---interlude; the last unicorn unfinished
Amalthea viewed the woman's body as a curse, those first days trapped in the flesh of a mortal. Her senses were dulled, no longer as sharp as she was used to; the smell of the morning dew was no more, the sound of a butterfly emerging from the cocoon didn't provide music for her. Amalthea could feel the flesh dying around her, feel the cold and the hunger and the damp of the sea spray against her skin. It was torture, in ways she could not voice; a unicorn was dying, her body screamed at her.
But there was nothing she could do, and so Amalthea, pale and beautiful and ethereal, and more lovely than all of the unicorns glimpsed in the waves that pounded the cliffs and the beach near the castle. Molly would stare at her, her breath caught in her throat and wonder how it would be possible to go on living after Amalthea had been turned back into her natural state.
Later, years and years later, when the time in the castle was a memory, although one kept close to her heart, and Schmendrick was just as familiar to her as her own body, Molly would close her eyes and think of Amalthea and it would take all of her strength to keep from gasping out that name.
But for the time, when in the castle with the beautiful girl, Molly watched her, diligently, guarding her from the intentions written in Haggard's eyes.
--
Prince Lir smiled and Amalthea's heart sped up; even when he presented her with lines of bad poetry, she could not help but smile at him. And her woman's body, dying around her in ways that she couldn't think of, at least no longer, because the memories