A small black-and-white unicorn blinks, dizzily, as he kneels on the floor beside the tub, one hand propped against the tub rim, the other dangling limp towards the bottom. A scrub brush lies forgotten beside an encrustation of dirt in the base of the tub.

Rory takes several deep breaths, steadying himself against the tub. With his formerly limp hand, he touches his ribs gingerly. He scans the room again, craning his neck to look back at the painting.

Rather to his surprise, Rory finds that his ribs do not hurt at all. The dust on the painting is too thick to see through, with the windows not illuminating it directly, although he thinks he can make out the silhouette of a seated humanoid figure near the center of the canvas.

Rory slowly and carefully tries to get back up, testing his balance, still afraid that he'll suddenly be hit by sharp jabs of pain from exerting himself too much … and makes his way over to the painting.

His care appears unnecessary, as he approaches the painting without any discomfort whatsoever. His hooves make a soft clip-clopping noise on the wood floor, as he realizes that he's lost the "Blot" spell he was using earlier.

Rory gulps, and freezes in place, glancing about to see if any bogeymen are going to leap out, now that they can hear him. But, his curiosity has been denied for quite some time, and he can't help but to want to investigate the painting while he's got the chance … especially if any booglebeasts might chase him out any moment now. He takes a deep breath, puffs up his cheeks, puts a hand over his nose, closes his eyes against the expected cloud of dust … and then blows on the picture with all the force his lungs can muster.

Dust tickles at his nose as it explodes outwards from the surface of the painting. He opens his eyes just a little too soon, and finds particles still hovering in a cloud before him. As cloud disperses, his eyes are drawn to the central figure in the painting: a black female unicorn with a lustrous mane of brown hair. He blinks, feeling disoriented, then…

Corwin absently bites on the grip of his paintbrush, furrowing his brows as he regards the incomplete work in front of him on the easel, shifting himself to one side so that his shadow doesn't cover the edge. He winces at the pain in his left calf as he suddenly moves … after, evidently, leaving it still for too long again. He takes the brush out his mouth and sets it aside, tempted to get up and leave the work alone for a bit … but then he glances out the window, at the angle of the sun in the sky, as it makes its progress toward the horizon. He shakes his head, breathing out a grudging sigh, dips his brush in some water again, and sets to the task of seeing whether a bit of blending might do the painting any good.

The sounds of Sylvan working in the garden drift through the open window: the occasional chink of spade against stone, the sprinkling sound of water falling onto dry ground. She seems happy, singing an old Aeonian ballad of a woman questing for her lover, stolen by faeries.

A hint of a smile pulls at the edge of Corwin's mouth, but he sternly crushes it, going back to the task of blending some of the colors in a pool of water depicted on the painting, trying to give the images reflected in it a bit more of a hazy, dreamy look than the already surreal scene depicted outside the pool.

"Do you want tomatoes with dinner, m'lord?" Sylvan calls out during a pause. "We've got some that look ripe enough. And some nice tubers I thought I'd bake."

Corwin jolts at the sound of Sylvan's voice, and jerks himself to the side, imposing his body between the painting and the window, just in case Sylvan might be looking in … even though, by now, it'd likely be too late. "Fine … that sounds perfectly fine, Lady Sylvan," he says, then looks back at the painting, snorting when he notices that his little jerk caused his brush to dodge to the right … making a little roughly horizontal streak on the pool. He wets his brush again and tries to smooth the mark … working it into a ripple in the pool.

A soft clip-clopping noise of hooves on earth draws his attention to the window again, and he catches Sylvan watching him through the window. She shines an abashed smile at Corwin, her expression a mixture of amusement and curiosity. "You still won't let me see it, will you, m'lord?" she asks wistfully.

Corwin glances askance back at the window, and quirks his mouth. "No, Lady Sylvan, I would rather that you did not, if you wouldn't mind terribly."

"But I do mind terribly," she says, pitifully, blinking her big purple eyes, and trying not to ruin the effect by smiling. Sylvan shifts from one hoof to the other. "When do I get to see it?"

"All in good time, Lady Sylvan," Corwin says, sounding slightly put upon. "Consider it a lesson in patience – for both of us." He glances back toward the window. "I sincerely hope that the surprise – what there is of it – would be worth the wait."

The black unicorn sniffles rather more loudly than strictly necessary, then nods. "All right." She turns away from the window, returning to her soft song, which rises and falls in volume as she moves around the garden.

Corwin shakes his head with a "What will I do with her" expression and a Heaven-ward eye-roll, then reaches up to brush a few strands of his mane that have dropped in front of his eye as a result … absently leaving a mark on his forehead, since he was holding a paintbrush while doing this. Heedless, he returns to the painting … and decides that Sylvan's eyes need a little touching up. The purple in the painting looks a bit too flat.

The sun sinks below the horizon and Corwin is still not quite satisfied with the expression on Sylvan's painted likeness as the real thing closes the front door behind her and clips around in the kitchen, chopping andsinging a different song, this one about a brave group of dragon-slayers.

Corwin pulls his brush away from the painting, absently wetting it and cleaning it as he takes a break to listen in on this song … It doesn't sound like Sylvan's usual choice of topic to celebrate in song, after all. He cants his ears as he strains to listen for a snippet to see if he recognizes the tune.

After a few moments of listening, he can make out the words:

Corwin starts to mutter some of the words, but then lets out a tired sigh, mentally comparing his own failures to the gallantry of the knights in that song. "Sylvan," he calls out, in a level tone, just loud enough, he hopes, to be heard in the kitchen, but not a yell.

His hostess stops mid-refrain to answer, "Cory? I mean, m'lord?" in the same kind of projected voice. He hears the kitchen door creak open.

"I'm terribly sorry," Corwin says, sounding tired, "but … maybe you have another song you could sing? Something … different." He sighs at his own request. This long out in the wilds, "new" songs have run out long ago.

A pregnant pause follows Corwin's request, then Sylvan says, "Of course, my lord. I had not even realized what I was singing." She sounds ashamed. Another silence ensues, broken only by faint chopping noises from the kitchen, then the sizzle of stir-frying food.

Corwin attempts to return to the painting, but after some forced work, the sustained silence is far more trying on him than the song was. After all, the song would have been over by now, and she would have begun a new one. He washes and sets aside his brushes again, and pushes his stool back as he tenderly gets back up to his hooves … mindful of the injured calf. He pauses a moment, regarding the painting as it looks so far, and gauging just how much remains to be done.

In the painting, a black lady unicorn, her flowing brown mane crowned by a sparkling tiara, dressed in a draping gown the same violet as her eyes, rests beside a gazing pool, looking into the water with one hand held over it, gesturing. A swirling magical scene seems to be evolving in the pool, featuring butterfly-winged unicorns and similarly winged serpents, with parts of the serpents still in charcoal, rather than painted. Just behind the black unicorn, a white male unicorn knight stands, protective and stoic. An opulent garden, part of it only outlined in charcoal now, fills the background, with a distant, fairy-tale castle rising in white spires in the far distance. Animals serve as gardeners: crickets with tiny hoes churning the earth, and birds planting seeds behind them. The wind blows grapes down from a vine and into a waiting basket.

Corwin ventures a faint quirk of a smile at the picture's progress. The background is not nearly so important as the characters in the foreground … and accordingly, he's put more work into them. A few more days at this rate, and it might be done … and he should probably get in a bit more work before daylight is totally gone, but … he steps out of his room, then crosses the front chamber toward the door separating the entry and the kitchen. His hoof-clips announce his approach, and then he softly cracks open the door. "Lady Sylvan, I did not mean to criticize your singing, in general. Your singing … it is a comfort. I have only been somewhat … " He pauses here, fumbling for words to finish the sentence.

Corwin looks through the door, down at the tub, which currently is seated in the kitchen, employed to wash laundry at the moment. "Gadiel and Rand are gone, and the Dragons are still victorious over us. How long has it been that we have been banished to this place? How long will it be until we fade away, and no one remembers aught of us – with only the Dragons left to gloat? I go, I fight, I strive to do the only thing I know how to do … " He shakes his head. "… and it's what I must do again. I owe it to our people. If not those here … then those left behind, perhaps still being hunted down in our homeland to this very day."

Sylvan takes the frying pan off the stove without comment, setting it onto a chitin potholder on the countertop. She stirs the contents, then shakes her head and looks at Corwin for the first time since he entered the kitchen, and there is a rare flash of anger in her eyes. "We have gone over this before, m'lord. Killing the shadows avails us – and our kind – nothing at all. The damage is done!"

"But what of honor? What of vengeance? What of justice?" Corwin says, his words coming out like so much of a recital, and then he puts his hands up. "No … please, Lady Sylvan. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come in here to start up an argument. I know I will never sway you. You are a healer, and I am a warrior. For as long as stories have been written, the two have hardly agreed." Hesighs, leaning against the door post and hiding his eyes under one hand.

At his soothing words, Sylvan pauses, with her mouth half-open for a response, then turns her back to him to dish the contents of the pan onto two wooden plates. The smell of lightly fried and spiced fresh vegetables fills the air of the kitchen. The female unicorn starts to lift them, then stops, whirling about to face him. "What about them? What about life and forgiveness and the future?" she spits out. Her body trembles with emotion.

Corwin just stands there against the door post, still covering his eyes. "Fair enough, Lady Sylvan. I cast a volley at you, then bid for peace. I apologize for my dishonorable conduct. I pray that I have not spoiled dinner with my thoughtlessness." His apology, however, is by no means a concession of his stand. And, as conciliatory as it seems that he's trying to be, he's stubborn enough to nonetheless slip in, "but I was told by a Dragon – and they can lie no more than we – that their exile here has sealed the fate of our kind – that their presence ensures that we can never return to – as he put it – 'doom' the homeland."

Sylvan faces him, jaw set in a hard line, eyes flashing. At last, she turns away and takes up the plates. "Let's eat dinner," she says, her words clipped. As she brushes past him to enter the main room, he realizes her body still trembles, and abruptly he has the feeling that her anger is only a cover for another emotion – fear.

Corwin turns, and fetches the place settings. "As you wish, Lady Sylvan." He ritually sets out the utensils and napkins in the same not-quite-right fashion he has for as long as he's been here.

Sylvan runs her hands through her mane after placing the plates in their position among Corwin's settings, then she pours water from the pitcher into each glass before seating herself.

Corwin, too slow to pull the chair for Sylvan, goes to his place and seats himself in turn. He folds his handstogether, and peeks past them toward Sylvan with an expression of anticipation.

"Thank you for this day, O Lord, this feast, and Your most precious world that contains and sustains us," the female unicorn recites by ritual, words that rub at Corwin like a wound – for in their origin, they gave thanks for a far different, long-lost world.

Corwin respectfully shuts his eyes, not wholly in prayer, but also in a gesture of trying to shut out the pain that tears at him more vividly - it seems – than even broken ribs and torn muscles.

The other unicorn glances to her companion for a moment after finishing, then she lifts her fork and begins to eat, the vegetable morsels already cut into neatly bite-sized chunks.

Corwin goes through the motions of taking a taste of the food, though his appetite has for the moment left him. To cover this, lest he call undue attention to his unenthusiastic consumption of a perfectly fine meal, he washes down a bite with a drink, then, in his best conversational tone, asks, "So … how long have you practiced … ah … the … " He gestures vaguely toward the shelves. "… the healing arts, of this world? I had come to understand that the magic of our world doesn't work here. At least, not wholly."

"I don't know about that," Sylvan replies, after swallowing her own bite, "about our magic working here. I didn't practice the Arts in our homeland. Sinai's magic … calls to me. I learned some of it not long after we arrived here, from one of their native mages." She takes another bite, and a swallow of water, then continues. "Koshiro taught me a good deal, as well." She looks at Corwin, a challenge flashing in her violet eyes.

Corwin's expression freezes at this. "Koshiro," he repeats. "You are meaning to tell me … it … " He bites his lip fiercely.

"Yes." The black unicorn makes no effort to soften the word. She takes another bite, chewing almost mechanically.

Corwin's ears burn. "Then … then you are allied with … them. You seek to stop me … because … " He drops his fork, bringing his hand up his head, grasping his mane roughly in his clenching fingers and wrenching the hairs as he grinds his teeth together.

"What alliance, Corwin? What them? In the name of the Lord, you've killed them all!" Sylvan retorts, dropping her fork with a clatter against the plate. "What war, tell me? No one else is fighting anymore!" Her eyes fill with tears. "What war? We lost! We all lost! We are all just Exiles now! Them, us, all of us!" She pushes her chair back and stands with her hands on the table, staring across at Corwin.

Corwin abruptly stands, knocking his chair back in the process. He marches – limping slightly despite his determination – toward the door.

The unicorn opens the door and almost throws himself outside, slamming it behind him quickly. He stomps over to the garden, and drops himself on his knees, digging his hands into the soil, and bringing up clumps of dirt. He crushes them in his fingers, watching the crumbs slip through them to spill upon the ground.

As he tears at the brown earth, he hears the sounds of Sylvan crying drift from the window on the still, hot air – wrenching, coughing sobs, not muffled until he hears her hoofbeats retreating and the slam of an inside door.

The unicorn brings his filthy hands up to his face, covering his eyes against everything. He hisses through his teeth, fighting back all the curses that come to mind. "Tainted," he whispers. "I have subjugated myself to a woman, a sorceress, and one who is tainted," he hisses, in a reference to the fact that she has hide of black – an ill omen amongst the Aeonians before their exile to Sinai. "She hates me," he tells himself, scraping what has now become mud from his cheeks. "She hates me, my code, all I stand for."

A little black-and-white unicorn lies prone on the bed, his head on a pillow more feather than cloth, breathing hard and staring at the thatched ceiling above his head, the sound of his heartbeat ringing in his ears.

Rory reaches up and wipes at his eyes … then rolls over … and cries, grabbing at the pillow in clenched fists and sobbing into it.

Feathers and fluff fill his nostrils and mouth as he cries, the pillow cover dissolving in his clutching fingers.

Rory coughs, sputters, and breaks into a sneezing fit as he pulls himself up from the disintegrating pillow, spilling off the bed in a tumble. After rolling on the floor and spending a while just feeling miserable in general … he at last sobers up, wipes his face off on his sleeves (which are really due for a washing now), and gets back up to his hooves. "It's all right. It's okay," he assures himself between gasps, looking around to make sure he's still in the same room.

He's still in the same room … the room that he now knows was Sylvan's. For a wild moment, as he glances about, he thinks he sees Silhouette in there with him, and then he realizes it is just the reflection of his shadow in the mirror.

Rory sputters, "NO-WAIT! PLEASE … don't … go," he trails off, as he realizes it's not her after all. He lets out a long sigh, then whispers, "Silhouette? I know you don't want to talk to me … maybe … maybe it's because you remember now, too? Is … is that me? Was I a knight? Did I treat you … badly? I … I already know how it ends. Kiz and Kell … they gave me those dreams. I can get all these memories back … but … that only tells me about Corwin. I still don't know … who … I am." He listens to the sound of his own voice die off in the shadows of the room, then looks at the chest at the foot of the bed. "Might as well be thorough. Sorry for digging through your stuff, Silhouette, but I guess somebody's got to do it… " He goes to see if it even can be opened.

The trunk, made of leather stretched over a bone frame, is fastened by a simple wooden clasp that unhinges easily.

Rory leans back as he opens the trunk, just in case it might turn out to be not a trunk at all, but a morph-muncher, taking the form of a treasure chest, in order to fool unwary treasure hunters … or else in case there might be some creepy crawly hiding inside, or just a bunch of dust that might burst out.

The leather hide seems to have protected the contents adequately from the dust and dirt that pervades everything else in the small cottage. Neatly folded sheets rest piled on one side, with the bag that Rory remembers Sylvan carrying her magical tools in resting on the other. On top of the sheets lies a worn cloth doll, roughly in the shape of a unicorn. It has mismatched button eyes and so many patches Rory wonders if it was fashioned from scraps. Time has yellowed most of the pieces, though at the seams one can still glimpse the original white.

Rory gauges the trunk itself, checking to see if it has any handles. "Might be better to keep the books in," he murmurs to himself, then, curiosity getting the better of him again, he checks the bag with the magical tools, to see if any of them might still be in decent shape. The doll, he is careful to avoid … He remembers what happened to the pillow, and he's not anxious to inadvertently destroy the doll as well … though it strikes him as curious that there would be a doll in here, and he curiously glances at it, wondering if it's supposed to represent anyone in particular.

The bag opens easily, and he notices the familiar candles, holders, and pouches still seem tucked away inside of it, along with a sheathed knife and other things that he can't see without unpacking the top layer. The doll's button eyes are blue, like Corwin's, and it apparently used to be white, but Rory has a sudden memory that Aeonians are … supposed to be white with blue eyes. The doll nonetheless has a curiously familiar look to it, making Rory think of Mister Porky. Like the sheets on which it lies, it seems to have been protected from moths and the elements, unlike the pillow left on the bed.

Rory mentally catalogs the contents that he can find, then puts them back as best as he can, since they seem to be doing just fine right here. Then, a little more confident that it won't crumble away at the touch, he picks up the doll, anxious to see if there might be a name sewn on it, or something particular about the costume, or some other clue that might tell him if the doll has any special significance. He dearly hopes that it won't jar any more bad memories … but then, maybe that's all Corwin had, since he seemed to be such a sour fellow in general.

The black unicorn sits, half-crouched, half-lying on the bed, one of her hooves hanging off the side, both the pillow and an ancient stuffed doll wrapped in her tight clutch as she chokes out painful sobs, pausing only to break into a heaving cough that makes her chest ache.

Curled around her childhood toy, it seems for a moment that Sylvan's whole life has been one terrible event after another. Abandoned by her parents, she was raised among humans. They neither trusted her nor understood her, but even that was better than the hatred and fear that she felt when she first met her own kind.

She learned to depend on herself early, because the few beings who treated her kindly were doomed by mortallife-spans … or, as she more often felt, she was cursed with immortality.

The little doll, patched so often there was probably nothing left of its original cloth or stuffing, with its eyes replaced more than once, Sylvan kept as her sole constant – left to her, she thought, by her unknown unicorn parents. As long as she could remember, she had owned it. And it stayed with her, even after the terrible pains, and the exile to Sinai. It was hundreds of years before she even knew what had caused her and other unicorns to be exiled, and she thought she might never really understand why.

"Corwin," Sylvan whispered into her pillow, between sobs. There was something between them – a connection – that she'd never felt, in over two thousand years, with anyone else. Not even Koshiro, whom she had met a century ago and who seemed to understand her isolation better than any other. And she had dared to hope that Corwin felt it too, her knight come at last, someone of her own kind … who might …

Sylvan absently brushes at the hair of the doll with one hand, as if by doing so putting herself into the role of a parent consoling a child. Odd as it seems, despite the tears still streaming down her face, and the occasional wrenching of her shoulders as she breaks into another coughing sob, there's something calming about the act. At the very least, it's enough for her to bring herself back to something resembling self-control. She pauses, taking deep breaths, her rhythm occasionally broken by the pain of pulled muscles, and a dull ache around her collarbone. She half-sings, half-hums a lullaby that she likes to think she might have somehow picked up as an infant from her parents … though odds are she probably picked it up from her human foster parents, or perhaps somewhere later along the way. When one lives thousands of years, it's not all that difficult to lose details about long-ago memories.

As she grows calmer, she hears the sound of hoofbeats in the next room, and she feels a sudden chill at the slamming of doors, and the clinking sounds of chitin and metal rustling.

Sylvan's eyes go wide. "No … " She scrambles off the bed, tangling a hoof in the bedcover, and stumbles, pulling herself free and rushing to the door in the direction of the sound. "CORY! Please, don't!"

She flings the door between their rooms open, and sees the white unicorn standing by his bed, his trunk open and the armor he kept in it either strewn on the mattress, or being buckled in place upon him. Some of the armor is metal so old it came from their homeworld, while other pieces have been replaced by native steel or chitin. If he heard her cry, he shows no sign of it, grimly fastening his hauberk in place.

Sylvan looks in horror at the other. "Corwin … m'lord … Please don't do this. Koshiro is not responsible for our predicament – He helped me to learn to heal. What purpose would it serve him to help one of our kind, if he were keeping us here? I am not belittling your cause as an honorable warrior – but this is not honor. Koshiro is not your enemy! If the 'Dragon' told you this, if someone is keeping us here … then it is someone else, and you'll never learn if you kill the one who has actually tried to help us … " She drops to her knees. "… especially not if you kill yourself."

The white unicorn snatches a chitin wrist-guard from the bed, fastening it around his lower arm, then repeats the process with the opposite hand, before he turns his eyes to Sylvan, his gaze cold and pitiless, filled with rage and hatred. "Traitor," he bites out. "How did he help us? By exiling us here? Or should I say, exiling me here since you are surely not one of my kind."

Sylvan catches the look in his eye, and "my kind" as if Corwin had struck her across the face, and exhales suddenly in a gasp of shock. But she can't give up. Not when life and death are on the line. "Corwin … perhaps … he is an exile, too?" If only she had been bold enough to press for the whole story from Koshiro herself, so that she could state certainties, and not suppositions … and hopes.

He straps on the pieces for the greaves, then the upper arms, and settles his helm on his head, centering his horn through a slit. Corwin gives a short bark of laughter that's painful to hear. "What? Do you mean that you did not know when you plotted our exile that you would come with us? Or did you just think you'd be able to go back?" He snorts, and stomps one hoof into a chitin boot.

"Corwin," Sylvan pleads, seeing all too clearly that even as he puts on his armor, he is strapping even more durable shielding about his heart, treating anything she might have to say as if it were a barrage from the enemy, to be fended off. "I plotted nothing, Corwin! If I am guilty of plotting anything … then it's hoping that your heart might be softened enough that you would stop trying to kill yourself in battle, and embrace what blessings we have here. I … I don't want to lose you, Corwin. Everyone … everyone who ever cared … Just, please, don't. What do I have to do? How can I prove to you my sincerity?"

"Plotted nothing? What do you call assisting the enemy in the forced deportation of a thousand of your own kind?" He yanks on his gloves, and stands fully armored before her. "You want to prove your sincerity? Then help me now.

"Help me kill him."