Entry 358
Character Story: Ash Airgetlam
The Black Unicorn
The elf always claimed it was a dream. A weird and vivid vision. He blamed it on being tired. On falling asleep in the enchanted library of Ashvale. Of just being an imaginative person. But the dream stuck with him throughout his life, and tonight as he settled his head back on his pillow, it started again...
You run through the forest. You feel thorns and branches whip and pull at your skin, bare to the world. You look and see small lines of red, cuts upon bare white flanks. You run faster, a blur of white in the dark moonlight forest. If only you can go faster. You've never known fear until tonight. You've never known mortality until now, but you are being hunted.You run and run until your lungs burn, your single white horn glittering in the moonlight as beasts pursue you with the unnatural speed only the truly awful depths could manage.
Bursting from the forest you come to the clearing. You know you'll be safe there, you know the others are there, and they'll keep you safe. You're young, but they aren't, they're wise and strong. Under the clear sky they lay in stillness, white shapes captures and caught, beastly shadows, more fang and claw than actual form, feasting on your fellows. Until tonight, you had known only love, only joy. Tonight, for the first time, you felt fear, and as you look around, you are the last one here, you feel grief. The shadows that pursue you slow, knowing you no longer have anywhere to run. You regard them as you move to one of your sisters, nudging her, your limbs coated in the blood of them, marring white flesh with deep red that stains your skin black. You trod deeper and deeper into the terror that is the slaughter until you lay down next to your siblings, they already mostly devoured, as you turn to regard your attackers.
For a few long moments, you feel grief. You see their sinewy bodies in the darkness creeping up on you, fangs and teeth and claws bared in the light. The fear is gone, you've lost all you know already, and so you for another moment feel resignation. You, like the rest of your kind will not fight. It is amaranth to you. Violence begets only violence, and so you lower your head, and touch your spiraling white horn to the earth, still moist with the blood of your brothers and sisters.
Through tear streaked eyes you see a white blur. So quick it seemed but a trick of the light. You lift your head a moment to pick it out in the distance. A single sole survivor, pure and innocent and as white as snow. Hope ignites somewhere deep inside you, it burns bright in your heart despite the darkness on your step. Fear grips you again, not for yourself, no, you know its too late for you. You slowly pull yourself to your feet, and you feel the blood of your breathern strengthen your limbs. You feel white skin stained black harden, you feel hope become strength, you feel resolve become a blade. Somewhere deep inside you that fight burns bright. The monsters in the dark sense it, and a few recoil. Growling and snarling. How dare you stand infront of them. Accept your fate. Accept your death. They whisper to you in whatever awful tongue they use. You almost laugh. It isn't your fate you're concerned about anymore. In the darkness a white streak of hope runs off into the world unseen, you watch it disappear over the horizon, and a few tears drip down your eyes. The beasts turn and look as well, recognizing that one of their prey is escaping. They turn to pursue.
They move too slow. The love of a parent, of a caregiver, the love of a mother who gives themselves for their child and the father that fights to protect their loved ones in other lands. These are your strength. A silver horn pieces the first beast that lunges at you, and engulfed in burning silver-white flame of hope, the beast dissipated. Heavy silver hooves smash down on top of others, trampling them into the earth. Resolve is your weapons now, Hope your armor. Vigilance is your strength. So long as the white streak of hope runs across the world, bringing its purity to the hearts of those who need it, your resolve to protect it will crush those who seek to destroy it. And so through the night you run. A white unicorn chased by dark nightmares, and they in turn chased by the black echo of lives lost, of dying hope placed in the hands of others and the willingness to give every inch of yourself for what you truly wish to protect. The black unicorn walks the world now, trampling those who would crush hope. You are not the first, nor the last. But your fight is pure. and you take the sin upon yourself, so that others will never have to.
The Black Unicorn
The elf always claimed it was a dream. A weird and vivid vision. He blamed it on being tired. On falling asleep in the enchanted library of Ashvale. Of just being an imaginative person. But the dream stuck with him throughout his life, and tonight as he settled his head back on his pillow, it started again...
You run through the forest. You feel thorns and branches whip and pull at your skin, bare to the world. You look and see small lines of red, cuts upon bare white flanks. You run faster, a blur of white in the dark moonlight forest. If only you can go faster. You've never known fear until tonight. You've never known mortality until now, but you are being hunted.You run and run until your lungs burn, your single white horn glittering in the moonlight as beasts pursue you with the unnatural speed only the truly awful depths could manage.
Bursting from the forest you come to the clearing. You know you'll be safe there, you know the others are there, and they'll keep you safe. You're young, but they aren't, they're wise and strong. Under the clear sky they lay in stillness, white shapes captures and caught, beastly shadows, more fang and claw than actual form, feasting on your fellows. Until tonight, you had known only love, only joy. Tonight, for the first time, you felt fear, and as you look around, you are the last one here, you feel grief. The shadows that pursue you slow, knowing you no longer have anywhere to run. You regard them as you move to one of your sisters, nudging her, your limbs coated in the blood of them, marring white flesh with deep red that stains your skin black. You trod deeper and deeper into the terror that is the slaughter until you lay down next to your siblings, they already mostly devoured, as you turn to regard your attackers.
For a few long moments, you feel grief. You see their sinewy bodies in the darkness creeping up on you, fangs and teeth and claws bared in the light. The fear is gone, you've lost all you know already, and so you for another moment feel resignation. You, like the rest of your kind will not fight. It is amaranth to you. Violence begets only violence, and so you lower your head, and touch your spiraling white horn to the earth, still moist with the blood of your brothers and sisters.
Through tear streaked eyes you see a white blur. So quick it seemed but a trick of the light. You lift your head a moment to pick it out in the distance. A single sole survivor, pure and innocent and as white as snow. Hope ignites somewhere deep inside you, it burns bright in your heart despite the darkness on your step. Fear grips you again, not for yourself, no, you know its too late for you. You slowly pull yourself to your feet, and you feel the blood of your breathern strengthen your limbs. You feel white skin stained black harden, you feel hope become strength, you feel resolve become a blade. Somewhere deep inside you that fight burns bright. The monsters in the dark sense it, and a few recoil. Growling and snarling. How dare you stand infront of them. Accept your fate. Accept your death. They whisper to you in whatever awful tongue they use. You almost laugh. It isn't your fate you're concerned about anymore. In the darkness a white streak of hope runs off into the world unseen, you watch it disappear over the horizon, and a few tears drip down your eyes. The beasts turn and look as well, recognizing that one of their prey is escaping. They turn to pursue.
They move too slow. The love of a parent, of a caregiver, the love of a mother who gives themselves for their child and the father that fights to protect their loved ones in other lands. These are your strength. A silver horn pieces the first beast that lunges at you, and engulfed in burning silver-white flame of hope, the beast dissipated. Heavy silver hooves smash down on top of others, trampling them into the earth. Resolve is your weapons now, Hope your armor. Vigilance is your strength. So long as the white streak of hope runs across the world, bringing its purity to the hearts of those who need it, your resolve to protect it will crush those who seek to destroy it. And so through the night you run. A white unicorn chased by dark nightmares, and they in turn chased by the black echo of lives lost, of dying hope placed in the hands of others and the willingness to give every inch of yourself for what you truly wish to protect. The black unicorn walks the world now, trampling those who would crush hope. You are not the first, nor the last. But your fight is pure. and you take the sin upon yourself, so that others will never have to.