Is there n-nothing you can do?” Parmida asked, wiping her tears away with the heel of her hand. The unicorn laughed softly. “She asks for a boon after shooting me in the ass.

:Do you trust me?: Wareska quietly linked.:To stay alive? No. You and the monster will get lost in riddles and philosophizing. Then you will make some grand, heroic gesture, poorly thought-out and overestimating your own strength, and when the creature has roasted you alive, I will be the one sweeping up the ashes – figuratively speaking, of course. Lest we forget, I do not have hands.:

:No,: Wareska said at once, :we should go back.: She heard the horse laugh softly into her mind. :Wareska,: he said in amusement, :it is not like you to ever look back.::I look back when sense dictates.::It is hard for horses to look back. We don’t really have shoulders. I guess we look back over our butt?:

Yes. The elven magi are very old, but not old enough to remember that all of this has happened before.” Parmida frowned. “Just how old are you?”“I am older than a thousand of your suns,” the unicorn answered.“. . . and that means?