Modern Magick

The Heart of Hyndorin: 20

Some unknowable time later, I was dozing by the lily-pool when an unusual scent caught my nostrils.

I lifted my head, so fast as to crack my crown against the low-hanging branches above me. I snorted in annoyance.

Addie pretended she hadn't noticed, but I could tell by her studiedly serene posture that she had. And she was laughing at me.

'Addie!' I hissed. 'Do you smell that?'

She lifted her nose, and inhaled.

Then she bolted up right, and shot away from the pool at a full gallop.

I followed at a (slightly) more sedate pace, laughing.

I caught up with her at the mouth of our perfect little glade. She had her rump turned to me, her tail swishing, nose-down in a bag of chips. I poked my nose over her shoulder to have a look. They were the fat-cut kind, her favourite. Crispy on the outside, pillowy in the middle, and translucent with grease.

The bag was held by Jay.

'Okay, this one's Adeline,' he called, and I saw somebody else behind him. Somebody tall, and broad-shouldered, with green-tinted skin, emerald-bright eyes, and bronzed, artfully-windswept hair.

My nose informed me that he, too, had brought an offering.

I swarmed past Addie and almost knocked the Baron over in my enthusiasm. Whether it was his presence that awoke such feelings, or the enormous plate he carried in his hands, I couldn't have said. I mean, that sounds bad, but he'd brought pancakes. Not just any pancakes, either, but troll-sized pancakes; the kind we'd eaten that day at breakfast, when he had taken me out on what turned out to not be a date.

Well, at least the pancakes had been good. Seriously good. And these were the same: dripping in syrup, laden with ice cream, and tooth-achingly sweet.

I was halfway down the plate before it occurred to me to wonder what they were doing in our Glade, or how they had found it.

'So we've found Ves,' said Jay, laughing.

Alban winced, and steadied himself, almost bowled over by my attack on the pancake plate.

That was new. I, scrawny Ves, was big and muscly enough to knock over a troll.

'Ves?' said Alban. 'That is you, isn't it?'

I lifted my head, chewing an enormous mouthful of crisp pancake batter and mixed-fruit ice cream. 'Obviously?' I said, spraying syrup.

The word emerged as a whinny.

'Damnit,' I sighed. Another whinny.

'It has to be Ves,' said Jay. 'You sent her off with Addie, and Addie's here. How likely is it that there are two pancake-obsessed unicorns living on the Society's doorstep?'

'Obsessed?' I objected. 'I'm not obsessed. I can stop anytime I want.' I punctuated this statement with an emphatic gulp of sweet, delicious food, and then took a determined step back, shaking my head.

This was real heroism, I thought, mournfully eyeing the plate. Forget precision-strike raids on ancient magickal towers, and wresting vital magickal history out of the proverbial grave. Refraining from eating the last mouthfuls of pancakes and ice cream? That was the stuff of legend.

'Fine, I take it back,' said Jay, grinning. 'You aren't in the least bit obsessed with pancakes.'

I nodded my satisfaction, made a lunge for the plate, and swallowed the last morsels in two bites.