Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Past

The entire kingdom of Corona rejoiced when the king and queen announced they were expecting a child. People filled the already-lively streets of the kingdom's capital in celebration, but none were so happy as the king and queen themselves.

Then, during the seventh month of her pregnancy, the queen's health began failing. There was something terribly wrong, and it was not anything that the royal physicians could heal. As the queen worsened and no medicines or treatments helped her, the king sought a miracle. He sent out all of his men in search of any magical power in the kingdom that could cure her.

Yet all of his men returned empty-handed. Finally it was the queen's younger sister who suggested that she and the queen travel to a forest beyond Corona's walls in which there was rumored to be a unicorn, a legendary creature capable of powerful healing magic.

With no other options, the queen and her sister departed southeast. When they arrived at the Sundrop Forest, the two of them traveled alone together deep into the wood. And in a clearing at the heart of the forest, a unicorn approached them, entirely white and glowing silver in the moonlight. The unicorn inclined its graceful neck, closing its purple eyes and touching its horn to the queen, and cured her of her affliction.

When the queen and her sister returned, the kingdom celebrated even more joyously than before. The queen gave birth to a daughter, and the people of Corona began to venerate unicorns for the blessing one bestowed in saving their queen and princess.

And then, only days after her birth, the infant princess was stolen from her crib in the night.

Present

"Hey, it's me," Cassandra whispers in the semi-darkness of the stable, putting a hand against the smooth wood of the stall's door as she reaches it.

Her horse, Fidella, had raised her head sleepily at the sound of approaching footsteps, and at Cassandra's voice she rises fully to move to the stall door and nickers in recognition.

Cassandra, already filled with anxiety, immediately glances over her shoulder to make sure that there was no one there who might have heard. Of course, there was no one. She'd checked that before even coming in.

"I'm- I'm leaving," Cassandra says bluntly, looking back at Fidella. "I'm leaving Corona, tonight."

Fidella doesn't react to her words, and Cassandra reaches out to stroke her nose. She knew Fidella wouldn't be able to understand her, but she couldn't leave without saying anything.

"I'll be back," she says, reassuring herself and her horse. "I don't know how long, but I will. I just wanted to tell you. I'm leaving but it won't be forever. And I can't take you with me, I'm sorry."

Fidella pushes her nose back against Cassandra's hand, and Cassandra moves to hold her face and put her forehead to Fidella's nose.

"I just can't keep waiting any longer," Cassandra says softly. "I know I'm good enough. But no one will let me prove it here. I have to go out into the world and prove myself out there, so when I come back my dad can't deny me anymore. I deserve to be part of the guard."

Cassandra pulls her head back and stares into Fidella's eyes. "You understand, don't you?"

Fidella stares back at her with big, earnest eyes, full of intelligence but not understanding, and Cassandra feels a pang of regret that she can't take her horse with her.

But that would be much too noticeable, and she's running out of time already. She presses a kiss to Fidella's nose. "Wish me luck," she says softly, and a wry smile rises to her lips. "Who knows, maybe I'll do something incredible like find the lost princess."

Fidella lets out a gentle snort, and with one last regretful look, Cassandra leaves the stable, grabbing the bag she'd packed for herself on the way out.

✶✶✶✶✶

Reaching the outer border walls of the kingdom under the cover of night while circumventing the celebrations in the streets is easy. Tossing a grappling hook up and over to scale the walls and leave Corona is even easier.

Cassandra glances back at the top of the wall to watch the lanterns drifting up and around Corona's capital for a few moments before turning away and continuing on.

✶✶✶✶✶

Cassandra had chosen to avoid the kingdom's main gate to evade any guards who would recognize her, but after repelling down the border wall a couple miles south of the gate, she still doesn't make her way up towards the main road.

This choice is largely based in how she's sure her father has discovered her disappearance by now, and upon reading the note she left in her room, would be sending out his men to try to track her down and bring her back.

So instead of heading towards civilization, Cassandra hauls her pack onto her shoulders again, and makes her way across the moonlit rolling hills beyond Corona's walls towards the Sundrop Forest.

She would have to camp in the forest for a few days as she makes her way through it, but that's not a problem for her. Through childhood and adolescence her father had taken her on days-long hunting trips, and given her scouting lessons, and taught her wilderness survival skills like foraging, so Cassandra has full confidence in her ability to spend days away from civilization. Even if she encountered any brigands camping in the forest, she knew she could handle them: her father taught her sword fighting, hand-to-hand combat, knife-throwing, staff fighting… and he'd drilled her over and over until she mastered every one of them.

Of course, her father's absurdly thorough training of her is possibly the biggest reason Cassandra feels such a deep and bitter sting at being unfairly forbidden by him
from joining the kingdom's royal guard.

She knows she's good enough. Proficient enough, smart enough, tough enough - she just needs to convince him to stop making up reasons to tell her "not yet." And she's going to do that by completing some great and heroic deed, so remarkable that it wouldn't be possible for him to deny her any longer.

…What deed that might be, she hasn't figured out yet. But she'll find something - she has to.

I am going to be part of the guard, Cassandra thinks firmly. It's all she's ever wanted. I was born for this.

She repeats this mantra to herself as she enters the forest.

✶✶✶✶✶

Cassandra knows the significance of the Sundrop Forest. Growing up in Corona, she'd heard the story hundreds of times.

Which means she also knows that unicorns never approach humans - it's why the miracle of the queen's healing was such a divine blessing.

But that doesn't stop a small, irrational part of her from hoping that she'd see the legendary unicorn.

This small, irrational part of her thinks that if only she'd see the unicorn - it doesn't need to approach her, she just needs to see it - she'll know she's doing the right thing. The unicorn that had saved Corona's queen would be giving its blessing to Cassandra on her journey.

Cassandra spends three days in the forest as she makes her way through.

She never sees the unicorn.

✶✶✶✶✶

Cassandra travels for months through forests and over mountains, following the road wherever she feels inclined. She learns quickly that she can make easy money by offering to guard traders against highwaymen - a job she would have been able to charge more for if only she had some physical endorsement of her proficiency, like the coat-of-arms that knight-errants carry. But even being short-changed, she's able to get the jobs by showing off her skills with her sword and demonstrating her strength, and she's paid well enough for it.

So Cassandra travels across kingdoms, searching always for some kind of great enemy to defeat, like a wyvern terrorizing a village or a tyrant who'd taken over a town. Not because she wishes misfortune on strangers, obviously, but because she knows there exists evil in the world, and the sooner she finds it the sooner she can take it down and hold undeniable proof that she deserves to serve in Corona's royal guard.

Yet she comes across no great evils. She fights plenty of bandits and minor thieves and even drives off a bear that was regularly killing a village's livestock, but she manages nothing that she thinks would be enough. As months continue to pass, Cassandra wonders if she should at least send a letter back to her father, and remain in one place long enough to receive a response - she feels guilty for disappearing so suddenly, leaving only one note behind in her room for him to discover. Surely he has worried about her, and she doesn't want him to think that she'd perished outside of Corona during her travels. Perhaps he would even respond upon hearing from her that he'd certainly allow her onto the guard, if only she returned home…

Even with these thoughts, Cassandra can't bring herself to send the letter. She had sworn to herself that she would only return once she had proven herself. So she stifles her guilt and continues her journey.

But despite her wandering being directionless for months, now whenever she makes a decision for where to go next, it brings her slightly closer home each time. It's not a conscious choice on her part - she justifies every decision for some other reason, like moving along a river so she has fresh water, or electing to go to a town so she can repair worn equipment, or following a valley so she doesn't have to travel up and over a ridge.

While stopped in a village for a couple days, Cassandra helps a woman with work around her farm in exchange for room and board. On her last day there, Cassandra builds up the last of a stone wall the woman had been working on for months that she hadn't gotten around to finishing.

Cassandra had chosen to do it as extra thanks for the woman's kindness before leaving, but when the woman returns from her orchard and sees the work Cassandra did, she's distraught.

"Please, let me pay you for this," she tells Cassandra, her eyebrows drawn together as she puts down her basket of apricots.

"It's okay, really," Cassandra says as she adjusts the last stone. "You offered me a bed for two nights. Usually for the kind of work I did for you, people just let me sleep in their barn. Staying here was the first time I'd gotten a good night's sleep in weeks."

The woman hesitates before responding, and Cassandra knows that she's tight enough on money that she'd rather not pay - but Cassandra also knows that she's an honest and honorable person who wouldn't want to let the work go unrewarded. Her hostess's good character and valuing of hard work is part of the reason Cassandra liked her time here so much.

"Oh! Hold on," the woman says abruptly, and without picking up her basket, she hurries into her home. Cassandra wipes her face, wondering how she's going to deny whatever item her hostess tries to offer her - but when the woman returns, there's only an envelope in her hand.

"You're headed north, right?" She asks as she approaches.

"Uh… probably…?" Cassandra offers awkwardly.

The woman takes out a slip of paper from the envelope and holds it out to Cassandra. "My brother lives in the town over. He said there's a traveling carnival stopped there for a few weeks, and he sent me this ticket he bought for it. He said that the show is remarkable - but I don't have the time to go up there and see it. You should go!"

"Oh, uh," Cassandra stalls. Circuses aren't really her thing. But, better she accept this gift than her hostess feel like she has to go find some other item to offer her - something that would surely be worth more to her than this. "...Sure, it's been a while since I've gone to any kind of show."

"Great!" The woman responds, delighted, as Cassandra takes the ticket. "Oh, let me tell you my brother's name, if you let him know you've helped me out he'll probably offer you work and a place to stay too…"

A couple hours later, Cassandra continues on her way, her pack slung over her shoulders and a useless slip of paper in her pocket.

✶✶✶✶✶

She reaches the town to the north just after sunset. She decides since she'd only be in town for one night that she'd just rent an inn room rather than bother the woman's brother, and after closing the door of her inn room behind her, she shrugs her pack off and falls onto the bed. Traveling without a horse to carry her belongings is exhausting, but she had never been able to afford a horse - and besides, some tiny, ridiculous part of her feels like riding another horse would be betraying Fidella.

Cassandra goes down to the inn's main level to buy dinner, and afterwards she finds herself back in her room, at a loss for what to do next. When camping she'd always have some work to do - pitching her tent or mending clothes or cooking food - but since she's been sleeping comfortably for days now, she has nothing to occupy her time with.

She remembers her vague idea of sending a letter to her father, and she glances at the small desk in the corner of her room. From here it wouldn't even take that long for a courier to reach Corona. Cassandra's eyebrows draw together as she considers this. She still feels reluctant, but if she has nothing else to do...

Sitting down on her bed, she hears the crinkle of a forgotten piece of paper in her pocket. She pulls out the carnival ticket and stares at it for a moment, remembering that when she reached the town she'd barely seen a large and colorful tent pitched just outside of the town to the east.

Cassandra makes a face. Circuses really aren't her thing. But it offers a convenient excuse for why she wouldn't write a letter tonight.

She squints at the ticket. 'The Midnight Carnival presents: Sir Mericles' Immortal Extravaganza' is written in fancy script across the paper, decorated with elaborate scrollwork.

Every word of that is pompous as hell, she thinks to herself, her frown deepening. Guy's calling himself "sir," and he thinks his show is important enough to be called an "immortal extravaganza"?

Cassandra taps her foot against the ground as she leans backwards onto the bed and stares at the ceiling.

"Fine," she says finally, the anxious energy generated by thinking about home and her father making the decision for her. "But I'll leave as soon as it's insufferable."

Which will probably be immediately. But at least she'll get a post-dinner walk out of the whole thing, which is good for digestion. And perhaps by the time she gets back she'll be too tired to write a letter. Cassandra almost grabs her sword out of habit as she gets up, and quickly remembers that a sword probably wouldn't be welcome there.

She gives a short sigh through her nose before walking out her door.

When she gets to the eastern edge of town, the circus tent is larger than she expects. It's even larger than the inn - easily over three stories tall in the center pole, and twice as wide, all striped with purple and blue. Flags of different colors dot the external ropes strung up to the center pole, and posters of performers and animals are displayed around the entry, visible by the torchlight all around. As she reaches the tent, she can hear an announcer yelling within, and the sound of a large crowd. It appears she's arrived after the start of the show, and there's a stern-looking man standing by what she assumes is the entrance, but it's closed and she can't see in.

"You're lucky," the employee says gruffly to her as she approaches. "If you came any later I couldn't've let you in."

Cassandra frowns as she hands her ticket over. "Why's that?"

"Don't wanna let anything out that's not supposed to get out," the employee answers in that same callous voice, squinting at her ticket to verify it. "Enjoy the show," he tells her, pulling aside the tent flap.

Cassandra side-eyes him as she walks in, perplexed by his answer, but then she's very distracted by everything in front of her.

The first thing she sees are the tiered wooden rows of seats that surround the center ring, filled with over a hundred spectators - at least. It's dim in the back rows, as all the light is centered on the ring, which is filled with performers. They're all in colorful garb: some are doing gymnastic displays together, while a couple of others are juggling while balancing on horses that are trotting in circles around the ring. Close to the audience, a few clowns perform slapstick comedy, slipping on banana peels and spraying each other with water from trick flower pins. Above, acrobats fly through the air and catch bars that are suspended by nearly-invisible ropes high overhead, strung between several posts that nearly touch the top of the tent. Besides the horses, Cassandra sees poodles dancing on two legs for the audience, and a brown bear in a frilled collar standing on one foot and balancing a ball on its nose.

"Holy shit," she mutters to herself, actually walking over to the nearest section of seats to climb up to the back row - which is the only one that's not already filled.

Before he even speaks again, Cassandra deduces the ringleader, the allegedly "sir" Mericles - he's the only one not doing dramatic acrobatics or comedic displays, instead walking around with his arms spread wide. He's in a dark tophat with bells around the wide brim, and a matching ensemble of the same bizarre mix of formal and clownish: striped high-waisted pants held up by suspenders, a formal jacket with exaggerated puffed sleeves, an enormous frilled collar, and a long cape. His waxed mustache is pencil-thin, and his white make-up looks weirdly gray.

"My fine guests, I think I've kept you waiting long enough," Mericles calls out in a booming voice, offering a grand gesture towards the audience. "It's time for the real jewels of the event. First-!" He grabs his cape to pull it up and around himself in a practiced flourish, and after the cape passes there's suddenly an enormous red and gold bird perched on his raised forearm. "Candor, the immortal phoenix!"

Cassandra's eyebrow raises as the audience gasps and cries out in delight. The bird raises its gold wings and lets out a powerful cry as it lifts the dramatic crest on its head, and its long tail of feathers cascades down past Mericles' arm.

I wonder what that is, Cassandra thinks, amused at the crowd's immediate belief in the creature as more people cheer. Probably a peacock painted orange.

"Behold!" Mericles shouts as he throws his arm up and the bird takes off into the air. As it flies up and around the ring, its body looks like its glowing - and then shreds of light begin trailing off from its feathers. Cassandra squints as the bird summons more and more of these floating flames, leaving them suspended in the air for a few seconds before disappearing, and finally it brushes past a ring suspended in the air by the acrobats' bars. At its touch, the ring is set fully ablaze.

Cassandra blinks, ignoring the lively crowd that is somehow even more exuberant than before. She can't think of a way that smoke-and-mirror gimmicks could pull that kind of thing off. But it's not her job to know magicians' tricks, and she's still certain there's no way that's actually a phoenix.

"Yes, yes, it's out of this world!" Mericles shouts as acrobats start leaping through the flaming hoop. The bird cries out again and it swoops down close to the audience, leaving shreds of light dancing over peoples' heads.

"But Candor is only the first," Mericles tells the crowd as the bird lands again on his outstretched arm. "There's another, even more marvelous creature to bless your eyes tonight. A creature rarely seen at all, much less shown on incredible display for you all to enjoy- ladies and gentlemen," Mericles gestures grandly again, this time to a break in the seat rows opposite the entrance, which Cassandra assumes must be the backstage of the show. The audience falls silent in anticipation, and Mericles continues: "I do you all a great service to present - Moonflower, the immortal unicorn!"

Cassandra's eyes widen barely at the last word. Having grown up in Corona, she'd been raised to respect unicorns on a deep and even reverential level. Unicorns represent to Coronans all that is good in the world: healing, selfless kindness, nature itself… so her mind breaks slightly at the thought of using one as a carnival spectacle.

Of course, it won't actually be a unicorn. It will be some horse with a horn stuck on its head. Cassandra knows what real unicorns look like, since queen Arianna's sister, princess Willow, had drawn recreations of the unicorn that approached them both. Her drawings were used as references for murals painted both in Corona castle and the capital's main square, which Cassandra had seen nearly every day of her life. A unicorn is closer in overall shape to a deer than a horse: it has a slender body and tapered head, and the same willowy legs with cloven hooves; but its long mane is that of a horse, with gentle waves and curled ends, and its ears are horse-like in shape and smaller than those of a deer; its tail is long with a tufted end like a cow's, and nearly reaches the ground; its eyes are large and its coat entirely white; and of course, it has a long, straight horn on its head, which emerges from the center of a mark on its forehead - just barely darker than the surrounding white coat - of a slender-spiked six-pointed star.

Cassandra knows it simply isn't possible to recreate the appearance of a unicorn with any mortal animals. Even a doe painted white with a horn stuck on its head and a fake mane would be exposed by the too-small overall size, too-large ears, and inaccurate tail. But regardless of what they attempt, Cassandra is sure the audience will immediately believe the hoax considering how few people know what unicorns look like, and considering how quickly they'd all accepted the "phoenix."

When Mericles finishes his introduction, two acrobats drop to the ground to pull aside the backstage curtain from the center, and a man walks through the opening with a rope attached to the bridle of the pure white creature he leads out. The crowd all stand to try to get a look, and even Cassandra stands so she can see past the people in front of her, to determine what exactly they're trying to pass off as a unicorn. She can barely see the handler struggle to drag the creature out and into the ring as it pulls back against him.

Mericles laughs at the creature's reluctance. "Our Moonflower can be shy," he tells the audience. "But worry not, you'll all have a chance to look up close! Behold!"

The man begins to lead the creature along the edge of the ring, the nearest audience crying out in delight as they pass. Cassandra can't tell what it is - but the size seems right, as its shoulder reaches the mid-chest of the averagely-sized man that leads it. Cassandra wonders if they'd gotten a juvenile horse for the job.

"Now I'm sure there are naysayers in the audience-" Mericles' voice booms out again as the handler and creature continue to make its way around the ring. "-Who think that our Moonflower isn't a real unicorn. Which is why I will allow a few volunteers to try their hand at pulling off Moonflower's horn! I'm sure once you see it's quite impossible, you will be certain that this is the mystical beast of legend."

Cassandra's eyebrow raises as the handler and creature approach her division of the seats, and a burly man near the front - a few rows in front of Cassandra - raises his hand, shouting out, "I will try!"

The people around the burly man all cheer and applaud - evidently, they're all familiar with him, and Cassandra's sure that he's the local blacksmith or something. He laughs as people clap him on the back, and the spectators in the row in front of him move aside as the handler grabs the bridle of the creature, which had abruptly started trying to pull away, and drags it toward the man.

Cassandra frowns the closer they get. She'd attributed the size and slenderness to a young horse, but the mane is long and wavy - which would've been an intentional addition. Whoever made this fabrication knew what a real unicorn looks like.

It's when the creature is in front of her section, barely twenty feet away from her, that Cassandra sees its tail thrash to the side as it tries to pull back again against the handler, and the tail is long and tufted.

A fake tail wouldn't be able to move like that, Cassandra thinks to herself, starting to feel cold, and then the handler forces its head forward by the bridle to the barrier in front of the seats, putting its face and horn within reach of the audience.

Fight back, Cassandra thinks urgently, seeing the burly man reach towards it. Fight back!

She imagines the creature rearing up and boxing the man with its hooves, or lunging forward with its sharp horn - but Cassandra remembers when she was a child helping her father in the armory, and he explained to her why the image of a unicorn could only be put on shields and armor, but never weapons: unicorns don't fight. Their nature is to heal, not hurt. Cassandra always thought that was silly, and that the sharp horn unicorns have look like they could do plenty of damage, but her father was insistent that unicorns simply would not use it that way.

That memory doesn't stop Cassandra from shouting in her mind at the creature to defend itself, but it only tries unsuccessfully to pull away before the burly man grabs its horn.

When he pulls backward, he throws all his weight into it, and the creature lets out a horse-like scream as it's yanked forward and its chest slams into the barrier in front of the seats.

"It's real!" A voice cries out, and the people in the stands surge forward. Hands immediately reach toward the unicorn to touch its face and grab at its mane while the burly man holds its head in place by the horn. The unicorn tries again to pull away, its hooves scrambling on the dirt, and lets out a frustrated screech as people yank on its mane, trying to pull a hair loose to keep as a charm.

Cassandra reacts on adrenaline rather than thought. She lunges forward, throwing two people aside and stepping on another, and as soon as she gets close, she smashes her fist into the back of the burly man's head.

His head snaps forward as Cassandra's fist explodes in pain, but he has finally released the unicorn's horn and it throws itself back and away from the stands. The handler grabs its bridle again to keep it from fleeing any farther, but Cassandra isn't done. Just as the burly man starts to turn to see who'd clocked him and people scream in fear, Cassandra lunges again, this time throwing herself over the front row and the barrier, seeing nothing but the handler and red. One fist was out of commission, but her other would work fine.

Unfortunately, Cassandra never manages to send her fist into the man's face. She's apprehended immediately by two clowns, which is frankly humiliating, although at the moment she's too overtaken by rage to feel anything else. The clowns force her arms behind her back and hold her away from the handler.

"How dare you!" Cassandra snarls at the man, struggling against the clowns and trying to throw herself forward again.

"Oh dear, looks like we've got a fanatic in the audience, folks," Mericles' voice calls out. He seems entirely unsurprised and unbothered by Cassandra's interruption of the show. "Such a marvelous creature can often have this effect on the more simple-minded among us," he continues, causing a wave of laughter in the audience. "Perhaps this uncivilized brute could benefit from the kind of training we give our poodles!"

As laugher rises around her again, Cassandra is vastly too outraged to put to words any articulate criticism - especially with her anger spiked by the hypocrisy of calling her uncivilized after torturing a unicorn and treating it as a spectacle. So rather than a rebuttal, she only shouts again, "How dare you treat a unicorn this way?! What's wrong with you?!" As the crowd starts to jeer, Cassandra snarls, "What's wrong with ALL of you!?"

"Clowns, would you kindly escort this… creature out," Mericles states, giving Cassandra a judgemental once-over. "And please," he continues, addressing the stands, "If anyone else in the audience feels similarly about our show, I welcome you to exit the premises before you too make an embarrassment of yourself."

The clowns begin to drag Cassandra backwards towards the exit as she struggles, and nearby audience members continue to jeer and start throwing half-eaten snacks at her.

Recognizing that she's not going to get herself free of the clowns' grasp, Cassandra looks up with distress across her face at the unicorn, its handler still grasping its bridle, and she sees it staring at her with large green eyes before she's dragged past the stands and out of sight.

The clowns pause at the canvas of the tent's exit for a moment, and Cassandra tries to turn in their grasp to see what's holding them up, but then she's dragged out and into the night air.

Before Cassandra's deposited outside of the tent, one clown turns to punch her just below her ribs, knocking the air from her lungs. She's doubled over when the other uses a juggling pin to knock her over the head. Breathless and her head bursting with pain, the clowns finally drop her, and she collapses on the ground.

They say something to the employee at the entrance, but Cassandra's too distracted by pain and her ringing ears to tell what they said. She pulls herself to her hands and knees, forcing breath back into her lungs, while the employee goes about sealing the entry, using ropes to secure the canvas flaps together. Seeing this, Cassandra understands why it'd taken extra time to get out of the tent, and why the employee had told her he wouldn't have been able to let her in if she'd arrived any later: as soon as they bring out the unicorn, the entire place is sealed.

"Guess I shouldn't've let you in," the employee says in a deadpan as he resumes his unconcerned lean next to the entry. He doesn't even look at her as he speaks.

"That's a real fucking unicorn," Cassandra wheezes out with venom, glaring daggers at him from the ground.

"Yeah, that's the point of the show," the employee responds, just as unconcerned as before.

Cassandra's jaw flexes with anger. "They're using a unicorn as a fucking spectacle, letting people grab at it and hurt it. How could you not care."

"Not my job to care," he tells her, pulling out a thin cigar and lighting it with a nearby torch.

Cassandra feels a wave of enough rage that she's inclined to lunge at the man to fight him, but a tiny part of her recognizes that she's probably had her ass kicked enough for the night.

"You're a piece of shit," she says instead, getting to her feet.

"Piece of shit with a job," he corrects her, puffing his cigar.

Cassandra turns away in disgust, and she starts walking back towards the town.

But she hasn't given up. She just needs to wait a bit.

✶✶✶✶✶

Five hours later, Cassandra leaves her inn room's key on the small desk before lifting her pack and silently closing the door behind her as she leaves. Usually she'd give the key directly to the innkeeper the next morning, but she figures that it wouldn't be wise to stay in the town for even a few hours after what she intends to do. Cassandra slips out of the inn, and at such an absurd hour of the night, the only activity she can hear is at the bar up the street that's somehow still open, so she doesn't pass anyone as she exits the town to the south.

Slightly down the road, she crosses a field eastward under the moonlight to enter the woods beyond it, and keeping just past the tree line, she makes her way back north, circling up past and around the town's adjacent fields. Once she's directly east of the town, she travels deeper into the woods to hide her bag, and she takes only her sword and spyglass when she returns to the edge of the forest. Able to see the carnival tent across the field, Cassandra climbs a tree for a better view.

Since it's a traveling carnival, she's sure that they store all their wagons, caravans, and horses out of sight behind the tent on the exact opposite side of the entrance, and she suspects that this outdoor area would be connected to the 'backstage' of the tent.

Using her spyglass from her high vantage point, her suspicions are validated as she sees large caravans with their wheels chocked positioned around a couple of dying campfires, circling out from the back of the tent where Cassandra can barely make out an entry flap similar to the one on the other side.

Cassandra figures that most of the performers sleep in the caravans and store their belongings there, but she doesn't care about that. She moves her spyglass and scans the darker part of the outdoor storage area off to the side, where there are wagons and boxes left somewhat haphazardly around, and two comparatively-smaller and tarp-enclosed caravans with their wheels chocked against the tent.

Cassandra can't figure out where they'd be keeping all the animals. The horses were on the other side of the caravan campsite, and perhaps the poodles sleep with the humans, but she would think that on this side there would be a particularly large cage for the bear at least.

Maybe they're keeping the animals in the backstage area of the tent, Cassandra thinks to herself, lowering her spyglass.

Which is very unfortunate. It'll be way harder to sneak into the tent itself.

Cassandra's internally debating exactly where she's going to slice the canvas to slip inside when she notices a man walk from the campsite over to the storage area. She immediately lifts her spyglass to see what he's doing, and she suspects he's on watch, to make sure no one tries to steal from them. She sees the man walk directly to the tarp-covered caravans, lift up the tarp on each and look under, and then continue to meander through the storage before walking around the perimeter of their campsite circle. Finally he returns to one of the fires and sits next to another man Cassandra only just notices now.

Why would he check on the caravans in the storage, Cassandra wonders, but her thoughts are interrupted by Owl landing silently next to her.

"I think the unicorn must be inside the tent," Cassandra whispers to Owl, who stares back at her with his yellow eyes. "If they're not keeping the bear outside, they're definitely not keeping the unicorn out here. I don't know what's inside the tent, though. Probably more guards. But I've got my sword this time, so I think I've got a chance of fighting my way in."

Owl blinks at her, and Cassandra imagines that he's looking at her judgmentally. He's not, obviously, since he's a bird and doesn't understand what she's saying, but she's coped with traveling alone for months by projecting human behavior and reactions on him.

"Fine, I won't fight my way in," she responds, giving in to her own subconscious. Her sword hand is still tender from punching the man earlier that night, anyway. "I'll try to be sneaky. I'm gonna wait around until I see the guys on watch do a round again, so I know how much time I have to work with. Then I'll go over and hide behind the storage boxes and wagons while I choose a place to cut the canvas to get in."

Owl's head swivels, and she figures he'd heard a small rodent in the undergrowth. "Yeah yeah, you can go get that," Cassandra tells him, waving a hand. "I'll just do my stakeout alone."

Owl slips off the branch, gracefully gliding away on silent wings, not paying her any more attention. She stifles a vague and very irrational wave of hurt feelings, and continues watching the campsite.

She feels immediately and embarrassingly reassured when Owl returns about ten minutes later with his catch, and perches near her as he devours his vole. She's about to comment on his terrible table manners when the other man at the campfire gets up to do a guard round.

Cassandra quickly lifts her spyglass and watches the man, just like the last one, walk to the small covered caravans against the tent in the storage area, and lift the tarp up to look inside before continuing on.

Cassandra waits for him to complete his round and settle down by the campfire again before she slips down the tree to the ground and ducks into the field's vegetation to make her way towards the storage area.

Once she gets there, she sneaks around boxes and wagons until she's pressed against the tent next to the covered caravans, grateful that they offer a place to hide. The covered caravan is even stranger close up, since it has a door at the back with a tiny barred window, like a prison cart. Cassandra's curiosity spikes, and she moves to the caravan's side to lift up the edge of the tarp and look in as the men had done.

Underneath she sees more metal bars across a wide window in the wood that runs the length of the caravan, and the moonlight entering through her opening barely illuminates straw on the floor inside. Cassandra pulls the tarp aside farther, and the moonlight catches something large and white curled up in the corner against the far wall and the bars on the other side.

When the coat reflects the silver moonlight to look like it's glowing, Cassandra realizes that this is the unicorn's cage.

Holy shit, she thinks, dropping the tarp and immediately moving back to her hiding space with her heart pounding. She looks up at the prison-cart-like door, and sees a latch with a heavy metal padlock on it.

Cassandra slips a hand into the pouch at her waist and pulls out a tiny tension wrench and pick. As a teenager, she thought that maybe if she'd proved herself clever and useful enough, her father would let her try out for the guard - so she'd taught herself lockpicking to show him that the standard-issue handcuffs were too easily picked. Upon seeing her demonstration, he'd agreed with her about the handcuffs, and immediately got a locksmith to work on making new ones for the guard. As for the reward she'd hoped for… Well.

But the combination of learning lockpicking and not being allowed into the guard led Cassandra to this very moment, when she pushes against the tension wrench as her pick fiddles with the lock's interior pins, and the padlock clicks open. She twists it and lifts it from the latch as quietly as she can, and then she slowly opens the caravan's door.

The unicorn doesn't stir when the door opens, but when she takes a step into its cage, its ears swivel and its head starts to rise.

"It's okay, it's me," Cassandra whispers, lowering herself so she isn't looming in the doorway.

The unicorn seems to shake the last of its sleepiness off as it stands, snorting and trying to back away from her but hitting the wall behind it. Cassandra sees that the bridle is still on its head, and the lead rope is tied to one of the metal bars.

"No, it's okay," Cassandra whispers again, leaving the door fully open and moving towards the unicorn slowly, hoping it won't make any more sounds. "I'm here to get you out of here."

The unicorn stops pressing itself against the back wall and leans its head forward, filling Cassandra with relief that it's finally noticed she's not one of the circus members.

"I'm the girl from earlier, when I interrupted the show," Cassandra continues to speak softly, knowing her words mean nothing to it but trying to keep it calm with a gentle voice. As she approaches the unicorn, she lifts her hands slowly towards its bridled face, saying, "I'm going to take this off of you now."

The unicorn snuffles at her hand and then holds its head motionless, staring at her with its big eyes, as she reaches to the buckles and undoes them. She slips the leather straps off of its face and places the bridle on the ground without a sound.

"There," Cassandra whispers, rising again. "Now, come on, we have to go before the guards come around again."

She steps backwards, seeing if the unicorn will follow her. It noses the bridle on the ground before looking back up and stepping towards her.

Cassandra lets out a breath in relief, and steps backwards again, letting the unicorn walk with her. She lowers herself out of the caravan, and stands to the side so the unicorn can come out.

When it enters direct moonlight at the doorway, it immediately begins to glow a gentle silver. The unicorn raises its head to look around, and Cassandra worries that some part of it thinks it's still confined to the caravan by the lead.

She's about to reassure it again when it looks down and hops out gracefully.

Cassandra can't suppress her smile seeing the unicorn free, and she whispers, "Okay, let's go. We can make for the woods."

She assumes the unicorn will bolt immediately for the trees past the field, but it doesn't. Instead it looks around, and then trots quickly in the opposite direction, towards the other tarp-covered caravan.

Cassandra feels a bolt of nervousness, and she goes quickly after it. "No, this way," she whispers urgently, but she stops herself before touching the unicorn. Trying to force its head back around would feel too much like how the terrible people at the circus manhandled it.

Luckily, rather than continuing towards the camp, the unicorn stops at the back door of the other covered caravan and puts its front hooves up on the step outside of the door. It looks intently at the padlock on the door's latch, and right when Cassandra's about to try to urge it away again, it leans its head back and then slams its horn into the lock.

Cassandra fills with adrenaline as the sharp sound of metal being struck rings out, and she knows that the men at the camp would be able to hear it. "No, stop!" Cassandra whispers desperately, but the unicorn only pulls its head back and slams its horn into the lock again.

"Fuck," Cassandra says under her breath, and she knows she has to do something before the guards arrive to investigate the sound. She almost grabs the unicorn to try to drag it away, but still haunted by the memory of the other humans' treatment of it, instead she pulls out her lockpicks. "I'll open it, now get out of here!"

Cassandra starts to pick the lock, but the unicorn doesn't leave. It watches her intently, and knowing that she doesn't need to be quiet anymore, Cassandra throws the lock off the latch and opens the door quickly.

Inside the cage, she sees the bird Candor perched on a stand, and Cassandra realizes the unicorn wanted to save its friend. The bird begins to glow gold, and in the light she's able to see that like the unicorn, the bird is tethered within the cage.

"Fucking hell," Cassandra mutters, thinking about how she profoundly does not have time for this - distracted enough by her frustration that it doesn't phase her that the bird is glowing gold - but she rushes forward and pulls the dagger from her belt to cut the leather around the bird's leg.

It spreads its wings and chirps at her, which would have been comical to hear such a small sound coming from such a large bird if only Cassandra wasn't more anxiety than person at this point, and then it flies towards the door.

Outside, the unicorn is turning itself in excited circles when the bird lands on its back. Cassandra jumps out of the caravan and hears the sound of the two guards arguing with each other about who was going to go check on the storage, and one finally gives in.

"Fucking shit, fuck. Fuck," Cassandra whispers, and knowing that she has about five seconds, she draws her sword and looks over her shoulder at the unicorn and bird. "You've got your friend, now go! I'll distract them!"

The unicorn doesn't leave and Cassandra's really starting to question whether these creatures are as wise and holy as she'd always been told when the bird flies to her shoulder, and the sword in Cassandra's hand disappears.

"What th-" Cassandra starts, since she certainly can still feel the sword in her hands, and she looks down further to see - nothing. Not her hands, her body, or the bird on her shoulder. She and the bird had become completely invisible.

Cassandra turns sharply and doesn't see the unicorn behind her, either, but then she's distracted by one of the guards finally walking into the storage area.

She backs away silently and wonders what the hell she's going to do once the guard sees that both caravans had been broken into, but when he raises the tarp on Candor's cage, Cassandra can see the bird perched inside.

What the fuck, she thinks, desperately confused, since she can still feel the bird's talons on her shoulder. She holds herself motionless and hardly breathes as the guard drops the tarp and continues walking. She's sure in moments he's going to see the caravan's lock on the ground and the door opened - but when Cassandra looks there, she sees the door closed and the padlock in place.

Not finding anything amiss, the guard reaches the other caravan and pulls back the tarp, revealing the unicorn standing behind the bars, its head bowed and chest moving with heavy breaths.

"Yeah, Moonflower was just bangin' on the cage again," the guard calls back over his shoulder. "I thought you'd gotten over that," he tells the unicorn, scowling at it. "These bars ain't gonna break, and we don't want that pretty horn of yours to snap. Knock it off or we'll have to tie you up all night again."

Without another word, he drops the tarp and walks back in the direction of the camp.

Cassandra stays still as a statue for over a minute after the guard leaves, still holding her sword tightly in her bruised hand and feeling the bird's talons on her shoulder. Finally, Cassandra turns around to look desperately for the unicorn.

And as soon as she moves, shreds of light drift away from herself, the bird perched on her shoulder, and the unicorn a few feet in front of her as the illusion evaporates away. The phoenix flies over onto the unicorn again and looks back at Cassandra with a chirp.

"...I guess you're not just a peacock painted orange," Cassandra finally admits quietly to the phoenix, astounded that its magic had been real. "Sorry I doubted you. Now let's actually get out of here," she adds intensely.

She heads quickly past the boxes and wagons toward the field, and she feels a wave of relief when she looks back and sees that the unicorn is finally following her, keeping its head low. The phoenix stays on the unicorn's back, even flattening itself to the unicorn's body to remain out of sight as they enter the field's crops.

Cassandra doesn't stop when she reaches the treeline. She continues her sneaking towards where she'd stored her bag, deep into the woods, not wanting any chance of the circus members or townspeople catching sight of the mythical creatures. When Cassandra reaches her bag and finally straightens, the unicorn and phoenix raise their heads too, and the unicorn immediately begins bounding around in excitement. The phoenix takes off from the unicorn's back and the two start playing together, the phoenix flying around the unicorn and grabbing at it with its feet, and the unicorn dodging its grabs while prancing around. The unicorn even drops to the ground to roll in the grass for a moment before hopping back up again, too excited to stay in one place.

Completely exhausted and hardly able to believe they'd actually made it out, Cassandra watches the two playing together as her heart stops racing, and she lets out a small laugh from their infectious excitement. At the sound, the unicorn seems to remember she's there, as it stops its bouncing and starts walking towards her.

For the first time that night, Cassandra is not single-mindedly focused on her mission, and when she sees the unicorn glowing in the dappled moonlight as it approaches, her breath catches in her throat.

This is a unicorn. A real unicorn. Its wavy mane moves gently with silken smoothness as it walks; its cloven hooves step delicately, almost weightlessly, on the grass; its large, intelligent eyes framed with long lashes watch her intently; its slender horn rises out from behind short, curled locks of its mane, the star mark barely visible underneath.

The same kind of noble being that had saved queen Arianna's life. Cassandra swallows heavily, her cultural conditioning striking her as she remembers everything that unicorns mean to her kingdom.

And among everything else, Cassandra remembers unicorns' inherent virtue of selfless kindness, and she abruptly realizes that must be why the unicorn insisted on saving the phoenix. That was simply its nature - it couldn't leave to save itself when there was something else that needed help. Cassandra immediately feels an overwhelming wave of shame for being so impatient with the unicorn.

You're a better soul than me, Cassandra thinks. And surely the unicorn knew the phoenix's magic was real - it must have predicted the phoenix would help them escape, too. Cassandra feels like a fool for thinking that she'd know anything better than an immortal being.

The unicorn stops in front of her. Cassandra stands, still frozen, as it looks between her eyes and then steps forward again to put its head over her shoulder.

As it turns its head to press against her back, Cassandra has no idea how to react. If this were Fidella, she'd immediately wrap her arms around its neck to hug it in return. But this isn't Fidella. It's a unicorn, and she never thought she'd ever even see one, much less touch one, much less have one pressing against her so fondly.

Cassandra's distracted from her internal turmoil by the phoenix landing on her opposite shoulder, and it begins to run its beak through her hair. She understands the motion: it's preening her, something Owl would do to her in affection, and if this were Owl she'd immediately raise her hand to give it neck scritchies in return. But this isn't Owl, and she has no idea how the phoenix would feel about her trying to pet it.

Before Cassandra makes a decision on how to react to either of them, the phoenix stops its preening as the unicorn lifts its head and steps back to look at her again.

Cassandra has the irrational thought that it's waiting expectantly for her to say something - but what could she even say to a unicorn?

"...You're free," she finally manages in a hoarse voice.

The unicorn continues to stare at her for a moment, and then it looks back over its shoulder deeper into the woods. It turns and trots gracefully in that direction, and then pauses to glance back at Cassandra. She barely nods at it, encouraging it onward.

When the unicorn looks forward again, the phoenix takes off from Cassandra's shoulder, and the unicorn begins running. It bounds away through the trees, getting faster as it goes with the phoenix flying overhead, and Cassandra stands motionless, watching until she can no longer see either of them, and she's alone in the woods again.

Notes: