Written by Neil Fraser
A unicorn will offer the following choices to his Beloved:
- We may continue our relationship like this, but in time I will fade away.
- We may continue our relationship like this for a time, then we will share a dream and then we must part.
- You may come away with me forever, and we will be unicorns with one another for all eternity.
- We may continue our relationship like this forever, but we may never love another.
- You may reject me.
Interpretations of the First to Fifth Choices
First Choice
Continue the relationship for a number of weeks equal to the unicorn’s POW + INT, plus the Beloved’s POW + APP, and then the unicorn vanishes, to become “one with the world”.
A common Choice.
Second Choice
A time equal to that calculated above, less half his INT and half her APP, and then a sweet and poignant dream is shared. Increase the Beloved’s POW and “species maximum” POW by 1d3. Love seems to be made and a mystical “seed” is shed (?) by the Beloved to join with the Unicorn’s “seed” to become a unicorn foal. The unicorn raises and teaches the foal, and eventually dies.
Also a common Choice. The initial choice of Tintagel and Voklaynn.
Third Choice
As noted, but not precisely as it seems. The two souls actually merge into the one unicorn body.
The choice of Taliesin and Bouvaughn (a Fae).
Fourth Choice
As noted. But no love is not at all hard for a unicorn, as they are only able to commit to love one person in their life. But the lover will be unable to love anyone else. Even friendships will perforce be shallow and grey – dull imitations of the blazing love between the Beloved and “her” unicorn.
The choice of Nismayne and Marim.
Fifth Choice
And he will go off and die, straight away, and letting the lover know what he is doing. He is not actually vindictive, just utterly desolate and unable to think / function with any real acuity.
Not a common choice, but it is the one Rhinnatania made with Cham’rhann.
A Partial Explanation
There are Choices on both Sides. The potential Beloved is able to take the “yes” or “no” choices the unicorn offers. If she chooses “yes”, then she must further choose. This is her Choice.
For his part, the unicorn seeks a “completion” of himself. Unicorns are never born with a “complete” Soul / Spirit. What they search for is the one who can most wholly complete the “Part-soul” they possess. Some can never find her. Others choose one who is perhaps less ideal than they might be. If they had waited and not “laid claim”, perhaps they might have found an even better match.
As unicorns are virgins until they Choose, and sometimes still well after or forever, so must their choice be virginal. How many potential Beloveds have never been found because they have lost their virginity before the unicorn found them?
Who / what the Guard chooses is like a jigsaw puzzle piece to the “partial edges” of his Spirit. The soul of the Chosen / Beloved will fit the unicorn’s incomplete soul – but how well it fits will depend on the perceived haste/urgency the unicorn feels “to be complete”. The more searching he does, the generally better chance he has to find a more exact match in his Beloved. Some are very lucky, and find their Beloved very soon; others search for centuries.
Tintagel and Voklaynn added the Sixth Choice:
We will continue our relationship like this for a time, and then we will share a dream. But I shall return our child to you for your raising.
There are no others who have taken the Second Choice and yet remain together.
Then they added a Seventh Choice:
We shall remain together forever, and raise our child as ours.
And are now talking about an Eighth!
We will together make another child!