Fragments of a Unicorn's Soul

A soft breeze rattled the trees overhead and thunder rolled through the heavy clouds, sending the creatures of the forest running for their burrows or dens. Elek Keros shook his head in irritation when his wind-ruffled mane tickled the flesh along his neck. His hooves bit deep into the earth as he darted between the trees, trying to return to his home before the clouds burst and doused the earth. Unlike the others, he wandered far from home every day, searching for something. He didn't know what it was, but it was like a siren beckoning him with her call.





For hundreds of years, Elek had been content to remain in the part of the forest cloaked by magic from the humans, following the ways of his kind without question until something changed one night. Deep asleep, Elek lay nestled in with two of his brothers when he suddenly jerked awake, struck by the feeling that something was imminent. It sent him to his hooves with a loud snort, disturbing his brothers.





"What is it?" Nalak had mumbled, lifting his head.





"Something is coming," Elek answered, staring into the trees toward the human village at the outskirts of their forest. His coat rippled with the certainty he felt: that a life-altering event stood on the horizon, waiting for him to find it.





Nalak took his warning literally, scrambling to his hooves and scanning the trees alertly. His dark eyes shimmered intently. Their clan had inhabited this forest for over a thousand years, safe from humans who wished to kill them for their horns and the prize of everlasting life. The Elders had forbidden any of their herd to enter the forest after many of them had disappeared and never returned. It was punishable by banishment from the herd, or worse, the removal of their horn.





Nalak's mate, Hemia, had grown curious about the forest three years before. She defied the Elders and left the safety of their glen. Nalak did everything he could to stop her, but Hemia continued her forays into the forest. Despite warnings from Aggie, the Wise One, that she faced punishment for defying the Elders, Hemia ignored everything except the intense desire to find whatever it was that beckoned to her. One night she never returned, and the Elders decided that a human had captured and destroyed her. Nalak had yet to take a new mate.





"What do you sense?" Melik demanded, standing at his brother's side.





Elek shook his head as he tried to make sense of this overwhelming yearning to enter the forest. "I do not know, my brothers. Something... is calling to me."





A shiver of fear raced along Nalak's coat. "Brother, you cannot go! You know it is forbidden to enter the unprotected areas of the forest!"





Elek agreed, and at first tried to simply deny the feeling, but it grew stronger as days went by. Thirty suns and moons passed through the sky before he could no longer ignore the fierce desire raging through him and began his journey outside of the glade. There had been no sense of danger as he'd stepped through the veil. The forest was quiet and still. Other animals could be heard scratching amongst the forest floor for food, climbing the trees or flitting from branch to branch. Each day passed the same for Elek. There was no progress to appease the sense of urgency he felt, but he never gave up trying.





That is what led him to this moment, racing to outrun the storm. A strange scent came to him on a breath of wind, bringing him to an abrupt halt. Elek's ear twitched as he listened for the source of the smell. A small whimper reached out to him, drawing his attention to a bundle of weeds a few feet away. The strange feeling he'd lived with for the last two years grew stronger, and he hesitantly stepped forward. The sound came again. His hooves crushed the newly fallen leaves beneath them, and his breath snorted from his nostrils. Something lay amongst them, a white object. The whimper came again as thunder rumbled through the trees and the object moved, huddling deeper into a ball of terror.





Elek realized a human lay curled up beneath the tree and started, almost turning to run but stopped when his anxiety rose at the thought of leaving the child. A light mist drizzled down through the trees, dampening his mane. He inched closer and nuzzled at the youngling. Sensations that he'd never felt soared through him. The child let out a terrified mewling sound that pierced his heart and Elek gently lapped at its cheek, trying to calm it like one of the younglings in his herd. The child's eyes opened, revealing the most beautiful sapphire blue eyes that Elek had ever seen. His chest grew tight with some undefined emotion that, in all his thousand years, he'd never known.





The child's eyes opened wider upon seeing him and it suddenly smiled, reaching up to touch the spiral horn that jutted from his forehead. Elek almost jumped back in fear. His kind only had one weakness—their horns. He did not know what would happen if it were ever removed, although the legends said they would perish. The youngling touched it gently, sliding the tip of one finger over it in wonder.





Elek felt the cold rain dampening his white coat and frowned. The humans had no protection against such exposure as his kind did. He lay down behind it and curled himself around it protectively. The child giggled and snuggled closer to Elek, his small hands burrowing into Elek's thick mane. It sent pure contentment pouring through Elek. Contentment he'd only felt in the glade. He crowded closer to the boy as the rain began to fall harder and faster, covering him as much as possible.





Once the rain had died down, Elek took the time to examine the small creature. The child's skin was like alabaster, pure and smooth. Curly locks, the color of oak-wood trees in his glade, framed a delicate face with a button nose and cherry-red lips. Elek nuzzled at the child again, eliciting another giggle from him when the breath whispering from his nostrils tickled the boy.





"Pretty horse," the child pronounced laughingly, his sapphire eyes sparkling.





Elek let out a snort of indignation. Horse? He was no dumb beast! His irritation at being deemed a horse dissipated when the child's hand slid over his muzzle between his nostrils. If he was a cat, he'd have purred at how good it felt. It puzzled him why he felt drawn to the human youngling. Over the time he'd spent searching, he'd learned quite a bit of the humans and everything he'd seen had left him afraid for his kind. The humans had spread rapidly since the unicorns had gone into hiding. Huge buildings made of wood littered the human village now, unlike anything he could have imagined. The forest had diminished significantly and only a matter of miles separated their glade from the humans.





When Elek had seen the strange objects humans called cars, he'd turned back into the forest and run, his heart pounding that it would give chase to kill him. It was only after he'd realized it wasn't chasing him that he felt silly for his fear. He'd seen big ponds in the back of the houses that smelled foul, as if tainted by some kind of poison, but the humans submerged themselves in them and would swim around for hours at a time. The horrible stench did not seem to bother them.





A slight tug on his mane brought his thoughts back to the present and Elek looked down at the child. He smiled at Elek. "Ride?"