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Note: the five stars represent a shift in point of view.
The sun smiled warmly through the trees, sending summer's breath racing across the dew-covered meadow to caress a young man as it darted past him and into the cool darkness of the forest floor. He smiled as the wind batted at him, diving under and over and around him, exasperated that he'd dare stand in its way. He glared imperiously at it a moment, then turned to follow it into the woods. His sword lingered there a moment, then raced to return to its resting place across his back.
Anyone who ever saw it could sense it was a powerful sword, although most never realized it. Its hilt looked as if it had been carved out of a single emerald. Any light that entered it came out again in green; the only light that had ever escaped this fate was the rainbow, which had emerged as a rainbow of greens instead of a flat emerald ribbon. Mostly, that was all anyone ever saw of it. But if he were to draw it, nobody could fail to see it: a blade forged of starlit flowers and a unicorn's breath, shining with the pure white light of a million dreams. He called it Silverleaf, but it never considered itself to be separate from the other things of good in the world.
* * * * *
The unicorn felt something entering its home: something immortal that relied on something mortal. Like a parasite, only without any hint of evil in its power. It was riding on the back of a man, who was not quite oblivious to the power of the world around him. The unicorn liked that--the sense of sleeping wonder radiated by those who could feel the enchantment but had no knowledge of what it was. But the other knew. It knew it was somewhere like its home, and its power lit the entire woods with a soft, dream-white light.
The unicorn was torn. Normally, she would hide near visitors, and watch the slow dawn of comprehension of the nature of the woods sneak into their mind. Yet she did not want to stand too near something so powerful as that which he bore, perhaps unknowingly. A moment's hesitation, then decision. She wanted to be near the glade immediately, but she could not run there at full speed. It was best if the thing did not know of her until it must, so she slowly slipped through the trees on silent paws.
* * * * *
The magic was nearly tangible. He muttered to himself, "Loon, stop while you can, until you understand this place." But he paid himself no heed, and continued walking among the trees, careful to avoid stepping on anything, as if thinking his footfalls might forever taint the moss. Step after step, he moved deeper into the woods that seemed to know no death. The sword slept in its scabbard.
Enlightenment was sudden. All the details snapped together with memory, mocking the legends of unicorns that mandated it was only spring in their worlds. Mocking the legends that held they lived on the human world at all. Mocking the image of a mere horned horse. He felt the gate the wind had opened for him softly close, the utter silence of it echoing off the trees and losing sound in the maze. He grinned almost bitterly, savoring the irony of a man (who wore a sword made of unicorn woods) not recognizing the magic.
* * * * *
The first wisp of fear she had ever known slipped across her consciousness. Something had entered the realm without alerting her. The wind that had so slyly chased the man through the gate was alive, but not with the whimsical spirits that danced on most breezes. This was something more sinister. Longing.
Once she identified it, she felt its effects on the man. He was looking for his 'true' self, the self he always dreamed of being but had never known how to find. And the wind was leading him on, driving his longing, carrying him away from the lands he had been satisfied in, looking for what he might be. Though he was half-afraid he couldn't accept it, he still searched for it.
She looked at his dreams, painted in the colors of sleep, searching for a mention of the good thing with him. There--a sword, with handle of emerald, made of starlit flowers and ainhith woven together by dreams, shining power-white. He wore it on his back.
* * * * *
He stepped over a ridge and saw the the center of the world. A deep blue pool of water lay at the foot of a hill, beneath the dizzying scent of lilacs and magenta fire of rhododendrons. He walked slowly down the slope, quivering with anticipation and fear. The pool seemed to draw him ever closer: azure surface beckoning him, taunting him, daring him to take another step or try not to. |
The unicorn had never known helplessness personally. But she was forced to watch as the man slowly drifted closer and closer to the wind-thing lying just above the surface of her pool. She could see the illusion-stillness overlying real ripples sent up by the wind's quiet breath, and she knew that the man saw the stillness only. She wondered about the sword. Why did it do nothing to save itself from the destruction of the mortal it wore? |
He leaned over the pool, looking down into it, and saw no reflection. He looked up at the infinite blue of the sky, and down at the blank cerulean pit below. He passed his hand close to the surface: still nothing. |
The unicorn saw everything reflected in the pool, thousands of churning forms in dream-colors. Cat, dragon, demon, World-walker, dark mage, healer, mage-warrior, and lover. But the illusion-pool above didn't change. |
He leaned back, eyes closed. His thoughts were loud enough to echo. 'I don't exist? I must... I can think!' The wind leapt out of the pool, darting past him as if he had stabbed it through the heart. He opened his eyes, looked down at his hands, and leaned forward to look in the real pool as a tail he didn't have swept around in an arc. |
The wind had cast a spell; the unicorn tossed her head gently in counterattack. The sword had no choice but to obey, for it was born in a unicorn wood, and they would always have special power over it. It leapt from its scabbard, diving down to stab into him as a tail he didn't have swept around in an arc. |
Two eyes stared back at him, round globes of yellow-green, each divided by a single vertical slit. Only shadows gave away his outline, revealing fur of the color of the sky at its deepest midday blue--not the pale whisper of it at the horizon, but the azure well that the Sun rests in. He looked farther down, his gaze slinking out of the pool and onto the shore beneath him, revealing cat paws with a tail curled primly around them. He understood that the wind had led him here and done this to him, but he couldn't be sure that the wind was actually separate from the darkness he kept hidden inside him.
There was one way to find out. He whirled, racing up the bank among magenta and lavender and green, leaving sapphire footprints in the grass as he chased the wind. He never knew that the gate he left by had been held open for him by the unicorn, fighting the wind's desire to close it.
* * * * *
She wondered if he would ever know that he carried the sword of dreams in his heart. She wondered if he would ever know he left sapphire footprints in her glade. She paused a moment to plunge the realm into dewy midnight. The moon lit icy fire deep in blue gemstones, painting her world in the dancing colors of curiosity and mystery.
* * * * *
He chased the wind. It was all he could do. But he wondered as he ran--is the wind me? Did Silverleaf return to its elements? Have I lost anything besides a human form?
Author's Note: The best writing is unintentional. I see it in Dreamsnow, in World in Black, and in this...
The unicorn has paws because the soft step of a cat is absolute silence compared to a cloven hoof. She can see in several spectra... illusion, reality, and emotion all radiate in different colors. This is why I was never blinded by Silverleaf's power when it was in its scabbard, but she could see it illuminating the forest.
Silverleaf itself can't cut anything. It's not a sword, that's merely the persona it adopted to live with me. Its power lies in destroying the weapons of man--bringing fresh dreams forth from broken nightmares.
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