[Hereford Eye]

It shouldn’t be a fair match. You have Eye’s with his ability to scan the area. No little boy should be able to dodge that but Evan does. He is over the river – well, the creek – and through the woods but his grandma doesn’t live anywhere near here.
The folk following after looking into nooks and crannies are not born trackers so they miss his footprints when they shouldn’t. They call his name loudly, some asking him to return, others demanding he return, and one mother person pleading that he return. Evan, of course, is oblivious to the world around him. He has found a frog jumping along the streambed and Evan is quite content to skip along behind his new friend.
Ghanima summons a platoon of faeries and they each depart towards one of the twelve points of the compass flying zigzag patterns to fill in the blank spaces in the search pattern. It’s a matter of time, of course. Evan isn’t moving that fast and he hasn’t been at it that long. They will find him. The question is when will they find him and will it be before time runs it course and a disaster truly happens. There are myriad ways for a little boy to harm himself in the forest. The more chance he has to try the more likely that he will succeed.

[Holbrook]

Evan follows the frog down the stream; the frog keeps looking back at him, Even keeps looking at the frog. Frog hops, Evan hops. Frog climbs up onto a rock by a pool, surrounded by rocks shaded by trees and the water kissed by the fading sun. The air sparkles.

"Ribbit" The frog asks Evan.

"Where..."Evan replies and looks over the scene.

"Ribbit... Ribbit" The frog replies... as from the pool, members of his own species, followed by very small ladies of the water nymph persuasion gather on rocks and at the edge of the water. A large trout pokes its head out of the water, spouting water. The whole assembly becomes hushed and still.

Ghanima flits in, sees the concert about to begin, spots Evan, zips out, bellowing for the others to come quick.

“Ribbit” The frog by Evan says…

“Whoa! “ Evan replies as a two large bull frogs clear their throats and begin.


Bom… Bom,Bom…Bom.. Bom, Bom.

Then the whole cast begins, with the nymphs doing the harmonies.

Win Or Lose, Sink Or Swim
One Thing Is Certain We'll Never Give In
Side By Side, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together
Play The Game, Fight The Fight
But What's The Point On A Beautiful Night?
Arm In Arm, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together
La-
Keeping Us Warm In The Night
La La La La
Walk In The Night
You'll Get It Right

Win Or Lose, Sink Or Swim
One Thing Is Certain We'll Never Give In
Side By Side, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together

“What the F, is going on?” Joe bellows as he stumbles into the shallow.

“Shush” Evan says, “the frogs are singing.”


Apologies to Sir Paul M could not resist lol….

[Hereford Eye]

The excitement of chasing Evan died down; the party returned to the campsite, cheered at the ordinariness of the hunt. Life goes on despite everything that tries to preempt it.
Night passed and the morning brought the excitement/anticipation/dread of this new day’s efforts. Conversation began with inquiries to Sandra about the previous day. It all went so quickly and became shunted off to the side so quickly by Evan’s antics that no one had asked Sandra how she felt. Did she notice any particular after-effects of the practice?
Replaying the practice session in her mind, Sandra remembered the drain of multiple powers drawing on her energy supply. Yes, there had been a drain but nothing worth commenting on. It had gone well and she was fine after. Eye’s accepted her report with more concern than the others but then Eyes was an engineer by training. “You sensed a drain, did you?” “Yes,” Sandra reconfirmed. “Then, when we are locked together, everyone must pay attention to Sandra. If you notice anything at all, let everyone know. We cannot be melded into one and lose Sandra. We cannot lose Sandra, period.”
Ghanima corrected Eye’s statement: “We cannot afford to lose anyone of this group.” Emily corrected Ghanima: “Except the faeries, of course.” No one was happy with this observation.
Breakfast became a more somber event in the history of this day but Evan still bounced and ran and laughed so that no one could brood for too long on necessary evils.
At ten o’clock they gathered together, touching Sandra, prepared for the day’s trials. With the meld they each followed Eye’s into the ground beneath them as he dove to the magma pools. No more than a mile down he found the first, a massive chamber filled to bursting with liquefied hell. His search went round the chamber looking into the surrounding earth seeking another unused chamber. The closest lay three miles to the south.
“That is a lot more digging than yesterday’s practice round,” his thoughts raced through all their minds. “Sandra?”
“Feeling good, strong. Let’s do it.”
Matt set his mind to opening the seam, grasping the hand of the tiny faerie who materialized in the very spot he planned to begin work. The two....no, the three of them, Matt, the faerie, and Sandra, applied his talent to the unbinding of a channel three miles long. They began on the empty chamber side and burrowed their way into the magma chamber. Contact with the magma sent Matt flying to the surface, his faerie extinguished at the touch of the magma, a new faerie popping into the scene holding Joe’s mental hand as he transferred a third of the magma chamber’s contents to its new home. Emily was there immediately to begin the sealing, the rebinding of the tunnel working from the magma chamber out. She proceeded slower than Matt had worked taking her time to assure the seal would remain. At last, maybe ten minutes after she started, she and Eyes withdrew to the surface, deleting the third faerie by their departure.
When the group mind dissolved, all five people slumped to the ground but Sandra was the only one who passed out. Matt crawled to her but was kept from examining her by a dozen or more faeries flitting about the woman’s head and torso. Ghanima, still wrapped in Sandra’s hair, croaked to Matt that Sandra was fine, just exhausted. The faeries would replace energy as they could but mostly Sandra needed rest, five or six days rest.
Knowing that Sandra would be okay, four very tired teammates looked at each other, sensing the tiredness, the emptiness from losing three more faeries, the pride in their success. Of a sudden, Joe began rolling in laughter keeping the others in suspense for some minutes before he could finally point to Matt. Down Matt’s forehead a thin new scar blazed on his forehead, very much like a tiger’s stripe. The laughter spread to the entire conscious group as each discovered on the other a version of Matt’s stripe. It seemed that magic and magma leave their mark on people.

[kater]

Stigmata for the magical generation, or generations considering the vast range of demographics covered by the group. The laughter was a mixture of forced and moderately insane, it had come to this, this wild series of rides leading to multiple deaths, something they were in theory trying to avoid. Many from the megalomaniacal school of thought also known as politicians can and will argue its about the numbers people, its about sacrifice so that the greater number of the body politic wil survive, probably to re-elect those that didn't even risk a pinky burn. It is a universal truth that those handing out the medals are never the ones, nor their families or friends, who went in where the **** was flying. Of course not, they're obviously far too intelligent for such a thing, let the grunts do that. A military analogy? No, a societal analogy, think of the people who spend their lives helping others, who choose relative poverty and death to help those with nothing. We applaud them, hell we donate money to charities all the time right ........ Wrong, we let someone else do it, we let someone else take our moral responsibility because we are too clever and destined for greater things than helping people. This is how the world dies you know, when the faeries can't find a group of people willing to sacrifice for the rest of the world and all its inhabitants. Self-possession, it happens without knowing, happens everyday. Worse than the responsibility of saving the world is the understanding the world will never know, never show any form of gratitude but thats altruism right? That's what sacrifice truly means.
Lying on the grass aching like a man twenty years older Matt didn't really want to grasp this sort of introspection, it was what it was. He wasn't doing this for those nameless, faceless beings who would go right on killing each other, cheating, stealing and lying. No it wasn't about specifics it wasn't about the morality of right and wrong, it was about survival, survival for Sandra, for Evan and Emily, he could maybe even stretch as far as Joe, maybe. But it hurt, damn did it hurt like blazes, magic it seems is a physical entity, power or whatever analogous attribute you wish to define it as. It takes from the physical to affect the physical, thus there must be a balancing for the universe to remain happy, in equals out equals bloody-hell-that-hurts. Sandra was the lucky one, she got a power nap. Yet this was only the beginning, the first pocket of worldly excrement which needed flushing and already he was ready to call it a day. Five to six days they said Sandra needed, were they just going to wait around each time, it could take weeks even months to sort this through and no-one knew what the time limit was, or did they.

[Holbrook]

Away with the Fairies, the fay, Faerie. Dancing round the Fairy sparks in Fairy rings. Paying for Fairy loaves with Fairy money.

The land of Oberon:

Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,

Where nobody gets old and craftly and wise.

Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

Sandra was there, marked by the magic on her flesh, in her mind and her heart and she felt strange. Did the others feel the same?

The aches she had in her joints, had eased more than they should have, Matt she knew no longer had that nag of pain in his hip. Emily's hair had grown, the locks flowing down her back. Joe, well his wisdom teeth had come through in more ways than one. And eyes, well the mist was clearing.

Magic had poured through Sandra, poured out of Sandra, she was the power house and the mixing vat. One problem she was out for the count.

As she lay wrapped in fairy wings, Sandra put her mind to the problem, she needed help.

"Yes.. "The fairy queen said.

"I need to able able to do more, we need to be able to do more."

"Unicorn time?" The Fairy laughed. 2Their power is pure and true, if you call they will answer.

"Yes right.. I am no virgin? I mean don't they come to only one of that persuasion?"

Spot on.. "The Fairy Queen sat on Sandra's shoulder and crossed her legs.

"But there is one in our group isn't there.. Lord not Matt....?"

"Nope... "The Queen inpected her nails.

"And Emily isn't Evan is proof of that."

"Correct..." The Queen pulled at a jagged nail and flicked it, as the scrap landed in became a bed of yellow roses.

"Eyes..."

"Hmmmm.... sorry..." The Queen began to plait Sandra's hair, which had also began to grow far beyond the norm.

"Oh No... " Sandra began to laugh... "Not Joe???"

[Hereford Eye]

“Oh, Joseph,” the summons was flowery and sticky, filled with portent and insinuation, turning Joe’s stomach but he couldn’t decide why. He just knew that the old woman who had challenged him sexually now invited him aside, the god damned faerie riding in her hair. “Nothing going to happen with a faerie looking on, that’s for certain,” Joe decided and he answered the summons.
“What do you want, old woman?”
“I need your help, Joe.” The words were true enough. Two mind melds later he understood enough and she him that attempting lies was a useless endeavor. She needed his help but something about her need was not going be something Joe would be happy about.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, half afraid it would be something sexual, half hoping the misery in his groin would finally be eased.
“I need you to summon a unicorn.” Truth, again, but no easier to understand than if she wanted him physically.
“Unicorns like girls,” he protested, buying time to try to figure what the hell was going on. That all-knowing smirk decorating Ghanima’s face was unnerving, as was the plastic innocence Sandra adopted. The words that answered his protest sent chills through his body. “Not girls, necessarily, but virgins.”
Joe’s response was instantaneous. “Then, you got the wrong guy.” He turned to storm away but Sandra’s simple “Joe” stopped him in his tracks. “There is nothing wrong with virginity, Joe.” “Try to tell that to Eyes and Matt,” he snarled in reply, the pain in his gut threatening real tears to spill. God damn! He didn’t need to start crying.
“Joe, you never had the chance.”
“I’m twenty-five god damned years old. How could I not have the chance?”
“Because you’re a good man, Joe.”
“I’m a god damned thief,” Joe snarled.
“You never forced yourself on a woman, Joe. You have a talent you could have used. You are a strong young man. There were times when you could have forced yourself.”
“A man don’t force,” Joe argued but suddenly wondering if he had been wrong. Did a man force? Is that what they were telling him, he should have forced?
“You’re a good man, Joe,” Sandra repeated. “So good I never got laid,” Joe laughed.
“Good gets laid, is that it? Tell you what, Joe. You want to get laid, I’ll do the honors. How’s that?”
Oh, this was too damn much. The old biddy offering to have sex with him as if he were some kind of charity case. ****, damn, hell! What happened to the world to make this happen?
“No, lady, I don’t want your charity.”
“Your choice, Joe. I’m ready if that is what you want. I have all the standard equipment and lots of experience using it. You want the finest sex you ever dreamed of, then let’s not stall around. Let’s get to it.”
“You’re serious,” Joe realized.
“Very,” Sandra agreed.
“But you needed my help. You needed a unicorn.”
“I need to see you whole more than I give a damn about a unicorn.”
“Why did you need the unicorn?"
”To help me get through this mission we’re on. A unicorn can assist me to assist you all to do what needs to be done.”
“And I’m the only virgin, right? And it takes a virgin to get a unicorn?”
“A human virgin, Joe,” Ghanima adds. “Can’t go find a faerie virgin even if there may be one left.”
“Your willing to pass up the help just to cure my virginity?”
“It’s not a disease that needs curing, Joe. Just needs a person who cares.”
“You care?” the disbelief, the astonishment, the wonder of that possibility all but overwhelming the poor thief.
“I care,” Sandra said. She walked to him, pulled herself to him so that all the femaleness of her body attached itself to his and she kissed him, slow and sensuous. “It’s not a joke, Joe. Your body is telling you this is not a joke.” Joe knew she was telling the truth in the way that all young men know; their body tells them so.
Joe thought about it, how it could be, what it would mean. He thought about all the nights and all the dreams and the end to all the misery. Then, he thought about what they all were doing and he weighed things as they ought be weighed.
“How do I summon a unicorn? And what will it do to me?”
The old biddy lady and the older little faerie summed things up in unison: “You’re a good man, Joe.”

[Holbrook]

A Herd, a pride, a gaggle what word for a collection of Unicorns.

These breasts of pure white, of curved neck and strong back. Of cloven hooves and flowing manes. Bless with eyes of silvered steel.

Inbetween this world and that of imagination they gallop, pounding through the dreams of man, calling from hill tops afar.

To ride the Unicorn, to cut the midnight black sky with a flash of white. A Shooting star for a second bridled.

The sense the danger it stirs the herd, they know of the Fairies passing and from the eye of each a single tear drops. The leader calls into the night his head high, hooves cutting the the air as he rears. The herd gathers around him, power arcs from on to another, waiting the channel.

How do I summon a unicorn? And what will it do to me?”

The young man's voice sounds like a bell, ringing a chalenge and summons. He does not know his words and actions of that moment have done the summoning.

The Leader answers, his call high and proud. From out of the trees, clothed in mist, the herd comes to give of there power, and once given, once one member is drained, they too like the fairies will pass, but not into nothing, for to stone shall each unicorn turn, until the tears of one lost heart bathes them.

The come then the unicorns, like all magical beings, to save a world that for centuries had denied their existence, scorned and laughed at them and used their image in forms for removed from the reflection of the creature they are.....

The power of the world, she that created them.

[kater]

Surreal is a word used remarkably rarely in this world of been-there-done-that-got-the-tshirt but one must surely use it when you see a unicorn ........ congregation run past you. Its not so much that their coats are all a perfect snow white or they have the horn smack dab in the middle of a knowing brow but they run a good six inches off the ground and don't make a sound, making avoiding being trampled to death somewhat difficult. Luckily they have air brakes, or magic's equivalent. How I came by this knowledge is the worrying part, you see apart from the white beastie blowing its breath out two symmetrical nostrils and into my face not an inch away, I already knew it would stop. My puzzlement is answered by a little giggle, I look across at Ghanima to see her tapping the side of her head with a mini-digit. Of course. Its tempting to put deflector shields up but I think I need all the experience I never gained with unicorns. Unicorns. Now what is it about them that rings a bell, ah yes virgins. You always remember the good stuff about the most .... surreal subjects. But where in the hell did we find one of them, its not like they sell them at the nearest convenience store let alone at Yellowstone national park, park rangers running around yelling:
"Get your fresh virgin here, only ten bucks, guaranteed to call unicorns." The government would probably have a fit, probably being the word up for intense debate.
I look around the usual suspects, Sandra - hardly likely, I bet she could still show the young'uns a thing or two. Emily, somehow one doubts she is the next Mary and Evan is the martyr returned. Eyes, possible but I think I read he had a long term girlfriend before the change, its strange to think these people had lives beore we met and normal ones, if such a mythical beast exists, at that. Talking of mythical beasts this unicorn's getting a bit friendly, I wonder if they have gender or is pegasus the female version.
Across the back of my new friend's wonderous mane I see a rather red-faced Joe hanging back, distinctly away from Sandra and the group. See what I was saying about surreal, I can't help it, this is too funny.
"Hahahahahahahaha."
"F*** off."
"Hahahahahaha."
"Leave him alone you old coot." Sandra in too quick. Whats happened there I wonder.
"Hahahahahaha."
"Matt." And Ghanima, well well seems the women's protection agency is alive and well.
"Sorry Mother." God that felt good, I needed that. Although Joe looks like he needed that about as much as a convict needs to pick up the soap in the shower room.
"Sorry Joe."
"F*** off."
"Suit yourself."
Now then another question of the absurd, are unicorns sentient, thinking creatures and if so how do you address them.
"So you come here often."
"Nayyyyyyyyyy."
"Really, you know it must have changed since last you were here then."
"Matt leave the unicorn alone, its done nothing to deserve you."
"Suit yourself. Sorry fella, guess this isn't a time for humour, something important must be about to happen."

[Hereford Eye]

Most people think of unicorns as white as the driven snow. Generally, in a statistical sort of way, they are but you know about statistics. The unicorn that splits off from the herd to approach Joe is one of the Asian contingent, skin similar to fish scales so that the effect is an iridescent white that glitters with all the colors of the rainbow. This unicorn mashes the ground in front of Joe, bows low. Recovering, the unicorn introduces herself as Serene; she is his; he is hers.

“What’s that mean, exactly,” Joe wants to know. Serene laughs at the images floating in his imagination, joins him in that space and plays with the images as well. “This is how it’s done, Joe. It’s all in your head.”

On the outside, the unicorn shakes her head, sends shudders through body bouncing trinkets of light in a million directions. The display could be overpowering were it not for the equally majestic herd now closing round the group.

Joe still has questions though. “Are you telling me you’re going to take my virginity but only in my mind?” The giggle that follows this question reverberates through the herd prompting Joe to ask “are they always going to know what we are thinking?” In his mind, Serene informs Joe that his virginity is his to dispose of as he see fit. The joining of their imaginations is not meant to be an act but a ceremony, an affirmation of life. It is meant to be enjoyable and enjoyed but it is not meant to be literal; it is symbolic. For the time of this crisis, they will be together in their own space/time while being together with all the others in their space/time.

Now, the group travels, riding unicorns, leaving the car behind. Fifteen miles around the park perimeter moving swiftly but not too quickly that Eyes cannot search the ground. An hour, maybe two, Eyes calls a halt. They are above a place that can be worked.

A band of faeries set Evan on a small unicorn to take him exploring while the others work. Emily receives the assurance the unicorn will not allow Evan to fall from his back while Evan looks disgustedly at his mother for even considering the possibility. He’s a grown man, now, in his mind at least. He doesn’t need a mother to mother him. Watching his disgust, Matt sneaks up behind the boy and whispers “we never grow out of that need, Evan, no matter how old we become.” Evan, the unicorn, and three faeries head off for the mysteries of the forest leaving the group to arrange itself for the next assault on the super-volcano.

Sandra mounts a great bull unicorn, apologizing for her lost innocence, feeling the power of the animal between her legs. She feels the humor in the reply that innocence is more a state of mind and she still qualifies. Matt and Eyes each take a hand, Emily and Joe rest hands on her thighs; Ghanima takes her accustomed place in Sandra’s hair. The joining is instant and so clear that it takes a moment for everyone to recover from their gasps of astonishment and delight.

Eyes leads them down in the ground, just a mile to the magma chamber stressed with the abundance of disaster it confines. Eyes dives deeper, almost eleven miles and three miles to the side to find a suitable evacuation chamber. Matt takes the figurative hand of the instantly available faerie to begin un-bonding a channel to the upper chamber. The process is incomparably faster than the last attempt, Matt almost proceeding too far. He barely recognizes the collapsing wall in front of him but the faerie does and flickers out of existence before Matt can take the two of them into the magma chamber. The second faerie appears to accept Joe and Serene’s mental handshake. The upper chamber is instantly emptied of its contents as Joe moves it down the channel to the over-sized chamber waiting below. When the last of the magma clears the opening, Emily and her faerie begin the re-bonding. As it was with Matt, Emily’s work progresses to a surprisingly quick completion. The job completed, all follow Eyes back to the surface.

Three faeries gone. The humans sit in a tired but not exhausted group around the unicorn. A shimmer begins, a shudder, and Sandra dismounts. Bit and pieces, like pixels going black, disappear in every nook and cranny of the great beast. Dissolution must be painful as the shuddering continues, now accompanied by the keening of the herd and the crying of the humans. Less and less of the unicorn remains visible until finally nothing remains visible. A tremendous sob from the unicorns present announces the final departure of the first sacrificial unicorn.

Emily moans her distress that she didn’t even know the being’s name. Sandra looks up, smiling a little, and answers that his name was Hope. Unicorn names, it seems, are based on emotion.

Joe endured this transition enmeshed with Serene, feeling what Serene felt, what the unicorn herd felt, forced to feel the loss in himself. He wants to think it is none of him, all her loss but he suddenly knows that isn’t true. The young thief of yesterday cannot walk away from this feeling, cannot deny this reality, cannot hide in shallowness. The young thief of yesterday suddenly understands this life meant something to him; that willing sacrifice is more than he can offer, that he is not quite as self-sufficient as he once pretended. His realization is surrounded by the comforting presence of Serene although neither of the bonded pair are at this moment serene.

[Holbrook]

The second of how many is now completed, the price of the work firmly established in each mind. The magic like knowledge asks a price from those that work it.

A price the nromal human can only guess at, can not even begin to touch on understanding. Yet this working gives as well as takes.

Matt; he is still the cynical old man on the surface, his words and thoughts still bite. But the biting is tempered by the fact he knows he is not that old, knows he is not useless . He is part of a whole that others cannot imagine. He is loved, liked and needed for himself with the rest of the group he does not have to explain.

Sandra; she is no longer lost, no longer the fragment left over. She knows she can reach out and a hand will be there, aware she is still very much a woman and is loved as such. This very fact increases her gift, taps into whjat she is far more than even Ghanima thought was possible.

Emily; She no longer fears for the future, for Evan, she knows there are others now, she has a family. Win lose or draw her son will be loved, maybe his life will be a bit unusual, very different. But the young man willo be guided and loved, that is enough. And for her, Emily knows she can at last trust another human being.

Eyes; For him this is what he was waiting for, what he knew was coming, yet things still appear to shock and delight him. The Unicorns, that he had not seen. The power of the meld he had not believed would taste of honey. The friendship he had not dared hope would turn into the bond it had. Seeing the future is one thing actually living it is another.

Joe; Well Joe more than any has come far along a strange and bewildering path. He now stands in a ring of Unicorns, his companion Serene prancing at his side.

A fine melody begins, the tempo like beating hooves. Who sings none know, but a voice, female carrys the song.

One day, one night, one moment,
my dreams could be, tomorrow.
One step, one fall, one falter,
east or west, over earth or by ocean.
One way to be my journey,
this way could be my Book of Days.

Ó lá go lá, mo thuras,
an bealach fada romham.
Ó oíche go hoíche, mo thuras,
na scéalta nach mbeidh a choích.

No day, no night, no moment,
can hold me back from trying.
I'll flag, I'll fall, I'll falter,
I'll find my day may be, Far and Away.
Far and Away.

One day, one night, one moment,
with a dream to believe in.
One step, one fall, one falter,
and a new earth across a wide ocean.

This way became my journey,
this day ends together, Far and Away.
This day ends together, Far and Away.
Far and Away.