somethinghuman | I found something, In the woods somewhere

It'd been two days since he'd helped Amalthea hide in the woods, and R was already anxious about that decision. Unicorn or not, there might be wolves, or predators, or just bad things out there that might set their sights on her. She may be magic, but she was alone.

She might get lonely. He knew he did.

He waffled and fretted for a few hours that morning before he finally decided that yes, he was clingy, but he was being clingy in her best interests. Maybe stopping at her own flower shop to get lilacs just because she'd said she liked them was dumb, especially considering she was a unicorn and not a girl, and he was buying flowers in a city just to take them into the woods. But he thought that if there was any chance she was lonely, or sad, that she might like them.

The trek to the woods took longer without someone to keep him on a straight path. By the time he found the creek the flowers were sort of limp and wilted, and his shoes and pant legs were muddy. But he'd found the right place, and now he just needed to find the girl. The unicorn.

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Fairy tales don't work in real life, do they? Maybe that was a pessimistic look at it, but R wasn't a prince. He was just a zombie who'd spent years shuffling around, reluctantly eating brains, and trying to make the best of the fact that everything was dull and quiet and gone.

But this wasn't the city. Or the airport. It was Darrow, and Amalthea was his fiend. She was also a unicorn. Maybe if anyone could do anything, it was her.

Hope was a dangerous thing, but a glimmer of it settled between his ribs and made a home.

"C-could... try," he agreed, too nervous and wide eyed to be excited. He didn't want her to feel bad if it didn't work. He didn't want to be disappointed, either.

The unicorn considered the boy in front of her, the one who was dead but not dead. She moved closer to him and lowered her head, slow and deliberate. It never took much: a touch brought Lir back to life, and he had been dead.

The point of her horn was sharp, like a pin. She touched it to R's chest, over his heart, and left it there. She felt the warmth of her magic; she saw the sickness in him like darkness and burned it away.

Corpses don't feel pain. They don't feel anything.

But R feels something. Holy shit does he feel something.

It starts like a heat, then flares, and flares, and flares. He's not on fire, there's no flames, and it doesn't so much hurt as it's too much. He hasn't felt anything, nothing substantial, for as long as he can remember, but suddenly he's overwhelmed. He wants to push her head away and scramble back because it's not right and he doesn't want it to eat him up.

But then it ebbs. There's relief. A sweet balm where the fire was before, and then as the seconds tick by, there's nothing.

And he can breathe. Feel his toes. Feel his heart racing in his throat as he struggles to swallow.

Sucking in a shaky breath, R blinks, and tries to orient himself. He stares at Amalthea's pale head and tries to make sense of everything. "Did... did it?" Did it work? Is this living?

The unicorn stepped back to look at him. He smelled different; he looked different. Color flooded him, and his eyes went from a sort of dull grayish color to a stunning blue. She flicked her ears and moved away from him, toward the creek. There were quiet parts of it where reflections showed. She knew because she had already spent time looking at herself there.

"Look," she said, bobbing her head toward the water.

There's too much and not enough all at once. R wiggles his fingers and then his toes, tilts his head side to side and blinks over and over. The world looked... brighter, somehow. But smell was strange. The green smell of forest was suddenly strong, but Amalthea's scent was all but gone. Like it'd never been there.

Strangely, he missed it.

Stumbling, he paused then took more deliberate strides. His footing was shaky, but he managed a straight line.

When he peeked to look, he stared. Oh, that's me.

"You did it," he said, stunned. Pressing a shaky hand to his chest, just over where her horn had stabbed in, he took a breath and waited. Underneath was a steady heartbeat. "Holy crap, you did it."

She nuzzled his cheek, gentle and deliberate. "You're alive," she said gently. "You're human."

They were both as they should be, and she took joy in that. R's words came easier to him, his movements less bogged down, more deliberate. He seemed far less like he was trying to force himself to be something and much more like he was simply... being.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel..." he scrambled to think. I feel my heart beating, and my clothes against my skin. I feel my stomach pinching because I'm hungry but not ravenous. I feel the sun and smell the grass and can feel the softness of your muzzle. I feel like I'm about to burst apart at the seams because there's so much. "I feel everything."

Eagerly, he ran a hand over the grass and bit around a grin when it was slippery with moisture. He dipped a hand into the water and yanked it back when it was almost cold.

Huffing a laugh, he turned and wrapped his arms around Amalthea's neck. She was soft, almost silky, and warm. Grinning he pressed his face in close and let the hair tickle his forehead. For once, there was no secret urge to bite he had to squash down.

Suddenly, R hugged her, wrapped around her neck and buried his face against her. The bold move startled the unicorn, but only for a moment. Everything in her seemed to soften and she turned her head to rest it against him, attempting to return the embrace as much as she could.

"And you're alright?" She knew well how jarring sudden changes could be, but perhaps it wasn't painful or strange to him to be himself again, no matter how long he'd spent as a zombie. "Do you... remember anything?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted, his words mumbled as he tried to squash down the urge to just keep holding on and rubbing his face against her. She might be dandelion soft and warm, but latching on like a needy octopus might be taking it a bit far. Reluctantly, he forced himself to loosen his hold.

He tried to picture his family's names and faces, but nothing came. Then his own, his home, his school, his friends and the only ones he could think of were Julie and M, and then the people he'd met in Darrow. A sliver of disappointment stung, but it didn't bite the way he expected. "No," he shook his head. "Maybe it's too soon?"

"Perhaps." She gave him a gentle nuzzle, seeing his disappointment. She did not want him to hurt, not when he was living again. "You have been neither living nor dead, in a place in between, and perhaps memories just need time to come back."

The unicorn found herself feeling a strange, unwelcome doubt: what if this didn't last? What if, before long, R went back to the way he was when they met? What if she did? If this was some strange trick on Darrow's part, maybe her healing of him would only last as long as she did. She shivered and tried to push the doubt and the fear from her mind: she hadn't been plagued by such feelings before becoming human, and she could not shake them off, even as an immortal.

She looked at R, fond and soft, and gave him a gentle nudge. "Is there anything that you want to do now that you are alive again?"

I found something, In the woods somewhere

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