He lowers his horn and touches it to the ground. A circle appears on the ground, surrounding Tengaar. It will protect her from monsters until morning. With silent hoof falls, he walks away into the forest..

As the moon rises above the treetops, Sigfried approaches a small lake that lies in the middle of the forest. As he walks, his body fades into a different form, that of a young man. He kneels at the edge of the lake and looks down at his reflection. After a moment he cups his hands, fills them with the cool clean lake water and takes a long drink. When he looks into the water again, it is not his reflection that looks back up at him.

"Ellee.." he whispers the name, barely audible. Her soft green eyes look up at him, somewhat sad. He wishes with all his heart that he could be with her again, closer than just a reflection. A tear falls into the water, the ripples disrupting the image. When the water stills again, it is his reflection again.

He turns away from the lake, at the same time shifting back to the form of a unicorn. It is painful to stay in human shape, but not physically so. He had always been able to maintain that form for so long when she was around, but not now. Not with such curruption tearing the world, the innocence lost by human hatred. Someday, if nothing happens to him during his time in the human land, his own son will travel to this place, and Sigfried fears that there will be no pure maidens left in the world, such is the escallation of human hatred. He finds it difficult to understand what drives such people to do these things, and does not much wish to know.

In the bar of the Kobold Village of Jowston, three humans sit around a table in the corner. Every now and then a kobold will glance over at them, wondering about the human strangers but not caring enough to find out. This bar is not one usually used by those who wish to socialize. It is used by those who wish to get drunk quickly.

The tallest of the humans, a broad shouldered man with short dark brown hair, takes a long drout of his ale before speaking. "The damned thing can't be too hard to find in a place with so few horses," he said, "Even wit the horses around, I'd think someone would notice a big white one with a foot long stick in it's forehead."

The only female of the group, with long blond hair in a pony-tail, replies. "That's only if the 'corn let itself be seen, big brother," she reminds him, "You've heard the stories just as Ah have about how well the blast things hide themselves. If they were so easy ta get ahold of, our ancestors would haf done it ages ago."

The last one has short platinum blond hair and sips his drink more slowly. "A hundred years ago one of our ancestors found it, and ended up dead soon after attacking it. Are you really sure we should be fighting for a man who died nearly a century before we were even born? Just because our ancestors hunted the unicorn doens't mean we have to."

The tall man narrows his eyes. "That thing killed our father, Jon, and our father's father, and back even farther. This won't stop until either it, or all of us, is dead."