Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.

[on_mans_road]

Amalthea was bundled up against the cold as she set out buckets of flowers outside the shop. Despite the cold it was sunny, and as along as the water didn't freeze they would be fine. These were winter flowers: daphnes, hellebores, snowdrops. There were also branches of evergreens and holly bushes, ready to be made into wreaths and boughs for holiday decorations.

She sat down on a bench outside the shop to start making things to sell. She'd learned how in the preceding weeks; people liked her designs, apparently, so she would make more for the shop to sell. Apparently people also liked to see someone making the wreaths, so she'd sit outside until the sun went away. She had a base for each of them, deftly weaving pine branches, holly and juniper stems with their red and blue berries. She worked with pinecones, ribbons, and a few pheasant feathers. On a few she added flowers: stems with little water reservoirs attached to make them last.

She tried humming to herself, tunes she remembered. She didn't feel very good at it, even if she liked music.

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[high_warlock]

The weather was beginning to creep toward downright wintery and Magnus loved it. He loved being able to wear coats and scarves and gloves and hats and boots, a whole new wardrobe practically added to what he already had (which was extensive). If he weren't the sort to go out every day, if only to stroll the streets and visit his favorite coffee shop, he would have found reason to do so.

The glorious thing about pointless trips around the city was that, when he found something or someone of interest, it cost him nothing to change course. He sauntered over to Amalthea, sitting in front of some quaint little shop, a peppermint mocha in his hand and a gentle smile on his face.

"Hello, unicorn." It sounded odd to say it that way, but she wanted reminding, didn't she? "Those look beautiful."

[on_mans_road]

She felt him before looking up to see him, to answer his greeting. "Hello, warlock." She peered up at him. He certainly looked different from the last time she'd seen him, but she supposed they'd all been in costume. "People seem to like them," she said, lightly plucking at one of the pine boughs she'd just woven into the design. "I think they're just as nice on the tree... though I suppose people don't want to bring entire trees indoors."

The day found her in a wool coat and gray fingerless gloves so that she could work unencumbered. For the moment her pale hair was loose, though if the wind kept blowing she might put it back, or give up and put on a hat.

"I promised Biffy I would bring one for the country house."

[high_warlock]

"I'm sure he'll love it." His words were softer than they might usually be, a genuine statement rather than a conversational filler. Magnus knew the kind of hurt Biffy suffered, but in the warlock's case, he was always capable of running away to a new city, a new country, a new continent. He didn't have to share a small city with his ex-fiancee and his lover. Magnus would have been more worried had he not learned long ago that people were more resilient than others -- and they themselves -- gave them credit for.

"But some people do bring the entire tree indoors, you know," Magnus continued. He didn't find it strange to explain these things to people. What was common place in the mundane world never would cross the mind of some Shadowhunters and Downworlders, and of course the opposite held even more true. "They chop them down, of course. But then they set them up in the parlor or wherever there's room and string them up with lights and tinsel and decorations. A bit like you're doing."

[on_mans_road]

She gave him a dubious look when he said people brought entire trees indoors. "But-- well. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me." She had been so confused by the things humans did even when she was one; as a unicorn, at least, she hadn't really cared. Now that she was stuck as one she felt she had to fit in and understand. But she wasn't sure about bringing entire trees inside. It might smell nice, she supposed.

She deftly wove an ivy vine through the wreath and added accents of holly. She paused when a shop cat came outside. It twined around the leg of the bench, looking like it ached to get close to her. Amalthea reached to touch it, but it's fur all went up and it darted away, back inside.

"Biffy's cat does that, too," she said. Cats were the only animals she'd met so far that ran away from her.

[high_warlock]

It didn't strike him as strange that a cat would run away from her, but then he remembered that, as a unicorn, she had a kinship to animals that was completely unlike anything a human could develop. Maybe in her true form it would be different, but Magnus didn't bother speaking that curious thought aloud.

"Cats are strange," Magnus allowed, then followed with a chuckle. "I have two. Olivia loves people. Climbs all over Alec whenever he's around, literally climbs him. But Henry, he's a judgmental little fur ball. He finds the most comfortable spot in the room and stares down at you like your very presence offends him." He smiled despite his words. "But every so often, the most comfortable spot in the room is you, and then he's interested in a little petting."

[on_mans_road]

"There was a cat with one eye and three legs in Haggard's castle. Whenever I came to visit Molly in the kitchen he would fall all over himself to get close, only to run away again." It had been very sad, for her. All she'd wanted was some kinship, and if she could not feel it with the people she had been with, what did she have left? Only the cat, the sea.

"He knew what I was. The cat. He told Molly that he couldn't let me touch him, and no cat ever would. I try anyway."

Maybe she shouldn't, after hearing what the cat had said. Would she even care if she were her proper self? She couldn't remember ever caring if something liked or didn't like her.

"Your eyes remind me of cats, and you see me as they saw me. Are you afraid to let me touch you too?"

[high_warlock]

Magnus blinked at the blunt question, opened his mouth to answer, something blithe and witty and sarcastic, and then shut it again. She seemed to have an ability to make him truly think on things, in a way he had avoided for at least a century. It was easier to maintain a shallow facade and not give voice to any deeper thoughts, and so he had become out of practice.

He thought about cats and their sly ways. He thought about Castiel and the angelic power that emanated from him, how it sometimes made Magnus uncomfortable. His brow twitched in a small frown.

"Other way around," he said. "I'm not sure you shouldn't be afraid to touch me."

[on_mans_road]

"Before I was human I was not afraid of anything," she said. She sighed and looked down at her wreath. He reminded her of the harpy, but his strength was greater, different. He reminded her of the Red Bull. "I don't want to be afraid of you. I will not be."

She finished the wreath with a bright bow and set it aside. Then she moved over on the bench to make room, silently inviting him to sit.

[high_warlock]

"It's not always that simple," he said tentatively. But she wasn't human. She didn't have the same fear ingrained into her, the same prejudices drilled into her. It would be easier for her, that made sense, but he didn't want her to feel guilty should she find it harder to accomplish than she thought.

"But thank you, all the same." Magnus sighed quietly and fiddled with the cardboard sleeve of his coffee cup. "I've had enough of being feared."

[on_mans_road]

"Sit, make wreaths with me." She pat the bench next to her once Magnus looked up from his coffee cup. She pulled the next frame into her lap and started picking out juniper boughs she liked.

"Nothing is simple. Isn't that what people say? I don't know that I believe that." She paused, turning a branch over so the blue juniper berries showed. "Maybe the-- the under-workings of everything are complicated. But the sun is the sun, the moon is the moon. A storm is a storm. And I don't want to be afraid of you." She shrugged, then peered at him and offered a small, secret smile.

[high_warlock]

Though his ability to make wreaths was non-existent, Magnus took the offered seat anyway. Maybe if he held onto his coffee cup and claimed cold fingers, she would not expect him to do any actual work. The spiny leaves of the pine and the branches themselves looked like they might chip his manicure.

He matched her smile with a conspiratory wink, feeling warmed through. Then he pressed his lips together in a line, showing mild disappointment. "Humans excel at making things complicated," he said. "You'd be wise to hold onto that way of thinking, though I can't say if it will be easy or not. We tend to make things thoroughly gray, rather than black and white."

Magnus liked the gray areas. In black and white, he stood out as wrong.

[on_mans_road]

Amalthea didn't pass him anything to work on, just kept to her task. She did not shy away from the places their bodies might touch.

"Simple doesn't doesn't mean no gray, does it?" She frowned a bit, considering what to add to her wreath. She plucked up branches of bay leaves and laurel to fill it out more, adjusting the juniper so it would sit on top of the fuller branches.

"Unicorns are neither good nor bad... we simply are. Aren't we?" Maybe men - humans - thought differently.

[high_warlock]

"Categories," Magnus murmured as he took a sip of coffee. He was wearing a tongue ring today; he caught it between his teeth with a thoughtful expression then let go.

"People love to put things into boxes. It helps them cope, especially when dealing with things bigger, scarier, greater than them. For example, back home, we have a race of men who defend the world from evil. Demons. But people like me, well where do I fit?" He shrugged, feigning nonchalance when it was in fact a great injustice for his people and Downworlders in general. "I'm not a demon, but I'm not one of them, and I'm part demon. So I'm evil and not to be trusted. You, though. Unicorns--"

He paused and huffed out a laugh, thinking surely she must have heard this one. "Unicorns are always thought of as pure. Good. So pure that you won't let anyone who's not a virgin touch you." He grinned wide.

[on_mans_road]

Amalthea made a face when he talked about boxes; too much like a cage, too confining, too narrow. And she actually rolled her eyes when Magnus dutifully mentioned purity and virgins.

"That's nonsense," she huffed. "The virgin part. It's only ever virgins that try it seems. But Molly wasn't one, and she touched me when I was still a unicorn. She liked to walk with her hand on my shoulder. I didn't mind." She shrugged, trying to ignore the ache she felt. She missed Molly; she even missed Schmendrick, useless as he was. "They tried to use them to lure us out, to capture us. Ridiculous."

[high_warlock]

"I remember that." He had not been alive long enough ago to know a time when unicorns roamed freely, but he remembered other warlocks and faeries who were older than him saying such things. A few said it was bullshit and a few said it was truth. Magnus hadn't developed an opinion one way or another, though he had always been inclined to believe the fae, who thought themselves older than good and evil. Having met Amalthea, he could not now imagine why anyone would not have thought unicorns as being beyond that, too.

"I've never understood that need to capture and control, either," he admitted. "It's the kind of thinking that seems designed to bite you in the ass."

[on_mans_road]

"Golden bridles and that nonsense. And I wondered, what would they even do with one of us if they caught us?" She shivered, shaking her head. She'd found out. "I left my forest, once. I was captured by a witch while I slept, she put me in a carnival, in a cage."

There was a quiet outrage in her at the memory. How dare anyone try to capture, cage, tame one such as her.

"All of her creatures were mere illusion, except me. Except the harpy. We alone were real, and her grasp was tenuous at best."

[high_warlock]

Magnus shuddered at the thought, at the idea of being captured like that, at the idea of her being captured like that. It wasn't right on any account and something deep inside him rebelled at the idea.

"Did you come from there?" he asked carefully. "Or did you escape and destroy her?" He would have, without question. Magnus had decided long ago that he would never let anyone put him in a position like that, a place of helplessness and desperate fear, ever again.

[on_mans_road]

"I escaped," she answered. "With the help of a magician that was a better pickpocket than magician." Amalthea shook her head. "He wanted to run away, but I freed the others, including the harpy. Celeno. She killed the old woman... but the witch chose that fate the moment she chose to capture and cage true immortals. Especially a harpy." She shrugged, feeling no remorse for what happened to Mommy Fortuna.

[high_warlock]

Perhaps he should have felt something more in the way of shame for feeling so aligned with a harpy of all things, but Magnus couldn't help but feel that she did the right thing. The unicorn should have run her through with her horn as well, or trampled her face, but Magnus was sure the harpy had done the job well enough.

"There's the other thing," Magnus said. "Humans are stupid. It's another way they complicate things for themselves. They never do what's best for them. Always they're too selfish or too selfless. Are honest when they should lie and hide things when they should be truthful."

[on_mans_road]

Amalthea knew she had done the right thing; the harpy deserved freedom, and Mommy Fortuna sealed her fate the moment she chose to keep true immortals captive. She felt no remorse for the old woman's death.

"Mommy Fortuna thought holding two immortals captive showed her power." She wrinkled her nose, shivered again at the memory of the cage. "But at least she saw me for what I was. So many others only saw a white mare. As if I were some common horse." She scoffed; now she was a mere girl. But at least some recognized her, even then.