CHAPTER 58 Donna’s Relationship Drama

CHAPTER 58

Donna’s Relationship Drama

Brownie

A gentle breeze played a stray curl across her cheek that tickled her nose. Brownie stretched, arms above her head, and sat up from her nap.

Rufus was deep in thought, his tail curled, his eyes scanning the distance.

Donna had wandered off into the trees, as she was wont to do.

“Thank you for keeping watch,” Brownie told the beastman.

“Anytime.” He turned to her with a strained smile, but then his ear twitched. Rufus’s eyes looked over her shoulder. “But don’t thank me just yet.”

A flash of white and a rustle in the bushes, and then a majestic unicorn stood with them in the field. If he, for Brownie immediately recognized this particular specimen of equine beauty, had traveled with the herd seen earlier, they were nowhere to be seen now.

“Brightstar.”

The white unicorn was recognizable by the golden star on his forehead below his shimmering golden horn and his singular golden sock on the front right leg. He dipped his head. She sensed in the same way she knew what Donna meant that he was greeting her. There was no way that she alone could outrun Brightstar, so she sent a silent apology to her bond before waving him forward.

“It is good to see you again.” Brownie extended her hand, and Brightstar butted against it with his head.

Rufus remained sitting. “Well met, Brightstar, heir to Goldenhoof.”

The unicorn rubbed his head against Brownie’s hand for a second longer before pulling away slightly to acknowledge the commander general. Then Brightstar stamped the ground once and eyed her questioningly.

“Donna isn’t here right now,” she let him know, at the same time sending a message about what was happening down her link to the mare .

Brightstar’s ears drooped. The unicorn swept his eyes across the meadow and peered into the tree line, but there was neither hide nor hair of Donna. He sighed, lowering himself to his knees and resting his head in the minstrel’s lap.

Brownie began administering pets.

Rufus raised an eyebrow at her, but she ignored him. Unicorn pets were almost as lovely as squishing his paw beanies—and she rarely got to hold Rufus’s hand long enough to satisfy her urges. With Brightstar, she could pet his coat as much as she wanted and bask in the rejuvenating aura of his magic. Brownie could feel the weariness of travel ebb away. Her right shoe stopped pinching, and her lower back twinge abated, and her dry lips softened.

She sighed with contentment, lavishing the unicorn with head scritches until her legs started to lose feeling.

Rufus just stared at Brightstar with a frown. Maybe he wasn’t a unicorn person.

Eventually, Brownie had to be the bearer of bad news, and save her legs. “Listen, Brightstar … I don’t think Donna is coming back, especially if she finds out you’re here. She wanted space, and she just isn’t ready to see you right now.”

Brightstar lifted his head from her lap and eyed her, his displeasure telling.

“I know you like—” The unicorn snorted contentiously. “Fine, but if you truly love her, then you should respect her boundaries,” Brownie stated as clearly as she could.

“She’s right,” Rufus cut in. “And I would have thought that a unicorn above all others would appreciate a young maiden’s no.”

It was harsh, but Brownie agreed.

Brightstar was not amused. He stood and looked between the two of them, letting out a sharp whinny.

“We aren’t teaming up on you,” Brownie assured. “We just both agree that chasing an unwilling mare around isn’t the right way to go …”

Rufus nodded. “Do you know what will help?”

Brightstar focused on the beastman.

“Right now, you’re a young prince. But soon, you will rise to take your father’s place as the new guardian of these fields. You will have trials, and you will learn a great deal about yourself,” Rufus said, pitching his voice to inspire the colt. “If you want to repair any kind of relationship with Donna, you need to become a stallion who respects himself and others.”

The unicorn stomped a foot.

“Perhaps, in time, she will see that you have become Brightstar, Guardian of the Herd, a unicorn of great wisdom and strength, and she might choose to accept your attentions,” Rufus advised.

Brightstar perked up at that, only for Rufus to swiftly cut him back down. “And perhaps not. Maybe she will never love you back, and if you care for her as you say you do, then if will end there. ”

The unicorn chuffed, and Rufus suddenly spoke with a firm voice. “It will end there, because you are an honorable stallion who will respect Donna’s choice .” Rufus slipped for a second, and he spoke in that same tone Brownie had heard in Thistlecrick. The voice that left a shiver down her spine. A firm voice that threatened getting locked up in his dungeon. “You are an honorable stallion, aren’t you?”

Brightstar hesitated, eyeing the beastman, but eventually butted his head forward. The unicorn, when he wasn’t a lovestruck colt, was an otherwise noble prince who understood the strength behind the commander general of the Dark Horde, and what it meant when Rufus became serious.

The beastman smiled. “Do you love Donna?”

The unicorn made a loud whiny and stamped the ground.

“Then let me ask you this. Explain to me why she is afraid of you?” Rufus said bluntly. “If you truly love her, then you need to allow her to choose when you are safe to be around. Only then can you hope to earn her trust.”

Brightstar was considering that last part very seriously.

“At the very least, you should aim to be someone she can respect … which goes both ways, honestly.” A gentle breeze rustled through his long golden mane and swishing tail, and delicate sparkling magic fell at the unicorn’s feet. All around, daffodils blossomed.

“Love starts with respecting someone’s boundaries, listening to their desires, and treating them like a person who is worthy of consideration,” Rufus urged. “If you stop and think about what she’s saying, you’ll know what to do.”

Brightstar reared back on his legs, kicking the air.

“I think you can.” Rufus added.

Brightstar swept the area one last time for Donna before carefully nodding to Brownie and Rufus each, then heading off across the fields and into the woods on the fast western side of the meadow.

“You really think he’ll do it?” Brownie asked.

Rufus shook his head. “He might. This is the hardest time, and he needs good role models and some experience. If he can learn to accept no for no, he’ll have no end of prospective partners.”

“Unicorns mate for life,” Brownie pointed out.

Rufus raised an eyebrow. “To other unicorns.” She raised an eyebrow because that was obviously not the case if the prince of unicorns had fallen head over hooves for her horse.

Rufus acquiesced, “or not.” Brownie lay back and considered her mare’s relationship drama.

A few minutes later, Donna popped out of the bushes. She seemed nervous, and did a Perception check before walking over to Brownie. Donna was eyeing every rock and tree as if they were hiding her nemesis .

“He’s gone back home,” Brownie tried to soothe the mare’s unease, quickly packing everything with Rufus’s help. He stuck the leftovers from the picnic into his spatial ring, and then they prepared the wagon for travel in record time.

They were making such good time, in fact, that within another day or so, they would clear the forest. Brownie and Rufus discussed plans for their night’s lodgings, but decided to simply sleep in the wagon. The option of a detour into the dwarven post or the beastfolk village came up, but it would mean hours off route.

So instead, they laid out bedding next to each other in the back of the wagon and looked up at the stars. It was a warmer night. The summer solstice mere weeks away.

Rufus asked, “So … was Brightstar an encounter?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know.” Brownie shuffled uncomfortably and readjusted her pillow. “It’s not like a system quest. More like how your Commander General title gives you recognition among the Dark Enchanted Forest and perks. Except my perk is more bandits.”

“I see.”

Brownie explained, “So everything is a potential encounter, and even if it isn’t, I’ve been trained to approach it like one. My parents said I should always be ready. It’s in the bloodline.”

Rufus suddenly sat up and flung open his sleeping roll, asking “What’s that?!”

Brownie looked up in time to see the shadow of a creature in the night sky blotting out the stars. It circled overhead. “It kind of looks like a tiny griffin?” she offered, eyeing the creature. There’d been a few baby griffins born last month, and one of them could have flown astray.

The creature swooped down. Rufus raised his hands, presumably to enact a barrier, when a familiar voice called out above them.

“Meow.”