Unicorn Glade

She pulled herself up off of me, feeling her horn. "Yes, it is happening, just like the Father Trees said it would. The magic is building." Before I could ask her what she meant, she lay on her back and spread her legs wide. "You are getting close, aren't you, knight? Come to me. Plant your seed in my womb. There is nothing I have wanted more in my life than to feel you in me at this moment."

Odd words, for a creature that acted so malevolently just a short time ago. For a moment I hesitated, suddenly reminded of our pact. My soul would be forfeit after I completed this deed.

Would even being with Iolanthe again be worth such a terrible price?

My manhood throbbed, aching for release. I was long past the point of thinking rationally. I did as she bade me, lining up myself with her willing gate and plunging in.

This time her folds hugged me even tighter. Her horn glowed brighter with every one of my frenzied thrusts, the glow creeping down her body and up into mine, soon enveloping both of us. I did not care; the sensations I was experiencing were too intense to think about anything else. We cried out together each time my pubic mound met hers. My precipice was fast approaching.

She sensed it as well. Her hands shot to my face as she climaxed yet again, holding it still so her eyes could penetrate mine.

Through our haze of passion, something indefinable passed between us. Gone now was all the malice and haughty pretension she had shown earlier. Now something tender, almost loving, shone in her eyes now.

Something almost...familiar.

No. It couldn't be.

"Come," she whispered, her deep feminine voice sending shockwaves through my sex-soaked brain. "Come in me. Come INTO me."

With those words and a final tight gripping of her folds, I was past all rational thought, all earthly concerns. A climax of unnatural proportions seized me, sparking throughout my entire body like a thunderstrike. My seed blasted into her womb, sparking a great crescendo of sensations within her as well. She cried out in what must have been the most intense orgasm of her life, tears streaming down furry cheeks.

But with each spurt I felt something more than just my seed leaving me. My conscious began fragmenting, falling away. I felt myself, my deepest, most intimate self being disintegrating like droplets of water in a hearthfire. Darkness spiraled all around me as my climax abated, my soul leaving forever its prison of flesh.

With the last of my coherent thoughts I heard the unicorn woman speak two last words, her throat catching with emotion:

"Matthias. Beloved."

- - -

I remember the playing most.

Galloping for endless hours in fields and meadows, honeysuckle and heather tickling my nostrils. A great many creatures to chase after and be chased by, to wrestle and nip and whinny at. A vast forest to explore, with wonders and fun behind every tree.

Mother was at my side through it all. Mother. I knew her by no other name. What other name could she possibly have? Large, powerful, with a mane of spun gold, hooves the color of a starless night, and eyes as green as the forest. Her tapering horn was a beacon of hope and kindness for all who dwelled within the woods. She watched after me in both her four- and two-legged forms, cared for me, fed me, and loved me unconditionally with gentle nuzzles and encouraging words.

It was her voice I heard as she now knelt next to me, stroking my mane gently to comfort me in the ordeal ahead. She called not only to me, but to the magic within me, the magic that existed in all living things in all the Eleven Worlds. She called to me to summon it, to shape it, to meld with it. I tried my hardest, wishing for nothing else in this world than to please her.

Somehow, the magic heard, and answered. All at once my limbs burned, my bones and flesh throbbed and ached and creaked and screamed in agonizing ways I never imagined possible. My body burst with pain as the change Mother had spoken of often at last overtook me. I had come of age, she had said, and it was time to embrace my destiny.

It was time to at last transform.

My limbs and spine straightened and lengthened. Muscles shifted and bones ground, ligaments and tendons groaning their torture.

How long the agony lasted, I could not say. A turning of the Seasons? A heartbeat? It was impossible to say.

When at last it was over, I lay on my now curiously flat back, staring up at the canopy-framed sky. As the pain ebbed away, clarity returned. Clarity, and much, much more.

Memories. Recollections which had been suppressed for a decade and a half. My REAL memories, of my life as a human.

I cautiously sat up, my thick, my just-formed fingers running hesitantly over my new body. It proved large, coated with soft white hair, and sporting a muzzled face more horse than human. A tapering horn coiling out from my forehead. I guess I was now a male version of the creature I had made love to in that glade.

"Mother?" I asked.

No, not Mother.

"Iolanthe?"

Tears squeezed from her eyes as she leaned over and embraced me fiercely, her deep voice trembling. "Matthias! Seasons, oh Seasons, at last! At last..."

After she squeezed me breathless, she leaned back on her haunches, looking me over at arm's length. Her voice came hesitantly. "You remember! The Father Trees said you would, after the transformation. Thank the Seasons! I am so sorry for what I had to do."

I reached up and wiped the moisture from her cheek. I looked deep into her eyes and knew at last why they had seemed so familiar to me in that glade now many years past. They were my wife's.

She took hold of my palm and lick-kissed it gently. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Husband. Son. Beloved."

"I-I don't..." was all I could say as I struggled to form words in an unfamiliar throat.

"Its all right, its all right," she whispered, stroking my mane. "I died that night I ran out into the wilderness, when you threw me out of the castle. That I did not lie about. I stumbled about lost for hours, my breath ragged, the cold seeping through my limbs to my gut. I collapsed, regrets biting deeper than any freezing wind.

"But as my last desperate prayers wheezed out of me a voice rumbled in the wilderness around me. Strangely, impossibly, an immense tree, its canopy still full and green even in the midst of howling snows, slowly pulled itself out of the forest to crawl to my side. It asked if it could help. I thought I had at last gone mad in my last moments of life. Delirious, the only thing I asked for with my final heartbeat was my husband's forgiveness.

"It was a Father Tree, one of the ancient gods of the forest, the immortal guardians of the Fae. My words moved it and it used its immense power to capture my soul as it left my body. It protected me, comforted me, held me close to its mystical bosom as I told it how and why I had ended up dying on its roots.

"My words moved it, and it told me it could give me life again, and perhaps much more, If I desired. I would have magic, and could live as long as I wished. But in return for such an immense gift I would have to serve the forest and the people of the Fae that the Father Trees loved as their own children. And I could never return to the world of humans, who had long ago turned their back on the magicks that had created the Worlds.

"I agreed. Using their ancient magicks they created a new body for me, one not only of flesh but of magic as well. The one you see before you now.

"But as the months passed, despite all the joys I had found in my new body and its nascent magic, I discovered I was immensely lonely, for there were no others like me. My heart also weighed heavily with how much I still missed you. I pleaded with the Father Trees to help me, and they promised me they would give me the magic necessary to create my own Mate, using my own womb. But like myself, my Mate would have to be a human who chose to give up his soul willingly.

"Yet I did not want just any Mate. I wanted you, Matthias. Our vows on our wedding day were not hollow words to me. I was so stupid to betray them, then to yell and scream at you when you had done the same. I watched and waited, following your searches from afar with my newfound magic, hoping you would eventually come to the woods of the Father Trees, so that I could make you mine once again.

"I am so sorry for the deception I had to play on you. I never wished you any harm. But I had to know, truly, if you still loved me, if you would be willing to do anything for me. And I was in hell, Matthias-a hell of my own making, without you."

She looked away, unsure and afraid. Would I reject her even now?

"I...am...the one who is...sorry, Iolanthe," I said, picking my way carefully around the words in a still unsteady throat. "I made so...many mistakes..."

"We both did, husband. But this is a new life now, a clean slate for us both. There are no nobles to please here, no traditional vows to uphold. There is only you and me and what we feel. Mother and son. Husband and wife. Mates."

"Mates," I echoed. "Will...will we..."

She smiled warmly. "Yes. That is why the Father Trees created me, why they gave me the magic needed to create your new body. Our children will become a new race, a new kind of life in the eyes of creation. I will nurse them in my womb, as I nursed you. We will be the guardians of nature, living in a world of joy and magic. We will start it all."

She leaned in close, began massaging my furry chest. Her scent waxed incredibly pungent, with many more layers to it than my human nose could ever have perceived. Her entire presence was intoxicating. I HAD to have her.

My head spun with wonder. So many years ago, but in a sense only yesterday, I had been a miserable, lonely, wreck of a man. Today, the most beautiful creature in all creation welcomed me into a life of hope I had scarcely imagined possible.

Her touch wandered lower and became more urgent, my response immediate. Without pretense or preamble she pushed me back and straddled my hips. I started in astonishment at the sight of my rapidly-growing member; it was easily the three times the size of my human appendage. But of course I was part horse, now, in a way. She poised her entrance at the tip of my shaft, chest heaving with anticipation as her eyes locked with mine.

"Mates," she whispered.

"Mates," I answered my wife, my mother, my beloved, as she slowly speared herself upon me. Our love making lasted hours, each moment of ecstasy building on the one before. And when I at last planted my seed deep within her, our cries of passion echoed through the forest entire.