Healing Properties.txt
Claudia had never really liked her drab gray fur, but now, she was grateful for it. In the mist of the morning that filled in the spaces between the trees, her coloration helped her blend in. She felt that she stuck out enough as it was. No matter how quietly and carefully she crept, avoiding twigs, even taking her custom-made oversized sandals off to walk on her bare feet. After a few minutes of delving deeper into the untamed woods than she'd ever been before, she decided to tie her ears down, too. That would hopefully keep her profile from being so distinct, even if it looked ridiculous and felt mildly uncomfortable. Sometimes a bunny had to do uncomfortable things. She repeated that to herself silently to ward off the fear that wanted to send her whole body to trembling.
It was just a unicorn. Nothing to be scared of. Unicorns weren't BAD monsters, not like vampires and dragons and ogres. They were good. They only hurt things in self-defense. Of course, the trouble there was that Claudia didn't know if a unicorn would consider 'getting a shallow cut' to be something worth goring a bunny over. She hoped not. Sigh, the things she did for Adelais, honestly. Not that her life-long precocious friend had ASKED, but there had been that longing look in her dark eyes and Claudia had just had to get a brilliant idea. And for once, Claudia had acted on what was in her head, if only maybe because she kept so much in her head all the time that something had to fall out and get her into trouble sooner or later.
A broken hymen was technically an injury. Unicorns healed things. Adelais's wedding was in a month. Plenty of time, plenty of time to slash, swab the blood with a handkerchief and wring it into a vial. Claudia was assuming that unicorns, like many woodland beasts, were active in the very early morning, between midnight and sunrise, but so far it was still just a guess. It was cold, and wet, and the shadows made her imagine monsters every step of the way. This was looking like a bad idea every second that ticked by, but she couldn't just walk away now that she was here and doing it.
"Excuse me," said a rich, mellow masculine voice from just over her shoulder, "but are you lost, little rabbit?"
Claudia simultaneously jumped and whirled, clapping a hand over her mouth in terror to stifle the reactive shriek almost making its way out of her mouth. Her front teeth bit down deeply into her lower lip as she saw what she'd looked for right behind her, staring with a mild helpful expression.
It was a beautiful specimen, no doubt about that. Even this close, even this scared, with the night-morning air a purple cloak over both of them, she couldn't help but be awed at its perfect, clean beauty. Stark white, like ivory or soap, with a gracefully curved body like a gazelle's. Its mane was almost but not exactly the same white, having just a bare hint of cream to it that reminded her of the way she liked her coffee, with lots and lots of milk and sugar. His leonine tail swayed behind his towering body like a hypnotice serpent. Cloven hooves, a brownish-purple that was so very nearly the pastel of meadow flowers, blended into the darker grass almost invisibly. His horn, white as the coat and spiral-etched, was larger than she would have expected, several inches greater in length than the norm. But it tapered so perfectly from forehead to tip that it didn't seem crass or ungainly. More than anything, it put her in mind of a knight's lance as she'd seen at the jousting tournaments. Besides the horn, the most striking thing about him was his eyes. They were huge, moistly gleaming even with only the starlight to reflect off them, and very expressive. At first, she was sure they were blue, but they seemed more black when she tilted her head slightly.
She gathered her composure, drew herself up with dignity. At least that one fable was true, then. They DID come to... well, what she was. Now she just had to muster the courage to follow through with the plan.
"Actually, I'm not lost at all, thank you," she replied politely. "I've been looking for you, in fact."
Unicorns didn't have eyebrows, but the unicorn did his level best to imitate raising them as best he could with his expressive limitations. "That's odd. I don't believe we've met before."
"We haven't. My name's Claudia. And I need just a little bit of... yourrrr... blood!" Driven by desperation, knowing that what she was doing was terribly stupid, Claudia used her powerful legs to full effect in a forward leap, attempting to slash at the unicorn's flank with her little knife while the other paw held the handkerchief at the ready.
With a snickering snort, the unicorn danced back easily, avoiding her with such grace and speed that it made her feel incredibly awful for having tried such a thing. Just a stupid, oafish bunny, that was what she was! Why had she ever thought this would work?!
"You're not a vampire, are you?" he asked her, voice lightening a bit in amusement, completely unthreatened by her pathetic little attack. "No, I only see the usual buck teeth on you. You do realize I could take your cute little head off your shoulders with one kick, yes?"
Now that she'd actually seen him move, it was clear that there was no way even a bunny could ever catch him if he saw them coming. She wasn't going to be able to take the blood. Hoping that unicorns were like minor deities who responded well to supplication and appeals to their ego, she fell to her knees, heedless of the grass staining her no-nonsense tan skirt. Hands clasped, head bowed, she begged with a fairly even mixture of sincerity and melodramatic acting learnt by spending too much time around Adelais.
"Please forgive me, noble unicorn! All I meant to do was scratch you a little! My friend needs your blood, just a tiny little bit, to heal her so she can have a happy wedding night! Without your help, the whole wedding will be ruined!" She let a single tear tremble at the edge of her eyelid and drop down, moistening her cheek fur. Huh, she hadn't even known she could DO crocodile tears. She'd have to remember that.
"There, there, all is forgiven, Claudia rabbit," he comforted her, bending forelegs. She could feel his beard tickling the side of her head. It was so delicate it seemed barely there, like a cloud. "We immortals, you must understand, aren't much of ones for two-legged ceremonies and rites. Explain more fully the context of this little problem, and I may even give you a few drops quite willingly."
Looking up and seeing that ethereal, otherworldly yet kind and gentle face meaning no harm, Claudia dared to relax just a little. As he folded the rest of his legs into a patient sitting position, she sat likewise, keeping her legs modestly folded to one side under her skirt. It was probably her imagination, but the air felt a bit less cold with him here.
She told him how she'd been best friends with the chocolate-furred Adelais for her whole life. How Adelais had always been the one to get into trouble while she, a serious and rather cowardly bunny by nature, had always played it safe. And boys hadn't been the exception. Adelais had had several romantic liaisons, including one who hadn't even been a bunny, before she'd found her 'true love,' a cabbage-merchant's second son. The merchant family was important, prestigious. Socially conservative and fussy, taking itself terribly seriously. Adelais had been too scared to tell her love that she wasn't a virgin, that her hymen had been broken years before she'd ever met him. She had hoped that he would take finding out well enough on the wedding night, but there was no certainty, no guarantee. Unless....
"Well, a broken hymen IS technically an injury," the unicorn agreed, whinnying a silver belled laugh. "It seems you're too kind to her, though, even by the standards of a unicorn."
Claudia wrinkled her brow. "What do you mean?"
"All her life, Adelais took what she wanted without a care to the consequences. And here you are, the sensible one, the one who kept track of these things, going to such great lengths to make sure she still doesn't have to care about consequences. I think I feel a little sorry for you. And a little angry at Adelais. She doesn't deserve such a loyal friend."
She blushed at the words. It had honestly never came to her to think of things like that before. Even with the idea in her head, though, she couldn't feel anger or resentment towards Adelais. They'd grown up together. Sure, Adelais had stolen the carrots and Claudia had hid them, Adelais had had a lifetime of excitement and Claudia had not. Yet, that was just how they were. Nothing could change that, could it?
"That's very sweet of you to say," she said softly towards the magnificent beast, wondering at how she could inspire any sort of sentiment from a creature so gorgeous and unique. "It's not really her fault, though. I'm just... scared. I mean, sure, I wonder what it would feel like to, to have a boy... to make love, be in love, and things like that... but I think about what my parents would say, and all the complications that could happen, and I'm just too scared to do it."
The unicorn eyed her silently for a little while, as Claudia twitched and shifted ever more restlessly and awkwardly, feeling her cheeks heat. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted. She pulled her ears back up and straightened them, trying to grab at something resembling dignity.
"You must understand, we immortals have difficulty grasping your two legs societies," the unicorn said finally. "But I think I grasp your situation well enough to see a solution, Claudia. My name's Francois, by the way."
She giggled a bit, probably just because she was so nervous. Her cheeks STILL felt warm. Was her tail itching? It was! There was NO way she was going to scratch herself like some oaf with this thing of myth and legend watching! "That's such a silly name."
"It is," he agreed unexpectedly, the sway of his head causing his beard to bob. "Since you've come so far for your friend's sake, I'll offer a little of my blood, not out of concern for her, but out of respect for you. But I'd hate to send you back to your life as is without giving you something, too. You know that unicorns have healing properties, yes? The blood, the coat, the tail, the horn. Even our tears. Every bit of us can heal."
She nodded hesitantly, not seeing where he was going.
"You fear knowing intimacy because of the social repercussions. And here we are, quite entirely out of the society that makes you so nervous. There would be entirely no repercussions, in fact. Only memories and experience to learn from or discard as it pleases you."
A little icy shiver worked its way through her spine, causing her to shudder and clutch at herself with both arms. "Are you... propositioning me?" she babbled, using the same clunky phrasing she'd used when Adelais's last boyfriend, that hideous weasel, had tried to pinch her bottom.
He evaded direct response, huge dark eyes that now seemed a tawny brown blinking. "You're a tiny little thing. It's not hard to see why so many things would scare you. You're quite pretty when you forget to notice yourself, however. And you have a very big heart," he added seriously, the tip of his horn tapping at her cleavage with a butterfly wing's delicacy.
That was when her imagination really tried to envision what he was talking about, as Claudia felt her heart pounding, and she looked over his form again. Strong, sleek, white as egg shells, graceful and deliberate in every movement. The idea of making love to anyone ever had been something she'd so avoided thinking about, because it always made her depressed, that thinking of it with a creature like this seemed completely beyond the realm of possibility. It was a twisted fairy tale. Francois was a, a beautiful creature in his own way, but he was a quadruped. She couldn't even begin to imagine how it would work, and was a little ashamed of herself for trying to imagine it. Yet it was shame with a tinge of dirty excitement.
She'd never done anything bad, not REALLY bad, in her entire life.
Claudia's eyes went, for the first time, very deliberately to the swinging genitalia beneath the mass of his body. "You're not aroused," she noted, with a bit of relief. "So why are you offering? Obviously you don't find me physically attractive, which is perfectly natural considering what you are and what I am."
"You're very beautiful when you're not trying so hard to pretend you're ugly," he said with great amusement, a snicker coming through his throat again. She could see the individual muscles working to let it out, and watched the process with fascination. "And perhaps it won't work, but I wouldn't mind giving it a try. Even the most timid creatures of the world deserve moments of freedom and pleasure without worry." His head tilted so only one eye looked straight at her, shimmering now as a dark forest green. "Don't you think?"
"Do you... do you SWEAR no one would ever know?" she found herself asking, very much to her own surprise.
"We're a very discreet people, we unicorns," Francois explained, the smooth hardness of his horn roaming to brush against her jaw.
"Okay. Make love to me, then. Just... don't hurt me too much," she added meaningfully, still having no idea how he intended to accomplish this strange feat. She couldn't believe she was doing this. But it was probably the only chance she'd ever really get, wasn't it? Even if it was completely mad.
Francois leaned his head in, then, and she stiffened her spine to avoid leaning back out of reflexive. His breath smelled of vanilla as he pressed his mouth gently against hers, nuzzling from side to side.
"A kiss is the customary opening ritual, isn't it?" he asked. "I'm afraid this is the closest I can manage."
She laughed, feeling the last bits of fear slip away, whether rightly or wrongly. He was oddly considerate and romantic, softening all the hard edges off of the crudeness of the situation. "You're a sweet thing. Let me give you one back, then." She clasped at the side of his head, her fingers and palm almost tingling with the softness and warmth of it, planting a proper full kiss on his mouth, puckering and using a ladylike amount of pressure and suction.
From there, words went away. His horn dipped down to her chest once more. She expected it to cut through the strings of her bodice, and was surprised when he only loosened them. His head then nuzzled into the loose wool-padded leather, causing her to feel warm all over. Claudia hadn't ever liked her breasts, they were too small. But Francois didn't seem to care, and put great attention into nudging the shifting fabric along her chest and against her nipples. And to her amazement, her body responded. The nubs became stiffer, with the same gradual change as his own odd head-based caresses. Was this what it was like to have a boy feel you through your clothes? She'd seen them groping at Adelais's (much bigger, to Claudia's secret jealousy) breasts before, but they'd always seemed so impatient, so rough, squeezing and grabbing. This was better. Soft and slow and tender.
Then his head came up a few inches and his tongue came out, the smell of warm vanilla powerful in the air as he gave a single lap up the side of her neck and past her jaw. She shuddered and gave out a little squeak. The tongue seemed almost a little too big for Francois's mouth, a bit longer and thicker than she would have thought. It only dampened the very tips of her fur with its touch, although she felt that lick down to the roots.
Knowing no one would know what she did here, feeling emboldened by her body's response and his tenderness, she opened her mouth to wrap her lips around the tip of his tongue, sucking on it, tasting it with her own tongue. It tasted like nothing, like air, but she could feel every single little twitch of the muscles in it, and it thrilled her with how incredibly flexible and adaptive it was. She pulled back from the tongue kiss with her face feeling on fire, but pleased with herself, grinning.
"Any pleasure you give to me, I want to give back to you," she told him, fingers curling in the silk of his mane, caressing the strands. "You're making me feel good... even though I didn't think it was possible... let me return that favor tenfold...." she murmured in his ear with an attempt at a seductive tone. His member was stiffening, and her heart burned with excited satisfaction.
"Let's not get too ambitious," he told her grinningly, still amused despite his obvious arousal. "Oncefold is more than fine, thank you, Claudia rabbit."
Feeling the clothes were doing more harm than good by this point, she took her bodice off and then her undershirt and brassiere, still a bit shy though now eager as well, watching the unicorn's expression intently. Her body was slight, too flat, not very well-curved, and yet he only commented on how gorgeous she looked in the moonlight, and how any man would be lucky to have her. His adaptive, long tongue sought out her nipples and did wonderfully precise, intricate things to them, while she clutched at his mane and pushed her chest closer. The smell of him, the feel, the warmth of his larger, stronger body flooded her senses.
Body shaking from, just for once, pleasure and anticipation instead of fear, Claudia stripped off her skirt. Then she removed her smallclothes more slowly, fingers feeling clumsy though they still got the job done. Francois complimented her on the shine of the stars on the moisture between her legs, and she went red and grinned hugely. It was a stupid compliment, even from an immortal being. But somehow sweet, too.
"I'm ready," she told him near-breathlessly. "However you're going to do this... I want you inside me..."
"Are you?" he asked idly, head going between her legs with care, tongue lapping along her sex and up to her belly. The muscles in her legs tightened and she gasped out a 'Please!' but Francois remained as unhurried as ever. "I suppose you are," he admitted with a bob of his head, beard swishing. "If you want to stand, you can stand. Or you can lay down. However you like."
A little confused, but trusting Francois, Claudia stretched out on her back, the way she'd always wanted her first time to be. Her legs weren't wide like a slattern's, but they were stretched out enough to, she hoped, be inviting. The crisp dew on the grass tickled a bit but still felt pleasant on her tail, her backside, her back. She wanted to touch herself. She wanted to touch him. She wanted a lot of different things all at once, and her little body was aflame with it.
Her eyes went huge as he plunged his horn into her. It hurt, but not nearly as much as she would have thought, the feeling moderate but very brief. She moaned and kept herself as still as she possibly could, feeling that hardness plunge inside her. It was only an inch in, two inches now, and yet it felt to be so much bigger, so much deeper. Her inner walls clamped down on it, and she could feel the spiral traces of the horn against her flesh.
With movements that were always sleek and precisely purposeful by default, Francois had no problems quickly creating a rhythm that pleased her. He wasn't slow now. No, his horn quickly took up a pace that was fairly brisk. The penetration was what was gradual, and she began to count the thrusts. Ten thrusts into her body with his hard, long horn before it moved a centimeter deeper. Twenty. Twenty-five thrusts for the next centimeter, now. And so, repeating this motion at an almost clockwork-exact same angle each time, Francois went deep into her till she felt he was penetrating the core of her being. Yet it didn't hurt, and his undoubtedly sharp horn tip didn't puncture or scrape.
She tried not to move, but it was hard. Claudia let out the tension by whispering about how good it felt, how badly she wanted to reciprocate, how she'd never felt anything like this before and how he was doing it perfectly. Closing her eyes to imagine it was a boy doing this to her, she found that she didn't need to. Her body was tight and tingling all over. She was close, close to... almost....
Letting out a guttural groan quite unlike her, fingers grabbing through the grass into the dirt, Claudia felt her first orgasm tear through her like a wave of pure heat and bliss so sharp it nearly hurt. Unable to stop herself, completely lost in the moment, she thrust her hips towards the source of her pleasure.
Francois had incredible reflexes. Sensing her lack of control at the very moment it happened, he whipped his horn out of her body even as her sex clutched tightly at it. Moments later, she realized what she'd done, and what he'd done, and what could have happened if he hadn't been so careful. She felt dreadfully embarrassed.
"God, I'm so so-"
"Do NOT," he said with actual force and volume for the first time, "apologize."
"Oh-okay," she said meekly.
There was another, different tingling between her legs now. Looking down at herself, shivering with the aftermath of the climax, she saw that her hymen had restored itself. It was pristine, but the moist glisten all around it was evidence of what they'd done. She didn't regret it.
"Now it's your turn," she told the unicorn mischeviously, stumbling to her feet, feeling ridiculously weak and awkward. But his shaft was still hard. She couldn't possibly fit it all in her mouth, but maybe between her mouth and her hands....
Even that part of him tasted like vanilla. She suckled down every last drop, her body embraced by his heat and whiteness.
Once they were both satisfied, she expected to feel very self-conscious, putting her clothes back on and asking for a little of his blood. But she didn't. She felt... comfortable. Claudia wondered if that was how immortal things felt all the time. It was a strange thing for a bunny to feel, instead of the stark worry she'd always defined her life by.
She felt horrible about cutting him, though. Making that red well up in the field of white, it was like ripping a page out of a library book. But he laughed gently and lapped at her cheek, and then she felt better again.
Adelais had her own problem solved that afternoon, when Claudia returned to the burrow with rather bright eyes and slightly ruffled clothes and a mouth that said very, very little to anyone who asked a question. Then Claudia went back to chores, to studying, to the usual things that made up her day. But though they were the usual things, she didn't feel mundane anymore. She remembered the feel of him, the taste of him. He'd thought her beautiful. Those things stayed with her, and served to make the ordinary magical, for a while, at least.
Although Claudia thought many times of going back to the forest and finding Francois again, she never did. OVer time, it turned into something she thought of as a fantasy or dream, though there was always a part of her that knew it had really happened and wouldn't let her forget it. Sometimes she contemplated wryly over Adelais's outright wild behavior and her own meek hypocrisy, and wondered which was better, or if either choice was a sin at all.
Claudia never came up with an answer, but that didn't make her unhappy.