“You should be shot.”

            Curious and vaguely amused, she raised a brow at this outburst. “What a greeting. One would think you’d be glad to see me after all this time.”

            Wind slightly brushed over the unicorn’s brilliant white coat; more of a breeze coming from the ocean nearby. The creature’s leonine tail flicked back and forth with agitation, underlining the unnaturally cold and harsh look in the beast’s eyes.

            It’s head jerked for a moment as it snorted viciously. “Go to Hell,” it replied with a trace of malice. The tip of its spiraled horn was pointed straight at her heart.

            “Hah. Where do you think I’ve been all the while?” She let out a short, chiming laugh. “Honestly, I thought you of all people would know.”

            She was beautiful, even in the dim light that the streetlamps cast. Soft coppery curls glowed gently, piercing cat-like eyes set in a pale oval face. Though she looked young, her straight-backed, regal posture gave her away, and her hair bore traces of a silvery gray color.

            The unicorn’s cloven hooves pawed the ground as it kept its head lowered, as if ready to strike any moment. “Strange. I thought that’s where you came from in the first place.”

            “Hmm . . .” She placed a finger onto her perfectly sculpted lips, a frown creasing her brow. “You might just have a point there, Adiel.” Her lips quirked into a sly smile, causing the unicorn, Adiel, to toss his head wildly. “All humans are.”

            Adiel’s nostrils flared with anger and vexation. He started pacing, like a caged animal that looked to be free would. Every instinct in him screamed that it wanted to flee. Her expression made him uneasy, and it pleased her a great deal. To see him squirm in her grasp, with no way to escape.

            “Fine. Then you can go back there.” He sneered. “There’s no place for you here, Jordana.”

            Adiel scampered backwards, skitterish, as a foal might be, when she took a step towards him. The pavement beneath his hooves cracked, to reveal milky white flowers in full bloom. Moon Blossom, flecked with tiny fluid crystals and shrouded in their own mystery.

            “Oh, I’m planning on going back there alright. But not alone.” She let her hand drop back to her side, then laid her palms against each other. When she pulled them apart again, there were fine spider webs of shimmering threads stretching between them.

            The threads shimmered in the moonlight, gold tinged with milky silver. Her sly expression remaining on her face, Jordana twisted them into something entirely different. Something that made a whinny of fear erupt in Adiel’s throat, tearing at its prison until he released it in a shrill, heart-wrenching sound.

            A golden bridle, so fine that it looked as though it would break upon a simple touch. Yet Jordana held it with firm grace, arms stretched before her, towards the unicorn. With something like practiced ease, as if she had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

            Adiel reared, dancing backwards, away from the woman. “Get away! You’re stark raving mad!”

            The sly smile turned into a downright smirk. “I’m so glad you’ve noticed. I’ve been working on it for years,” she said smoothly, advancing even more.

            A dark, ragged cloud drifted over the moon, shadowing, veiling the white orb. Jordana’s expression was no longer mere mimic, a terrible grimace, in which pure insanity lurked. Holding the woman in its clutches, refusing to let go.

            “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Adiel,” she said softly, the sudden honesty in her voice almost startling. “Don’t run away from me now.”

            The unicorn found himself near entranced by her voice, once more. Like he had been when he was younger, when she had been younger. When she had still been beautiful, inside and out.

            He shook himself. Upon seeing how close to him she already was, he whinnied. Then he backed up further. “I said stay away from me!” He reared, hooves thrashing to hit her.

            She was forced to duck and dodge, and she fell. But she sprang up again immediately. All without tearing the bridle into pieces, to Adiel’s dismay.

            “I curse you.” She spoke quietly, then raised her voice. “I curse you!”

            “Then curse me you do, wretched whore!” he bellowed in return. He sprang to the side when she lunged for him; the years had robbed her of some of her grace.

            “Whore?” she cried, quivering with rage. She sprang at him again, this time receiving a blow in the side. “I am no whore,” she gasped. “No whore . . .”

            “No, I suppose not. Perhaps,” Adiel jeered as he lowered his horn to strike, “you’re more of a succubus.”

            She shrieked with anger at the new insult and launched herself at him again. Barely did she manage grasp the alicorn in her hands, momentarily blinded by the jolt of power running through her. And, as if drawn by some magnet, the bridle slipped from her hands and over his head, ensnaring, trapping him.

            Adiel screamed; with pain, with resentment, with fury. The Change came down upon him swiftly, a thunderstorm of power strong enough to unravel him and shape him anew. Bones shrank, reformed, shifted; hooves softened, became hands.

            What remained was the shape of a slender man, dressed in elaborate silver robes, and a horn at his side. Lying as frail and delicate on the pavement as a flower petal. The bridle had left his face, surrounding his neck in a firm golden collar.

            Jordana leaned over him, once again smiling slyly. “I always liked you better in this shape,” she stated triumphantly.

            His eyes snapped open. Frantically he began to claw at the collar, trying to rid himself of it. “Whore!” he rasped; his voice was unchanged, as were his eyes. The eyes of a human, not of a demure beast of myth.

            The woman reached out and gently stroked his forehead, never minding how he was snarling at her. “No . . . merely desperate.”

            “Desperate to take my life, that’s what!” Adiel spat.

            Jordana shook her head sadly and didn’t answer. Instead, she reached out and pried the horn from his fingers. “This is the only way to kill you,” she said softly as she raised it to plunge it into his chest.

            “Jordana, don’t . . .”

            She faltered for a moment, before her resolve returned. “The only way . . .”

            She thrust it down, and it felt as if it were lancing her heart instead of his. The cry of pain, his death cry, tore her soul in two. Shaking, she freed it again and let it drop to the ground, where it hit with a sharp, musical tinkling and shattered.

            One last, shuddering breath found its way into his lungs. “I . . .” he began, only to break off, coughing harshly.

            “Speak no more.” Jordana laid a finger against his lips to silence him. Tears stung her eyes as she saw his eyes cloud over, and became lifeless. “Forgive me.”

            She wistfully traced the lines of his fine-featured complexion, memorizing it for one last time, as she had done when she was still young. Then she leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his dead lips. “Forgive me. If I could not have you . . . no other could.”

            Carefully she lifted him as she stood, staggering under his weight despite her almost unnatural strength. Her piercing eyes slid from the body in her arms to the sea, which lapped against the nearby beach, unperturbed by what had happened.

            “Take us home,” she whispered, and watched a gateway open before her eyes.

            She stepped through, graceful in spite of her burden. And vanished in darkness.