andhiswife | Close Encounters of the Furred Kind

She returns to Cabeswater, though she tells herself nothing will come of it. She believes nothing will come of it, and berates herself for even bothering right up until she steps over that invisible border between woods and Woods. Then it gets a bit harder to convince herself that anything is impossible. Cabeswater, much like the Woods she came from, has a very Possible sort of feeling to it.

Which is precisely why it's dangerous, but here she is.

She's not even sure why she felt compelled to visit today. Tromping around the forest never sent her home the first few times she tried it, and she can't bring herself to wish for her family's arrival. Maybe it's just been too long, part of her worried that she might forget the way back to the spot where she arrived. Maybe Darrow's starting to feel just a little bit too comfortable, and she wants to remind herself of where she really came from.

At any rate, it's peaceful and quiet out here. Darrow is so loud, and there's a difference between growing accustomed to it and liking it. Aside from birds, her own footsteps, and the paces she's counting under her breath, there's nothing - no traffic, no machinery, no snatches of overheard conversation. No tell-tale snapping twigs, either, so a flash of white out of the corner of her eye is the only hint that she might not be alone.

Greta stops in her tracks with a sharp, startled inhalation, peering through the trees. She can't help but wonder if it might be the white of a cow, or a steed fit for a Prince, though it's probably neither. "Hello?" she calls out uncertainly, then winces, immediately regretting the outburst. She's alone in a magical forest; maybe she shouldn't be drawing attention to herself.

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Far too delicate to be a cow or even a horse; the unicorn turned her head toward the voice. She stood in a broken beam of sunlight, dappled by the shadows of the branches and leaves above. She was the color of snow falling on a moonlit night.

She moved nothing like a cow or a horse, possessing the oldest, wildest grace that horses never had and that deer had only in a shy imitation.

Something about the woman's voice made her want to see. She thought of Molly, but surely she would have known if it was her. She stood at last before the woman, studying her with eyes that were dark and deep, like the furthest parts of the sea man has never touched.

For a moment, she thinks it might actually be a white stag - that seems like the sort of thing one might come upon in a magical Wood - but it's too delicate for that, and it has a single, straight horn instead of a pair of antlers. Even when she registers what it truly is, she doesn't quite believe it. She can't, because what would any self-respecting unicorn want with her?

But that's what it is. She's heard the stories, she knows what they look like. She just doesn't know why she's being allowed to see such a thing. Surely she's not its type.

Oh, god, it's coming closer. Greta makes some sort of embarrassing, involuntary noise - a high-pitched hoot of astonishment. She doesn't want to look away from the creature (it will vanish, surely, and she'll never see it again, and serve her right), but she can't help but toss a quick glance over her shoulder, as if there must be some virginal ingénue behind her, and she's just gotten between them accidentally, like a mother bear and its cub, a horrible mistake. But there's no one behind her, and when she turns back, the unicorn is still there, peering at her with unfathomable eyes.

"Um." Greta feels the absurd urge to curtsy, coupled with the conviction that even the most graceful curtsy anyone could muster would still be a poor acknowledgment of what stands before her. "I... I think I'm in the wrong story again."

Somehow, even without a human face, the unicorn gave her a kind look. Molly had curtsied to her too, just as trembling. "I have thought much the same since I arrived here," she admitted. "I don't know what the story is anymore."

She stayed where she was, not wanting to startle the woman any more than she already had. Here she felt more patient; here she felt as though she had nothing but time. It was much easier to stand still.

It can talk.

"Oh!" Greta somehow manages to feel even more foolish, as if she should have known, though the ones in the stories never spoke. "I--sorry, I didn't--I wasn't expecting..." well, any of this, quite honestly. Seeing a unicorn, being acknowledged by it, having it (her? it sounds like a her) speak to her. She's so bewildered by the whole affair that it takes a minute for the unicorn's words to register, for the implications to sink in.

"Darrow brought you here, too?" It's only half a question. Why else would a unicorn be here at all? It's still a difficult thing to get her head around, though; despite the casual cruelties she knows the city is capable of, going after a unicorn feels like a bridge too far.

"Yes, it did. I was going home and I fell asleep. When I woke, I was here, and a girl." The unicorn shook herself as if to banish that memory. "Cabeswater is the only place I can be my true self."

She looked at the woman, studying her. There was something achingly familiar about her. "You come from a place of stories, too?"

Greta's jaw drops, both in dismay and indignation at the thought of Darrow taking a unicorn and then turning into a human being. To be fair, she hasn't given much thought to unicorns lately - in no small part because it's been rather a long time since she could convince herself that if she went into the Woods and was quiet and lucky, she just might see one. But now there's one standing before her, somehow managing to make shaking herself off look graceful, and it's impossible not to conclude that what Darrow has done to her is just... appalling. In the stories she'd heard, the worst thing anyone might do to a unicorn was kill it, or drive it away forever. Corrupting one, making it anything other than what it was... that wasn't even an option. No one's imagination stretched that far.

"I'm so sorry," Greta says, instinctively lifting a hand, then catching herself and drawing it back. It's enough to meet a unicorn; she has absolutely no business presuming to touch her. She twists her hands together down by her skirts, where they won't cause any trouble.

"Er, yes." She shrugs bashfully; she can't take any real credit for her birthplace. "Some of them have made it here, too: Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Cinderella. I haven't come across my own, though." It's probably for the best. She'd devour the whole thing if she had it in her hands, and she knows she shouldn't.

She noticed the lifting hand and for a moment she considered. The unicorn moved forward slowly, as if she might be concerned about startling the poor woman. She closed the distance between them and stretched her neck out, her muzzle right near the hand now clutched in her skirt. Molly had been brave enough to touch her; a part of her missed it very much. And this woman made her thinking achingly of Molly.

"There is no one here from my story," she said quietly, sadly. "But you remind me of someone."

... What is she doing, now? Greta watches in mingled bewilderment and trepidation as the unicorn edges closer and bows her head as if to nose at her hands, which she had been determined to keep to herself. For a moment, she wonders if the creature expects her to produce a lump of sugar or something, and her self-recrimination over her lack of foresight - why doesn't she have a morsel fit for a unicorn? - transitions neatly into feeling like an idiot for presuming a unicorn would have such base motivations in the first place. She's not a cart-horse.

But the only other reason to come so close, at least that Greta can think of, is because she noticed that aborted gesture a moment ago, and just... doesn't mind the idea? Which seems only a little less outlandish than the sugar theory. Petting a unicorn is the sort of privilege you earn by being innocent and pure - or young enough that you haven't had the chance to become anything else. Greta hasn't been that young in... longer than she'd care to admit.

On the other hand: if a unicorn really is inviting her to pet it, and she passes up the chance, she'll be kicking herself for all of eternity. So, there's that, too.

She loosens her grip on her skirt, then hesitantly lifts her hand, giving the unicorn ample time to move away. But she doesn't, not even when Greta brushes her fingertips against the smooth plane of her cheek. It's nothing like touching a horse - she's softer and silkier, more akin to a finely-bred lapdog than anything else Greta can think of.

And she sounds so sad, and so lonely. Greta wonders if the poor creature just wants a friendly touch so badly that her own relative worthiness hardly even matters.

"No, not from mine, either," she replies, matching the unicorn's tone. "Their stories have made it, but they haven't." The corners of her mouth quirk up into a faint, incredulous smile, and she repeats, "I remind you of someone? Pardon my bluntness, but I didn't think I was your type."

The unicorn closed her eyes for a moment, appreciating the soft touch. She stayed where she was, allowing the gentle brush of fingers over her cheek. "Yes," she answered. "Their stories... I think I have seen people with similar stories here. But no one that I know. And so few that know me for what I am."

She lifted her head slowly, careful not to knock the woman with her horn. She looked at her face. "A woman called Molly Grue. She traveled with me and the magician, Schmendrick. She was kind to me when the magician turned me into a girl."

Greta lets her hand drop when the unicorn lifts her head, though she all but itches to pet her a bit more. It's not the same transgressive thrill as kissing a Prince, but it's not entirely unrelated, either. Probably best not to push her luck, though; it still seems miraculous that the creature's here at all, conversing with her as politely as you please.

"A solid, sensible sort of name," Greta says approvingly, and she smiles, envisioning a person a little like Demelza and a little like Jack's Mother. "I'm Greta Baker."

Her smile fades into a concerned and faintly indignant frown as the unicorn continues. "You were turned into a girl before?" She supposes that might have made the second time a little easier to bear, but still. "Once ought to have been more than enough."

The unicorn did not introduce herself; unicorns did not have names, and though she did as a girl, she was not a girl right now. It simply didn't occur to her.

"Yes," she answered, tossing her head a bit, as if in disdain. "He thought he was rescuing me. I think magicians tend to think they know better than all other folk. It was terrible. It was worse, somehow, to wake up in Darrow turned into a girl again. No well-meaning magician that might fix it here." Though she had met plenty of magic users, none seemed eager to take up the task.

She's not sure if she expected the unicorn to offer a name, but then again, it's hardly as if she needs one. It's not as if there are a half dozen other unicorns elegantly cantering about the place.

"I knew a Witch back home who was much the same," Greta says with a sympathetic wince. "Except for the 'rescuing' part - I doubt she'd go in for that sort of thing." But presuming she knew best, being wholly confident in her own rightness... that does seem like an attitude that might have crossed the universal divide.

It's a pity no one here can fix her, though Greta suspects Darrow would resist magical attempts to undo whatever wickedness it had set out. On the other hand, she's very much a unicorn now. "Could you not just... stay out here?" Greta ventures, a little uncertain. It's such an obvious solution that she's certain the unicorn's already thought of it. The real question might be why she doesn't just remain out here in Cabeswater. She'd thought unicorns were solitary creatures. The stories never speak of whole herds of them or anything, so she wouldn't expect loneliness to be an issue.

"Cabeswater has been kind to me. But it is not my forest; it belongs to itself. If I stay here too long I don't know what my magic would do to it, or what its magic would do to me. I think it might be better if we respected each others boundaries."

She liked this forest but it was not just a normal forest; just as her forest had not been like any other after she lived in it long enough. Cabeswater already had its own magic, its own power. It did not need her; it allowed her. She could survive outside it; she did not need it in quite the same way Verity might someday.

"Oh." Greta casts a somewhat startled look up at the canopy, as if it's suddenly occurred to her that someone might be eavesdropping. She'd known Cabeswater was different, and that it felt more like her Woods than the rest of the forest does. The thought of it having magic of some sort isn't a stunner. But the unicorn almost speaks of it as if it can think, as if - like Darrow itself - it might have ideas of its own.

It's hard not to wonder what it might think of her. She's never gotten an unfriendly feeling from it, but then again, she's not a Witch. She didn't get any particular feeling from those beans, either, and look what they turned out to be.

"Does it... it doesn't mind visitors, though," she says, half questioning. Darrow is enigmatic at best and a bully at worst. She doesn't want to find out she's been courting trouble from another semiconscious location. "I--this is where I arrived. Not right at this spot, but close. I've been back a few times, now." Admitting that she'd been hoping to find her way back home would make her seem desperate, so instead, she says, "It feels... familiar. Compared to everything else." Not a high bar to clear, but still.

"No, I don't think so. Not if you've been able to come back to it. I imagine Cabeswater would simply... not be here if it didn't want someone to visit," she admitted, looking up at the branches above them. "Or it would make itself quite clear. I cannot quite speak to it the way those more deeply connected to it can... but it makes itself understood."

She tossed her head. "Was it daylight, still, when you came here to walk?" Perhaps it was a strange question, but she'd found she could not always quite trust the light in Cabeswater to reveal what time it might actually be in Darrow itself.

Well, that's... reassuring, she supposes. She probably would have panicked if she'd tried to return to Cabeswater and it just hadn't been there, as if she'd imagined the whole thing. It would have felt like the way home had been well and truly lost, instead of just obscured by outside forces.

Maybe she ought to thank the place. She's not sure how one goes about showing appreciation for a magical forest, though. A saucer of milk wouldn't suffice.

"Um, yes," she says, dragged out of her reverie by the unicorn's question. "It was late afternoon." She assumes it still is, though the creature's phrasing makes her wonder if she might be wrong on that front. She doesn't think she's been in Cabeswater for that long, but who knows what a magical forest might do to one's perception of time?

"I should probably be getting back," she admits with some reluctance. She's not eager to excuse herself from the unicorn's company -- quite the opposite -- but she doesn't want to be stuck trudging back to Candlewood in the dark, either.

"May I walk with you?" she asked. "I should go back as well. I work tomorrow and mustn't lose track of time."

The unicorn knew how strange all of that might sound coming from her; once upon a time, she had no job, no need to ever leave her forest, and no desire to. She longed for those days, longed for the uncounted measure of time that she'd spent content and alone and unaware of the world changing outside her forest, except for the gossip brought by butterflies and the odd hunter or wanderer that might pass through.

Greta blinks, a little surprised -- both by the request (the unicorn has been nothing but kind to her, but she still doesn't think she deserves its company), and the part about her having a job. If the thought of a unicorn being turned into a human was bad, she doesn't even know how to feel about the appalling mundanity of a unicorn having to work for a living.

"Of course," she says first, just barely managing not to add something embarrassing, like 'I'd be honored.' She has far less luck suppressing her curiosity on the job front, though, and after a few moments of silence, she blurts an incredulous, "So you--you have a job?"

"Yes, I arrange flowers," she answered as she started walking, picking her way toward the edge of the forest, where she'd hidden her clothes. She stayed close to Greta, not quite touching, as that might knock her off balance, but close enough that it was deliberate. She was grateful for the company; she often did this part alone, and it left her terribly sad, sitting at the edge of the forest by herself as she longed for a life that had been taken from her.

Perhaps if she had company it would be easier to make herself get up and continue back to the city or the farmhouse.

"I will change into a girl when we cross out of Cabeswater. Please don't be startled."

"That sounds lovely," Greta says, and she means it. She didn't even know that was a job one could have, but it seems more appropriate for a creature of the forest than making coffee or ringing up groceries. If a unicorn had to have a job, it might as well be something like flower arrangement.

The unicorn sticks close enough that Greta almost wonders if she's angling for more physical contact. She probably could rest her hand on the creature's shoulder without it being much of a stretch. But she's not sure exactly when or how she'll make that shift from unicorn to human, and it might be best not to be touching her when it happens. God, she hopes it isn't anything as ghastly as Biffy switching out of his wolf shape.

She looks over at the unicorn, ready to avert her gaze in a hurry if anything uncomfortable starts to happen. "Does it hurt?" she asks quietly.

"Like being put in a cage," she answered, uncertain if that would tell Greta anything. "Unicorns are immortal, humans are not. Being an immortal trapped in a mortal body is... distressing."

When they reached the edge of Cabeswater it happened in a faint flash of light. One moment there was a unicorn moving forward, and the next there was a pale girl falling to her knees, only the fall of her long, white-blond hair offering any modesty. Amalthea curled her legs beneath her, hiding herself for a moment as she recovered from the change.

"I put clothes over there," she said with a faint point towards a rock; her voice was the same. There was a backpack there. Eventually she lifted her head, looking at Greta with the unicorn's eyes from the face of a girl.

It had never occurred to her that mortality was something you could feel, but then, why would it? Fish probably don't feel wet, either. It isn't something Biffy's ever brought up, and he's the only other technically immortal person she knows.

"I'm sorry," she says, knowing what a feeble offering that is in the face of what the poor unicorn must be feeling, but compelled to say it nevertheless.

She might not be a Witch, but she can still feel that subtle shift from Woods back to woods. Of course no unicorn could set hoof here. She stops, half-braced for a horrible twisting and cracking of bones, but what she gets is a faint glow, instead, like moonlight reflecting off of a pond. That does seem more fitting. It still startles a little hoot out of her, though. And she means to keep a polite distance, truly she does, but when the unicorn -- now a girl -- falls to her knees, she can't help but start towards her. She hovers awkwardly for a moment, the urge to cover the girl with something, anything, even her own body, warring with the lingering insistence that she has no business touching her.

The implicit request comes as a relief. "Yes, I--of course," she stammers, stumbling over to the rock and recovering the pack that's been tucked away there. She sets it by the unicorn-girl's side, her eyes deliberately averted. But she can't miss the girl-unicorn lifting her head out of the corner of her eye, and she can't not meet that uncanny gaze, and she finds herself dropping to her own knees, pressing her palm against that smooth, human cheek, astonished and dismayed.

"Oh, you poor thing," she breathes, unthinkingly pulling her into a hug.

Amalthea closed her eyes and leaned into the hug, tucking herself against the warmth of Greta's body. There was comfort to be had in the gesture and she would not shun it, not now when she knew what good it could do her.

"I'm called Amalthea," she said quietly, offering the name. Even her introduction made the name seem like a thing that had been foisted upon her, like this body; not truly her, but something given to her for a lack of anything else to call her.

She stayed as she was for a long moment, simply allowing Greta to hold her. Eventually she shivered and reached for the bag to at least pull on the leggings she'd brought with her, then the long-sleeved dress; the lilac color reflected in her eyes. "Thank you for your kindness, Greta."

Amalthea is a lovely name, and it might almost be fit for a unicorn. But the way she says it, it sounds less like a name and more like a label put on a jar -- there for human reference, because names are human things. Greta wonders where it came from, if someone just picked it for her, like a pet, and tsks softly. "It's beautiful," she says, but her tone is wry, carrying an implicit: but that doesn't excuse it.

Amalthea shivers, and Greta presses her lips together, displeased with herself; the poor girl must be freezing, and clothes would go a lot further towards fixing that than a hug. She leans back, then gets to her feet and turns to scan the surrounding forest, both to give Amalthea a little privacy and to make sure no one else stumbles onto the scene until all parties are decent.

She doesn't risk turning back around until she hears Amalthea speak. Kindness feels like a feeble offering, too -- not worthless, but a mere drop in the bucket. What she really needs is a magic user (not a Witch, but one of the nicer sorts that Darrow boasts), someone who can actually fix her instead of just being kind to her.

"It's--" she almost says 'nothing,' then reconsiders. "It's the least I can do." She gives the girl a concerned once-over. "Are you steady enough to walk?" she asks, her arm half-outstretched in case she might need help.

"Thank you." She tucked her hair back and nodded to answer. "I'm alright," she assured. "It's always a bit strange for the first few moments - two legs instead of four. And everything else." Still, she moved closer to Greta, not quite touching but taking comfort in her nearness, in the support she offered even if Amalthea didn't take her up on it just then. It meant something to her.

"Changing back always makes me tired. Not like needing to sleep, but..." She trailed off, not entirely sure how to describe it. She looked at Greta, hoping she'd understand. Even as a human girl her eyes were the same: deep, fathomless, and rather than reflecting the world she saw, if one looked deep enough they might see a forest. The one she belonged in; the one she remembered.

"I suppose it would be," Greta says with a faint wince. Amalthea does seem steady enough on her feet, so rather than brace her hand beneath her elbow or something, Greta briefly rests her hand on the girl's back -- a different sort of support.

Maybe it shouldn't, but the comment about being tired makes her hum in something like wry amusement. Between the baby and the bakery, she feels rather well-versed in exhaustion. Granted, ever since the baby arrived, it mostly had been needing to sleep. But before then -- before the Woods -- it had been something else. She'd be kneading dough or hauling a sack of flour, something she did so often it no longer required thought, and it would occur to her that this was it: that for the foreseeable future, this was all there was and all there would be. She had known better than to hate her life, but god, the sameness of it had worn on her. She can't imagine what it's like to be a unicorn, but she knows the business of being human is often relentlessly dull.

"... Like variations on a theme," she muses dryly, meeting Amalthea's gaze for a moment or two before she has to look away. She could get lost completely in eyes like that; if nothing else, she might end up walking right into a tree.

"What do you mean?" she asked, curious now that she was human again. Curious in a way she rarely was as a unicorn. She stayed close as they walked, remembering the way back well. She debated whether or not she wanted to return to the farm house and the familiarness of it and Biffy or if she wanted to go back to her apartment in the city. She felt lonely there. It wasn't as bad now that Daine and Kitten lived in the same building; she found the little dragonet delightful. But their presence also made her ache. They knew her. They knew her and could do nothing to change her back.

"Well..." Greta pauses, considering. It's a very musical sort of term, really -- not something she'd necessarily expect a unicorn to instinctively grasp, even if she has spent a fair amount of time in a human shape. Honestly, now that she thinks about it, she's not sure anyone but the Balladeer would be nodding in immediate understanding. Maybe it would be better to take a different approach.

"I mean that it's like... like knowing what to expect, overall, even if some little details don't go exactly the way you thought they would. You look at your life, and you just--you just know that tomorrow's going to go like today did, and so will the day after.

"Of course, it's a bit harder to say that here," she adds wryly. Darrow's too fond of throwing surprises at everyone. "But back home, that's... how it felt, sometimes."

As if a unicorn could really be all that interested in the dull, domestic grind. Greta shakes her head at herself, then flaps a hand dismissively, letting Amalthea off the hook. "Probably not what you meant."

"No," she admitted. "I meant that time means nothing to a unicorn, but whenever I change, whenever I am human, I feel it. I feel it dragging on me, I feel it slipping by. I feel this body dying all around me." Amalthea shook her head, hugging herself as they walked.

"But I understand what you mean. I've felt that way before." Only as a human, though. Perhaps her life had been dull as a unicorn, but it was all her own, and she felt contentment. Time didn't touch her. "When I lived in Haggard's castle, I felt it. Like the days of my life were stretched out before me, and all of them seemed the same."

She almost rolls her eyes in an entirely self-deprecating sort of way -- because of course a unicorn would be referring to things like time and mortality and not the smaller mundanities with which she'd preoccupied herself -- but the thought of being able to feel yourself dying is so horrifying that she can neither blame herself for failing to guess at it nor feel anything but terrible that the truth is so ghastly.

"I'm so sorry," she says, closing the little distance between them so she can wrap an arm around Amalthea's shoulders. She's never been good at keeping her hands to herself when someone else is upset, always feeling compelled to reach out, to ground them (though being grounded in a mortal human body might be the last thing she needs). "That sounds awful."

After a beat, she adds, "Certainly worse than being bored," which now feels like a trivial complaint. That Amalthea still understands it almost makes it all worse; if she didn't comprehend it, at least it wouldn't be so obviously inconsequential by comparison. Greta presses her lips together, feeling small and ridiculous (so much so that she can't even manage to get distracted by the thought of living in a castle, which would normally prompt a flurry of questions).

"Boredom is terrible," she counters. "I never really knew it until living in Haggard's keep. The endless passing of the days with nothing to change them. I would believe someone if they told me I'd been there for twenty years rather than a handful of weeks or months."

Amalthea looks at Greta, sincere. "Enduring mortality and boredom at the same time is something I should rather never do it again. I think I would so desperately want to run, wherever I could go."

Greta's expression wavers somewhere between gratitude and mild exasperation. It's nice to be understood, though coming from someone as generally unfathomable as a unicorn, it doesn't make her feel less small, or less ridiculous. Seeing Amalthea, even for just an instant, would have felt like an impossibly rich gift. Speaking with her, touching her, keeping her company, having her sympathy and understanding... there has to be a point where it's too generous, and Greta suspects they've already gone miles past it. At what point does it become a joke, with her own unworthiness the natural punchline?

She's not sure the Prince's attentions had her this hung up, quite honestly. But then again, the Prince had still just been a man, beneath all the charm and swagger and finely tailored clothes.

"It's probably why I was so keen to go in the Woods in the first place," she admits as she picks her way over some tumbled logs. Despite the dangers, she'd never been as afraid of the Woods as she should have been. The thought of their lives never changing -- that had been terrifying. "Well, that, and I knew my husband would need help breaking the Curse we were under. But even the last time, with the Giant storming around, it was--it was exciting." She glances over at Amalthea, a bit sheepish, like she shouldn't have enjoyed mortal peril so much -- or in preemptive apology for what she adds: "I'd expect living in a castle to be exciting, too, but it sounds like even that gets old."