WARNING! Hey, guys and gals, this story is rated PG13 for a reason--slightly dirty jokes cut in everywhere, and, later on, there’s even kissing. Gross, I know, but this is romance and every romance needs a couple kisses. Also, at least one of the characters is gay--I won’t tell you which, as finding that out is part of the story, but just to warn you--so at some point there’s going to be two people of the same gender kissing. However, this story is not centered about this character being gay, and not everybody in the story is gay, because that would be kind of stupid; so if you are looking for mindless “everybody has a rainbow inside, and we’re not talking Skittles” fluff, go elsewhere. Finally, these characters, this setting, and this plot (more or less, because let’s face it, there are only so many plots in the world) are mine, and while they are not spectacular, I’m pretty proud of them. Don’t take them, please, or else I’ll have to sic my mini-Balrog on you.

Love, tomato-greens. This WARNING added 19 June 2005. It will not be repeated.

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I am officially Katsamina Bloomflower, the Virgin of the Unicorn, and my face is known to most everyone in the entire kingdom of Geldin.

O, ‘tis not a boast, or at least not much of one; indeed, I would be surprised should anyone not have memorized it. It was, after all, plastered to every flat, public surface the king could find, so that “all should know of the new Virgin”. To be sure, I am sick of myself, and have ordered the mirrors out of my room.

Glory, I have started this all incorrectly. It should be started in a familiar, easy to read way...Once upon a time, or Long ago there lived.... However, I suppose that is simply not a possibility with me. Ah, well, dear readers, you shall plunge into the story: just as I am diving headlong into my life, you will do also.

I should really start this at the beginning, as it would make more sense to you, dear readers, and it may help me to organize my thoughts. I was born around fifteen years ago, or thereabouts––in our small village, we used light and dark and the changing of seasons to tell time, and no one was entirely certain of their birth date. I had just reached my marrying age, and negotiations were in beginning, when that wretched horned horse just had to go and stick its head in my lap.

I could’ve had any boy in that village, even the woodcarver’s second oldest son, when I was ripped away from my home and transplanted in this big stone block. I admit it; I was full of myself there, I was pretty (and still am, though from what I saw when I  arrived here, there are many lovely females), and as the only daughter, I had a good dowry. I’m sure I would have settled down after I married, and if I didn’t, someone would have punctured my ballooned ego for me.

Back then I was called Katsy Bloomsbuckle––a silly country name for a silly country girl. No one ever thought I’d be otherwise, least of all me.

But I digress.  Anyhow, I was beginning to cast my eye toward the woodcarver’s son, and he was casting right back, when I went for the fateful walk in the woods. Why I decided to go out that day, I don’t know; Fate herself may have placed a finger in my pie. I was walking along the deer path which has long been forgotten by adults but has delighted generations of children, when that Godsforsaken horse jumped out at me.

Pure white, it seemed unnatural and inconvenient to me. Mud would show anywhere––but the otherworldly creature did not seem to observe customs such as dirt. It came to me, and spoke in a language akin to the chittering of a bird or a rodent, but something older, deeper, more profound than that. What it said, I can neither remember nor begin to guess, but it certainly turned my head topsy-turvy. I followed it to a grove I had never seen, although I had trekked around that area of the forest before. At any rate, I became sleepy, vaguely felt the soft white head on my crossed legs, and fell back against the tree, blissfully unconscious.

The next thing I knew, a man dressed in livery finer than anything anyone in my village had ever seen was standing in front of me with a sort of horrified awe on his face. I looked down at the beast in my lap, still whiter than the snow that falls heavily here in the winter. Suddenly I took in the nearly-glowing horn, and the implications of what had happened dropped on me.

I shook; everyone had heard of the Unicorn, though in my village it had regressed from reality to legend to myth. The Unicorn’s chosen would live in the Castle as a symbol of the kingdom’s good fortune, guarded by hand-picked female soldiers, never to be married, never to be touched by a man of sin.

Now that I think of it, I lead a truly boring life. May all the Gods have mercy and never prohibit a young woman in this way again!

Ah––well––excuse my indiscretion, dear readers, as being pent up in this prison of stone I tend to have slight outbursts from time to time. It just seems wrong that at home I would be a respected married woman with a child on the way and here, here I am nothing but a porcelain doll, a pretty emblem only.

The guards are all very kind, and ‘tis true, they do seem to know what I am going through. I am allowed a certain amount of time to myself, during which I stick my head out of the narrow window and watch the world happen. O, how I wish to be back home, during the hot summer eves when even baby Anna is quiet, and the crickets provide us with background music to our easy talks. How I wish to see Jair again, how I want to feel our timid glances warming toward each other.

O, cruel Fate, why did you bring me to this gloomy castle? Truly, the hustle-and-bustle outside of the door sounds rather monotonous, but anything is better than staring at the rather run-down tapestries that adorn these gray walls. O, why did I ever go for that walk?

Ah, well, I can see vague hints of starlight through my tiny windows, and I must fein slumber to appease my surprisingly motherly guards. Stay with me, dear readers, through the night, that I may safely wake to tell my tale.