare innocent hidden under that loincloth of yours."
"We risk our immortal souls!" he squeaked desperately.
"Oh, bullocks!" she threw up her hands, "If doing what we have to do to save a unicorn's life really could lose us our immortal souls, then just how good of a thing is it really to keep one? If you go on forever knowing you had to be too highly scrupulous to help someone when you could have helped them? It's not fair, it's a fate designed so that something bad could happen no matter what you decide to do. But it doesn't matter, because the only kind thing is to help the mare, and that's what we should care about most. The idea that unicorns are so sacred that they can't even be touched is rubbish. Who came up with it, anyway?"
Gump didn't know. Honestly, it was just a legend, passed down through all the people of the woods until they had believed it for no other reason than that they had heard it said.
Oona looked back and forth from Lili to Gump... "I'll take the first corridor, then?"
Jack nodded with a great big grin, "And I'll take the second, and you, Gump, take the third, and Lili, the fourth. Rest of you, follow suit. Let's hurry!"
Lili remembered leading the unicorn to safety. She remembered scrambling through the tunnels after it, hearing its frightened braying and thundering hooves against the stone. She remembered how it bounded over the marsh, away from the sinister tree, and into the distance. Safe.
She felt herself lying on the soft grass. Nothing would be the same now, but, she thought, things weren't supposed to stay the same way always, were they? She opened her eyes, and saw Jack there, sitting near her by the side of the river.
He gave her a sideways smile, looking out over the water, "You're awake."
She nodded, stretching her arms forward to shake off the sleep in her limbs.
"Would you like it if I... walked you home?" He asked.
She nodded, eyes far away. "Thank you. I think some time at home will help me feel better." She hugged him, "Oh, Jack, you were wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better defender. It seems so distant now, like a legend, or something out of a dream."
"Maybe it was," he said with a serious face, "But that doesn't mean that it is any less to us."
She took his hand, and together, they returned to the castle. The palace was quite happy to see her return, though it seemed that the two days they had spent on their adventure did not pass in the kingdom, and it was evening of the same day she roamed into the woods.
"Promise you'll visit me now," said Jack.
"Of course!" Lili laughed, "And you may visit me here as well, whenever you like. Though I shan't say it's as exciting as the forest."
"I will, then," he said, bowing. He had never bowed to her before. She was used to being treated like this, but not by Jack. It was uncomfortably distancing, though perhaps he had just tried to appear respectful in front of the people of the palace. "Goodbye," he said.
(**The story is not finished. There is more to come soon.)