somehow made it understand.
That, and the tiny gentling changes she wrought, were all that was needed.
The alicorn stallion made up his mind—now that she had made it up for him. He stepped forward, briskly, the mare right at his heels, and walked calmly right up to the edge of the shelter. He bent his long neck, and accepted the morsel of bread from her hand, his nose soft and velvety against her palm, and only the barest hint of the sharpness of his fangs touching her skin. A moment later, his mate did the same.
They both stood staring at her for a heartbeat or two longer, after the bread was gone. She could still lose them. They wouldn't attack her now, but she could still lose them. When she turned her magic loose, they could flee. Well, for that matter, they could simply walk away and she wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. Her magic just wasn't coercive; either they would serve her, or they would not.
She let go of their minds. She had done all that she could. If they were going to flee, they would do it now.
With a sigh, the stallion folded his long legs and lay down at her feet. The mare did the same, placing her head in Rena's lap. She looked up at Rena with eyes that were more brown now than orange, and she waited for Rena to make good on her promise of scratches.
Rena stretched out her hand and tentatively began to scratch the area at the base of the horn, reckoning that it was one place the alicorn couldn't reach for herself. The alicorn's coat was just as soft as it looked, much silkier than horsehair, though a bit longer as well. After a moment, the stallion stretched his head forward to get his own share of caresses.
When they both tired of having their horns, the area under their chins, and their ears scratched, Rena took leaves and began sculpting them, making them tender and enhancing the sugars in them. The alicorns accepted these new dainties with greed, eating until the area around the shelter had been denuded and their bellies were stuffed full.
Then they both laid their heads in Rena's lap again, and slept, one on either side of her, for all the world like a pair of huge homed pet hounds.
And when Lorryn woke, that was the sight that met his astonished eyes.
* * *
'You're sure they'll bear us?' Lorryn asked, dubiously. It was hard for him to even think of trusting an alicorn; their reputation was such that if he hadn't been too stunned to move, he'd have tried to kill both of these the moment he saw them. Only Rena's assurance that she had 'changed' them made him—warily—trust them. After all, elven lords had tried for centuries to 'change' the alicorns and make them useful, so how could Rena have done what they could not?
Then again, they didn't ask a female to help, did they? Of course not. Their magics are all weak, useless. As useless as keeping me from dying of pneumonia. Rena was a fount and a wellspring of surprises today.
They were certainly acting tame enough at the moment. He'd petted and scratched them at Rena's direction, and they had actually behaved as nicely as any horse he'd ever owned. Their coats were extraordinary; softer and silkier than any horse. And for once in his life, he'd gotten the chance to touch a still-living horn; it had been warm beneath his tentative caress, very much a part of the creature.
Rena shrugged. 'As sure as I can be of anything. I wouldn't ask them to behave like a trained horse, though. They won't take a bit or a bridle, and we'll have to go in the direction they want, but they'll take our weight on their backs easily enough. I tried with my pack, and it didn't bother either of them.' She patted the mare on the shoulder; the beast didn't even move. There was a certainty in her words and her actions that hadn't been there before today.
Lorryn thought that over; Rena had blossomed in the last day into someone he hardly recognized. Not all that long ago he had wished that she would somehow grow some spine and stop being such a burden—well, perhaps this was a manifestation of the old admonition to be careful what one wished for. It had taken this to bring her into her own.
But to trust her to tame an alicorn? Was the risk worth the benefits?
'Well—they're faster than we are, and they won't leave boot-prints,' he said, thinking out loud. 'That alone, I think, is worth the risk—even if we have to go where they want to. And since I've never, ever heard of an alicorn trying to invade settled lands, at least we won't have to worry about them heading for someone else's estate. If you're sure they won't rum on us, that is—'
He couldn't help it; those orange eyes seemed gentle, but could he trust that they would stay that way? That horn was as long as his arm, and sharp as any spear, and he'd heard even the foals knew how to use their horns as weapons almost from birth. Add in the fangs and the foreclaws…
'I'm sure,' she said firmly. 'I tamed a shrike once, and it was more vicious and had less mind than these do. I can do it, Lorryn; it's one thing I am completely sure of.'
She had certainly done wonders with her garden full of birds. 'Good enough.' He walked over to the stallion, the bigger of the two, and cautiously laid a hand on its shoulder. It didn't even look up from the pile of grass that Rena had pulled and changed for it to eat. He hefted his pack in his free hand; would it really bear the weight of him and the pack as well?
'Put your pack on him first,' she said, 'just over the shoulders. Then get on slowly. Just don't make any moves that might startle him.'
That wasn't going to be easy, not without a saddle. Still. He followed her instructions, as she draped her own pack over the mare's shoulders; her pack, like his, was now arranged so that it was a tube with her gear in equal parts at each end and a flat place in the middle. That had been his idea, to make it as much like saddlebags as possible. Staying on bareback would be hard enough; they'd never be able to stay on with packs strapped to their backs.
The stallion looked up, craned his long neck around so that he could peer at the pack, then resumed eating.
Lorryn put both hands on the stallion's warm back, just be hind the pack. This would be something like one of the exercises he'd trained in, just slower. He only hoped his arms were up to it; it was going to be a real strain on his muscles.
He hoisted himself up with his arms alone, moving slowly and leaning his weight onto the alicorn's back, and slid his leg up over the alicorn's rump at the same time. He had a bad moment when the stallion jumped slightly, and fidgeted as it felt his weight. But then the beast settled again, and he got his seat, thankful he'd learned to ride bareback.
Rena was already in place, looking uncommonly cheerful, considering their current condition. She also looked far more alive than he'd ever seen her; there was a faint rosy flush on her cheeks, her green eyes sparkled, and even her hacked-off hair looked better fluffed in untidy curls around her face than it had when it was beaded and braided and beribboned. It was too bad all those so-called friends of his couldn't see her now; they'd never call her 'plain' again. She was definitely in her element. Freedom suited her.
'We'll have to wait until they finish eating,' she told him. 'Then they'll go wherever it was they were heading in the first place when we caught them.' She tilted her head to one side. 'Are you wearing an illusion?' she added, changing the subject so completely, she took him by surprise.
With a start, he realized that he was; it had become second nature. He nodded. 'I can't remember a moment that I've had it off,' he told her. 'Except very rare times when Mother and I were checking to see that it was solid. I even have it up, sleeping.'
'Can I see what you look like without it?'
He considered her request, and shrugged. 'I don't see why not.' It took an effort of will to cancel the illusion on himself, and he saw from her face that she was disappointed in the result
He grinned at her reaction, in part because he had expected it. 'Sorry, little sister. No fangs, no bulging muscles, no horns. The best and easiest illusions are always simply enhancements or slight changes in what was already there, you know.'
She tilted her head to the other side, birdlike, and considered him from all angles before she answered him. 'Your hair is yellower than any boy's I've ever seen, except the humans,' she said at last. 'Your ears are blunter and smaller. And you're just a bit more muscular. But you're still Lorryn. I'd still know you anywhere.'
He bowed, mockingly. 'Exactly so, and precisely the point I suspect Mother may have worked some of those weak little magics on me as a baby to make the illusion easier to carry—lightening my hair, for instance, and seeing
