Chapter Text
The forest was lush and green and cheerfully welcoming, exactly like most forests weren’t.
“What is this place?” Sir Kaye asked warily.
“The Forest of Dreams, I believe. At least, it should be. My grandfather said you could walk into Fairyland by dreaming with your eyes open and passing the wrong tree twice. My grandmother just said you had to really believe.”
Lady Elissa did not seem to notice the effect that learning this reliable and precise method of navigation had on her companion. As always when her silent displeasure was too subtle to pierce through the haze of genteel affable denial that Lady Elissa was cloaked in at all times, Sir Kaye chose a more direct approach.
“That’s the kind of nonsense old folks say to dumb little children to keep them quiet! You really dragged me out here on the grounds of such foolishness?”
Lady Elissa stopped in her tracks and whirled around, her trailing sleeves flying around her.
“It is not foolishness,” she said with a haughtily lifted chin. Nobility was born self-assured, and Lady Elissa was as noble as they came. Sir Kaye wished that in this instance, Lady Elissa had been a little less blessed with noble virtues.
“Well excuse me, Princess,” Sir Kaye said, settling into her own stubbornness. She was not going to let Lady Elissa waste her time in a forest, just because no one taught noble ladies the difference between stories and reality.
“Oh don’t be silly, thirty seven people would have to die before I become the Princess Royal,” Lady Elissa replied loftily, rearranging the folds of her sleeves instead of looking at Sir Kaye. The golden hairpins keeping her elaborate braids and delicate wimple nicely arranged on her head glittered merrily with every evading movement.
“The fact that you know that is disturbing.”
Lady Elissa seemed entirely unbothered and set off again without a single glance back, certain Sir Kaye would follow her. She did.
“My family has always followed the Crown!” she said cheerfully over her shoulder, “provided the Crown followed sense.” The smile was almost back on Lady Elissa’s face, Sir Kaye could hear it. If Lady Elissa would just stop and look her in the eye, she was sure she would see that little satisfied twinkle that she tried to hide because it was so very unladylike.
“And you think sense is leaving the King’s court with only one knight for protection on some wild goose chase?”
For a Lady in a heavy wool gown, she certainly could walk fast when she put her mind to it.
“Of course not, I would never be so rude as to waste your time needlessly,” Lady Elissa said immediately, still striding forward but the warmth returning to her voice, “You know how I appreciate all your endeavours. I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t certain where we were going.”
Sir Kaye paused for just a moment.
“And that bedtime story… is what you’re certain about?”
Lady Elissa finally stopped walking and turned back to Sir Kaye with that open and earnest expression that she had never been able to develop a defence against.
“My parents dismissed their stories too, until my grandparents both disappeared at the end of a party they hosted for a guest of honour who never showed up.” She fingered the delicate silver locket that hung around her neck. “They had left us quite detailed instructions for the management of the estate and a promise they would be back in a hundred years. I am inclined to believe them.”
Sir Kaye examined her conscience and found that disillusioning delicate ladies on the certainty of mortality was not a weight her admittedly formidable shoulders could bear.
Satisfied that no more disbelief was being voiced, the –in Sir Kaye’s opinion quite delusional— lady continued on the path, throwing glances back at her escort as she walked. On the third glance back, her eyes widened as she took in the tell-tale signs of her friend bracing for battle, one hand creeping to her sword.
“Princess,” Sir Kaye said softly, to not alarm her, “I think your grandparents might have been onto something. Eyes on me,” she said, the moment her charge started to turn to see what unseen danger she had turned her back on. Lady Elissa obediently kept her eyes trained on her friend’s hand which was slowly and silently drawing her sword.
“And why, pray tell, is that,” asked Lady Elissa, to keep her spirits up. Or perhaps the ruse that they had not yet noticed the approaching assailant.
“Because,” Sir Kaye said pleasantly, a light veneer over a wrought tension in her voice that did not match the way her gaze stayed locked over Elissa’s shoulder, “you are being approached by a horse with an unreasonably sharp forehead.”
At that, the Lady whirled around in a flutter of skirts, too quickly for Sir Kaye to prevent her. She gasped in delight.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. What a noble creature!” To Sir Kaye’s horror, Lady Elissa sank into a deep curtsy, making herself a prime target to be trampled or gored or… gently nudged by a unicorn’s shining silver snout. Before her eyes, the giant hooves started to look daintier, the horn less imposing, the hellfire all thoroughbred horses can possess muted into the sweetness of a child’s favourite pony. From a distance, Sir Kaye sheathed her sword as she saw Lady Elissa gently pet the no longer fearsome beast. Perhaps that was what the stories meant, when they said unicorns could only be tamed by maidens pure of heart. If the Forest of Dreams really became accessible if you believed hard enough, perhaps personal conviction carried more weight here
Sir Kaye was sure it would have never entered Lady Elissa’s head to think a unicorn anything but a gentle, noble beast and so, faced with the immeasurable force of her kind-hearted naiveté, it had been forced to become a gentle creature. Or perhaps it was only the maiden thing, which did bring up some errant thoughts on how many of Lady Elissa’s noble friends would have been as able to tame this unicorn as she was.
Lady Elissa would say all, because “no Lady would” but Sir Kaye would bet her saddle that was just more of Lady Elissa’s specific denial combined with her relentless, bright-hearted optimism. Just because Lady Elissa would never, didn’t mean none of the other noble ladies took broad-shouldered and broadly smiling opportunities when they were offered to them.
Sir Kaye decided she did not need to tell Lady Elissa that she had seen a terrifying warhorse with a horn that could rend through armour like it was made of cobwebs. No dainty silver creature did she see, but a giant monster with tangled mane with suspiciously blood-coloured stains.
But just to make sure she did say: “You’re not riding that.”
“Of course not!” Lady Elissa protested, “I would never burden such a noble beast so!” she was pressing her face to the creature’s mane and her voice had taken on a distinctly cooing quality. Before long she would be braiding the beast’s shining silver mane, Sir Kaye was sure of it.