 Each day since his arrival here had been a new discovery, each hour an awakening. The first blushing dawn over the ocean, the meeting with Camdis Lohir in the meadow where he learned that there was a magic here, the others he had met on his increasingly less nervous peregrinations - it was all a waking dream to him. But this - this was what he had been waiting for. This was what Charlemagne viewed as truly the beginning. In his mind, in Errol’s stories, Delumine’s greatest treasure had been its libraries. The young unicorn had imagined sprawling, cavernous rooms lined with books and lit with candles, the kind of place you could get lost in but not really mind. The library of his parents’ small hold was nothing in comparison to the palatial place he dreamt of, and he itched to see if his visions had been true. He was on his way to finally see when he felt a tug, a pull. At first he thought it was the Relic that Camdis had spoken of, but there was something in his ear, too - like a voice from a distant room. The unicorn followed the feeling, anxiety making him nearly tiptoe, the scythe of his golden horn making reflections dance on the walls. Out into a courtyard he walked, hoof steps ringing out then falling quiet on the grass, and when he saw the gathering before him he paused for a long moment. Charlemagne had only seen his own people’s king once. Because they were a warring people, he had been the biggest brute of all - though no fool, to have made it where he was. In the chestnut unicorn’s memory he was a hulking unicorn, rippled with scars, notches in his ears and horn, made bigger still by the bear-pelt he wore. This king was nothing like that. And Charlemagne was glad, and curious, and wary. His green-eyed gaze slipped to the mother, next, and sadness rang his heart and kept his gaze from lingering. It fell to Martin next, and he stepped forward to stand beside the striking stallion just as he spoke. His words made the dark unicorn freeze with a hoof still lifted. Warrior? Well of course he was, how could he be anything else? Charlemagne had been a fool, subconsciously dismissing his own understanding. But - perhaps warriors were different, here, than they’d been at home. Kings certainly were, and they hadn’t had sages at all. Fighting his sudden nervousness, Charlemagne joined the gathering, following the others’ lead and dipping his golden-horned head low. “My name is Charlemagne,” he said when he’d lifted it again, gaze touching on the sovereign’s for the barest of moments. “I grew up hearing stories of the greatness of the Delumine sages, and I have come to learn from them, may it please you.” |
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