Everyone as their young days; I have mine.
I was once with my own family as we all were at one point in time. When I was brought to the world, we lived in a mirror image of Earth; forests where cement jungles reigned on her sister planet. I used to play around in a meadow that had a single silver tree with my brothers, sisters and friends. The tree was known as the Life Giver -- where the source of my magic and protection for my home was. Every ten years, we frolicked and danced. We gave a bit of our magic up to the tree, keeping her alive. But she always gave it back to us after the two weeks of celebration.
I was one of the few that were for reading, watching, observing. I was being pampered for the job of being the next Chronicle Keeper. As a Keeper, after the age of twenty five, I had to come through one of the few portals that kept the sister worlds linked, and bring back knowledge from Earth.
Standing in front of the wing-shaped gates was breath-taking. A dragon was stationed on one side, a unicorn on the other. At the young age I was, I was still a foolish mare, and pridefully, I went through, head held high and my horn gleaming in the light that was stored inside of me like a precious gem. On this side of the portal, only a small bit of the forest that it dumped me into was out of place -- my ticket home if ever something were to go wrong early, or when my task was accomplished.
With the living vegetation around me whispering its secrets to me, I found my bearings and begun my travels.
The village that had settled in the large glade before the forest I wandered made me curious. This was years after, and only now I was just returning after taking a few years of roaming the country side. England, the trees once whispered to me. By this time, I had started figuring out a spell that allowed me to take the form of those whom walked on their hind legs only. Humans, I found that they were called. Upon returning to the forest that held the portal, it had been burrowed into a little, cottages and housing everywhere. Back when I first came, only a tent or two was here.
I walked among them now and then for a few years. The title I weaved for myself at the time was a Hermit, someone who lived in the 'Dark Forest', as they called it. Few were brave enough to go in, and rumors held that there was a magnificent beast with a horn that weaved through the trees at night -- liquid moonlight, streaking through the forest. Ah, they were right of course... but I was not a he.
There was a day when I heard whispers of a child getting lost in the forest, unable to find her way home. That reminded me of my homesickness, something that plagues me still, after all this time! The next night, shedding the glamour that let me be in my true self, I raced through the trees, having before felt the sudden enthrallment of something that the elders had not told me of. I was in for the thing that changed my life utterly.
The unicorn that I was, still young and yet not wise enough to avoid it, I had found myself in a small meadow, the child that was missing underneath a giant apple tree. She was curled up in the roots, a worn coat over the pink dress with the black bow. Still too young, about seven or eight -- before puberty. Her hair was mssed up, but there was a small bronze ringlet on the top of her head. A noble, my mind murmured to me. At the time, I was almost a total of nine hands high to the wither. Still a foal, many called me back at home. My horn was twice the length of my slender muzzle, making it a burden to weild some days. But, over time, it became light as a feather.
The child had stopped crying the moment I entered the meadow. Something about her, about all little innocents like her, drew me in close. Innocence, purity. That's what I later found out from texts that the humans kept -- I wasn't the only Unicorn on Earth. Laying at her side, she had allowed my head to rest in her lap a while and rest. The soothing strokes over my mane and neck had lulled me into a sleep.
For a long time, we were just like this.
A longer time after, she had come visit me often whenever night fell. She had become my first friend in this lonely world.
One night, just napping with the elderly woman that had forsaken all men in order to preserve her purity, leaving the continuation of her family line to her brothers, there was fierce barking, and shouts of man. By this time, I was fully grown and I had entered the height of my power, which I'll stay in until I decide to fade.
The noblewoman's nieces and nephews had come visited her, and thus, me. I had played with them, spoken to them through the mind, as all life was capable of doing at such young ages. This fateful night, it was just me and the old woman, my oldest friend.
"The unicorn! Get away from that foul beast, old one." Foul? I had gotten to my hooves and hidden amongst the bushes and trees.
One of the huntsmen aimed their crossbow at me. Shaky; I could have taken him on if I were the sort who had the stomach to make violence. Hovering nervously, my cloven hooves would stamp against the ground before I heard the loud 'twang.'
When my eyes have opened again, I felt sections of my winter-thick fur become warm and wet. My old friend had gotten in front of me, and now she was giving me her last smile... her last breath. Her last words, I still remember so well, though my flee from the area was vague:
Find your happiness, your home is waiting. I remember running until I could barely breathe. I soon found myself at that one bit of forest that didn't seem right.
As I tried to step through, the blood along my chest, snout and neck glowed and held me back, like invisible chains. The portal was closing! No! I dug my hooves into the dirt, head bowing and craning as far as can be, trying to get through. But it had shut before I was able to touch it. I would have keened and wallowed right there. But I heard the barking coming closer. Innocent blood decorated my moonlight kissed body for a long time after this night. It is foggy to me now, those years I mourned.
When I finally came back from it, the world had changed.
Finally getting over my friend's death of so long ago... I embraced the growing world, in hopes to find my place and go back home.