Stardust

Tristran turned to the unicorn, stared into its pool-black eyes. “Can you understand me?” he asked. It said nothing. He had hoped it would nod its head or stamp a hoof, like a trained horse he had once seen on the village green when he was younger. But it simply stared. “Will you carry the lady? Please?”

The beast said not a word, nor did it nod or stamp. But it walked to the star, and it knelt down at her feet.

Tristran helped the star onto the unicorn’s back. She grasped its tangled mane with both hands and sat sidesaddle upon it, her broken leg sticking out. And that was how they traveled for some hours.

Tristran walked along beside them, carrying her crutch over his shoulder, with his bag dangling from the end. He found it as hard to travel with the star riding the unicorn as it had been before. Then he had been forced to walk slowly, trying to keep pace with the star’s limping hobble—now he was hurrying to keep up with the unicorn, nervous lest the unicorn should get too far ahead and the chain that linked them both should pull the star from the beast’s back. His stomach rumbled, as he walked. He was painfully aware how hungry he was; soon Tristran began to think of himself as nothing more than hunger, thinly surrounded by flesh, and, as fast as he could, walking, walking...

He stumbled and knew that he was going to fall.

“Please, stop,” he gasped.

The unicorn slowed, and stopped. The star looked down at him. Then she made a face, and shook her head. “You had better come up here, too,” she said. “If the unicorn will let you. Otherwise you’ll just faint or something, and drag me onto the ground with you. And we need to go somewhere so that you can get food.”

Tristran nodded, gratefully.

The unicorn appeared to offer no opposition, waiting, passively, so Tristran attempted to clamber up onto it. It was like climbing a sheer wall, and as fruitless. Eventually Tristran led the animal over to a beech tree that had been uprooted several years before by a storm, or a high wind, or an irritable giant, and, holding his bag and the star’s crutch, he scrambled up the roots onto the trunk, and from there onto the back of the unicorn.

“There is a village on the other side of that hill,” said Tris-tran. “I expect that we can find something to eat when we get there.” He patted the unicorn’s flanks with his free hand. The beast began to walk. Tristran moved his hand to the star’s waist, to steady himself. He could feel the silken texture of her thin dress, and beneath that, the thick chain of the topaz about her waist.

Riding a unicorn was not like riding a horse: it did not move like a horse; it was a wilder ride, and a stranger one. The unicorn waited until Tristran and the star were comfortable upon its back, and then, slowly and easily, it began to put on speed.

The trees surged and leapt past them. The star leaned forward, her fingers tangled into the unicorn’s mane; Tristran—his hunger forgotten in his fear—gripped the sides of the unicorn with his knees, and simply prayed that he would not be knocked to the ground by a stray branch. Soon he found he was beginning to enjoy the experience. There is something about riding a unicorn, for those people who still can, which is unlike any other experience: exhilarating and intoxicating and fine.

The sun was setting when they reached the outskirts of the village. In a rolling meadow, beneath an oak tree, the unicorn came to a skittish halt and would go no further. Tristran dismounted, and landed with a bump on the grass of the meadow. His rump felt sore, but, with the star looking down at him, uncomplaining, he dared not rub it.

“Are you hungry?” he asked the star.

She said nothing.

“Look,” he said, “I’m starving. Perfectly famished. I don’t know if you—if stars—eat, or what they eat. But I won’t have you starving yourself.” He looked up at her, questioning. She stared down at him, first impassively, then, in a trice, her blue eyes filled with tears. She raised a hand to her face and wiped away the tears, leaving a smudge of mud on her cheeks.

“We eat only darkness,” she said, “and we drink only light. So I’m nuh-not hungry. I’m lonely and scared and cold and muh-miserable and cuh-captured but I’m nuh-not hungry.”

“Don’t cry,” said Tristran. “Look, I’ll go into the village and get some food. You just wait here. The unicorn will protect you, if anyone comes.” He reached up and gently lifted her down from the unicorn’s back. The unicorn shook its mane, then began to crop the grass of the meadow, contentedly.

The star sniffed, “Wait here?” she asked, holding up the chain that joined them.

“Oh,” said Tristran. “Give me your hand.”

She reached her hand out to him. He fumbled with the chain to undo it, but it would not undo. “Hmm,” said Tristran. He tugged at the chain around his own wrist, but it, too, held fast. “It looks,” he said, “as if I’m as tied to you as you are to me.”