Temüjin kept up a running stream of commentary on the flora and fauna as we travelled. His chatter was annoying, but I knew he was doing it to keep me from diving too deep into my own head. He wanted to give me something to focus on in the present, rather than reliving the massacre I had just perpetrated. It wasn’t working.

“You’ve killed before, right?” I asked.

Temüjin sighed, “By my own hand I have killed thousands. By my word I have killed hundreds of thousands. By my actions I have killed millions.”

“Is there a trick to…” I started to say.

“No,” he said, cutting me off, “there’s no trick. We live with our actions.”

“Then how do you sleep at night? How can I sleep tonight? There may have been baby goblins in there. I didn’t even look before I threw the grenade,” I said.

Temüjin was silent for a few moments before he answered, “I sleep poorly. You, though, will sleep soundly. Do you feel bad for killing the first patrol?”

It was my turn to be silent and introspective. Did I feel bad for killing the first five? How did I feel when they rushed me, screaming for my blood?

“I…not really. They wanted me dead. It was me or them. So no, I don’t feel bad for defending myself,” I said.

“Then you will sleep soundly,” came his answer.

“But what about the rest of them? Those do bother me,” I said.

“And what would have happened if you weren’t hiding on a rock? What would they have done if you had walked in and offered peace, like you did with the first group you encountered?” He asked.

“You were watching me the entire time?” I asked, as his words penetrated through the haze of regret in my mind.

“Of course I was watching! You’re an unbloodied youth in a hostile environment. It’s my duty to train you and keep you safe. Now answer my question, Student,” he said.

“They would have swarmed me, and I’d be in a cookpot as Karlus stew right about now,” I said.

“The first part is correct; they would have swarmed you. They would never have accepted a hand outstretched in friendship. This is why you will sleep soundly,” he said.

He continued, “I will not sleep soundly, and have not for years. It is not because of those killed by my hand that I do not sleep well. It is because of those killed by my words and actions, in both lives.”

My questions and his answers quashed any desire for further conversation, so we both fell silent and continued our unhurried trek to wherever he was taking me. Temüjin almost always gave me straight answers. Today, though, he was talking in circles. It was something he did every time I brought up his past. If the numbers he stated were accurate I was walking next to a mass murderer on par with Pol Pot or Stalin. If the way he avoided his past was any indication he had some regrets over it as well. Major regrets, if the past 600 years of self-enforced solitude was any indication. It was a mystery that I wasn’t going to solve today, though.

We camped on the edge of the plains that evening. The western edge of the valley, according to Temüjin, contained a fairly large grassland around 30 miles in diameter. We were approaching the southern edge of it and were about to loop back toward Gladewood when Temüjin had called a halt to camp. There were still a few hours of daylight left, but I wasn’t going to complain after the morning I’d had.

I breathed in the fresh air. Today I was going to enjoy being alive. I had the drake on my shoulder, basking in the sun. It had filled out a bit over the past few days, gorging on the Breeze Stag that Temüjin had taken down, and wasn’t quite as skeletal as when I first bonded with it. Focusing on that bond, I could feel the emotions it was radiating. Most prevalent among them was satisfaction, mixed with a smidge of hunger, a dash of peace, and a smidge of fear toward Temüjin, although nowhere near as much as it had exhibited that first day. Apparently bribes of meat were a sure-fire way to get into its good graces.

“Lenny,” I said to the hatchling, “what about that as a name? Lenny the Drake?”

A feeling of flat disapproval came through our bond.

“Ok, not Lenny. Are you a girl? You could be named Darla the Drake instead?” I posited.

Another wave of disapproval from the drake followed. It had been a game for us over the past few days. I’d suggest a name, the drake would shut it down. We’d run through the gamut of fantasy dragon names. Smaug, Puff, and Norbert were met with vehement dislike. Errol, Draco, Falkor, Fin Fang Foom, and Lockheed were rejected immediately. Trogdor, Tiamat, and Mushu were at least considered before being deemed unworthy. Now I was just throwing normal names at the little thing in hopes it would pick one. So far I’d had no success. I wasn’t able to get more than feelings from our bond, but the feelings of disgust that some names elicited was enough to make it clear the drake understood what I was doing. It was amusing and frustrating at the same time, but I was having fun trying to find the right name for my familiar.

“Student leave your drake with me, and walk in that direction,” Temüjin said, pointing further into the plains.

“Another nest of goblins?” I asked him.

“No,” he replied, smiling, “I promised to show you what you fought for. It’s a few miles in that direction. Leave your weapons here, you’ll have no need of them.”

I still trusted the man, even after the goblins, so I leaned both my spear and saber against his pack and asked, “Are you coming?”

“I cannot approach any more closely,” he said sadly before handing me a small box, “but see if you can collect a few hairs, if they will let you. Now go, daylight is wasting!”

I left, amused at his secrecy. When I was a hundred feet or so from camp I turned back to look at him, and he promptly made a “shooing” motion with his hands. Shrugging to myself, I walked off in the direction he indicated.

The grass came up to mid-shin and swished as I walked through it. I don’t have synesthesia but the only word I could use to describe the smell would be green. It’s a smell that anybody who was raised on a farm would instantly recognize as the smell of growing things. Smells can trigger memories, and this smell was enough to transport my mind back to the farm. I had a friend back on Earth that grew up around semi-trucks, and while I always hated the smell of diesel exhaust he claimed it reminded him of his childhood. The smell of green things does the same thing to me. As I slowly jogged toward whatever it was that Temüjin was so intent on me seeing I reflected on my situation and came to peace with it. All my life I’d held my Grandparents up as an example of what to do and how to be. Granny was a tiny woman, but I knew for a fact that she could and would shoot a pest trying to get into her hen house or stand up to somebody that was doing wrong. My Grandfather had always told me to defend myself against bullies and never let anybody take what was mine. Neither of them would have blamed me for a second for what I did to the goblins.

I was so wrapped up inside my own thoughts that I didn’t even notice them when I first crested the hill. Unicorns, forty or fifty of them, were standing right in front of me. They were larger than I had imagined, standing at least ten feet high at the withers, and more heavily muscled than any equine I had ever seen. Their horns were slender crystalline spikes, around three feet long, with a spiral that reminded me of a narwhal tusk. By contrast, their coat was a white that shined so brightly it appeared to be illuminated. They were gorgeous.

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“Holy crap,” I breathed out as I approached slowly.

We had primarily used mechanical means of transportation on the farm, like tractors, ATV’s, and pickups. My Uncle had always enjoyed riding, though, and had kept a few horses around. A few times a year someone would get a wild hair to be a real cowboy for a day and we’d saddle them up and take a few days off to go riding and camping. So, when the closest unicorn gave a quiet snort in my direction and tossed its head as I moved closer I felt pretty sure it was giving me the equine equivalent of the “I see you, I don’t trust you, and I will kick you” speech. Considering that discretion is the better part of valor, I contented myself with sitting in the grass and leaning back against my pack.

I couldn’t help but smile as I sat there, as still as a statue, and watched the herd graze. The unicorns quickly settled down and began to graze in the meadow while keeping a gimlet eye on me. One approached to within ten feet of me only for the first, and largest, unicorn to give the same head toss and snort. The offending unicorn immediately stepped back to maintain its distance.

I chuckled, “You’re pretty protective, huh? Bet you’re the big boss of the herd.”

I received a stare in return that practically screamed “Yes, I am the boss and you’re intruding. So be nice or go away” to me.

“Relax,” I said, “I’ll play by your rules. I’m not here to hurt anything.”

The ensuing snort I chose to interpret as a “yeah, right.”

“It’s true,” I said, “You may not believe this, but getting to see you all was one of my conditions for picking this world in the first place.”

After I said that, the lead unicorn actually stopped grazing and looked intently at me. After a beat the herd leader, whom I mentally dubbed Winston, resumed his grazing. But I had a hunch that he was feigning disinterest in me, and Temüjin had told me to follow those hunches. I brought my pack around to my front and started to dig in it for a snack.

“Know what I think?” I asked the herd leader, “I think you’re smarter than you let on. I don’t think you're beasts at all. I think you’re sapient.”

I kept talking, “See, I’m what’s called a Jumpspark. I died on my first world, and I was given a Choice. I could choose a boon and a blessing from my patrons. I chose the boon of magic and the blessing of animals. Now, the reason I think your kind is sapient is because the blessing of animals is supposed to make animals like me, or at least not see me as a threat or prey. But you were instantly suspicious of me. No animal I’ve run into on this planet has acted like you have. And that, Winston my boy, makes me suspicious.”

When I looked up from my backpack with a travel biscuit in hand I was faced with a solid wall of unicorns looking at me. Listening to my hunch paid off.

Winston ducked his head a few times and pawed at the ground as if to tell me to “get on with it”.

So, I did.

“For starters,” I said, “my first world was named Earth. I don’t know what this one is named. I honestly should have asked Temüjin ages ago. He’d know. Anyway, I was orphaned on Earth when I was young. My grandparents raised me on their farm.”

And I kept talking. I told them all about growing up and swimming in the creek and hay season in the summer. The smell of biscuits in the morning and wildflowers in the evening. Through tears, I talked about going to college and my grandfather dying without me there. I told them about graduating and moving away from the farm, only to be drawn back to it almost every weekend because I loved the wide-open spaces and the freedom. I told them how and why I died, how much it hurt to receive the blessing from Tabiea, and my criteria for my new home.

Soon, I got to the point of my arrival, “So there I was, no shit, just plopped down on a dirt road with nothing but a note that had a vague message about going to the mountains. Not ten minutes later I’m running as fast as I can toward the mountains, convinced that a few goblins are going to chase me down and eat me. Then I made it to Gladewood, which is the town at the other end of the valley and met Temüjin.

“He’s the teacher I requested from Eolia. To hear him tell it he’s all but bathed in the blood of the innocent. I think, though, that deep down he’s a good guy that’s just made some bad decisions out of inertia. He’s done alright by me, though, from what I can tell. He did make me clear out a goblin camp a few hours walk to the east, but I get the reasoning behind that. Nasty little boogers. I did find my familiar on the way to the goblins though. It’s a Snowsquall drake hatchling that has refused every name I’ve tried to give it so far.”

I continued on with my story, and slowly the attentive audience of unicorns surrounding me continued to creep forward while listening, “So Temüjin’s been training me to fight, which is apparently something I need to know in this world, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do once I’m done here. I’ve really only seen the valley; and it’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not convinced that I want to stay here for the next few hundred years. I could farm or build things, but that’s falling into the same trap that Temüjin did. Life needs a purpose, ya know? I just haven’t figured out mine yet.”

I looked down at the untouched travel biscuit and then back up at the unicorns, now within easy reach, “I think I could explore for a hundred years or so. I could map out jungle rivers and have a neat pith helmet. I’d like for my adventures to be more Kipling than Conrad, though. What do you think, Winston?”

Confusion is a hard expression to read on an equine face, but I got the gist of it well enough.

“Just old stories from back home,” I explained. “One is about a child raised by animals, the other is about how easily men can become animals. At least I think it is, if I understood my English lit professor in college.”

“That’s depressing stuff though. What about some nice scritches? Assuming you’re ok with it, of course.” I said as I reached out with my hand toward Winston. I stopped shy of touching him, letting him make the decision. He snuffled my palm a few times before swinging his head to the side and pushing it into my hand.

That seemed to break the floodgate, and the next hour was one of the most magical of my life. The unicorns enjoyed getting their ears scratched like a dog or a cat, but the real breakthrough of the afternoon was the curry comb I improvised via earth manipulation. The unicorns still had a winter coat and the short rocky teeth on the comb made short work of it.

The only hiccup was when a golden foal, the only one in the herd, pushed forward to get its turn with the comb. I had just finished combing down an adult when the foal pushed against my side. I hadn’t seen it previously, and I guessed, based on how Winston and the other adults tensed up, that they had been keeping it out of my view. The foal was a third of the size of the adults and covered in soft golden hair. Its horn was cream colored, unlike the adults, but retained the same twist.

“You are adorable!” I exclaimed in a very manly voice, and I got down on my knees to more easily brush it down.

My reaction seemed to relax the adults a bit, because I spent the next hour brushing out the foal and watching her prance around in the wildflowers.

***

Temüjin and the drake were busy with food when I strolled into camp with a box full of hair and a huge grin on my face. The unicorns exuded an almost palpable aura of peace and purity and just being around them had helped reconcile any leftover emotional turmoil I had. Cultivation, weapons training, and cultural lessons from Temüjin had consumed just about every waking hour I had since my rebirth. Temüjin had done it on purpose, he’d admitted to me that he did it on purpose, and while it did help in keeping my mind occupied it didn’t let me deal with the underlying unease of not knowing if I had made a good decision or not. In the course of an afternoon I was able to pop the cork on all the baggage that I had accumulated over the course of the past few months. It was the catharsis that I needed, and I left the herd feeling emotionally and spiritually clean.

“That,” I said as I took off my pack and sat by the fire, “was amazing.”

“Yes, they are,” said Temüjin wistfully, “that herd is why I initially settled here.”

“Really? I thought you couldn’t get close to them,” I said.

“I can’t,” he replied, “They’re very specific in whom they allow near them. I had intended to see if you could bond one as a familiar but Shunakhai derailed that plan.”

“Shunakhai?” I asked.

He pointed at the drake who was busy eating a piece of deer jerky larger than it was. Hearing the word, the drake looked at us both, then turned back to the meat and kept gnawing on it.

“You named my drake?” I asked.

“You weren’t doing it,” he answered, “Did you get any hair from them?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, pulling out the box and handing it to him, “they hadn’t shed their winter coats. Filled up the entire box.”

Temüjin took a peek inside before handing it back to me.

“Those hairs represent a huge amount of wealth. Don’t let anybody know you have it,” he cautioned.

“Unicorn hair is expensive?” I asked.

“Unicorns are picky about who can get close to them, smart enough to avoid an ambush, fast enough to outrun even me, and strong enough as a herd to fight off anything they can’t outrun. Their hairs make incredibly powerful healing potions, though. Potions that are able to bring someone back from the brink of death or cure any illness,” he explained.

“I guess I can afford to buy that bed now,” I said, half-jokingly.

“And a house to put it in, and an estate to put the house on,” Temüjin said.

The revelation that I was suddenly wealthy seemed inconsequential after the revelations of the day. We ate a light supper and sat in silence as sparks from the campfire lit up the night like fireflies.

It wasn’t until I was unrolling my bedroll that I thought to ask, “Teacher, why Shunakhai?”

“It means Greedy in my native tongue,” he said.

Looking down at the small drake, at Shunakhai, who was fast asleep and still clutching the remains of the jerky I couldn’t help but think how apropos the name was.