The Virgin and the Fae

A/N: This is a bit shorter than I try to make my updates, but hopefully the next one will be longer :)

Moira: Your question prompted me to make that much more specific than I'd planned, so thank you! Initially, I was thinking just "a really long time ago" but now it looks like it's "a really really long time ago" lol...thank you for taking the time to ask! It always helps me to get reader feedback like that
Amanda88: Thank you!!!
theapocalypse451: I'll try not to sadden you again! :)

Thanks for reading! As always, please review!!

And on with the story....

“W-why is it perfect?” Charlotte asked, backing up still.

Noticing her retreat, Jove sobered. “I won’t hurt you. I am sorry if I have frightened you. I was only thinking of the perfection of the situation. The first human in memory who cannot be controlled with magics is a virgin.”

He laughed again, a short bark this time. There was still something about him, Charlotte thought, that appeared unstable, even insane.

“But why does it matter if I’m a virgin or not?”

“Do you know any of the stories surrounding the Unicorn? I am certain that they still exist in your world—in parts at least. Florence was aware of some of them; indeed it was she who told me that the stories—at least their base—is still very much alive in your world.”

Charlotte shook her head, still a little on edge. “I know that they are mythical creatures, but I don’t know much else. Actually, they aren’t mythical creatures, are they? Not really, I mean, since they are real.”

She wanted to continue babbling. It wasn’t often that Charlotte lost her self but the moment passed quickly. Regaining control, she stopped herself from speaking further, despite her nervous desire to do so.

“Did you not remark on how strange it is that you recognized the beast for what it was, despite never having seen one before?”

Charlotte scrunched her face in thought, trying to remember those first moments. At first she’d thought the foal was a horse—almost as though her mind had suppressed the sight of the horn—but then within a second she’d known otherwise. She had known unequivocally what he was. He looked like a white horse with the shortened horn of a narwhal. No. That wasn’t right at all. None of that was right. It was like trying to describe a human as being a hairless chimpanzee with a stronger jawline. It was ridiculous. He was a unicorn; there was no other way to put it.

A part of her, something deep within, had recognized him. And deep within, intermingled with her intense joy and pleasure, had been an anger that she only now reflected upon.

Why had there been that anger?

Maybe anger wasn’t right either. It was more like a bitter resentment that made her suddenly wish she could hit her fists against the unicorn’s flanks. The words bubbled forth in her mind: “Where have you been? Where were you before when I needed you? Where were you when I had cancer?” The anguished cries tore across her mind, strangled and sharp.

Tears prickled behind her eyes.

“He looked just like the pictures I’d seen of unicorns in storybooks,” she said at last, remarkably matter-of-fact in tone.

“The story of the unicorn and its disappearance have many variants in your world. But the basics are the same, I believe, the unicorns once lived among humans and then they went away. The description of the unicorn remains constant. The explanation, in contrast, is where the differences emerge.”

“It is silly, but I think…I think I was once told that the unicorns were the only animal that didn’t get on Noah’s arc, so they drowned in the flood.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Obviously not,” Charlotte snapped, annoyed that he thought she was voicing a personal opinion. “I only meant that I heard that once before somewhere.”

“You see then how widely the explanations vary. Florence told me that as a child she’d been told that the unicorns were hunted to extinction by the ancient French kings. No matter the manifestations, the stories exist because they reflect the oral heritage of the Great Battle. We have documents and still living Fae who remember those times—our elders—but you, your people’s lives are so short and you were still so young as creatures that much of what happened has been lost to time, indeed all of what happened.”

He ran his translucent fingertips over an ice pillar, flicking the moisture the condensed on the pad of his forefinger off with his thumbnail.

Charlotte, as if giving into a too long suppressed desire, began to pace the large room. She looked down at the floor beneath her. Ice as well. Perfectly smooth ice as if a zamboni had just resurfaced it. She wanted to stop, process, absorb all that Jove was telling her, but she knew that Garrick could come at any minute and time could not be wasted.

“What happened?”

“The Great Battle—the final battle—was the Fae’s last attempt to establish dominance over your world. There was much fighting between your people and the leaders of the three kingdoms believed that your race was weak enough to be conquered. In the past, the only defense the humans had had were the unicorns that fought for them—and, of course, the magics of their world. But due to the emergence of fighting and brutality in the humans, the unicorns had scattered to the forests and mountains, leaving the humans unprotected.

"The Fae believed success was eminent, but there was something that they had overlooked. The last time a battle was waged, your people had only flimsy weapons of bronze. This time, however, you had discovered—deep within the bowels of your earth—a more worthy weapon: iron. The Fae believed that all of the fighting had weakened the humans, but in reality, they had become stronger, more brutal. Their wars forced men to become fighters and fighters to become warriors or else die. And the need to arm the warriors created the push for harnessing the power of iron. A harmful weapon against another man, but a fatal one when used against a Fae. That is why we cannot inhabit your world for very long—your world, your universe is saturated with iron.”

“Iron is like a poison, then?”

“Iron is a poison,” Jove responded. There was a moment of silence before he continued. “Humans and Fae alike perished. The battle—“

“Why didn’t the Fae just take the humans? Kidnap them like Garrick did me?” Charlotte asked. Jove glared at her, silently chastising her for interrupting, but answered.

“There were thousands upon thousands of humans and even at our highest, there have only been several hundred Fae. The battles greatly diminished our numbers. The Fae had planned to stage a war sufficient to weaken the humans and then import them to this world in droves, as was done with the elves.

“The battle was proceeding nowhere. Fae were dying under the iron weapons, just as the humans died under ours. A few humans were able to be controlled through magics and made to help the Fae, but no Fae was strong enough to maintain such magic for long in the human world. It wasn’t until the unicorns returned that the battle came to an end. The unicorns are equally deadly to the Fae, and unlike a frightened human wielding a piece of iron, they know how to attack. The Fae retreated back into our world, but before the divide was closed completely, the unicorns were sent through as well, in the hopes that they would go on to kill the Fae that had survived their attacks.”

“But why would the unicorns,” Charlotte paused, searching for the words. “Why would the unicorns help humans?”

“Because they love them. There is something about humans, or certain humans, that calls to the unicorns. A purity and a beauty that they respond to. The unicorns merely did as they were commanded. They were commanded to return to help fight and then they were commanded to travel across the worlds. They are like dogs, loyal and stupid.” There was disgust in the last sentence.

“Why do you hate the unicorns?”

“I don’t hate them, but I have no fondness towards them. They once killed my kind ruthlessly.”

“Once? They don’t anymore?”

“The unicorns have lived through many generations since the Great Battle—not as many as the humans have, but still a considerable number. They have forgotten their orders and now live peacefully, isolated in the forests. Until now, anyways,” he finished quietly.

“What do you mean until now?”

“Well, you are here now.”

“What do I have to do with this?”

“You are a virgin.” Charlotte stamped her foot childishly against the ice in annoyance.

“Why does it matter that I am a virgin?”

“Don’t you understand? Only a virgin can command the unicorns.”