At home, it was often said that conversations with Star Swirl were nigh impossible. Ponies in front of his face only had a small fraction of his attention while the rest of his head floated out and onwards. It had been that way for longer than he could remember. “The foal was born with blinders about his eyes,” his kin often said.
As time passed over his unlit horn, those gentle chaffs congealed into biting criticism. So be it, then. If he appeared deaf, dithering, or discourteous in the eyes of the unenlightened, that was no business of his.
Star Swirl looked at the harts all about him and sighed. He did have to admit, though, that more attention to his surroundings might have prevented his current predicament.
In spite of his rough apprehension, the unicorn’s swift ride through the green hills was fair and smooth, all things considered. Dogwood’s tall leaps and hard landings jostled Star Swirl’s stomach and banged him about the cage of antlers early on, but the weight of his passenger soon put him out of that habit. The stag was in no hurry for an ugly spill or a sprained ankle.
Star Swirl did not know where he was being taken or what plans waited for him there. The tines arched above his head in beautiful, sharp points and could run him through with little trouble. He did not know how far the human’s tracking skill stretched and if the harts traveled on far enough, it could be difficult to reconvene.
These should have been Star Swirl’s main concerns, but they only brushed the edges of his thoughts. He had greater things to wonder on than something as paltry as his own welfare. A kidnapping was inconvenient, but it was no reason to interrupt his studies.
The incident under the maple was intriguing and the most exciting part of his travels so far, aside from the initial discovery of a human. What made the hounds behave the way they did? Why did they not approach the human until the next day? When did they realize he was there? And how? And why? Why did they wait so patiently? Why did tame dogs have this reaction while ferals did not? Did the dogs of Conemara share bloodlines with the fabled wolf servants of the contradiction creatures? Would they have served the human if he asked? If so, to what limit? Was it limited to Conemaran dogs or would Prince Argent’s favored hound bow before a human too? Or was it only a coincidence and the hounds were only curious about the absence of magic around the tree?
If only the human hadn’t been frightened of the dogs—ridiculous, a creature that could fell dragons spooked by a little beagle—he might have made observations more astute.
“And then,” Star Swirl mused to himself, “There is the matter of the honey-colored mare. She knew more than she knew.”
It was possible that her wizened earth pony instincts told her there was a dangerous creature about, the way a turtledove knew which way was south. That certainly would have been the conclusion his teachers would have come to.
Or... Or it meant that the void of magic draped about the human spread beyond the nullification of spells. It went deep into that mysterious land of magic at the core of all ponies; the thing that made the Nation’s flowers grow and the Hegemony clouds take shape. Things nopony had ever truly studied before, not just functional spells for lifting heavenly bodies or uprooting diamonds. Something deeper, older, yet still brand new. Like Lady Galaxy or Mimic the Gold-Shod, he could walk paths lit by starlight.
All of this might have been more exciting had if not for the fact that he’d no way to prove any of it. Theory was useless without execution, as far as the schools of magic were concerned and until his notes could be read by light from his horn, none would read them or care. But for the first time in many years, his mood was too bright to be overcast by that troubling fact. In the cups of Dogwood’s antlers, Star Swirl smiled.
The Hartfelt Company slowed their pace as the world changed from hills to woodland. They came to a place where Star Swirl could not see the tops of the trees. The sun was a stranger here. The harts weaved through a maze of branches and bark like a sewing needle. Dogwood went on carefully to keep his antlers from snagging.
They stopped at a tight little copse surrounded by brambles. If Star Swirl strained his ears, he could hear music from a lyre leaking out into the forest. From behind the trees came a voice, high pitched and gossamer thin. “Halt! By the heart of harts, the glory of the glen, the wild of the wood, who goes there?”
Larch shook her head with a sigh. “I do wish we didn’t have to go through this every time we took three steps from the trees. It’s getting a little tiresome.”
Dogwood nodded. “It could rhyme at the very least.”
Then Larch lifted her head and voice. “By the wild of the wood, by the glory of the glen, by the heart of harts, it is we who left the grace of the woods so wild and wandered. ‘Tis we who left to allocate autonomy to the disenfranchised and despaired in Conemara yonder: the Knave’s first doe, Larch, with fair Aspen and Dogwood. And young Douglas Fir, who misses rehearsals and ruins meters.” She paused for dramatic effect. “And a unicorn.”
There was a stir of soft, excited voices behind the brambles before the thin voice called out again. “Alright, then. What’s the password?”
"Wha-? Since when do we have a password?!"
"Since three hours ago. It's a very good password, the Knave came up with it hisself. I helped!"
"You made up a password while we weren't even here?"
"Yes."
"But ye still expect us to know it."
"Uh-huh."
The hind laid her ears back and gave the brambles flattest look she could manage. The other harts exchanged a look.
"Oh, but it's alright, Larch, you still know it! Just call out once like a love-struck butterfly, then twice like a grumpy swordfish."
“Um. Neither of those animals makes a sound,” Aspen said.
“Exactly!" the sentry giggled. "You’ll never forget it!"
Dogwood tilted his head so far to the side Star Swirl yelped for fear of falling out. “Whose voice is that? Is...is that Poplar?”
“Can’t be her,” the yearling laughed. “Popple’s still in her spots. Whoever heard of a fawn keeping sentry?”
The voice grew an octave. “Douglas Fir, you hush! I grew out of ‘most all my spots a whole month ago and anyway you’re hardly older than I am. If your fool self is old enough to leave the trees, then I’m old enough to keep watch from ‘em.” The bramble moved aside to reveal a fawn wrinkling her little nose at them. “An’ you can quit calling me Popple, too.”
Star Swirl found himself in a clearing striped with sunlight and the grass bitten low. The gentle lilt of strings hit a sour note and cut off. The other harts concealed themselves in the pockets of shadow, with only small hints to their identity. A hoof here, a red coat there, the shine from a nose, and off to the side, in a bed of oak leaves, a huge pair of amber eyes looking back at him.
Odd eyes for a deer. The figure they belonged to was smaller and stubbier than the other harts and as it turned to the side he saw the blunt stub of an antler. Likely another yearling, it was too big for a fawn. As the other harts—an older stag and a heavyset doe—stepped into the light to sniff and stare at the pony in Dogwood’s antlers, the deer in the shadows only blinked at him and did not move.
The stag was a handsome creature, dark muzzled with a rich summer coat the color of fallen leaves, antlers branched out tall and wide in an impressive six and twenty tines. A circlet of plaited ivy curled behind his ears, sprigs climbed up to hug the lower crowns of his antlers. But there was white frost upon his face and he moved in the burdened, languid steps of a creature approaching the autumn of his life, graceful steps though they were.
“And so our intrepid pilgrims step into their woodlands wild, returned from quest won in wit and guile.” He touched noses with Larch, then Aspen. Star Swirl felt the Dogwood’s muscles tense like a bowstring.
The elder stag turned to them with a thoughtful little smile. The velvet of his antler prodded at Star Swirl’s barrel. “I didn’t know Conemara had a haberdasher. ‘Tis a fine hat, Dogwood, but I’m afraid the color doesn’t go with your eyes at all. Tell me, what manner is it? Prisoner purloined or a comrade caught?”
Dogwood took a step back and bowed his head, dumping out the unicorn in a jingling heap. Star Swirl peeked out from the cape draped over his head before tossing it back into place. A pink starburst of mane flared out behind his head, prompting snickers around the clearing.
“I can’t tell what manner he is, Knave.” The stag cricked his neck and smirked as the unicorn shrank under his gaze “But he seems partial to lyrical criticism.”
“Hm?” Star Swirl widened his eyes and innocently looked around for this rude, nonexistent pony. He put a hoof to his chest. “I? I am only Star Swirl, a poorly scholar cataloging wild creatures of the Nation.” He looked around at the deer with a tiny, foallike frown. “Although it appears I’ve discovered wilder creatures than intended.”
Larch looked to the Knave. “All of a sudden he’s all shyness and shivers. Didn’t hear a lick of that in Conemara. I’d not listen to a word he says without a versed opinion.” She took a sniff of the unicorn’s mane and shied away, flicking her wisp of a tail. “I don’t like the smell of him, harts. Not at all.”
The great stag took a whiff for himself. His hind legs fidgeted as a shiver ran through them. “Then a well-versed opinion we will have. Heartstrings! What say you?”
The yearling with the odd eyes looked up. There was a light timbre in his voice, higher than a hart in his first pair ought to have. “I say he knows more than he tells us.” He stood with a rustle of leaves and stepped forward. “Though I’m guessing you’re wanting me to tell you a bit more than that.”
The hooves weren’t cloven. The coat was a light, minty green. A mane hung about the shoulders in stringy white tangles, though it might have been a different shade once. What he had presumed an antler nub was in fact a spiraled little horn. On both sides of her flank, the mark of a golden lyre.
Star Swirl quietly nickered in astonishment. It was a mare—and a unicorn mare at that! And judging by the crow's feet, she was no yearling either.
Heartstrings circled him once, twice, poked at him a little, then sat. “He’s telling the truth about the scholar bit, I can grant him that. But our lead hind’s right to be suspicious. There’s nothing simple about this colt at all, except maybe his luck.”
She levitated a tuft of Star Swirl’s mane and waved it in the Knave’s face. “Take a gander at these brash colors, you’ll find it in nobler blood. From the pink in his mane and the stars on his flank, I’d say he’s of House Galaxy. I thought it might have been House Fizzy at first, but the mark—and the name—comes from stars, and that family’s all about stars.”
The mare glanced back at Star Swirl, who was still staring holes into her head. She flicked her tail and lifted a forehoof. “What?”
There were several answers to that question, mostly other questions. Things like What are you doing in the deer’s wildwood? and Were you also abducted? and Are you aware your tail has seventeen burrs and a pinecone in it? and Are these harts going to leave me for dead in a ditch somewhere?
But he decided on, “Why are you naked?”
Heartstrings glanced down at herself. “Why not? Everyone else is.”
She lifted his cape with a chipped forehoof and frowned at the light peeking through thinning silk. “Really, was this the best ye could do, Larch? Even with the blue of his blood, the wee lamb’s a far cry from an arrogant lord or a fat tax collector.”
“He doesn’t even have a coin purse on him,” observed the heavyset doe. “A disappointment, really.”
Larch flicked an ear. “We left his possessions where they lay. Noble harts have no use for gold. And I don’t see you bringing back any aristocrats, Willow.” She glanced back at the pair of unicorns, small under the arching trees. “What he lacks in wealth he makes up for in arrogance.”
“He insulted us,” Dogwood put in. “Or our poetry, at least. Same thing.”
Star Swirl snatched his cape back, summoning all his will to bite back a retort. “I meant no insult, I was merely putting my learned skills in constructive criticism to use and that is all. Perhaps I was too brash in judgment. After all, had I known that in mere moments I’d be nose to nose with the legendary Knave of Harts and his Company—”
The old stag pricked his ears, leaning his neck down to pony level. He smelled of moss, musk, and cedar. “You know of me?”
Reader, like all good little ponies, Star Swirl knew lying was disgraceful. He also knew, however, that the truth could bend, twist, and curve into whatever shape suited him best. All ponies in polite society knew that.
“Oh, but of course I know of you! How could I not? The Unicorn Kingdom is all a fluster with talk of fearsome harts—not in public, of course, we still have our pride, you understand. But when last I saw him, the prince declared a handsome reward for the knave’s capture, though none have gone to claim it.”
“Has he?”
The blue unicorn nodded seriously. “I have it on good authority he guards the queen fiercely in fear of her capture. In the evening the ladies in House Twinkle whisper rumors of rogues behind their fans. There is a curfew now.”
Larch stood over him, squinting as if she could press the truth out of him with her eyelids. Star Swirl smiled politely at her, for he had said nothing that untrue. Foals had to be indoors by nine, the daughters in House Twinkle suspected one amongst them moonlighted in piracy, and in seventeen years Prince Argent never lost a chess match or a game of cards.
“‘Tis rare we even leave the Kingdom at all, for fear of the wild of your woods.” Star Swirl pointed in Conemara’s direction. “I am the first unicorn you have seen in some time, yes?”
“Aye,” Larch admitted. “The company’s not seen a horned pony in ages.”
“Well, there you are then!”
The harts all looked to each other with growing smiles. “That does make a great deal of sense,” Willow said. “We used to see them south of the wildwood all the time before we began protecting Conemara.”
Aspen nodded. “It matches Mayor Lickety Split’s report of the unicorns run off by our reputation, the weak livered milksops.”
“‘Tis no wonder they rarely leave their gilded towers,” the Knave of Harts sneered. “I expect going without a spine makes travel difficult even with the aid of profane magics.”
The mare gave both of them a stony look. “A fortnight ago you didn’t think unicorn magic profane when it patched up your attercop bites.”
Larch nudged her with an ankle. “Aw, don’t get your tail in a twist, now. You know that we didn’t mean you.”
“Yes,” said Douglas Fir. “You’re a unicorn but you’re not a… you know, a unicorny unicorn.”
“Feh.” Heartstrings stomped back into her corner and flopped down in a crunch of leaves, her back to all of them. Soft yellow lit the shade as the first chords of The Gloaming Glen of Yarrow began.
“I still don’t like it.” Dogwood peered down at Star Swirl, expressionless and still. “If we are so a-feared in the Kingdom then why does this one leave the safety of it?”
The stargazer took a cautious step away from Dogwood and his antlers. “I told you, I wanted to expand the bestiaries and the growth of my knowledge is dear to me. Still, I cannot deny that the Kingdom’s borders drew in tighter than I liked and polite unicorn society bores me to tears. I’ve always had an itch for adventures.” Star Swirl ran his tongue over the scars stitched across his lips and flinched. The bleeding stopped days ago, but his muzzle was still tender. “Adventures or trouble. Either way, I seem more at home with wild brambles than rose gardens.”
The Knave of Harts grinned. “Say no more, I understand perfectly. Tis not the first time the Company was among well-bred unicorns with a bit of wildwood in them. Isn’t that right, Heartstrings?”
The strumming paused as the mare looked up from her lyre and sighed. “Look, we’ve been over this before. Not all unicorns are aristocrats. My kin are common as a cold and I’ve never had silk sheets or a diamond sewn in my saddle.” Heartstrings frowned at Star Swirl and his rich colors, the pink of his beard bright even under the wildwood trees where afternoon wore a gloaming mask.
She picked up the song where she left off, a simple melody that didn’t call much attention to itself. “Besides, I came to you as a minstrel and travel is my trade. I’m the exception, not the rule. Most ponies are tied to their hometowns by blood or tradition and they don’t leave unless they’re forced to.”
“So not even the high-bred are free of tyranny, then?” The Knave blinked at Star Swirl with new eyes.
Heartstrings glared at him but as usual, this went unnoticed. The mare had done her part and as far as the harts were concerned she’d faded into the background with her music. Under the notes, she groused to herself, “That isn’t what I said at all..”
“What was it, little fellow?” Larch tittered like a fawn, absolutely delighted with the idea of a rebellious unicorn. “Did you hear something you were not supposed to? Overhear a murderer’s plan or attempt a coup against Mohs? Did you attempt to revolutionize the system? Is that how you were banished?”
“Banished?” Young Douglas Fir looked up, cheeks swollen with feathergrass. “I didn’t know he was banished. What did he do?”
The harts were all staring at him now. The clearing buzzed with the question overlapping itself many times over. What has he done? What made him leave? What will he do now?
Star Swirl cringed under their eyes. He had prepared to speak of wonderful beasts and epic poetry, not his home. There was no time to craft an embellishment and he could see they wouldn’t be pacified without an answer. “Nothing that exciting, I’m afraid. I was supposed to be married and I did not wish to be, so I left. And that is all.”
The stags and the yearling looked at each other disappointedly but did not press him further, but the hinds all drew in closer, ears tilted high. There was nothing more romantic nor more rebellious than a discarded betrothal.
“It was done in the name of true love, of course,” Aspen said. Her fellow hinds all nodded in agreement.
“There was obviously a sweet, humble mare that won his heart, perhaps a seamstress or a schoolmarm,” said Larch. “Would that not be adorable? A scholar and a schoolmarm separated by status but drawn together by devotion?”
Willow shook her head. “Nay, that can’t be it at all. Why would the little fellow have to leave his land if his sweetheart was a unicorn? Even poor ones live in the kingdom.”
“Mayhap she was the one who was banished?”
Aspen ran a tight little circle in her excitement. “Yes! For teaching revolutionary ideas to young, open minds!”
“And the little bearded unicorn went out to wander the world in search of her!” Willow fluttered her eyes and sighed, “Oh, the poor thing. He’s so brave.”
Poplar balanced on her hind legs and stretched her neck as far as it could so her little voice could carry. “D’you know what I think? I think his true love was an earth pony and that’s how come he’s come to the Nation to look for her.”
“And that must be why he has the mark he does! Look, a pair of stars shooting in opposite directions.” Aspen looked back to Heartstrings. “That is what you said, right? The mark on a pony’s flank reveals their destiny.”
Heartstrings hunched her shoulders and pulled in her tail.. “Yes,” she said, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s—”
“Star-crossed!” cried the hinds. “He’s a star-crossed lover.” They all shared a lovelorn sigh as the Knave and Dogwood exchanged an irritated look.
Star Swirl himself was forgotten even as the hinds speculated the intricate romantic mysteries of his past. It was no use to correct them, they had already decided what he was. That suited him fine. Whatever wild backstory they created saved him from admitting he was the tangled knot in House Galaxy’s bloodline. The hinds’ version, filled up with renegade romance was much better than skulking away in the dead of night, the disgrace of his House trailing behind him.
“Speaking of romance, our own little Douglas is about that age,” Willow chuckled. “Maybe the two of them could pair together in the meantime.”
“I’ll go off to find a herd of my own before that.” Douglas Fir wrinkled his muzzle at the thought of such a terrible engagement. “Besides, I can’t stand to be within a foot of him. There’s a strange scent upon his cape that chills the blood and pricks the nape.”
“Complain when you’ve had him in your antlers for two miles,” Dogwood huffed. “Certainly never smelled anything of the like before, ‘twas stronger in town and I’m glad to be away from it.”
The stargazer’s ears perked. That’s interesting.
Like the Conemaran vet, the harts sensed him too, even while they were preoccupied speaking with the mayor and defending their couplets. Star Swirl wondered what they would have seen, had they bothered to look into the maple branches. With no expectations of bald apes and more reason to fear him than a pony, perhaps they would have known him. The human would have been difficult to make out in the leaves, for deerfolk were never famed for eyesight, but one doesn’t have to see to know.
But look they never did, and so Star Swirl was alone with his insight. He drew it in and around him like a blanket; the privileged secret kept him warm and the intrigue of harts cooled his composure.
The unicorn shifted into his fortune teller voice, a quieter tone that sounded older than it was and trailed along the air like smoke. It was not as fascinating as Cozen’s eerie crackle, and it lacked the quiet, mournful power of the human’s tongue, but it did the trick well enough. “I could not say for certain what it is that you sense, for your nose is keener than mine. My hooves have crossed many lands, dear harts.”
Aspen, Willow, and Douglas Fir settled on their knees so they could hear better. Larch and Poplar peeked over his shoulder; the fawn’s breath tickled his neck.
“It could be any manner of creature smell caught in the silk of my travels. It comes with the profession of cataloging all creatures fearsome and frail. I might leave foreign lands, but they never leave me. I have come far and learned many things, but I couldn’t say what it is that sets a chill even in harts brave as Dogwood. Why don’t we discover it together?”
Dogwood said nothing, but took an aloof step towards Larch as if he’d only strolled in by coincidence. The Knave had kneeled next to the unicorn and offered a bit of his feathergrass.
Star Swirl was all too eager to accept it. “Now, perhaps you smell the scales of a quarray eel. It could be fur from the deadly manticore or an ursa major or even the carnage from a barghest’s kill. I admit, I did not see the barghest, for after seeing what it did to the minotaur I ran fast as I could.” He paused to savor the fresh grass’s sweet flavor. “Or it might not be anything so fancy and you just smell the rotting stink of timberwolf breath.”
“Ooh!” Poplar broke into a wide grin. “I know about timberwolves!”
Star Swirl ducked from the loud volume in his ears. “Oh, do you?”
“Yes, they’re made of enchanted wood and can put themselves back together again when ye smash them apart. Our wonderful Knave keeps them away, just like he does with tyrants.”
“Like he’d ever know a tyrant from a tambourine.” Dogwood mumbled bitterly. “He’s not left the wood in twelve seasons.”
Larch hummed in agreement.
“You really think ‘twas the barghest that killed the minotaur?” asked Willow. “Couldn’t it have been a dragon or something?“
“Well, it’s an interesting story, that. This happened while I was still in the kingdom and still a colt without a mark...”
The tale of the barghest was his personal favorite, for it was one of the few monster stories backed by a personal encounter and not just lectures from his teachers, and gave the story the delicious flavor of truth.
Star Swirl followed that with the epic poem of the Ursas’ war upon the Canis, and then sent peels of laughter about the clearing with a limerick about the ouroboros. When he went into the epic of Sonambula, even Heartstrings edged closer.
It was early twilight when young Douglas Fir asked, “Did you ever see a woodwraith?”
His voice echoed in the clearing, quiet and alone, as if it had lost its mother. Some old instinct told the harts to pull in their herd and soon they were all in a tight circle, little Poplar blinking up from the center. The yearling flinched at his own question but there was no taking it back now. Their sacred, beautiful wildwood had changed. Suddenly it didn’t shelter them from danger but left them blind to the horrors lurking behind the elms and oaks. They dared not move and betray their position. They dared not speak and miss hearing a vital snap of branches.
Star Swirl glanced at Heartstrings, standing just outside the circle, tensed more from interest than fear.
“Well?” It was Larch who finally broke the silence. “Have you?”
“Well, I—”
“Of course he hasn’t.” The Knave was louder than he’d been all that day. “He couldn’t have seen a woodwraith because wraiths don’t exist.”
Dogwood rounded on him. “Let the lad answer the question, he’s got his own tongue.” The Knave pinned the stag with a warning glance. Dogwood met it with a stare of his own. “The pony’s ventured far from his doorstep. He’s seen wonders and he’s widened his ken. More than could be said for certain cervine in this glen.”
“Have you heard what’s happened to the whitetails in the south?” Larch’s voice dipped low. “Their lead doe went missing this past spring. She went to the riverbank to sample pear blossoms and never came back. Her sons found what was left of her dangling from a tree. Her skin was gone.” Larch glanced down at Poplar, pressed close against Willow’s leg. “An elk coming from the mountains told me.”
The Knave stomped, more from frustration than at Larch. “Don’t be a fool. Anything dead for a week will lose its skin after the blowflies and ravens get at it. Even fawns know that.” He ran his eyes over his frightened herd and frowned. “Honestly, some empty-headed whitetail down south stumbles in attercop web and you lot make a production out of it. That elk either colored the truth or lied entirely.”
“I don’t think the attercop like to live near the water,” Aspen said quietly. “Water makes their webbings sag.”
“They don’t just leave their prey hanging about like that either. If the attercop got the whitetail there’d be naught left. And the elk described nothing like a web, ‘twas but one string, practically invisible.” Larch shuddered, then looked to her leader. “I suppose next you’ll tell us spiders know invisibility spells.”
“Can wraiths really do that?” Willow stared with wide, wide eyes. “Just spin an invisible string like that?”
“First I heard of it, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”
“There is no such thing as a woodwraith!” the Knave called, but no hart took him to heart.
“The elk said the smell of smoke and ash was all about the place she died, though lightning never struck and it rained all that spring. The grass and trees were unburnt.” Larch nodded to herself. “A fire there and gone by unnatural means. If that’s not sign of a wraith I don’t know what is.”
“They call up bright lights to blind you stupid,” Dogwood added.
“Crying out in voices that aren’t theirs, they call and then you answer. They appropriate the cervine tongue to harvest hide and antler.” It was Poplar’s first successful couplet and should have been cause for celebration but the harts were too shaken to notice, Poplar included.
Hidden somewhere in the circle, Douglas Fir said, “Their skin’s bright orange, you know, excepting the head. And their eyes are big and black and shiny, like a dragonfly’s.”
“That’s if ye even see the woodwraith at all,” said Aspen. “They’re wraiths for a reason; ye’ll not know they’re there till the air cracks and they’ve hit you. Quick and from far away, all without touching you themselves.”
“No, they don’t use teeth. They don’t fight fair.” Larch looked at the Knave of Harts. “But we’ve no need to worry, for there is no such thing.” She began to laugh, a crestfallen sound that scratched her throat.
Dogwood’s eyes softened. He made a step towards her, but the Knave blocked him at the last moment. The great, old stag rested his nose against her cheek. She smiled at him, though it didn’t reach her eyes, still watching the dark beyond the trees.
Star Swirl’s cape jingled as he squirmed at the thought of the cloak he’d stepped around last night. The greyish brown one that covered the sleeping contradiction creature. The woodwraith.
But then he thought of the terror in Larch’s eyes and decided, No. No, they’re not scared of humans at all.
Even the human in all his quiet and terrible power could never compare against what frightened the harts. He could step from the thicket at that very moment and they could know him for what he was and go on eating their flowers and feathergrass. But the human’s shadow... his shadow would send them screaming into the hills. The shadow was bigger than he.
“There, don’t worry, love. I’m here,” the Knave said. “I’m here and realer than any wraith.” He gestured towards Heartstrings, who plucked at her aimless lyre as she watched the wood. “Let us turn the mood with a song.”
The mare blew a puff of white mane out of her eyes and smiled. “Gladly! I came up with this lovely song the other day, about three jackdaws and a kni—”
“Maybe next time. Why don’t you play one of the Company ballads? Maybe The Cruel Taxmare or, if you really must play something new, The Knave of Harts and the Queen of Diamonds?”
“But Harts and Diamonds isn’t finished. The last verse still needs work and I don’t have the right cadence yet. Are you really sure you don’t want to hear the one about the jackdaws?”
“Alright, we will go with the classic. Taxmare it is.”
The clearing erupted in a series of groans, sighs, shouts, and jeers.
“We heard that old thing fifty times this month!” Poplar wailed.
“Wake me when the song’s over.”
“You’ll have yourself a long nap, Willow. That ballad goes on for nineteen verses,” laughed Douglas Fir.
Dogwood waited for the herd to finish their complaints before speaking up. “Nay, Heartstrings. I think we’re in the mind to hear something older. Sing Hark the Horned Hind, sing us a ballad of perytons!” He cooly stared into the eye of the Knave of Harts. “Sing us a true song.”
The Knave lifted himself taller. He was eerily quiet as he looked Dogwood over. “Small bairn of Willow and the late Black Pine. Dost thou have words for ears or tines?”
The younger stag smiled evenly. His stare kept steady. “Nay. The summer still runs sweet and bright. The wind calls peace and want of olden ballads sung. T’was a young buck’s want for hinds’ hearts set light...” Dogwood ran his eyes along the ivy hugging the Knave’s antlers, down to the grey peppered on his muzzle. “But autumn’s leaf may loosen tongues. Winter comes, my Knave of Harts.” The smile faded away. “Winter comes, and all its parts.”
The stags circled each other. The Knave opened his mouth to respond when a lyre suddenly hovered in front of his face.
Heartstrings had to stand on her hind legs to be seen, it looked as if she’d practiced at it. “So! Since the herd is at odds for ballads, why don’t I just play them both? I can start with Hark the Horned Hind and end with Time and Tine.” She looked from one hart to the other, grinning stiffly. “How’s that suit?”
The Knave of Harts kneeled down, watching Dogwood elegantly trot away. “That’s suitable. If it is to be a night for myths, I won’t stop you.” Larch, Aspen, and Willow gave him a hard eye as Heartstrings began the ballad.
The old stag flicked his ears. “Don’t you give me that look. The Horned Hind is a myth and you know it. A construct of folklore and the mind to settle nervous deerfolk and give them a bit of confidence. Nothing wrong with a myth, mind, but tis a myth, still. Hinds do not have horns and there is no such thing as an unkillable deer. Nothing is unkillable. Even dragons can be slain under the right circumstance.”
The song went on without interruption. Towards the end of the climax, when a fleet of arrows bounced harmlessly off the Horned Hind’s chest, Larch brought up her head. She looked at her herd with bright eyes, then looked at her own hooves. “The Hind’s no creature, Knave.” She was whispering, partly out of respect for the song and partly from the sureness of her words. “Nor is the white stag, the perytons, or the bleeding hart. All of them, they... they’re more. More than us.”
Star Swirl looked up. He’d felt something.
The Knave shrugged with a yawn. “If you say so, dear. But you’d do better to trust in the test—”
Something sparked in the unicorn’s chest. He felt it pierce his left ventricle, sharply cold, then warm. Warm and getting warmer. Was it getting warmer outside of him or inside of him? He couldn’t tell.
Star Swirl’s head swam; suddenly he had to sit down. No, he had to stand back up. He wasn’t really sure what he ought to do, but when did he ever? He felt himself trembling, though he was perfectly still. The warmth within him burbled and cracked in the hearth in his chest.
This has happened before. It had been so long. I’ve forgotten what magic felt like. Not felt it since I got my mark.
He’d called it back to him without even meaning to. Star Swirl pulled it not from intense study or meditation or scrolls but from the sighing of hinds. From the space between the cords of a ballad and from the shadow of a wraith. From the echoes of Rainbow light. He pulled it from the things that were real because they were not.
Star Swirl knelt on the grass, crippled by his own strength and laughing at the irony of it all. You waited this long. Do what you will. He closed his eyes; it was too much work keeping them open. Star Swirl felt himself grow steadily colder as the magic lifted itself up and out of him like sweat evaporating from his coat.
“—stimony of your own senses,” the Knave of Harts finished.
“What was that light?” Young Douglas Fir lifted his head and looked around. “Do we have will-o-the-wisps in these woods?”
Poplar yawned, “See what? I didn’t see anything.”
“It was like a… oh, never mind. Probably just a firefly.”
Star Swirl looked upwards. The leaves above him glowed if they’d been drawn on the trees with a quill made of light. His horn had the same light around it not long ago; he couldn’t see it but he was sure it happened.
“I’ve done something,” he whispered to the tree. “I wonder what.”
Heartstrings finished Hark the Horned Hind to a round of feather-soft hoof taps on the dirt, the cervine version of raucous applause. She opened her eyes as she started to thank her audience, but the words caught and died in her throat.
A shadow dripped into the clearing. A tall, black, tapered thing that twisted in all the wrong directions, balanced preposterously on two stilted legs as it reached out to the harts with the spidery claws. Another one joined it, its inky head peeking out from behind a juniper.
The scentless, senseless things stretched closer. The harts drew together, with the name of the shadows written on their eyes: hart-breaker. Skin-stealer. Wraith. The herd took a collective step back. The shadows slid further in, swaying on the forest floor as if underwater.
Dogwood’s eyes became very wide and he took a careful step forward. “That,” he whispered, “Is not a wraith. Not at all.”
The two-legged shadow ended at the four hooves of a stag. He was a pale grey, eyes and antlers bone white. He snarled with a mouth full of sharp red-tinged fangs. Wings splayed out upon his shoulders, feathered in silver and white. A second stag with a dark grey coat came to join him, black-winged with dark eyes and antlers.
“Perytons,” Dogwood whispered to himself. “I thought they’d all died.”
The Knave pinned back his ears with a snort. “The peryton is a storybook creature, thought up to embolden fawns and fools.”
The first peryton blinked once, then barreled into the clearing, scattering the herd to the corners. He reared upon his hind legs, flailing hooves flashing like the edge of a blade. His every move had lightning’s bright swiftness.
His brother came close behind, lifting himself into the air in a thunderclap of wings. The peryton passed through the branches unhindered, circling the harts a few times before settling in a branch above Star Swirl’s head. The edge of his feathers burned faint blue.
The unicorn stared up with a foolish grin. “I think I will have to add another bell.” The peryton blinked down at him, humming a roll of thunder and licking wolf blood from his lips.
“Look!” Aspen gave a little squeal of delight. “Look, they’re not alone!”
True to her word, another deer was coming from the thicket. A younger stag, comet white save for the endless green of his eyes. He came in dignified little steps as the boughs bowed to let him in.
From the other side of the clearing came a doe the color of fresh blood. A feathered arrow jutted from the white heart-shaped mark upon her chest, though the doe didn’t seem to notice it. She looked around the copse and smiled. The white stag and the bleeding hart touched noses and walked on. Aspen and Willow watched them with little sighs of wonder.
Three more deer came from the wildwood, though Star Swirl did not know their names. A thin hind that dashed even faster than the perytons. A prancing fawn that couldn’t stop laughing at the whole affair, the laugh itself a rustle of jingle-bells. Poplar skipped behind them, giggling along at the secret joke.
Douglas Fir’s mouth went dry as the most beautiful hind he’d ever seen stepped quietly in. She glanced about, unimpressed. A sleeping fox draped itself around her shoulders as a living shawl. It yawned dramatically as Douglas Fir offered the lovely hind a dandelion.
Larch stood to the side all by herself. She watched the wonder go quietly by and smiled as her herd of flesh met with the herd of legend.
Heartstrings stood beside her, holding her lyre and frowning at the perytons’ bipedal shadows. The mare caught Star Swirl’s eye; her disappointment bit at him like a botfly.
There came another thunderclap of peryton wings and the legends looked up as one. One by one they stepped away from the Company to come together at the edge of the copse where they stood tall and silent.
The Knave cocked an eyebrow. “Hmph. I suppose that—”
“Hush.” Larch’s soft voice drowned him out. “For once, hush like a deer’s supposed to. Be quiet and wait.”
And there was the Horned Hind. She had not stepped from the trees like the others did; she was simply there after not being there. The grass did not bend beneath her hooves but held her weight as if she weighed no more than a damselfly. She left a trail of morning dew instead of footprints. Little acorns grew from the tips of her tines. The only cervine that never knew fear, would never die, and could only be caught behind the bars of a song.
Larch began to cry. The Hartfelt Company formed itself behind her, stealing shy glances at the Hind. Only the Knave and the unicorns looked directly at her. The Horned Hind paid none of them any mind as she went on her way, golden and dancing and older than any of them, despite being born a moment ago.
Star Swirl felt something in the air drop as something in the universe tore itself open. A faraway twig snapped. The light from the Hind stuttered like a candle in the wind. The perytons and the white stag rippled and broke like water before righting themselves again, paler than they were before. The human was in the forest.
Star Swirl couldn’t say where he was, but likely too far to do the magic any more harm. That or the spell was too strong to break under his presence, but the unicorn didn’t dare put such high hope in his own skill.
The Knave of Harts marched forth with his voice high. “There! There, you see that? Stuff and nonsense!” He turned a wrathful eye at Star Swirl, still curled in a corner unable to move as the tip of his horn shone. “Harts, harts, can you not see through their pelts? Now do you see the glow of lies about their hooves and antlers?”
Larch was the only one who seemed to notice his cries. She passed an eye over him once, then at the streams of sunlight trailing from the Hind’s antlers as they scraped the sky. “No. I don’t.”
The Knave bucked his head and pawed the dirt. The golden hind blinked her large eyes at him curiously and danced towards him. With a great bellow, the stag charged. He hammered down upon her with his will and solid hooves and four and twenty tines that led his herd for forty seasons.
The Horned Hind waltzed through him as if he were a bit of sunlight. She paused a moment, as if confused, then went on her way across the clearing and back into the woods. The perytons, the bleeding hart, the prancing fawn and the dashing doe and the white stag and the pretty doe with the fox followed close behind. One by one they faded into the forest, real as a rainbow.
“Wait!” Larch screamed herself raw as the rest of the Company joined her cries. “Please wait! We’re coming with you!”
Star Swirl barely managed to roll out of the way as the deer barreled into the thicket, ignoring the thorns and branches scratching at their coats. Heartstrings wavered at the great hole the herd left behind. She watched the perytons’ two-legged shadow slide away until she could stand it no longer and ran after it with a strangled cry.
“Shadows!” The Knave called after them. “They’re naught but smoke and shadows and tricks, nothing real!” His voice echoed in the empty glen. His chest heaved with age and effort and sorrow. “Nothing real at all.”
Star Swirl creaked, “Even shadows need something real to cast from.” The glow of his horn had faded, but the light stayed in him. The simple delight of knowing he made magic made the unicorn laugh again. He was so giddy he didn’t notice when the Knave kicked him or feel the tines dig into his skin as he was lifted up. The laughter only faltered when he landed hard in the tree branch.
“I knew your sort was tricky, but to turn my own against me, oh, that’s a trick too far.”
The tree he’d been stranded in was just high enough for a tall stag’s reach but still too high to safely jump down from. The leaves around the unicorn still twinkled in their blue-white glow, as if the tree had frozen over. “I think you’re confused,” Star Swirl chuckled. “It's pegasi that sleep in trees, not unicorns.”
The Knave of Harts stood alone in a forest where winter had come early. “I am going to gather up my deer and send word to House Galaxy.” His voice was too low to have been speaking to anyone but himself. His dark nose twitched upon his snowy muzzle. “I’m sure we can fetch a decent ransom from your father at least.” The great old stag sighed and followed his herd, knowing that even if he found them he would not have them.
Star Swirl watched him go, quiet as he pondered his words. “My... MY father? My Da’s going to pay you? For me?”
The thought was so absurd and made him so sad that Star Swirl laughed until he ran out of breath and everything ached.