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Sport

By

Tanamin

The trees had been alive for more than twenty centuries. The three of them were sisters, actually, cast adrift as seeds from the same oak tree. The seeds had germinated only a handful of fathoms from one another, and had all shared the struggle through the soil, the glory of spreading hopeful leaves to the sun, and the quiet patience of growing throughout the years and decades. They laughed in the same breezes, bowed before the same storms, and drank the moisture from the same ground. After a few centuries, their roots met beneath the earth and they began the slow, laborious process of growing together. Eventually the three became indistinguishable as they lofted their branches hundreds of feet into the sky, their trunks intertwining into a huge mass of living oak.

Two hundred years ago a wealthy entrepreneur purchased the land on which the sisters grew. He hired an ecomancer to work his magic to hollow the interior of the tree trunks into vaulted galleries, tiered balconies and a tremendous kitchen. Thus was born the largest inn in Pennylump along the road to and from the Imperial City. The inn underwent several names and several owners over the course of its colorful existence, all the while serving hundreds of patrons a day, not only from the local towns and villages, but also from the steady stream of travelers passing by on their business through the Sableon Empire. Currently the inn was owned by a warthog and his young daughter, and was known simply as Stegg's.

There was no time of the day or night that Stegg's was empty. Workers from the businesses in Pennylump came by at all hours to share a pint or two with friends or to have a meal from the famous kitchen, renowned throughout the Empire as being rivaled only by the kitchens of the Imperial Palace itself. Some parts of the night, however, were quieter than others. Three hours before dawn usually saw only a couple dozen people patronizing Stegg's, so the staff took advantage of the lull to clean the place. The barmaids would seat patrons in one section, allowing the other sections to be scrubbed from top to bottom in preparation for the coming day. From one section in particular, already cleaned by the swarms of small mice who moved almost unnoticed throughout the inn, a soft snore rumbled beneath a corner table.

The grand oaken doors swung open and a tall shape separated itself from the darkness outside. Stepping into the warm torch lit interior, the black unicorn shook the cold from his mane as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the relative brightness. A bobbing reptilian head from across the room turned to face the newcomer, and a slender velociraptor separated herself from a cluster of customers. The unicorn watched as the barmaid wove her way through the half-full tables and approached him. She grinned toothily at him, her head bowed respectfully.

"Good morning, Lord Magistrate!" she said in her deep warble. Her eyes flashed over him in the torch light. "May I take your cloak and fetch you a drink?"

The unicorn shook his head slowly, a slight frown on his muzzle. "Not this morning, Wraith, I won't be staying long. I'm here on business." He glanced about the inn, searching with his gaze. "Where is Sport?"

"Sport?" she said, surprised. "He's under one of the tables over there." Her narrow head gracefully swung on her long neck to indicate the empty side of the main room. She glanced questioningly up at the black unicorn. "Is he in some trouble, my Lord?"

The dark stallion nodded, his gray pearl horn sweeping through the air. "You might say that. He has been for quite some time." His slender black hooves rang quietly on the wooden floor as he stepped off in the direction that the raptor had indicated.

The black unicorn crouched beside the table from under which the ragged snores came. His quarry was deep in the shadows, barely stirring. Other than the intermittent sounds of slumber, the only indication that the table concealed an occupant was a dirty, unkempt tufted tail twitching fitfully in the light.

Tanamin sighed quietly as he crouched, and reached an ebony hand into the darkness to touch the flanks of the sleeper. "Sport," he called, hopefully loud enough to pierce the fog of sleep. He gently shook the sleeping form, and called again.

With a snort, a shaggy head lifted, and dazed blue eyes struggled to focus. "Whuzz," a strangled voice said, and then a robust and colorful coughing fit cut short the thought. The warm stink of cheap whiskey and sour grass roiled up from under the table like a fog, hitting the black unicorn squarely in the face. Squinting his eyes shut against the fetid assault, Tanamin waited for the hacking to subside.

"Sport, old man, I've come to talk to you," Tanamin said when the table had stopped rattling.

"Tammin?" the voice from beneath the table said as though it were merely its best guess. With a shuffling of hooves and a flash of a dull, milk-white horn, an equine head poked out into the orange torch light. The two unicorns regarded one another for a heartbeat. They could not have been more different; the sleek and delicate features of the jet-black magistrate were a stark contrast to the other's tussled off-white fur and blunt muzzle. And while Tanamin walked on two hooves and had two hands, Sport was a quadruped, walking on four chipped and worn hooves. Actually, staggering on four chipped and worn hooves might be a more accurate description.

Sport looked terrible, Tanamin thought, but this was nothing new. His mane was tangled and matted, his eyes swollen and bloodshot with dark bags beneath them, easily visible through his smudged fur. His ears drooped drunkenly at odd angles from the sides of his head, which the small unicorn held as if it were too heavy for his chunky body. He yawned, showing yellowed teeth in dark, irritated-looking gums. " Izzit time for breakfast already?" Sport said, smacking his lips in anticipation.

A kindly smile crossed Tanamin's face. "No, but it is the start of a new day." The Magistrate reached into a pocket and a flash of gold shone against his black fur. "Come on out of there, I brought you something."

The smaller unicorn's bleary eyes lit up. "What, another drink?" He heaved himself up from under the oaken table and shook his knotted mane. "I prefers my whiskey neat, you may recall," he said absently.

"No, nothing like that," Tanamin said. With his other hand, he unraveled the golden ribbon that he held and showed it to Sport. "It's a present."

"Oooh!" Awed, the scruffy little unicorn watched the ribbon shine. "And 'ere I didn't get you anything... Is it my birthday already?" He craned his neck forward so that he could sniff the bright offering.

Tanamin grinned, and reached up to tie the ribbon around Sport's horn. His fingers moved delicately, mindful of how sensitive a unicorn's horn can be. Sport bowed his head to let the magistrate tie the ribbon in a bow. The long ends of the ribbon draped down Sport's cheeks to the floor when Tanamin sat back to look at his handiwork.

"There!" Tanamin said with a smile. "Handsome as a hart, my lad!"

Sport crossed his eyes in order to see the bow of gold that decorated his brow. "Thankew, m'lord! Tis quite a lovely gift." He looked up at the dark unicorn with an expression of confusion. "But to what do I owe the honor?"

Tanamin leaned forward and took the small unicorn's face in his hands, leaning close to look Sport in the eyes. "Call it a rebirthday gift." Closing his eyes, the black stallion exhaled softly, his warm breath filling the nostrils of the smaller unicorn. Sports eyes fluttered shut, and a heady rush slid up and down his spine.

"But it isn't yours just yet," Tanamin whispered, and his fingers slid down Sport's scruffy cheeks and began to tie the ribbon off below the pale unicorn's jaw. "You're going to have to earn it." Finishing with the knot beneath Sport's muzzle, Tanamin slipped his arms around the smaller stallion's neck. Sport's eyes still remained shut, his entire body flush from Tanamin's scent, his soft words. By the time Sport felt Tanamin's lips kiss his, all he could do was shudder, oblivious of Tanamin's hands moving behind his head. A tiny little voice in Sport's fuzzy mind was trying to get his attention, but the black stallion's tongue tip was gently tracing his mouth, sweetly asking entrance and eliciting another shiver, so Sport was far too distracted to pay the voice any mind until it was too late.

With a start, Sport's eyes snapped open. He pulled his face back away from Tanamin's, and saw a look of quiet regret in the black stallion's eyes. Fingers of frost replaced the swimming warmth in his stomach as Sport realized with a sinking horror that Tanamin had tied the ribbon behind his head. The warmth of the golden ribbon suddenly felt like a leaden weight, dragging his head down toward the earth, although in truth he knew the weight was negligible. His eyes wide in fear and accusation, he tried to back away from the magistrate, but was held easily by a slender black hand that gripped the ribbon's dangling ends.

Tanamin's face was drawn down with a stony sadness as he looked into Sport's eyes. "That's right. A golden bridle." He sighed softly. "I'm so sorry, Sport, but there just isn't any other way. We have a long and difficult journey ahead of us, and it's down a road that I knew that you wouldn't walk willingly."

"But..." The small unicorn stammered, trying to make sense of the magistrate's words. "But m'lord... Why?"

As if struck by an arrow, Tanamin closed his eyes and looked away. "Because playtime is over, bud. It's time for you to face up to a few things."

The black unicorn stood up, and touched a bracelet on his wrist. "Dragonarr, please move Sport and I to the top of tower three at the Keep." Sport looked around to try to see to whom Tanamin was talking, but there was no one in evidence.

A deep, crisp voice, seemingly coming from nowhere, said, "Transition imminent." He was not sure what that meant, but Sport suspected that he probably would not like it any more than he liked being betrayed and trapped by a fur whom he had thought to be his friend.

The magistrate looked down and lay a hand on the pale unicorn's head. "Hang on, Sport." He did not know what he was supposed to hang onto, but he did not have much time to worry about it. Without any further warning or preamble, the two unicorns were no longer in Stegg's. They were somewhere else.

The walls of the round room were simple stone, smooth and solidly built. An equally solid looking door was the only apparent entrance, and the deep blue pre-dawn sky was visible through two narrow windows, both too high off of the floor for Sport to be able to see anything more. A bed of straw stood to one side of the room, and on the opposite wall twenty or so feet away was a trough of water. To Sport, it looked for all the world like a cell.

Tanamin let the ends of the ribbon drop, and Sport was finally able to back away from the dark stallion. The magistrate made no move to follow, standing tall in the center of the room. This did not keep Sport from continuing to retreat, however, until his rump pressed up against the cool stone wall.

"Look," Tanamin said, his voice calm and soothing, "I know you're frightened, and I can understand that." He crouched down again, just as he had in the inn, facing the wary little unicorn. "But I will promise you this; no harm will come to you while you are here. Understand?"

Sport just shook his head. "I don't understand any of this." He stared back at the magistrate, his betrayed expression cutting into the black unicorn's heart.

Tanamin sighed once again. "That's alright. You will." He turned away from the small unicorn and headed toward the door. "But for now, try to relax for a few hours. I need you to be nice and sober if we're going to start work." He lay one hand on the door, and it swung easily open.

A fist seemed to grip Sport's heart. Sober?! Gods, Sport had not been sober in... He thought through a mind muddled with fear and booze, but could not recall the last time he had been sober. In fact, he had been quite meticulous in setting up his daily schedule to preclude any danger of sobriety. Now, cut off from Stegg's and all of his friends there, it seemed like his schedule would be suspended for the foreseeable future. And that would mean...

Sport took a couple of tentative steps forward toward the retreating magistrate. "M'lord... Tanamin, please...!" But the door closed behind the tall stallion with a final sounding thump, leaving Sport alone in his cool cell.

The sun was making its ascent through a crystal blue sky, casting a beam of bright yellow light against the wall opposite the window. The rectangle of brightness ever so slowly slid down toward the floor, and Sport lay upon the straw and watched it sink. Having walked the perimeter of the room and tried the door several times, he had little else to do.

Gods, but he could use a drink right now. A smooth beer or a sweet whiskey would be best, but even a sour wine would be welcome at the moment. All there was to drink in his prison was water from the trough, and though it was cool and clear, it was a far cry from a nice sharp ginger malt.

As a unicorn, Sport's metabolism was especially efficient. He could drink all he liked (though he usually tried to keep his consumption down to a reasonable six or eight drinks an hour), and he could sleep it off within a couple of hours. This is why he was especially careful to take only short naps between drinks. In his current predicament, however, it did not appear that another drink would be soon coming, and to Sport's despair, he was no longer even the slightest bit drunk. The colors were so crisp and sharp that they hurt his eyes, sounds so distinct that his head pounded with them. Sobriety, he decided, as he had many times in his life, was highly overrated.

Just as he was about to shift onto his other side for what seemed like the hundredth time, the door swung open, and Tanamin stepped through. "Hey there, Sport!" the black unicorn said. His voice was light and cheerful, as if all was right with the world, as if he had not just kidnapped the scruffy little unicorn. Tanamin was dressed in only a blue loincloth and a sleeveless gray shirt, and though he was less imposing than he had been in his Imperial sash and tabard, Sport was still quite conscious of the fact that the dark stallion was his captor. "How are you feeling?" Tanamin asked walking across the room toward him.

"My head hurts," Sport replied, lifting his head anxiously from the straw, "and I could really use a bit of a drink." He glanced up at the shaft of light streaming through the window. "How long have I been here? It seems like days..."

Tanamin frowned as he sat down on the stone floor next to the straw mat. "It's been three hours, Sport. I just left you long enough for your body to equalize the blood level in your booze stream." He snorted, his voice sounding annoyed. "You're a unicorn, for gods sakes. We can hold our breath for longer than that."

Sport dropped his eyes to study his own forehoof as he idly stirred the straw with it. "My lord... May I please know why I have been brought here?" He looked up at the magistrate with fear and worry evident in his eyes. "I mean, if you're having one over on old Sport, then fun is fun... But I am quite frightened now, and if I may, I would like to go home." The pale little unicorn began to tremble as he spoke, his nerve beginning to desert him.

The dark stallion shook his head slowly. "It's no prank, Sport."

Sport swallowed audibly, and then cleared his throat. "Then am I charged with a crime, m'lord?"

Smiling slightly, Tanamin said, "Please, Sport, just call me Tanamin. And no, you are no criminal."

Gathering up his pride, Sport heaved himself to his hooves. "Then I am afraid, m'lord, that I must demand that I be released." He raised his head, looking down at the seated magistrate. "As an Imperial Citizen, I have the right to freedom if I am not accused of a crime." His voice did not hold nearly as much confidence as his body language was trying to project.

"Sorry, bud. Imperial law is one thing," Tanamin said, his gaze steady and his voice calm, "but I'm invoking Avatar status." A fresh chill ran down the small unicorn's spine. "I'm speaking for the Dragons on this one."

Sport slowly sank back down onto the straw like a deflating toy. The fur along his back and flanks twitched and shook of their own accord, and a stricken expression spread across his shaggy face. "Gods, I need a drink."

"That's not going to happen, I'm afraid," Tanamin said. "Like I told you earlier, you're going to have to be sober if we're going to get any work done."

"Work?" Sport cocked a worried eyebrow at the magistrate. "What sort of work?" He was pretty sure that he would not like the answer, but he felt he had to ask anyway.

The black unicorn stood up and took a few paces across the room. When he turned around, he looked up as if addressing the room. "Dragonarr, please adjust the surface of the wall opposite the door to one-hundred percent albedo."

From the air came a disembodied voice, the same one that Sport had heard earlier that morning at Stegg's. "Acknowledged. Adjusting surface tension to one hundred percent albedo." The stone wall directly across from the door began to run as if melting, but instead of glowing red like molten rock, fuzzy reflections formed on the wall and quickly sharpened to perfect mirror images. Sport found himself looking at his own image lying on the floor and Tanamin standing before him.

"Adjustment complete," the voice said.

"Sport," Tanamin said, crossing his arms as he faced the smaller stallion, "I like you. You are a decent soul. And I feel a kinship with you, since we're both unicorns.

"And since we are both unicorns, I need you to understand something. Whenever a unicorn does this to himself..." He indicated Sport's reflection in the wall; the creature that looked back at Sport was a pitiful sight, indeed. The poor thing was bedraggled and mangy looking, with dark rings beneath his eyes and a pallid, lifeless color to his ruffled coat. "Whenever a unicorn sinks this low into sickness, depression and despair, he drags a little part of me with him."

Tanamin turned and gestured disdainfully at the mirror. "This... Look at this. This is no unicorn. Unicorns are supposed to be noble, beautiful, graceful." He looked back over his shoulder at the pale unicorn. "A little conceited, I'll grant you, but with good reason. Unicorns were the first beings created by the Dragons, before the angels, before the Fey, before any creature you can name." The magistrate once again regarded their reflections. "But look at you. You're no longer a unicorn, Sport. You're a pathetic, addled, frightened little drunk."

The small unicorn looked away from the unhealthy specter in the mirror, his heart stinging from Tanamin's words. "My lord, please..."

The black unicorn went on, undeterred. "I've watched you play the self pitying little victim for the better part of a decade. No one seems to know how long you were playing that broken record before I got here, but I'd be willing to bet it was a good goddamned long time."

A hard lump in his throat, Sport hung his head. If he had hands, he would have tried to block his ears from Tanamin's harsh words. He knew all of these things, of course, he just tried every minute of every day to forget them, to distract himself away from the agonizing truth. For him, the river Lethe had always lain at the bottom of a tankard.

"My lord," Sport said in a meek, timid voice, "why are you being so cruel to me? What have I done to deserve this?"

Tanamin rounded on him sharply. "What have you done? You've taken a member of my race and turned him into this!" He pointed at Sport's reflection. "You took a creature of love and innocence and made him into this!" This time he pointed at Sport himself. The small unicorn cowered beneath the billowing fire of the magistrate's accusations. He shrank back against the wall, trapped physically against the hard stone, and emotionally against the hard truth. Cold tears of bitter shame rolled down his cheeks, and he wished fervently, desperately, for this to be a bad dream. He could not bring himself to look at his tormentor, but he could feel the dark mass of him coming closer. Sport broke out into sobs of abject fear and guilt.

When he looked back up, the dark stallion was kneeling beside him. The anger and accusation was gone now, replaced now with an expression of concern and compassion. "But you don't have to stay this way." His voice was soft again, as full of warmth and love as it had been of recrimination only a moment before. "You don't have to live your life this way, full of pain and grief so profound that you have to drink yourself stupid just so your heart can bear the weight of it." Tanamin reached out and took the weeping little stallion into his arms and pulled him to his chest. Sport could do nothing but cry at the naked truth of the magistrate's words, and Tanamin just held him and let him cry, heedless of the silver tears that wet the black stallion's shirt.

Sport wept for a long while, as if he had been saving up the raw emotion for many years. Just as a unicorn can stay perfectly still or hold his breath for many hours, so too can they pour out their hearts. And Tanamin let him for as long as he needed.

The sky was darkening into dusk when Sport finally spoke. "I'm sorry," he whispered through a voice pinched and rough with pain. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't apologize to me," the black stallion whispered into his ear. "Apologize to him." When Sport looked up, Tanamin tilted his chin toward the rumpled unicorn reflected in the wall.

Sport looked over at the poor beast lying in Tanamin's arms, and a fresh spill of tears overflowed from his puffy eyes. "I..." he stammered, and then swallowed hard. "I don't know if I can."

Tanamin nodded sadly. "We'll work on that."

"How long am I going to have to stay here, Tanamin?" Today, unlike last night when he had cried himself to sleep with guilt, Sport was in a surly mood as he and Tanamin sat and ate breakfast in the center of the stone room. The food was good enough; tart green and sweet red apples, succulent starfruit, sharp white cheese and cream filled cakes. Under other circumstances, he might have been delighted with the repast. If only he had a tankard of malt to wash it all down with, but all there was to drink was water from the trough.

"Well," Tanamin said, cutting a thick wedge from an apple with his dagger, "that depends. It could be only a few days or it could be much longer. It depends entirely upon you." The black unicorn popped the apple wedge into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Depends on how much you're willing to face."

Sport snorted derisively. "A couple of days, indeed!" The smaller unicorn bit a starfruit in half, and chewed it irritably. "This might be a bit easier to take if I had something substantial to drink here."

"Water is better for you right now," the magistrate said, and as if in demonstration took a drink from his pewter mug.

The pale stallion sneered. "The only thing water is good for is for fish to fuck in."

Tanamin chuckled. "Such language! I'm shocked at you, Sport."

Fixing the black stallion with a baleful stare, Sport got to his hooves. "You'll hear much worse if I don't get a proper drink!" Sport lowered his head so that his horn was pointing straight at Tanamin's heart.

Surprised by the shaggy unicorn's threatening body language, Tanamin sat up straight, looking Sport in the eye. "What are you doing? Look at yourself! Are you going to attack me because I'm not feeding your addiction? Is that who you are now?"

Sport turned his head, his eyes cast down for an instant. "I'm not addicted," he muttered. "It's not possible for a unicorn to become addicted to alcohol. I simply object to being held against my will without the courtesy of common hospitality, that's all."

Shaking his head, Tanamin continued to stare at the smaller stallion. "You're an addict, alright, Sport. But not to drink; booze is only the tool. No, you're addicted to oblivion. You're addicted to the easy escape. You drink so you don't have to think about what drove you to this, so the pain will go away." The black unicorn sighed softly. "Believe me, I know all about that particular addiction.

"But it's a lie, Sport." Tanamin leaned forward, and reached out to place a hand on Sport's cheek, pulling the little unicorn's gaze back onto him. "The pain isn't gone. It just sits there under all of the discarded bottles and kegs, patiently waiting for you to look the other way. Then it will surface, and you'll have to deal with it."

Sport snorted. "That's easy for you to say, you haven't had to live through what I experienced." He pulled his face away from Tanamin's hand, and turned away from the larger unicorn. "You can't know what it's like."

"Know what what is like, Sport?" Tanamin gently prodded, but the pale little unicorn simply sat down on his haunches with his back to the magistrate.

"I don't want to talk about it," he pouted. "I want a drink!"

Tanamin nodded, and stood up. "Sport, do you know the one word that an addict hates to hear?"

"I haven't a clue," he grunted, not bothering to look back, "but I have the feeling that you're about to tell me."

"No," Tanamin said.

Sport's ears flicked back at him, betraying his curiosity. "No what?"

"That's the word, 'No'," the black stallion said as he dusted a few stray bits of straw from the fur on his legs.

Sighing dramatically, Sport rolled his liquid brown eyes. "How utterly educational," he said, "not that it has anything to do with me. Now if we're through with riddles..." He looked back over his shoulder at the magistrate with a soulful expression. "Please, Tanamin. Please may I have a drink?" His voice had risen to an almost desperate pitch.

Pausing at the door, just before he passed through to the hallway outside, Tanamin gave Sport a look of pained patience. "No," he said, and swung the door shut.

When it came time for dinner, there was no surliness, no sniping remarks, no sign of Sport's attitude from that morning. As Tanamin carried the tray of fruit, oatmeal, and spice cake into the room, the sound of eager hooves on the cool stone floor caused his ears to swivel around.

"Hi again, Sport! Ready for a little dinner?" The black unicorn closed the door with a hoof and turned to see the shaggy stallion looking haggard and hungry. He tried not to stare, but he was almost certain that there was a leanness to Sport's frame that had not been there yesterday, and though still tussled from years of neglect, his coat seemed paler now. "You're looking a little better," he said as he put down the tray and joined Sport on the floor.

"I'm not feeling much better," Sport said. He lowered his nose to snuffle at the fruit on the tray, and half-heartedly pulled a grape off of a robust purple bunch. "In fact I feel..." He stopped, and simply chewed his grape.

With a practiced snap! Tanamin twisted an apple perfectly in two and placed one half of it before his captive before taking a bite of the other half. "You feel what?"

Sport shook his head, and pulled off another grape, ignoring the apple half for the moment. "I don't want to sound like I'm just complaining, m'lord," he said, looking down at his reflection in a bowl of cherry juice set for him on the tray.

"I don't mind if you complain, Sport." He took another big bite of apple, and munched it while he spoke around the mouthful. "As long as you don't stop communicating. I brought you here to hear what you had to say without distractions. So by all means, tell me how you feel."

The small unicorn looked up at him with sad eyes. "Really?"

A twinge of sympathy tugged at Tanamin's heart, and he put down his apple. He gave the pale stallion a sincere look. "Really."

Sport took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts. "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately," he said, and swallowed hard. His words were obviously a struggle. "I thought about what you said, and yes, I am addicted to the escape that waits for me at the bottom of a mug."

He paused for a moment, looking down at his forehooves. Gently, Tanamin said, "Go on."

Lips trembling with emotion, Sport looked up into Tanamin's eyes again. "And since don't have that... I mean, if I could only..." The little unicorn sighed. "If you only knew why I was so desperate to escape, you might be a little more understanding."

Tanamin leaned forward. "So explain it to me. Why are you so desperate to escape?"

Swallowing again, Sport lost a bit of his nerve and had to look back down at his hooves once more. "See, that's just it, when I'm drinking, I can almost completely forget why I drink. I hit this sweet spot of obliviousness, I guess you could say. I get to forget some bad things, even if that means forgetting some good stuff, too."

"Good stuff? Like what it is to be a unicorn?" Tanamin prodded.

Sport nodded. "Among other memories."

Tanamin sat back, giving the pale unicorn some space. He knew that Sport was finally starting down the path that the magistrate was hoping he would take. "What kind of memories, Sport?"

"My name's not 'Sport'," he said quietly. "It's Eromar."

The black stallion pursed his lips in consideration. "Eromar. That's a handsome name," he said, trying to be as supporting as he could. Voicing his thoughts like this, though painful, was good for the little unicorn.

"Yeah, my Mamma seemed to think so."

Tanamin grinned, saying, "Und tell me about your muzzer," in his best German accent.

Cocking an ear quizzically, Sport said, "What?"

"Your mother," Tanamin repeated. Sport obviously was not getting the psychiatry reference, so the magistrate abandoned the accent.

The little stallion shrugged, his demeanor suddenly chilly. He looked away, avoiding Tanamin's gaze again. "I'd rather not talk about my mother. She's one of those things that I don't like to remember."

"Hey," Tanamin said, reaching out to touch the pale unicorn's shoulder, "we're friends here. You can tell me anything you want, bud." He scooted almost imperceptibly toward the other unicorn, his voice soft and soothing. The memory of his mother was a tender subject for a reason, Tanamin knew. It might even be the emotional key he was looking for to help Sport-- Eromar, he reminded himself-- face his inner monsters. "Why don't you want to remember your mother?"

Eromar's brow knit with unhappiness. "I just don't. I don't like to think about my mother, alright?" he said irritably. The little unicorn's submissiveness began to evaporate.

"But there's a reason you don't want to remember her," Tanamin pressed, "what is that?"

The shaggy unicorn tossed his mane angrily. "Stop it, please. I don't want to talk about it." The surly little creature from breakfast was making a rapid return. "Why don't we talk about your mother for a change?" he shot at the magistrate, and stalked off as far as he could, which was only about a body length.

"There's not much to say about my mother," the black unicorn said, "except that everything I am today, I am in spite of her rather than because of her." He cocked his head to look over at Eromar. "I bet you could probably say the same thing, eh?" The smaller stallion's body went rigid, and his tail lashed rapidly back and forth. Tanamin could smell the anger in Eromar's scent, but did not retreat. "She's probably ashamed of what her son has become--"

"Shut up!" The pale unicorn rounded on Tanamin, his horn unwaveringly aimed at the magistrate's heart, eyes full of fury. "You don't know anything about her!"

Tanamin shrugged. "Then tell me about her."

Eromar fairly shook with rage, but instead of charging his jailer, he shook his mane in anger and frustration. "Just leave me alone you fucking orc!" He gnashed his teeth together so loud that Tanamin could hear them from across the room.

Blinking, Tanamin tilted his head. "What did you say?"

The small unicorn seemed to grow, his mane not quite so limp, and the fire of indignation burning in his eyes. "You heard me! I said you're a fucking monster for hurting me like this! You're an Imperial magistrate, by the Labyrinth! You're supposed to help people!" His voice would have been a roar if its pitch had been not quite so high.

Placing his hands calmly in his lap, Tanamin tried to project an aura of calm in the face of the white stallion's tempest of emotion. He remained silent, watching Eromar pace back and forth, simply waiting for the agitated little unicorn to continue. Eromar shut his eyes tightly and abruptly stopped his pacing, lost in the his own agonizing thought and feelings. When he opened them again, his anger had receded, and he faced the black unicorn.

"She left me, okay?" He spit the words like glass shards of torment. "She disappeared because I..." Heaving a heavy sigh, he continued in a tiny voice, his anger seeming to melt away. "Because I did a horrible thing."

"What did you do?" Tanamin asked softly, but there was no answer. Eromar walked over to his pallet of straw and flopped down onto his side, facing away from the black stallion, and made no further sound.

Tanamin hung his head for a moment, his heart heavy with regret. He picked up the tray of barely eaten food, and quietly left the small stallion to his grief.

Two days passed without Eromar saying a word to the black stallion. Tanamin would bring in trays of food, sit down to eat and attempt to engage the smaller unicorn in conversation, but Eromar would have none of it. He would sit or lay on the straw mat and gaze out the window at the stars or clouds, not speaking, eating, or according to Dragonarr even drinking. The magistrate was not alarmed; unicorns of all types can go for a long time indeed without needing food or water when they wanted. Eromar's silence, though, was frustrating even though Tanamin had been expecting some stubbornness. Until the little stallion decided to discuss his problems, his rehabilitation would grind to a halt. But Tanamin was a unicorn, too, and could be just as stubborn. He resolved to let his reluctant captive stew for as long as he wanted, and simply wait him out.

Tanamin stood in the dark room as the wind and rain buffeted the tower, and felt his resolve beginning to falter. Though it was not a particularly rowdy storm, the moaning wind and undulating thunder underscored how lonely Eromar looked snuggled in his bed of straw, his head tucked against his flank. He looked for all the world like a sleeping foal, Tanamin thought. And he suspected that deep inside, Eromar was just that.

The black unicorn had taken pains to ensure that Eromar would not hear him enter the room, and so when he knelt down beside the sleeping stallion, Tanamin was glad to see that he was still asleep. Judging from his furrowed brow and his fitful swallows, the magistrate got the definite impression that Eromar's dreams were far from pleasant. He reached out with a delicate hand and stroked the smaller unicorn at he base of his horn, breathing a single word so softly that it might have been mistaken for a sigh; "Sleep..."

Confident that the white stallion would now remain sleeping, Tanamin opened a small bundle that he had brought with him and reverently removed the contents. He silently placed the two purple candles and the brass incense burner on the floor and spread the purple silk that had wrapped the bundle onto the floor next to Eromar's mat. He then sat down on the floor with his legs folded beneath him and placed the candles to either side of the censor. Once he had lit the candles and sent the delicate aroma of sandalwood rising from the brass burner, the stallion closed his eyes, and willed his body to relax, his breathing to quiet.

When he felt his body was as relaxed as it was going to become, Tanamin untied the sash on his robe, and shrugged it off of his shoulders so that it fell in a silken pool to the floor behind him. The pale moon shone in silvery highlights through his ebony mane and down along his sides, along his hips and legs as he sat nude on the mat. He called upon his goddess, the Mother Mare, to guide him in his quest to help the sleeping white stallion before him; He had the feeling that he would need all the help he could get. Softly, delicately, Tanamin reached one ebony hand out and once again touched Eromar's head just at the base of his horn.

"Dream," the magistrate whispered.

Eromar's ears began to twitch, his eyes beneath their lids sliding rapidly back and forth. Tanamin knew that the little unicorn was dreaming, or at least beginning to dream, so he once again closed his own eyes and let his consciousness drift. He envisioned himself floating in dark space, covered with a bright purple light. Slowly he opened his awareness up and images began to form in the dark void around him.

At first the images were abstract and indistinct, like a film out of focus and running at too high speed. Tanamin let the images float through his mind freely without concentrating on any one in particular until he began to see a pattern in the colors and intensities. Like adjusting an antenna, the magistrate focused his perception slightly up and to the left, and the images snapped sharply into focus all around him, as though he were seeing them from his own point of view.

He was in Stegg's, but it looked different, darker around the edges with distances not quite right. Tanamin recognized the flavor of a dream and nodded to himself, satisfied; he was seeing what Eromar saw as he slept. The sounds and smells were there as well, but were distant and muted compared to the relative sharpness of the white stallion's dream vision. Tanamin looked up and saw an enormous set of dark brown breasts with large almost black nipples. Peeking over these was an amber-eyed equine's face that Tanamin recognized immediately, smiling down at him. He realized with some amusement that the little unicorn was dreaming that he had his head in the naked lap of the magistrate's own mate, Chocolate. As Tanamin watched, Eromar nuzzled his nose down between Chocolate's legs and began lapping softly at her velvet sex. In this dream, she tasted like warm, sweet beer. The purple aura around the black unicorn flared with mirth.

As fun and erotic as the dream was, Tanamin had work to do. He split his consciousness the slightest bit so that he could hold the dream firmly within his awareness, but at the same time feel the fingers of his physical body still maintaining contact with Eromar. Satisfied that he was still properly linked and grounded to himself, he projected a single thought/image into Eromar's dreaming mind.

"Drink..." he whispered, and let the word expand from himself into the image around him.

Slowly and seamlessly, the way dreams tend to do, he found himself with his nose no longer between the Chocolate's shapely thighs, but inside the warmth of a steaming mug. The beer was still warm and sweet, but its erotic connotations had fallen to the wayside for the moment. He lifted his nose from the mug and all of his friends surrounded him, laughing, playing cards, and drinking from oversized mugs of their own. Patch the rat slapped Clivan the dog across the back in response to some funny story; Mudge the otter held his hand of cards close to his chest, holding an extra ace with his tail; Lord Darke sat opposite Mudge, idly bending the oaken table beneath his hand as if it were clay while he considered his poker hand. The warmth of companionship spread through Eromar at the sight of his slightly tipsy friends, and Tanamin felt the wave of happiness flow across him. It felt so nice that he almost didn't notice the hulking dark shapes on the periphery of the dream, peering in at him with baleful yellow eyes.

He tried to get a better look at the phantoms in the darkness, but they always seemed to elude his direct gaze. Eromar noticed them, though, and immediately buried his nose back in the mug, taking another long draught of malt. Tanamin noticed that the more Eromar drank, the farther away the dark specters seemed to drift. Aha, Tanamin thought to himself, that must be what he's running from, what he is always trying to escape with the booze. Well, let's see if we can get a better look at them. His physical body once again stroked Eromar's brow. "Dry..." Tanamin whispered.

The bottom of the mug touched Eromar's nose, rough as sand and so cold that he jerked his head back as if burned. The mug tipped over and rolled to a rest on the table, as empty and dry as if it had never held anything at all. He looked around the table, and all of his friends still had their mugs, so he leaned over and tried to nip a drink from Mudge's beer. But there was nothing in it, either; the wooden mug was cracked and desiccated now, even though it had been perfectly normal a moment before.

His friends laughed at his predicament, and he dipped his ears in embarrassment. He was about to ask someone else for a drink of their beer when the laughter suddenly changed, became harsher and deeper. A chill ran down his spine, and to Tanamin the sudden anxiety felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold molasses upon his head and it was creeping down his body to his tail. Eromar looked around, and his friends had vanished into the darkness, replaced by the yellow-eyed shapes, lurching ever closer. The shapes came closer with each second and the laughter became louder, rough and grating, spiteful and foul.

Anxiety turned to terror. Tanamin felt the white stallion turn to run, but it was too late; the black menace was all around him, leaving him no escape. A squeal escaped Eromar as a green, rope-muscled arm reached out of the blackness and grabbed him by the throat. Tanamin tried to jerk his own head away instinctively, but Eromar was frightened beyond the ability to move even that much. The black unicorn had to remind himself that this was just a nightmare that the other stallion was having, and that in this nightmare could lie clues about Eromar's problems, clues as to how to help him. It was only this thought that kept him from reaching out with his physical body and shaking poor Eromar awake.

More and more massive green hands came out of the dark to clutch at him, grabbing his legs, his tail, his ears and his horn. Inhuman strength held him fast, and only then did he shriek in terror and try to struggle. It was useless, he was truly trapped. Then with a clarity that felt unnatural compared to the rest of the dream, Tanamin felt a heavy weight descend onto Eromar's back, felt the rasp of course hair through the fine fur along his back.

Suddenly he was no longer in Stegg's. He was in the middle of a forest, the air still carrying the cold and mist of a dull gray morning. He was surrounded by walls of filthy brown and black leather and dusky green skin. Tanamin looked up into the faces of the little stallion's tormentors and realized that they were a band of orcs, perhaps eight or ten of them from what he could see. Their sour, oily stink was overpowering in the morning chill. The weight on his back and the callused hand on his horn forced Eromar's head down so that now all Tanamin could see was the grass and broken autumn leaves between his hooves. All around him, the grunting hoots and jeers of the orcs drowned out the sounds of the forest. A clammy cold uncoiled itself in the magistrate's stomach as another realization struck him; Eromar was no longer dreaming. He was remembering.

The weight on his back became heavier as he looked back over his shoulder through wild eyes to see one of the ugly brutes leaning down over him, an evil leer on his face. His tail was cruelly jerked aside, and he felt the monster's cock pressing against him, preparing to force its way inside. Eromar struggled and fought like a thing possessed, but he could not stop the orc from violating him, the thing's rancid breath in his nostrils and it's hard fingers gripping his haunches hard enough to leave bruises beneath the spun glass fur. After an eternity, the grunting beast withdrew painfully from him and another immediately took his place. Again he struggled, and again it was in vain.

By the time the third one was finished, the small unicorn no longer had the strength to struggle. He hung his head as they defiled him, one by one, until each violation, each taunt and each cruelty began to run together in his tortured mind. Tanamin's heart broke as he felt the young unicorn begin to sob and tremble, crying out over and over again, "...Mama! Mama!..."

The horror of what Eromar was experiencing-- had experienced, Tanamin had to once again remind himself-- ate at the magistrate's soul like a black cancer on his heart, but still the orcs' savagery grew blacker still as one of the fiends cuffed Eromar across the ear with a rocky fist hard enough to make lights explode behind his eyes. A hideous face filled his still reeling vision close enough for him to see the yellowed rot of the orc's teeth.

"Quit yer bawlin', colt!" the creature barked, and flecks of stinking spittle covered the unicorn's satin nose. "Take it like a stallion!"

" 'e can't!" one of the orc's compatriots said in a gravelly brogue. " 'e's too busy takin' it like a mare!" At this, the assembled mob broke into hideous, rasping laughter.

Tanamin's hand reached instinctively over his shoulder for a sword hilt that of course was not there, and instead grasped a handful of his own mane, trembling with impotent rage as he watched Eromar remember the entire atrocity. His teeth hurt from grinding them in anger, and a tiny voice in the back of his mind was telling him that his physical body was actually gritting his teeth hard enough to give him a headache if he did not relax. He blew out a breath, and unclenched his fist from his mane, and tried to regain his perspective on the abomination going on around him. This is all in the past, the reminded himself again, and it can't be changed no matter how badly you might want to. As he watched another fat, greasy orc mount the comparatively tiny white unicorn, those thoughts brought little comfort.

At last the final coarse, smelly orc lay bent over him, shuddering and grunting obscenely in orgasm, and drooling on the back of his neck. The acrid stink of orc musk mixed with the smell of Eromar's tears in his delicate nostrils as he simply trembled in shock. The sun broke through the morning mists, and though he could distantly feel its rays on his fur, he felt as though the warmth would never be able to go any deeper, never again warm his heart.

The orc pulled away from Eromar, chuckling with obnoxious satisfaction. "This little colt's as good's a woman," he declared, bringing growls of agreement from those assembled. The foul, piggish face leaned into the unicorn's view.

"Ain'tcha, sport?" The orc laid one last sharp spank across his rump and hulked away, rumbling with amusement.

Tanamin watched as the mob of orcs, as if discarding a toy with which they were now bored, let go of Eromar and let the colt slowly sink to the ground, still in shock. In slow motion, they walked away from him, their cruel laughter receding along with them. The scene faded away into darkness, leaving only poor, tiny Eromar lying on the ground, ravaged and broken, crawling slowly away in a feeble attempt to find safety.

Tanamin realized with a start that he was no longer looking out from Eromar's perspective, but was looking down at the smaller stallion from where he stood in the darkness nearby. That could only mean that Eromar was no longer fully asleep. The magistrate shifted his focus again, letting his consciousness slip fully back into his physical self, and he found himself sitting once again beside the white unicorn in the moonlit tower. Though his eyes were closed, Tanamin could not get the heart-wrenching scene out of his mind.

He looked down at Eromar, who was silently sobbing, his tears streaming down his muzzle and dripping into the golden straw. The white stallion's eyes fluttered open, and he sat up and looked around, momentarily disoriented. His eyes lighted on the black unicorn sitting next to him, and a look of relief seemed to pass over his face.

"Tanamin...?" he said. His lips began to tremble and he leaned forward to lay his head against the magistrate's chest. Tanamin reached out to wrap his arms around Eromar's neck, pulling the unicorn close to him.

"Shh..." Tanamin whispered into the little stallion's ear, "it's alright. I'm here." His whole body shook with Eromar's sobs as he hugged his friend tightly. "It was only a bad dream," he said.

They sat in the moonlight for a long while after the unicorn's crying had quieted. The small stallion's breathing was even now as he stared into the dim room at nothing in particular. Tanamin simply held onto him for as long as Eromar liked, for as long as he needed the support. At length Eromar sighed and looked up into the magistrate's face. His soft voice seeming loud amid the stillness, he said, "So now you know."

Rather than lie, or show his surprise that Eromar had been aware of his presence within his dream, Tanamin simply closed his eyes and nodded, laying his head against Eromar's.

If alcohol was Eromar's escape and solace from painful things, then music was Tanamin's. There was something soothing, something cathartic in holding an inanimate object and through skill, discipline, and the force of one's will, coaxing it to sing. He loved music in all its myriad forms, no matter the instrument, the style, or the skill of the player, so long as it was passionate and heartfelt.

This morning, his weapon of choice to chase away the pain was a simple six-string guitar. He sat in the belly of the starship Dragonarr, a ship so huge that it could hover high above a continent and still bring twilight to the land below. Tanamin himself was barely the size of a microbe by comparison, a single bacterium loitering about one lobe of the great ship's brain, surrounded by glowing readouts and the neon outlines of virtual control panels. He strummed intently and tapped out the rhythm with his hard hooves against the deckplate. And as he did, he sang.

"I close my eyes when I get too sad

I think thoughts that I know are bad.

Close my eyes and count to ten

Hope its over when I open them.

"I want the things that I had before

Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door

I wish I could count to ten

Make everything be wonderful again."

A chime, considerately modulated into the same key in which Tanamin was playing so as not to jangle his nerves, rang out from the air around him. He let the strings on the guitar vibrate without stopping them so that his last chord faded away.

"I have the search results that you wanted," Dragonarr said in his deep bass. The ship could assume any voice it wanted, but when speaking to his immediate family, he had the tendency to adopt a tone of calm authority. Almost like a doting father figure, Tanamin had often thought. And why not? Dragonarr took better care of him and his family than any of their fathers had ever done, with the exception of Angnarr, Dragonarr's captain and their adopted daddy.

Tanamin smiled at the thought, and said, "Thank you. Let's see what you've got."

The air in front of him glowed with a bright aqua display as Dragonarr drew a map of the countryside surrounding the Sableon Empire. "Based on Sport's probable age, typical unicorn behavior and preferred environment, and the geography, climate, probable vegetation patterns that you described," Dragonarr said as the map rotated slowly though the air, "there are one hundred and eighty-one locations which match the parameters of the search to within eighty percentile points."

Tanamin slumped. A hundred and eighty-one was entirely too many to check out in any practical fashion. "That's the fewest you could come up with, eh?" he asked, though it was more a rhetorical question. Dragonarr would not have included any locales in the search results that could be eliminated.

"I'm afraid so," Dragonarr said, patient as always. "If you have any new criteria to add, it might help narrow the field a bit."

The unicorn shook his head. "No, I've already given you everything I know for certain. Hell, even Sp-- Even Eromar doesn't know just where the place might have been, or how he got to Pennylump after the incident." For his part, Eromar had spent what felt to him like a few years in a kind of shell shock, and when he discovered the blissful amnesia that booze could provide... Well, the years afterward had become a huge alcoholic blur. Tanamin had to think of some other parameter with which to narrow the search.

What did he know about the orcs that he had seen in Eromar's memories, other than the fact that he wanted very much to slice them alive into tiny pieces? His first impression was that they were a war band of some kind. They were big, even for orcs, but then again they might have just seemed that way from the perspective of a terrified unicorn colt. They were wearing leather, which was pretty unusual for orcs. Most orcs wore animal hides, but they were either too primitive to cure their hides into leather, or they didn't care enough to go through the trouble. Orcs only wore leather gear if they were working for someone who supplied it to them, which might mean that these were mercenaries, or at least conscripts.

From what Tanamin had come to understand, all of the orc mercenaries had been hunted down and eliminated by Allynrud when he forged the Empire out of the hundreds of little shires and fiefdoms, and that was more than a long time ago indeed. Their destruction had been little more than a formality, though, as most would-be generals considered orcs to be too undependable for the money they would have to spend to retain their loyalty. In fact, the last time orc bands had been used with any regularity was...

"Dragonarr," Tanamin said, suddenly inspired, "add this territorial criterion to narrow the search." He began entering the information using one of the virtual input menus.

When he was finished, Dragonarr sounded skeptical as he said, "Tanamin, this military campaign was over three centuries ago. It is highly improbable that such criteria would be relevant."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Tanamin frowned slightly as he regarded the display. "Indulge me."

Where an instant before there had been only bright, sunlit air and birdsong, there now stood the two unicorns, tall and short, black and white, biped and quadruped. The birds and other animals ceased their calls and activities for a moment to regard the newcomers, but then when the unicorns proved to be no threat, the creatures ignored them just as readily and went about their business.

"Transition complete," Dragonarr said from nowhere in particular.

Eromar looked around, the sensation of being outside the round tower room obviously a welcome one, to judge from the look on his face. Tanamin showed less interest in the surrounding woods than he did in Eromar's reaction to this new environment. The white unicorn tossed his head at the smell of the air, and his mane spilled about his slender neck in snowy waves. He made no move to leave Tanamin's side, though; the golden ribbon carefully tied around his neck made certain of that.

"Well," Tanamin said, clapping his hands together as if in anticipation, "here was are!" He took a few steps and spun about, he arms extended from his sides as if to indicate the entire forest around them.

Glancing about uncertainly, Eromar said, "Yes, we certainly are... here." He looked up at his black companion expectantly. "Wherever here may be."

The tall unicorn cocked his ears at Eromar. "You don't recognize it? This is the forest where you were born. Where you grew up." He watched Eromar's face carefully, and was not surprised when realization slowly crept up on him and he began to glance nervously about him as though expecting each tree to hide an ambush. The smaller stallion's ears flattened against his skull and he pressed close to Tamamin's side.

"This is not funny, Tanamin," he said, his voice becoming frantic. "I do not want to be here! Take me home, please? Please, Tanamin, my lord, please... If you are my friend please do not do this to me." He began to shake his head back and forth and his eyes started to glaze over in terror as he continued to plead with the magistrate.

Tanamin knelt beside the terrified unicorn and took his white face in his hands. "Eromar?" he said, even though the small stallion was no longer able to hear him. "Eromar! Eromar, listen to me!" He gave the unicorn's head a gentle shake to get his attention, and when that did not work, he took hold of one of the trailing ends of the golden bridle and yanked firmly.

This had the desired effect, and the wide-eyed unicorn fell silent, staring into Tanamin's face. "It's okay," Tanamin tried again in as soothing a voice as possible. "I'm here with you, okay?" He gave the frightened stallion a reassuring smile. "I won't let anything happen to you, alright?" Eromar did not look convinced, but slowly he nodded.

"Good," Tanamin said, and stood up once again. "Now, we're about to take a big step for you." He looked down encouragingly at the white stallion. "Are you ready?"

Obviously knowing what was to come, the smaller unicorn glanced over toward a small rise. On the other side lay the orc village where his life-long nightmare began, where he had been held and raped repeatedly for days. Tanamin could see that all of the pain and fear was rushing back on him. Huge silver tears welled up in is eyes and spilled down his cheeks, but Tanamin was glad to see Eromar bite his lip, and once again nod.

"I'm ready," he said, his voice small and cracked.

The magistrate gave him another warm smile. "You make me proud, buddy," he said, and lay one hand on Eromar's whithers and started off toward the village.

As they began to walk toward the rise, the white unicorn could not help but keep his fearful eyes focused on his own hooves. Tanamin could smell the little stallion's terror; his scent had the distinctively cold, sour undertone of fear, but he did not stop walking, moving one step after another toward the rise over which lurked his personal demons.

By the time they stopped at the top of the rise that overlooked the village, Eromar had not looked up from the ground. He trembled beneath Tanamin's hand and leaned against the taller unicorn's side as they stopped. The woods were oddly silent as Tanamin looked down at his friend and said, "It's time. You have to look up, Eromar." The magistrate glanced toward the village. "You have to face them."

The frightened unicorn heaved a ragged sigh, and his brows knit as he screwed up his courage. With all the willpower at his command, he forced his eyes to flick upward toward the scene of his torment for the most fleeting of moments... And then he looked up again, his ears slowly tipping forward in wonder.

There was no village. The beaten dirt paths that led to the village center were overgrown with grass, waving peacefully in the breezy sunlight. The rude timber and mud huts that surrounded the makeshift village square were gone and in their place stood nothing more than moldering piles of grassy dirt and rotten wood. Birds flitted around the bare patch of hard packed earth that had once been the cramped pens in which the green slabs of stinking filth had kept him when they were not defiling him.

He took a tentative step forward, and then another. He looked over the rise and recognized the foothills in the distance; this was definitely the place. But there was no sharp, offensive odor of unwashed orc, no constant noise of nasal grunts and roars, the orcs' piggish speech. That circle of rocks was where they roasted the birds and rabbits that they caught, more to singe the hair and feathers off than to actually cook them. But now there was not even ash left to denote it as a fire pit, just a small patch of slightly taller grass in the center of the stones. All around him was the beauty and tranquility of the forest. Nature had reclaimed the orc village like a wound healing over with green life, leaving only the slightest of scars to indicate that any injury had ever existed.

Eromar turned around and around, looking for some sign of the hell that had held his heart captive for so many decades. "Where... What happened?" he asked, almost as if to himself.

"Time happened," Tanamin replied, walking down to stand next to Eromar in the ruins of the square. "After Allynrud hunted the orc war bands to near extinction, villages like this became more and more deserted until the last of them finally died out. The orcs died out, except in a few small places far away from here." He indicated the whole area around them. "This is all that's left."

The black unicorn sat down in the thick grass and faced his friend. "Eromar, words could never adequately describe the depth of the atrocity that happened to you." Picking a long stem of grass out of the ground, Tanamin put the end in the side of his velvet mouth. "The orcs that did that to you are all long dead. But you're keeping them alive by not allowing the wounds they gave you to heal." The magistrate could tell that Eromar was carefully considering his words as they looked around at the remains of the orcish huts. "You're giving them an immortality that they don't deserve."

The little unicorn brought his gaze away from the ruins and looked deep into Tanamin's eyes, his expression one of uncertainty. "But..." He looked down at his hooves again. Tanamin noticed that he had a habit of doing that when he was struggling with his heart. "I do not know-- How do I do that?"

All at once Eromar got up and began pacing back and forth in front of the larger stallion, his eyes still downcast. "I mean, I have had to live with those-- those memories-- for my entire life. They were monsters that haunted me every waking moment." He paused in his pacing long enough to amend, "Every sober waking moment, anyway."

He stopped straight in front of Tanamin, once again looking him in the eyes. "Am I supposed to kick up my hooves and be happy just because those monsters are dead? Well they're not dead." He tapped his chest with his chin, once again looking away. "They're still in here."

Tanamin sighed and looked off through the trees to the foothills across the green valley. "That's my point, Eromar. They live inside your mind without paying rent, and the only person who can evict them is you." He munched the grass stalk for a moment while he let his words sink in. When Eromar said nothing, Tanamin went on. "The problem, I think, is that there's a part of you that thinks you deserve what happened to you." He watched out of the corner of his eye as the smaller stallion's head jerked around to look at him. "Or maybe that you don't deserve to be free of them now."

When he looked back at Eromar, the unicorn looked as though he were going to argue the point, but then he stopped before he could say anything. He closed his mouth so sharply there was an audible clack as his teeth made contact. His frown was so heavy that the magistrate could not identify the precise emotion that produced it; he did not know if Eromar was that angry at his words, or if the consideration that they had provoked was that deep.

Tanamin continued, his voice soft and sympathetic. "Why do you think that is, Eromar?" Eromar's answer was not long in coming, and Tanamin was glad to hear that it matched his own suspicions.

"Because of my Mamma," the little stallion said, and looked down at his hooves.

During the time he spent in Eromar's nightmare, Tanamin could feel the sense of abandonment that the poor colt had felt during his ordeal. The image of that little unicorn crying out in vain for his mother was one that would stay with Tanamin for a very long time. He felt the pain associated with the thoughts of his mother even now as he sat in the grass before the now grown up colt. "You think she abandoned you to your fate, don't you?" Tanamin gently prodded.

Eromar nodded, never looking up. "Yes, she did."

Cocking his ears quizzically at Eromar, the black unicorn asked, "Why would you think that?" He knew why, but he needed to hear it from Eromar himself.

"Because she did not come to help me." Tears once again welled up in his eyes as he said the words, though his voice remained steady. "Because I called and called, and she never came. Even after the orcs beat me to get me to shut up, I still called. After they left me for dead and I was able to crawl away, I called and called, but she was gone." He blinked back the tears and looked up toward the forest. "I was her only child, and I never saw her again." He sniffled, and shook his head. "I was barely out of my foal fur. What was I supposed to think?"

With a shrug, Tanamin said, "That she was captured too? That she was hurt somewhere or for some reason she couldn't come to you rather than wouldn't?"

The smaller stallion had begun to nod even before Tanamin had finished speaking. "Yes, yes, all that makes sense in my mind. Those are all very practical explanations that my head understands. But the heart of a young colt is more difficult to convince, especially after--" He caught himself, and fell silent.

That silence stretched out as Tanamin waited for Eromar to continue, to explain. Finally the dark stallion prompted him, "Especially after what, Eromar? Remember, you can tell me anything. I'm here to help you." He reached out a hand and placed it on Eromar's shoulder again. "What happened?"

A heavy sigh escaped the white unicorn and he sat down on his haunches in that odd way that unicorns can, but that horses can't. Tanamin could see that he was still fighting with his feelings about whether or not to share yet another deeply personal issue with the magistrate, but after a moment the matter was decided and Eromar said, "I was still young then, but my body was becoming mature. I was going through my first rut, which as you know is not much of a rut at all. Your body isn't mature enough to be terribly impressive to any mare, but you still have all the needs and urges. And because they are new to you, they feel so much stronger." He shrugged. "You know how it is." Tanamin did indeed know how it was, having experienced that awkward time himself. Every stallion did, and every stallion has wry stories of their first rut or two that range from humorous to horrific.

"Well, as I remember it," Eromar went on, "I was acting particularly dim, and my Mamma thought it was funny or cute or something. And she told me that she wanted to teach me something very important. She wanted to show me..." He swallowed hard, hesitating to go on.

"I'm listening," Tanamin encouraged him.

Eromar said quickly, "She said she wanted to teach me what mating was like," as if to get it out before his courage deserted him. Having said it, the little unicorn looked up from under his brow as if he were afraid of Tanamin's reaction.

Tanamin's expression was carefully neutral as he realized where this story might be going. He paused for a moment, watching Eromar look as though he were afraid of being hit. The only response he could think to make was, "And?"

The little unicorn sounded if anything even more nervous as he elaborated. "And, well, she showed me. She..." He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. "She let me mate with her." He said it very matter-of-factly, but the magistrate could see by his body language that he still dreaded what his friend would think.

The black stallion blinked a few times. "And that's it? Your mother wanted to teach you about sex, so you covered her?" He shook his head. "I don't get it."

With an exasperated snort, Eromar said, "What do you mean you don't get it? What part of 'I had sex with my own mother' do you not get?" His nervousness was fading, replaced by anger at the magistrate's density. "I committed incest with my mother, and the next day she abandoned me to the orcs!"

Putting his hands up in a T shape, Tanamin said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up! Where the hell do you draw that conclusion from?" His voice was understanding but firm as he spoke. "First of all, it isn't unusual for a unicorn colt's first sexual partner to be his mother, or for a filly's first partner to be her sire. If you hadn't been abducted by those orcs, you would have discovered that your mother most likely would not have let you mate her more than once or twice before she ran you off to find a girlfriend.

"Second, that's not incest, it's called education. Incest is a taboo only because of the genetic problems that would arise from a mother or a daughter becoming pregnant from a direct relative. Unicorns don't have that problem." He ticked off points on his fingers. "Mare's don't get pregnant unless they want to." Another finger. "Unicorn genes breed true or not at all, so there is no danger of genetic defects even if a mare were to conceive from her son or father." A third finger. "By the time a unicorn reaches their first rut they are usually mature enough that they don't form emotionally unhealthy entanglements with their parent.

"So in other words, bud; so what?" Tanamin gave the younger stallion a supportive smile. "You had sex with your mom? Well, guess what? So did most other unicorn stallions, including me." He let that last statement hang in the air between them for a moment while he watched warring emotions play across Eromar's face.

"As I see it," the magistrate said, scooting close enough to Eromar that he could put his arm around the other stallion's shoulders, "your problem was what you did with your mother, but that you did not get a chance for her to explain the other half of the process to you before you were taken away from her." Not wanting the little unicorn to think he was taking things too lightly, Tanamin no longer smiled, but instead looked sincerely into Eromar's light blue eyes.

Eromar looked even more confused than before, and his voice trembled as he said, "You mean I did nothing... wrong?"

Hugging his friend close, Tanamin shook his head. "Not a thing. You and your mother showed how much you meant to each other. That's all."

Confusion gave way to a relief akin to shock on the white unicorn's face as that realization set in. For the second time that morning, Tanamin felt the slender white body trembling against his own. Not due to fear this time, but to the conflicting feelings washing over him, rinsing his soul of a heaviness that he had carried for so long that he had ceased to notice it dragging at him. The two of them sat in silence while Eromar assimilated these new perspectives into his personal world and Tanamin simply let him.

"So," Tanamin said as they walked back over the rise toward the thicker woods, "what are you going to do now?"

Eromar looked toward the sun as it slowly drifted toward the horizon, staining the clouds fiery orange, peach and pale cream against the depthless blue. "I'm not sure," he said as he paused. The little stallion had gone through one hell of a day, Tanamin had to admit, but his task was not finished.

Tanamin studied the sunset along with Eromar for a moment, then said, "Do you think she's still alive?"

The pale unicorn shrugged, another feat horses could never accomplish, and looked up at the magistrate. "I think I would have felt it if she were dead," he said, "so I'm pretty sure she's alive. Now whether or not she's still around is another question." He sighed. "That is a question to which I don't have an answer."

The dark stallion nodded in understanding, and then asked, "Are you going to look for her?"

The little unicorn turned and faced Tanamin. "Well, I don't have much choice now, do I?" he said, an edge of anger in his voice. "If you hadn't taken it upon yourself to play my own personal savior, I would be enjoying a nice ale or four with good friends in a warm tavern, enjoying the privileges of Imperial citizenship and making a tidy little living by purifying that vinegar that Stegg calls wine and curing hangovers.

"As it is, I'm confused and unhappy, standing in the middle of a cold and potentially hostile forest after having been forced to confront crippling guilt and fear, and the only way I'll be able to finish this little quest you started me on is to find my dam whom I haven't seen in centuries so I can make sure she really isn't so angry and ashamed of me that she left me to the tender mercies of a band of orcs!" Eromar's voice had been slowly building in pitch so that he was almost spitting the words in fury. "Did I leave anything out? Is there anything else you'd like to do to ruin my worthless but heretofore contented existence?"

With a frown of his own Tanamin put his hands on his hips and stared down at the fuming unicorn. "Yes, as a matter of fact, there is," he said, reaching down.

"Oh, by all means," the white stallion said, sarcasm tainting the words, "don't stop now, you're on a roll!"

Tanamin took hold of the ends of the golden bridle and pulled Eromar's chin up so that the younger stallion was looking into the magistrate's face as he leaned down. Looking into Eromar's eyes, Tanamin touched horns with him and pulled on a loop in the knot of golden ribbon beneath the snowy unicorn's jaw. The ribbon unraveled itself from the knot, and as Tanamin continued to pull, the bridle slipped off of Eromar's head entirely, once more becoming a simple length of ornate gold.

"You're free, Eromar," Tanamin said quietly, standing up and taking a step back.

His eyes never leaving those of the black stallion, Eromar stood stock-still. Tanamin watched the tears once again well up in the little unicorn's eyes, but before he could say anything, Eromar turned and walked toward the forest, his white fur set ablaze by the glow of the sunset.

"Happy Re-birthday, Eromar!" Tanamin called out to his retreating friend.

Without turning back, Eromar growled, "Get fucked, Tanamin."

At least he's getting his spirit back, the magistrate thought wryly. As he stood and watched the little stallion disappear into the trees, he draped the golden ribbon over his shoulder and grinned.

"You're welcome," he chuckled, turning to head home.

I must be getting old, Tanamin thought. He did not remember having the tiny white hairs growing in at the base of his horn, but as he leaned close to the mirror in the bathing chamber at the Keep, he could see them clearly. They weren't silver, nor were they the coarse, wild hairs that sometimes cropped up in his mane. No, these were normal, albeit white, hairs growing in the middle of his forehead. Maybe they had been there for a while, and he just never realized it. Maybe the stress of dealing with Eromar was manifesting itself in his fur. Whatever the reason, he thought with a frown, if it got any worse it would look like he had a highly localized case of dandruff.

He toweled his mane vigorously as he stood dripping on the warm tile beside the bathing pool. Taking a look at his body in the mirror, he grinned. The fact that as a unicorn he was practically immortal aside, he didn't look bad for his age. He snorted. Yeah, he thought, and I'm humble, too.

A flowery laugh caused him to startle, and he whipped the towel from around his head as he turned, searching the room for the source of the sound. The room was just as it should be, empty except for the towel racks and the shelves holding the soaps, shampoos and oils, brushes and combs. The pool itself was undisturbed, and Tanamin could easily see to the bottom of the perfectly clear water.

He was about to chalk it up to a faery prank when he heard the laugh again, this time from behind him. In the instant before he whirled to face whomever was laughing, he realized that there was nothing behind him but the mirror.

When he rounded on his full length reflection, he received a shock. There, staring over his reflection's shoulder, was a pearlescent dragon that he instantly recognized. He glanced over his shoulder and sure enough there was no dragon standing behind him in the room, only in the mirror.

The dragon's eyes were full of mirth as they batted at him coquettishly. Round and softly built, she was the epitome of earthy eroticism, her hips full and wide and her breasts the same. She swung her tail back and forth, making her fanny rock hypnotically, and laughed at him again.

"Well met, Tanamin!" Life said, her smoldering smile just as suggestive as always.

Unconsciously straightening his posture, Tanamin bowed slightly to the Architect in the mirror. "Greetings," he said with a smile of his own. "Nice trick, by the way."

"Tis great for breaking the ice at parties," she said with that familiar brogue that was not quite Irish, not quite Scots, not quite Teutonic. "It also works passing well for talking to Avatars, especially those that are delightfully naked." In the reflection, the dragon delicately traced a claw up his reflection's sheath. Though he felt nothing directly, the image was enough to cause his body to stir beneath her touch.

Clearing his throat and trying not to respond to her teasing, Tanamin asked, "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this evening?"

Taking an obvious delight in distracting the black stallion in the mirror, Life ran her claws up his lean belly and through his chest fur to lightly trace one of his nipples. "I came to extend our gratitude for taking such exceptional care of your kinsman." She leaned in close to his face, close enough so that he could easily imagine smelling the rich grass and water smell of her breath. "He is on the mend now, he simply needs time and forgiveness, both from himself and from those whom he believes to be lost."

Tanamin nodded seriously. "I'm just glad I was able to help him."

While one pearly clawed hand pinched the nipple of the unicorn in the mirror, another came around his other side to cup his sheath and balls, gently squeezing. "He is not the only one who craves forgiveness, though," she purred.

His focus shifted suddenly from watching her roving hands to looking her in her whirling green eyes. "I don't understand. Who does he need to forgive?"

"Not him," she said as she leaned close to her ear. Her long tongue snaked out to carefully trace along the edge of his ear. "You," the dragon whispered as Tanamin twitched his ear in sympathy for his reflection.

Looking suspiciously at her, Tanamin resisted her distraction long enough to say, "Why do I need forgiveness? And from whom?"

She licked her lips lasciviously and leaned her long neck down so that her head was level with the damp fur of his belly. "As to the second question first, you crave forgiveness-- indeed, absolution-- from someone who knows your past all too well." Her mouth opened, and her tongue slipped out to lightly flicker over the opening of his swelling sheath, making it difficult for the unicorn to concentrate on her words. "You desire forgiveness from yourself."

She looked up from her teasing to gaze into his eyes. "Do you know who commanded the orcs who defiled that lamb?"

Abruptly Tanamin turned away from the mirror, wrapping the towel reflexively around his waist, his face downcast. "Yes, I do." He had known from the moment that Eromar had awakened from the nightmare and he was no longer looking at the scene from the little unicorn's point of view, but from that of someone observing the scene. He had known from the minute he reached over his shoulder for a sword to mete swift justice to the orcish rapists. Tanamin himself had never slung a sword over his shoulder; at least not in this lifetime. "So you don't have to remind me."

"Oh, I know that I need not remind you," she said from the mirror. "You remind yourself entirely too often as it is."

Briskly rubbing the towel across his chest, he sat down on the edge of the bathing pool, and looked back over his shoulder. He was not surprised to see the dragon kneeling in front of his image, laying her head on his thigh. Shaking his head at her tenacity, he said, "I don't know, it seems to me that someone that horrible must be remembered so that someone else doesn't unwittingly follow in his footsteps."

She shook her head patronizingly, and leaned her cheek against his belly. "But my dear Tanamin, the unicorn that did those atrocities is long dead." She smiled mischievously at him. "You're giving him an immortality he doesn't deserve."

The black stallion snorted at his own words thrown back at him, and pointedly began toweling off his belly, making her reflection have to move her head back. The irony was not lost on him, but it seemed to him that those words had little to do with his situation. He and Eromar had entirely different problems.

Didn't they?

He sighed, and closed his eyes once again against the pain of that thought. "I'd rather not think about that right now." Anger flushed his ears with heat as he heard her giggle.

"Funny! That's what he said to you. I wonder if I should lock you up until you face your demons?" He stood up and irritably tossed the towel aside, but she continued. "Tie you up in a nice tight golden bridle of your own?"

"You already did, remember?" he shouted, and rounded on the mirror. His reflection sported a harness of gold across his ebony chest attached to an elaborate bridle surrounding his outraged face. He tore across his breast with one hand as if to pull the harness off, but of course there was no harness on him, only on his reflection. She was standing next to him, holding in her slender talons one end of a glittering set of reins trailing from the bridle. He could only glare at her, his fists clenched at his sides. "It was shortly after I died."

He shut his eyes tight against the image in the mirror, and the submissive image was replaced with his own nightmare images that haunted the memories of his own death. A huge, red eyed juggernaut in the shape of a Friesian, his face and mane as beautiful as they were terrifying, advancing on him, staring hatred beyond the capacity of a mortal heart at him, and no matter how he fought, the Angel of Death simply kept coming. Jumbled memories flooded him, images of poisoned claws slashing across his skin, trailing liquid fire across his nerves; of hitting and kicking and slashing at the creature with his sword, it's mathematically sharp edge singing through the air and passing through the black specter as though it did not exist, and then feeling the creature reach out and crush his throat with unholy solidity; the sound of his own bones grinding unnaturally against one another and echoing through his skull; the taste of his own blood, bile, and fear clogging his nose and mouth and those eyes, those demonic eyes, shining like divine justice, burned into his very soul; the sickening realization that the terror and agony was not stopping as his spirit left his body.

Tanamin swallowed hard at the memory, and felt his knees weaken. "I remember," he whispered, and sat down hard on the tile floor, his reeling head in his hands.

When he looked up at the mirror, the bridle and harness were gone, and Life sat next to him, holding him lovingly to her heavy breast. Her pearly claw ran gently through his mane and her face was tender as she lay her head against his cheek.

After a long moment, she said, "It was a very kind thing you did for him, Tanamin."

He sighed, and gathered his legs up under him. "Yeah, well," the stallion said in a broken voice, and stood up, turning away from the mirror and walking to the door. "Shit like this wouldn't be necessary if you'd take better care of your toys." Shoulders slumped and his steps slow and heavy, Tanamin left the bathing chamber without a glance back.

Unseen in the mirror, the Architect Life watched the unicorn leave, an amused grin on her toothy muzzle. She lay out languidly on the floor, her ample curves spilling out across the warm tile as she began to fade.

"You're welcome," she said, and the chamber echoed with her laughter as she disappeared.