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.

Comments

[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.