'I thought he'd be here by now,' she said, in tones of faint puzzlement. 'I know I'm, well, hardly a unicorn's usual traveling companion, shall we say, but he did say it would be all right.'
Kellen looked around, as puzzled as she was, and finally caught a glimpse of white through the trees behind them. He knew that furtive shape; knew it well, but why was it lagging so far behind?
'He's following us,' Kellen announced in mingled tones of amusement and disgust. He handed Idalia the mule's lead-rope and walked back the way they'd come.
Shalkan stepped daintily out onto the trail and regarded Kellen with narrowed eyes. The unicorn's long equine face was not particularly well designed to convey emotion, but Kellen had never had any particular trouble sensing Shalkan's moods, nor did he now.
Shalkan was irritated.
But at what? What had Kellen done to deserve that look?
Finally the unicorn snorted. 'No hat,' Shalkan said flatly, staring at Kellen's head in disgust.
Kellen reached up, slowly, and touched the brim. He'd forgotten he was wearing it, actually, but Shalkan seemed to have taken a complete and irrational dislike to it. To a hat'1.
'It keeps the rain off,' Kellen said.
Shalkan put his ears back and switched his long tufted tail. 'It isn't raining. And it is an abomination,' the unicorn said crossly. 'Either get rid of it—or walk.'
Kellen looked helplessly back at Idalia. She shrugged, and held out her hand for the hat; he could tell she was having a hard time keeping her face composed. Grumbling under his breath, Kellen unknotted the chinstring and walked back to pass the hat to Idalia, who tied it on the back of her saddle, her face carefully expressionless.
What does he think he is, a fashion critic?
Hatless, Kellen went back down the trail to 'acquire his mount.'
He was still without proper saddle or tack for the unicorn, and so was riding Shalkan bareback, but so long as they didn't have to run for their lives, he ought to be able to manage not to fall off. The unicorn's fur was still as slick and slippery as ever, but he did his best to balance carefully and not give Shalkan any further cause for complaint. After a moment though, he thought he could guess the real source of the unicorn's bad temper. Shalkan was twitching under him as if he were being defiled by sting-flies. The hat had nothing to do with it.
Shalkan might have agreed to travel with Idalia. He might agree there was a very good reason to do so. But the unicorn was a creature of magic, bound by magic's laws. Just because something was necessary didn't mean you had to like it.
He began to have a bit more sympathy for his friend. Apparently the hat was only an excuse for an exercise of irritation, and a way to vent some of it.
Poor Shalkan; Kellen wondered what it felt like. Was it like a rash you couldn't scratch? Or a headache? Or that twitchy feeling he got in his legs when he'd been awake too long and couldn't lie down yet? Or all of them?
'You ride on ahead,' Kellen called. Idalia looked back, nodded with understanding, and nudged Coalwind with her heels, increasing the distance between them.
Shalkan sighed, stretching his neck out very long and shaking his head. He also stopped twitching. Idalia was still in sight, and if anything attacked either of them, the other could get there quickly enough, but this arrangement was going to make it rather difficult to have a conversation, other than with Shalkan.
'It really is a very stupid hat,' the unicorn said, in as much of an apology as Kellen was going to get.
'Idalia thinks that if we look like Mountain Traders, we'll blend in better,' Kellen offered meekly. Although how Kellen was going to blend in at all while riding a unicorn was another question altogether.
Shalkan sighed again. 'A good plan, as far as it goes. And the sooner we are over the border—where there is no need to blend in at all—the better for all of us.'
Kellen made no comment. The unicorn followed after Idalia at a sedate walk.
'I'll—see if I can get used to her,' Shalkan said after a moment. 'This isn't safe.'
'No, it isn't,' Kellen agreed, and left it at that. But he did take one last look over his shoulder as they crested the tallest hill they'd passed so far. Their little cabin wasn't visible, but in the farthest distance, dim and as tiny as a child's toy, he could see the carved walls of Merryvale. No hnger Merry, he thought with a sigh. He wondered if he'd ever see the place or any of the people in it again.
