Far to the south, a young woman lay sleeping within her home amid her younger siblings. Like most all Ancients, Propitious and her family did not live within a structure they had built, but instead, they resided within a living dome of trees which they called a bower.
The floor of their home was covered in a soft carpet of living moss, and though they had no furniture, they had many thick blankets and soft pillows which their loving mother had woven from flax.
In the branches of these trees, there hung a certain kind of fruit, and though they were not edible, they were useful because they gave off a soft glowing green light that illuminated the inside of the bower.
As the rising sun began to cause a faint glow in the east, the father of Propitious awoke her with a gentle stroke of her long reddish-gold hair.
“My daughter,” he whispered tenderly when her eyes sleepily opened to behold him. “A great Gathering of the people has been called, and though the journey is difficult, you must come with me because you are now an adult.”
Less than a year had passed since she had turned one hundred years old, and that was the age when those of the Ancient race were considered fully mature. Though she yet lived with her parents and her numerous brothers and sisters, she was treated as an adult in every way.
Carefully untangling herself from her younger siblings as she moved, Propitious quietly and slowly rose from her resting place. Once she was free from the jumble of sleeping children, she obediently followed her father out of their spacious shelter.
Outside the bower, they were met by her mother. She stood holding a bag she had newly made. She had affixed a strap upon it so that it could be slung over the shoulders and carried with ease for many miles.
The mother of Propitious gazed down at her daughter, quickly gave her the bag, and then hugged her close for many long moments. When at last she had released her, she saw that her mother’s eyes had turned a dark indigo color and great tears streaked her lovely cheeks.
The mother of Propitious then turned to her father and held him with a trembling soul. He tried to comfort his wife, and the two stood in each other’s embrace for uncounted minutes.
As they held one another, Propitious gazed up studying her parents. While her height was barely five feet, they towered over her, for like all Ancients, they grew very slowly and yet never truly stopped. Therefore, because of their greater age, they were each close to ten feet tall and yet perfectly proportioned.
When at last they released each other, Propitious spoke quietly to her parents moving her bright indigo eyes from one face to the other. “Mother? Father? What causes you to be filled with such terrible dread?”
Her mother caressed her small, beautiful face. “My daughter, we have hidden our worries from you so that you could enjoy the peaceful years of your childhood, but now that a Gathering has been called, we are forced to thrust the world’s troubles upon you long before we intended. For this, I am greatly sorrowed.”
Propitious felt a sliver of fear creep into her heart, and though the bluish-purple light in her eyes darkened, she forced a brave look onto her young face.
With a look of pride, her mother threw her arms around her and squeezed her tightly. “My dear daughter, always know that I love you more than my mere words can express.”
Quietly her father took up his large staff, and then tenderly interrupted their embrace. “I am sorry, but we must be away if we are to arrive at the Gathering before nightfall, and you know we must be there before the setting of the sun.” His tone took on a grim note as he issued this last reminder to his wife.
Her mother gave a quick nod, kissed her daughter gently upon her brow, and then quickly disappeared into their home where she silently wept.
Propitious watched their bower for a long moment. The dome of living trees glowed with a green light, and how the young woman desperately wished to go back inside and remain comfortable and ignorant of the world’s troubles!
Finally and reluctantly, her father gently laid his massive hand upon her shoulder.
“Come, my child, we must be off.” With that, he gave a heavy sigh, turned, and began the journey.
Propitious wiped a lone tear from her cheek and then hurried to follow after her father.
As they made their way through the thick forest, they suddenly came upon a white light illuminating the trees. With the sight, the heart of Propitious rose and her eyes shifted to a golden hue.
As if in answer to her unspoken hope, a young Unicorn stepped out from the trees.
“Solicitous!” she cried louder than she had intended.
The Unicorn shook his snow-white mane, moved his ears forward, and held his tail upward – All these are how a Unicorn shows his happiness. He then drew near to the young woman and gently placed his large horse-like muzzle upon her shoulder.
The Unicorn, like all his kin, glowed with a soft white light that came from his shimmering coat. In shape, the creatures were neither deer, horse, or ox, but they seemed to be a mix of the three, for they had cloven hooves and a long tail with a tuft of hair at its end like all oxen. However, their bodies, heads, and faces were in form like horses, yet they were more sleek and slender like deer.
Above their cloven hooves and from the backs of their graceful necks, locks of long curling hair hung in drastic contrast to the short and soft fur that covered the rest of their bodies.
There were two ways that the Unicorns did not resemble either a horse, oxen, or deer. The first was only in the case of the males, for they grew a long tuft of white hair upon their chins like that of a goat. This matched their manes and their feathers (the long hair upon their lower legs just above their hooves).
The second way that the Unicorns were different from both horses and oxen was, of course, the single spiraling horn of silver that adorn their brows.
“I am so glad to lay eyes upon you before my father and I depart!” Propitious whispered into the young Unicorn’s ear.
The creature quickly stepped backward and shook his head with a snort. “Not so!” he said in the tongue of mankind, for Unicorns can speak even as men do. “This is not a goodbye, my dearest friend, for I am to come with you!”
With tears of joy, Propitious smiled and hugged the Unicorn’s neck. “I am so glad of this, for I need the comfort of my closest friend.”
The father of Propitious grinned sadly. “I am also glad to have you with us, Solicitous.”
Thus, with more joy than it began, they started their journey anew.
Now it happened that Propitious had never ventured far from their peaceful bower, so as they went together, she was surprised to find that the ground began to slowly rise before them. Thus, in their journeying, she learned that their quiet wood was nestled within a wide and shallow bowl-like depression. Moreover, the further they came up out of the valley, the fewer trees there were until finally they stood at last upon the brink of their forest looking out to where no trees grew at all.
Seeing his daughter’s bewilderment, her father paused and gestured to the empty landscape before them. “Alas! This is one of the troubles we have kept from you and your younger siblings: The land of Serenity is slowly dying.” His eyes darkened further as a sad look came upon his bearded face.
“What has caused this?!?” She asked with a breathless whisper of disbelief.
Her father turned and brushed a reddish-gold lock of her hair from her troubled brow. “I know you remember the story we told you – how your grand-parents ate from the Tree of Deepshadows?”
Propitious nodded with a frown.
“An even greater evil has given strength to the black tree, and so its roots have spread out far and wide. With this newfound power, the tree has been able to hoard even more water to itself by freezing the narrow sea. Thus, very little rain now falls in the Brumous Mountains. Instead, it falls as snow.”
“Snow?!?” the young woman echoed with curiosity.
“Yes. It is a kind of rain that was frozen into tiny crystals before it could fall to the ground. Because it is frozen, the snow clings to the peaks of the mountains instead of flowing down to feed the Seven Rivers, and so all of Serenity has only the Twelve Springs to water it, but these are not enough to quench the whole land.”
Propitious looked all around and so found that their shallow valley was like a lonely green island amid the parched landscape.
Solicitous snorted and then commented upon the scene. “I do not like the emptiness of this place.”
Unicorns were created to be the lords of the forests, and so their natural inclination is to keep to the trees.
The father of Propitious shook his head sadly. “Nor do I.” Then after a moment more, he sighed heavily. “Well, like it or not, we must traverse these lands and quickly, so let us make haste and be on our way.”
With that, they went on. All day long they walked at a brisk pace, and as the sun rose in the sky, the day grew hot and uncomfortable.
The three travelers crossed several dry riverbeds, they clambered over more than a few bare ridges, and they waded over many great dunes of reddish-colored dust.
As the sun drew closer to the western horizon, they came over a rise in the land and so found themselves standing on the brink of a shallow valley much like their own, save that its forest was populated with the charred skeletal remains of once beautiful trees. The ground around their dead roots was also scorched by fire so that only gray ash was left behind.
“What could do this?!?” Propitious cried with stunned despair.
“This is another trouble we have hidden from you, but I have not the time now to tell you more, for we must not linger,” her father explained. “The day grows late, and we must be within the Sacred Glade before sunset.”
So, with unanswered questions swirling in her mind, they rushed forward.
Only a few hours later, the father of Propitious paused for a moment. “Behold, the Sacred Mountain.”
Less than a few miles away, a lone mountain rose up from the dunes of red dust. The mountain was clothed in a thick forest that reached to its very summit, and because the day was well spent, they could see a green glow within the trees. The light was made by a great many Luminous fruit – this was the same fruit that lit the home of Propitious.
Only seconds after her father had pointed out the Sacred Mountain, the sun disappeared, and as soon as it had vanished beyond the western horizon, a deep rumbling sound was heard not far to the north.
“Run!” her father yelled with such suddenness that both Propitious and Solicitous gave a start, but before they could ask what caused him to react in this way, he shouted again. “Go now! Do not look back! Fly!”
