Chapter 39

Cat

I didn’t know what was worse: The horse wallowing in self-pity or being obsessed with her quest. I guess self-pity was the worst of the two, but the obsession was not far behind.

She had regained her fervour and spent the days murmuring fervently to herself. Whenever we took a break, she gathered stones, moving them around as if rehearsing a battle. At least she had stopped moaning, and we could spend our days doing something else than keeping track of her.

She hadn’t shared what we were supposed to do once we arrived at the Unicorns, of course. She was above discussing her plans with lesser beings. But even I could see that she was excited, and I hadn’t seen her this eager in the whole time I’d spent with her.

So we had turned West, taking a detour from our original path. I didn’t know if we would have time to return to the North before the winter arrived, but there was no use in asking her. We could only follow and hope for the best.

I walked up to Silvi and took her hand.

“It’s getting dark”, I said, and looked up at the sky.

She glanced up and then gently squeezed my hand.

“We’ll make camp soon.”

She fell quiet and I halted.

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m..”

She sighed.

“…worried. It’s getting colder, and none of us have warm clothes. Maybe we could have made it North, but now we’ll be out for even longer.”

She was right. It was getting colder, and this detour had never been planned. Even food was getting more difficult to find now. I sighed. It would fall upon me to try to break through the horse’s fervour to talk to her. I let go of Silvi’s hand and walked up to her.

“Hey…”

The Unicorn stopped murmuring and peered at me with one eye. She did that nowadays whenever you interrupted her genius thoughts.

“We’ll need provisions.”

She glanced around, as if for the first time, realising where we were.

“It’s getting colder, and there isn’t much to eat”, I continued.

She slowly nodded.

“There’s a village a day’s walk from here. We will ask them to offer us some supplies.”

She turned back to her murmuring, and I returned to Silvi and told her what the horse had suggested. Kim walked up to us and smiled.

“I’ve never been this far out.”

I looked around.

“It’s for sure different.”

If the other parts of the land were green, the way to the West from where we had set out was barely nothing more than a barren plain. Even in the summer, there wasn’t much growing here, I knew. The horse could have chosen a better timing to go than on the verge of winter, but of course, there was nothing we could do to change that.

The Unicorn halted and turned to us.

“We will confer about our plans as the evening falls.”

She turned back without another word, and I glanced at the others and shrugged. I hadn’t thought she could become worse than she’d been, but I had apparently been wrong.

“How long until we reach the Unicorn land?”, Kim asked.

“Not long, I believe”, I said.

She nodded.

“Have you been there?”

I shook my head.

“No. I was never needed to visit them, and they mostly arrived at the Queen’s castle.”

“What… if they will see you?”, she whispered.

I shrugged.

“The Queen already knows I’ve deserted. If the horses see Sara, they can figure out I’m not far behind.”

I tried to smile.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

Kim nodded but didn’t say anything.