Head Home
She lies down, inviting you to hop on. Once you have she hops up and the forest disappears. In the new setting you find yourself by a river. “Is this where you wanted to end up?”
She nods. “Yes, now we have to find the contract.” She closes her eyes and concentrates, before a cylinder rises up from the ground.
“This is the contract, Also hopefully a touch of magic for you.”
“Hopefully? For me?”
“Yes if the stables are still up we can use them, otherwise we need to use this magic to fix them.”
You nods and hop off her to open the cylinder, Inside is a stone tablet and a necklace.
“The necklace is the mana stone, and the tablet is the contract”
You put the necklace on and you feel the magic inside of it ready if you need it.
“Now to the stables.” she says hoping down so you can get back on.
She follows the stream down to overlook the remains of what could've been a stable on the edge of the forest , the city almost surrounding it.
She sighs “I have been away too long”
“You said you could use the magic to rebuild it?”
“Yes, but there’s not as much land as there was.” She sounded distressed, which was not a pleasant thing to hear from anyone and even less so from a unicorn. “There is much less room to run around in. Although I was afraid we would not even have the stables”
She heads down into the stables, the shadows of the city gives a chill to the ruins.
“Please layout the contract and the necklace on top of it,” she says.
You lay the contract out and with some relatance put the necklace on top.
“Stand back please.”
As soon as you have left the ruins she rears up and lands right on the necklace cracking it.
“Hey!” you cry out, rushing forward and as you get close you see the magic from your horn joining from the necklace and from the unicorn.
The released magic from the necklace flows over the contract. Oddly, it moves left to right and top to bottom, almost as if reading the words there, before it flows into the ruins and you see it start to knit the building back together.
Soon the stables have been rebuilt, new and smelling of fresh sawdust and hay. There are stairs up to what you hope is a loft for you to sleep. The stalls are nice enough, but you are still human (well, sort of…) and would prefer a bed.
“There, “ she says. “This will do nicely as a base of operations. I can teach you here, and you can do your work in the rest of the world.”
“What work is that?”
“Well we have to keep the environment healthy, it is a lot harder for us these days. There used to be a lot more of us but we have been hunted out. Also there are quite a few species that cause a lot of problems. Not just humans, but others can grow out of balance. It is for us to correct things as best we are able.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility for just us two,are there any others in this world?.”
“Well there once was, but now we have been scattered into the other worlds.”
“How many others are there?”
“Well, I think counting us there are at least two. I should add, though, that as one who has not yet completely changed you will be dealing mostly with the humans. You know them best, and your disguise means you can interact with them well, unlike me.”
“And only this city area right? I don’t have the whole world to take care of,” you ask hoping you can settle down for a bit.
She nods. “At first, yes. As your skill and confidence grows, so will your responsibilities.”
You gulp “I see.”
“We probably should rest for the night though before we do too much more. The rebuilding of the stables have taken a large amount of our magic, even with the stored amount in the necklace.”
You nod, as she mentions it you do feel a lack of energy from your horn “I don’t think I got your name by the way.”
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 08 March 2014