The Enchanted Path (Book 1 of the Dreamfarers' tales)

Ch. 32.1 - Interlude VII

"Are you sure it will be alright?"

"Aster, may I remind you that we are unicorns and not dragons? My parents aren't going to eat you."

"Y-yeah, but I crossed the border...I didn't mean to...I mean, I didn't know it, and one thing I remember is that you mustn't trespass into one another's territory."

"Oh, you did not: the western ridge is the extreme border of the Forest; if you had really crossed Willowglade border, my father would have kicked you out before you had the chance to say 'Your Majesty.'"

"That's...comforting."

Leirion laughed.

Unicorn and manticore approached the ring of evergreens so familiar to Dianthus, only this time the fir trees were covered in snow.

I'm myself again, he realized with glee. It was much better to follow his sister around in his ethereal form than being stuck inside her head more literally than he already was.

She's taking...Aster, she said? She's taking Aster before Mother and Father as if it was nothing! Dianthus thought as he trotted beside the pair. The manticore seemed even smaller than last time. Leirion pranced on the other side of Aster with a spring in her step and a smile on her muzzle.

She looks like she found an orphaned jackalope she hopes to keep, Dianthus mused with a small smile of his own. I'm just as curious to see how Mother and Father will react...well, how they did react.

Dianthus stopped, shocked, for a moment, by his own thoughts. Something had ignited in his mind, just for an instant and then was gone. He forced himself to shake the feeling off and quickened his pace after Leirion and Aster.

This time, Dianthus didn't dwell on the landscape, but rather on the unlikely pair leading the way. The young manticore looked far from being at ease as he reluctantly followed the unicorn mare to the glade. His ears were pulled back into that first hint of mane on his head, his leathery wings pressed to his shivering sides, and his scorpion tail was left to drag in the snow. It was clear he didn't share Leirion's optimism.

"Besides..." Leirion piped up. "They would have found out about you sooner or later; what my father misses during his patrols, my mother finds."

Aster uttered a concerned sound between a low growl and a suffocated whine. "Do you think they'll let me stay?"

Leirion offered an apologetic smile. "I can't promise that. Father had some problems with...uhm...scarce tolerance toward outsiders lately. But I'll try."

So, it couldn't have been too long since the affair with the wolves, Dianthus reasoned. Or maybe it has, but the relationship with the deer is still sore? Ah, I really wish I was able to know exactly how much time goes by between each memory!

Once they crossed the final ring of trees surrounding Willowglade, the ancient weeping willow came into view. Dianthus blinked in amazement at the sight before him: the willow had become of an empyrean silver-blue with its leaves hanging like myriads of icy slivers shimmering in the faint sunlight. From a distance, the two diarchs could be spotted under the willow, waiting. Dianthus had to remind himself that at the time his parents still were the rulers of the whole Forest.

"Wait here," Leirion told Aster and walked up to the older unicorns alone. The manticore sat in the snow, and Dianthus left him to follow his sister beyond the glimmering curtains of the willow.

"I see we have a guest," Thalia started out as soon as her daughter appeared.

"His name is Aster, Mother. To be honest, I named him so, for he doesn't seem to remember much of anything of his past," Leirion said.

Thalia tilted her head curiously. "How so?"

"I found him wandering up and down the western ridge," Leirion explained. "He claims he just woke up this morning without recognizing anything around him, nor remembering why he was there, and that he left the mountains without realizing it."

"Such a cold climate is not what manticores are supposed to endure..." Thalia murmured. "Why was he on the ridge in the first place?"

"I don't know. I suppose he lost his memory way before he climbed up there," said Leirion. "It's what I would like to discover if you'll let him stay."

"You should know better than approach a manticore, Leirion." It was Chrysantos speaking for the first time, although there was no reprimand in his voice. As Dianthus suspected, it mustn't have been the first time that Leirion came home with some lost critter, big or small.

"Like father, like daughter," Thalia remarked, nudging Chrysantos' neck. "You can't blame her."

"I suppose not," Chrysantos conceded with a tired sigh.

He's tense, Dianthus realized. He must be thinking of what he'll tell Chief Alder this time.

Leirion smiled. "It was fine. He was terribly disorientated and confused. He's not a danger."

Chrysantos glanced at the very nervous manticore who still waited patiently farther away. Every now and then, he would paw at the snow and sneeze. The king's golden eyes seemed to soften just a little.

"He may come closer, for I shall judge it myself."

The dream turned hazy, the voices muffled, announcing its end, but Dianthus knew his father would allow Aster the manticore to stay if several years later the same manticore inhabited the very same ridge where Leirion found him. The old manticore now spent most of his time asleep, always waiting for the unicorn princess to return.

It was time to wake up.