Whispers from my Muse - "The ArchMage and the Unicorn"

The fair was in full swing, pretty much every square foot of the park that was spread out in front of me was covered in booths full of things to tempt the senses. As expected, the county had thrown a fit when I'd donated the park space. They'd hoped to shutdown the yearly fair this time around by refusing it an event permit for any location large enough to hold it. I'd never bothered to find out who, but it was a sure bet somebody in the county government was holding a serious grudge against the artists, musicians and other artisans that were the core of the event. One added advantage of holding the fair in the park though was that the Velan's could attend, and some of the brightest tents ever seen were scattered around the central grove that housed the worldgate.

Normally, I'd have been right in the middle of things, wandering from booth to booth to see what called out to me. Given the events of the last month though, I wasn't feeling up to dealing with the crowd. Instead, I sat with my back to one of the trees at the edge of what people were starting to refer to as The Mages Meadow and simply watched. Granted, I had been spending a fair amount of time in the corner of the park that I'd sectioned off and added trees to, but it certainly wasn't magical in nature. It was just a small meadow surrounded with enough trees to block the view of the center from outside, and to dampen the noise of the outside world when you were relaxing within it.

Someplace though, the rumor had started that there was something special about the meadow. I'd caught a couple of employees from one of the business housed in the tower claiming that they'd gone for a walk and it had taken them a couple of hours instead of a couple of minutes to walk the length of the trail that meandered through the area.

It was almost sunset when it happened. I'd been sitting up there most of the afternoon listening to the various bands as they played and trying not to fall asleep in the warm sun, when something jumped out of the trees behind me just before a shower of bark exploded from the trunk of the tree just above my head.

"What the hell!" I yelled as I heard something that sounded like a ricochet followed by the whistle of something shooting by me and on into the trees behind me.

"You going to defend yourself or are you expecting me to keep doing this?"

I'd rolled to the side as I yelled, so it took me a moment to get flipped back upright, which happened just in time to see what looked like a black horse deflect something coming out of the crowd below with its horn. Horn?!?

Ok, I had to be dreaming, but dream or otherwise, my reflexs kicked in and a defense field sparkled into existance between me and the crowd. I saw the next shot that was taken, and spotted at least two other people reloading crude looking crossbows they'd managed to sneak into the park in spite of the weapons barrier that surrounded it.

"It's about damn time, I'm good, but those things are a bitch to deflect on the fly like that," said the Coal Black Unicorn that lept by me and back into the trees.

Ok, so I wasn't thinking real clearly at the moment. Instead of dealing with the assassins who were trying to kill me, I turned and faced back towards the trees. "What the hell kind of language is that for a Unicorn?"

"Maybe I'm a reflection of the Mage that created my grove," came the laughing voice that quickly faded away.

Reflexes again, I started to spin back around to deal with the crossbows even while I was muttering to myself that I had to be dreaming. The sun still hadn't quite gone down and even after shading my eyes with my hand, I couldn't see them. I did though see pretty much the entire population of the park staring at the trees where the Unicorn had vanished. Between one heartbeat and the next I finally started thinking clearly about what happened and in two steps I was airborn, searching for anybody who wasn't staring at the trees. "Penny! Get your shiny ass in the air and seal up the park!"