The story basically begins here if you want to see how it started.
After a few more gos, they were both exhausted, and Beater fell into a deep sleep on the bed of tiny white mushrooms. Tibault was refreshed after five minutes, as is the way with unicorns, so he set out to explore Mushroomia a bit while Beater slept. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten into Mushroomia, and this worried him. If he didn’t know the way in, he didn’t know the way out, and he certainly didn’t intend to spend his eons in the land of the dead when there was still so much universe left to explore.
So while he wandered about, he was also keeping an eye out for possible exits and thinking about how he’d gotten here. He was on planet Armband and he’d been at the hospital in Freighterville, healing folks. He had just spotted the lovely Beater being rushed in on a gurney. She’d been in an accident and her left leg was noticeably absent. She was flatlining and Tibault couldn’t reach her through the crowd of EMTs, nurses, and doctors. If he had, boy would that have been a healing to remember! It was so fun watching limbs regrow, and a sight most creatures talked about for generations, the story of witnessing a unicorn healing one that the great-great-great-grandchildren still told their children.
Tibault had stamped a hoof in frustration at this wasted chance to show off, but then he noticed something happening with Beater. Her Essence was leaving her body and forming her grey dead body, but whole and unbroken. She sat up and hopped off the gurney, took one glance at her formerly living body, and walked through the crowd. Tibault fell in beside her as she passed him and she glanced at him in surprise.
“You can see me?” she said, as she continued walking.
“Yes, I can. One of the many magical aspects of being a unicorn is the ability to see dead beings. But never before have I seen a lovelier dead being than yourself. Permit me to accompany you, wherever you’re headed?”
She smiled at him. “Permission granted. I’d heard there was a unicorn on Armband, but I didn’t realize you were in Freighterville.”
“I just flew over today. I’d become a bit bored with Mayfly and wanted to make myself useful somewhere. Shame I couldn’t reach you in time.”
“Reach me?”
“To heal you. That’s what I was doing at the hospital, though a bit too secretively, I suppose. I’ve found that once my healing powers are known to their full extent, there’s a mad rush to use me and I have to make a hasty exit before I’m quite depleted. But I would have healed you in an instant had I been close enough to touch you with my horn, like this.” Tibault rubbed his horn against her arm lightly and was gratified to see her give a little shiver, he assumed of pleasure.
“Oh, well,” she said. “I’ve never been one to mourn what may have been. At least we could still meet now, like this. I’m Beater, by the way.”
Tibault paused just a moment to take a slight bow to Beater. “A noble name and profession and I am honored to make your acquaintance. I am Tibault.”
Beater paused as well and reached out her hand toward his horn. She stopped just shy of touching it. “May I?”
“It would give me the greatest pleasure. Please.”
She touched her cool fingertips to his pearly, swirly horn, and rubbed them gently down it. It did indeed give him the greatest pleasure. A unicorn’s horn is its most sensitive body part.
“You’re so lovely,” Beater said, then continued walking almost as if pulled toward somewhere.
Tibault continued beside her.
At this point in his reminiscence, Tibault realized that he had stopped being aware of exactly where they were walking almost as soon as he had started walking beside Beater. They must have entered a spiritual plane right away. When he tried to remember what the surroundings looked like, all he could picture was a fine grey mist. Yet at some point they had arrived at Mushroomia. If only he could remember how. Perhaps there was something blocking his memory of it, since he was a living being and technically shouldn’t even be here.
In his wanderings, he’d entered a small grove of wildflowers with several little dead fawns nibbling at them, and it seemed like a pleasant place to rest for a few moments. Tibault knew there must be a way out of Mushroomia, because he’d heard tales of Mushroomia all his life. It was only one of the many lands of the dead in the universe, but it wasn’t strictly for beings who died on Armband. It was the land of the dead for beings of particular beauty. It would be where unicorns went if they didn’t have the power of reincarnation.
There was a famous story, a Moral tale, of a burner who tricked her way into Mushroomia before her time. She was lost for so long that she began to eat the mushrooms, not realizing that eating the mushrooms could turn one from living to dead. The grey had started at her face, so she didn’t realize until it was creeping down her arms and chest, and she only narrowly escaped with her life. She was forever marked, though. How did the story describe her escape? Since it was a Moral tale, it was a Moral who had rescued her, of course. But as far as Tibault could remember, it was light on details about how they’d gotten in or out.
Ah, well. It was probably about time to get back to Beater. Since unicorns can go years without eating, Tibault wasn’t too worried about turning in a dead unicorn, and he intended to make the most of his time with Beater.
Astrid stared into the purple sea sponge. She was testing her telepathic abilities and was determined to prove her science teacher wrong about the intelligence of sea sponges. If her teacher could be convinced that they were thinking, feeling creatures, then maybe she could convince her pod to join her in thwarting the humans’ sponge gathering dives. But so far it seemed like this particular sponge was asleep.