TRIGGER WARNING: Animal abuse. It happened in the past, but there are details for most of the chapter; most of the chapter takes place in the past through a memory. Brook shares what the King did to her

Relearn

BROOK

Chapter 1

Blue Eyes Like Those

I made a promise on the worst day of my life.

I made a promise the day I took my best friend's daughter from her.

She and her lover had just lost everything, and the King's actions sealed his own fate in my mind. I would never and could never follow him again, but I wouldn't need to do so because I was going to seal myself away from the world until the moment I met Lucius. Even then, my body would never return to Ragdon.

I'd be taking my best friend's daughter away from them forever, but it would keep her safe. They wanted her out of harm's way, and it was the only way.

I promised Freedom and Jabez that I would do whatever I had to so I could keep Astra safe.

Ninety years passed by, and I haven't gone back on that promise. I can't now, not ever.

I started to resent the King when he turned me from a draft horse used in his army into one of his mutant creations. A creature with an animal body fused to the soul of a murdered human and warped by the corrupted power of the Amethyst Throne. I never asked to be made into a unicorn with the power to create portals, but when Freedom needed me to protect Astra because the King made the mistake of letting the Judge and Justice choose me to be Astra's caretaker, I used everything at my disposal to make sure the King couldn't touch my stepdaughter and my best friend's only child.

And my plan worked for ninety years. I created the rainbow portal, the one Astra and I couldn't leave and the one designed to be extremely difficult to find. It worked until Phoenix found us.

Jabez came first; from the King's housecat, Ice, to a feline animal whose head reaches somewhere between my wrist and elbow.

After Jabez, the King continued his project. I remember the day he turned me from only a draft horse into who I am now: Brook, a blue-furred unicorn with the power to create portals. Someone long ago told me the ribbons in my mane and on my tail are pink, but they look grey to me; horses cannot see red and the King's project did not gift me with that ability.

That fateful day, a Guard had led me from the stables attached to the King's barracks and into the King's Throne Room, still a draft horse with dappled white-grey fur and feathers the Guard and Soldiers kept talking about cutting off because of how hard they were to clean. I followed the Guard willingly, keeping pace beside him so the lead rope always had slack. I remember wondering what job the Guard and Soldiers would ask of me. What I'd be pulling, moving that day. I remember the confusion when the Guard led me into the King's Throne Room.

A small gathering of Guard and Soldiers had formed a half-circle at the foot of the Amethyst Throne. I spooked at the sheer power emanating from the Amethyst Throne, a rock colored various blue-grey colors Soldiers had said was a color called purple. I felt the thrum deep within my body. My nostrils flared, my eyes widened and rolled, and I reared up with a roaring neigh deep in my chest. I turned to bolt, but the Guard yanked on the lead rope, twisting my neck at such an angle that, despite how I could easily pull him, the bolt of pain from the awkward angle made me pause. I felt several sets of hands on my body, and Guard and Soldiers surrounded me, blinding light reflecting off the Soldiers' armor. I crow hopped, until someone dug curled fingers into a muscle under my ribcage, just behind my foreleg. I jumped, exhaling sharply in pain as I kicked out a hind leg, then went still when the Guard jerked on the lead rope again.

"Easy," the Guard said. "You're here to see Our Sovereign, His Excellency, His Honor, His Highest of all Highnesses, King Garonda XIV."

The Guard dropped to a knee, still holding onto the lead rope, and he gestured to someone sitting on the Amethyst Throne while keeping his head bowed to the ground.

I had tilted my head to the side in that moment. I hadn't understood what was happening, with the limited knowledge I had in that moment; I couldn't have acted in the way I needed to. I should've used the brute strength I had and forced my way out of the Throne Room, even if it had cost me my life because the Guard and Soldier shot me so full of arrows and swords I couldn't move and bled out. Maybe not so many would've died. Maybe I wouldn't have had to understand the full depth of just what the King had done.

Maybe he never would've turned me into a monster.

I'm not a monster like him, but I'm a monster all the same.

We all are.

Aren't we?

xxxx

I got a closer look at the King, who wore a blue-ish grey colored suit I heard Guard talking about was a shade mimicking the Amethyst Throne and was another shade of purple. His inky black hair fell in front of his face, skin pale enough that he looked dead.

In front of the Amethyst Throne, I saw another person, a person I didn't recognize. I still don't know their name. They kneeled facing the Amethyst Throne. Long hair fell over their shoulder. I heard their heartbeat, how fast it raced in their chest. I could smell the sweat on their skin, almost taste the fear permeating the air. They were close enough that I could just walk over, take a few steps and I'd be right there.

I did not understand fully what was going on. I was confused, and I still believed the King and the Guard and the Soldiers. I had no reason not to. They fed me and I worked for them. I had not learned different.

But hearing the terrified beat of the person's heart, picking up on the scent of their fear curling through the air in a sick cloud, made me take those few steps forward, knees cracking as I lumbered closer, head low and ears pricked.

I'd brushed their cheek with my nose, blowing a breath of air across their face as I tried to understand why they were so scared. The person stiffened and tears rolled down their cheeks from their eyes.

No, don't cry.

I nudged at their head again.

"It-it's ok," they croaked, dropping their gaze to their lap. "Go, horse."

I nickered softly, remaining in place.

They'd looked up this time. "It's ok, horse." They sighed. "Blue eyes like those, I'd've named you Brook, you know?"

A name? For myself?

"Uh, uh," the Guard chastised, pulling on the lead rope in sharp, jerking motions. "You need to stay here for this part."

I'd flinched as the rope rubbed against my fur, biting into my skin. The Guard yanked harder. I could've resisted; I knew I was stronger than just one person, but the Guard was asking something of me and I knew I was supposed to listen. The muscle on my upper abdomen twinges with the memory of the fingers dug into it.

I hadn't understood what was going to happen, and it would forever eat at me. I could've done something, if I had only understood just a little sooner.

With one last look at the person, I turned and walked back to the Guard. I bunted my nose into his shoulder as an apology. He patted the side of my muzzle.

"Don't worry," he murmured, "you will be receiving a gift not many will soon."

A gift?

I didn't understand what the Guard meant, and I'd forever wish that I had, because I could've done something. I outweighed every Guard and Soldier. I was stronger than every single one. I could've taken out many. I had the strength and endurance. I'd never learned to fight, but I could've figured it out. A trial by fire.

xxxx

I watched with a tilted head as a Soldier had stepped up behind the person, sword drawn, and the person stopped breathing, a shrill whimper falling from their lips, followed by a sniveling sob. I nickered, not yet understanding why the bitter, sick scent of fear bottomed out into pure terror. With one hand holding them on their knees, the Soldier took his sword and drew it across the person's throat.

Blood had gurgled up from the sliced wound across the person's throat immediately, streaming in a bright spray of grey down their throat.

I'd reared up again, exhaling a low scream.

Why'd you do that?

The Guard patted my neck. He allowed me slack on the lead rope as I paced in place, hooves clattering on the marble floor, nostrils squared and whites of my eyes flashing. I swiveled my ears, alternating between pricking them forward as I watched the person sway on their knees, then go limp in the Soldier's grip and collapse to the ground when the Soldier let go.

Blood pooled on the marble around the person, the acrid stench rising and filling every bit of the Throne Room. Tail raised and swishing, I tried to rush forward. I could hear the rapidly slowing heartbeat of the person, and I did not understand why no one was trying to help them.

I understood now, looking back upon it and with a far fuller understanding of the King and his army and the Amethyst Throne. But then I was still the unnamed draft horse who did not realize what the King had done and who willingly did the work asked of me.

The Guard holding the lead rope yanked back on it, and I spun around, raising my head and tail and swiveling my ears. Blowing, I tried to free myself, lifting my jaw and drawing my ears back. With heavy steps, my hooves slipped on the marble. Behind me, I saw the person's unmoving body, pool of blood now almost twice as big. I could barely hear their heartbeat now.

One heartbeat, two, three, a fourth so soft I didn't know if I actually heard it, and then a fifth, and the person's body had gone silent. A strained noise had wrung up from deep within my chest.

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I can still feel the pain now, as if that day happened yesterday, not decades in the past.

"The Amethyst Throne is ready, and the horse is here. Everything is in place, My Sovereign, My Excellency, My Honor, My Highest of all Highnesses, King Garonda XIV," the Soldier who had slit the throat of the person said, kneeling before the Amethyst Throne, head bowed so far his forehead brushed the marble.

I watched as all the Guard and Soldiers in the Throne Room turned to face the King, and I shifted on my hooves, itching with anticipation and unease. My nostrils flared and I swiveled my ears.

The King had taken a breath, spreading his legs as he leaned back and draped himself across the Amethyst Throne, as if he didn't have a body laying beneath him with blood oozing from their slit throat.

"Bend, horse," the King had purred, standing to a crouch, eyes glowing in that blue-grey fire that the Guard and Soldiers said was purple.

"Accept the gift of the Amethyst Throne."

"Kneel," a Soldier barked. "Kneel for the Amethyst Throne and the King of Ragdon. Kneel to accept the gift offered to you."

A Guard in front of my shoulder had kicked his toe at my pastern and I'd jerked my hoof back, lifting my foreleg, when another at my ribcage pulled my leg back. The movement twisted muscles in unnatural directions, and I tried to move out of the way.

I wish I had fought back more. I wish I had broken free. I wish I had put up enough of a fight that I'd forced my way out of the Throne Room, no matter how many arrows the Guard shot through my back and how many swords the Soldiers shoved through my legs

But I didn't.

They said it was good, the Guard and Soldiers. They said the Amethyst Throne was good. They followed the Amethyst Throne and the King of Ragdon. So shouldn't I?

I had believed like they did and still do for a long time. Sometimes it was easier. I'd had that framework, that way of thinking for my entire life. I was a draft horse in the army of Guard and Soldiers, and I had helped with what was asked of me. I did so without complaint.

But I wish I had protested.

I'd allowed the Guard to drop one of my forelegs to my knee, stretching my other back. I stumbled on my hind legs to adjust to the awkward position. I had snorted, throwing my head to the side and swishing my tail.

I drew my ears back when I saw thick tendrils of blue-grey light emanate from the Amethyst Throne, curling across the marble floor. A firm hand on my shoulder had kept me on the ground, even though every bit of me wanted to stand and bolt. The lights snaked across the ground.

Mixing with the person's blood, the grey tendrils expanded and swirled further.

With a deft hand, the Guard holding the lead rope untied it as he and the rest of the Guard and Soldiers stepped back just as the tendrils reached me. They'd hit me across my body, surging through every bit of my being with a searing heat that scorched my throat and lungs as I dragged in a wheezing inhale.

Pain seized me, and I reared up with a scream. The Throne Room tilted as I stumbled underneath the vibrating power surging through my veins and across my nerves. Picking up more blood from the puddle beneath the person's body, I felt the energy of another join in my own body— that of myself, the Amethyst Throne, and now the person's soul.

Three energies mixing within my body had created a sensation that made my fur prickle. I ground my teeth and flared my nostrils as I bucked and crow hopped. Heart pounding in my chest, a racing beat singing alongside the howling desire to run, to bolt, I staggered in an unbalanced circle, scanning desperately for an exit, ears pressed to the sides of my head as I'd drawn in a raspy breath. Sweat had foamed on my fur as fatigue slowed my movements.

"Let it in," the King had murmured, eyes glowing with a razor-sharp gleam that made my skin prickle.

There were too many Guard and Soldiers; they surrounded me from too many sides, and I saw too many eyes staring back at me. The King watched me with an unsettling gaze, and the Dragon behind him had unblinking eyes on its head and snakehead tail.

The tendrils hung onto me, and the magic of the Amethyst Throne wound around my very being, coiling alongside my internal me. I'd felt it brushing up against such intimate parts of me, the insides of my own self, parts of my own me. My own soul. I could feel the person's soul, scattered and shattered, sticking to bits of myself throughout my body, here and there, a foreign feeling I wanted to shake off. I could feel the magic of the Amethyst Throne soaking into my organs, and I wanted to run from it all.

My mane and tail grew, and ribbons knotted themselves in the hair as a horn spiraled up from my forehead, adding an awkward weight.

As the energy within me rose and twisted and wound up ever further, I coughed, throat feeling so narrow I felt I wasn't getting enough air. Kicking at my abdomen, I try to free myself from the magic seizing my body. I couldn't.

I still cannot. The magic is as much a part of me as my own heart, my own four hooves, my stomach.

Exhausted, my legs had finally given out, and I'd collapsed, unable to remain upright any longer and unable to have the option to run and flee. Now forced to allow the Amethyst Throne to set its magic into my body, I laid on my side, panting. The new horn on my forehead tapped against the marble, keeping me from turning my head too much

Legs sprawled out beneath me, forelegs twisted like a foal's as they tried to get their bearings and stand for the first time, I tried to catch my breath, ribcage heaving with wheezing breaths. Fear and confusion had my heart clenching in my chest.

"It failed," the King had snarled.

I felt warm, sticky blood dripping down my nose and muzzle.

Me? I failed? Did I?

The Dragon stood up, unwinding itself from the back of the Amethyst Throne where it slumbered. In slow movements, the Dragon stretched. I shifted my head, groaning at the effort of the exertion doing so took. The Dragon unfurled its wings as its snakehead tail parted its jaws in a yawn that had me wanting to bolt at the sight of the fangs and the venom my gut knew instinctively lurked inside.

I squirmed on the ground, still too weak from the magic of the Amethyst Throne to stand, yet panicking all the same. Every bit of my being screamed at me to run, but I couldn't. I couldn't even stand.

"It failed," the King repeated. "It did not accept the gift of the Amethyst Throne. The magic worked, but it did not accept."

With glittering grey eyes I knew were purple, the Dragon turned its attention to me, stepping down the side of the Amethyst Throne. Its scales shifted and caught the light as it drew closer, arching its neck with a predatory glint in its gaze.

I rolled to try to gather my limbs beneath me, but my knees slipped on the blood of the human the Soldier had killed, smearing my fur with the substance they should still have.

They should still be here. They should still be alive. They shouldn't be dead. Why did they kill them?

Fear surged through me, raw and unchecked, beyond anything I'd felt before. A hoarse scream rubbed my throat raw, nostrils flaring as I pinned my ears and scrambled to my hooves. Slipping on the blood covering the ground as I struggled to keep my hooves beneath me, I stumbled into a Guard and knocked him into a Soldier. Someone tried to grab my tail, and I kicked at them before I could think twice. My hoof connected with something solid, and I heard someone fall back with a low oomph, followed by a wheeze for breath.

I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have.

I stepped on the leg of the human the Soldier killed, panicking further at the sound of the crack of bone and the way the limb gave beneath my hoof.

No, no, no! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to.

Blubbering panic and apologies had spilled from within me, filling my mind in a cascade. My nostrils squared as I gasped for breaths that came shallower and faster, each more so than the last as I clambered to scramble out of reach of the thousand hands reaching for me.

I did not want to hurt them. I did not want to hurt the Guard and Soldiers, but I did.

I know that I should have just lashed out. I had every reason to. They had hurt me, even if I had yet to realize it yet. I know I should have fought back.

But I did not in the way I wish I did now, some century later, as I stand watch over Astra, my own stepdaughter, biological daughter of my best friend.

And so, as the Guard and Soldiers had kept trying to capture me, to wrap a lead rope around me as the Dragon stalked closer, towering over the heads of the Guard and Soldiers, I kept squirming away, squealing

Stop, stop, stop, I'd begged silently.

"Stop!" I croaked, the word scraping across my vocal cords, strange and unfamiliar with how the sounds moved my muscles and mouth and the signals it required from my brain.

With a sharp inhale, I'd flinched.

What was that?

The King smiled. He leaned forward, squinting as he brought a knuckle to his mouth. "So the horse can speak."

What have you done to me?

I looked at the person's body. I thought of the tendrils of the power of the Amethyst Throne and how it took up their blood.

Is a part of them within me now?

"What did you do to me?" I rasped, echoing my thoughts.

"The Amethyst Throne gave you a gift. That gift is one you must accept," the King said.

I stepped back, and when I bumped into someone I didn't see, I spooked and lurched forward, emotions dialed up past what I could handle. When my head started to fall, muscles fatiguing from the added weight of the horn on my head, I wrenched myself upright with a strained neigh. My forelegs slipped out from beneath when my hooves lost traction on blood, twisting joints and ligaments past their natural range of motion, and I gritted my teeth as I flicked and lashed my tail.

In the span of a heartbeat, something had sparked within me, erupting from a tiny flame into a blaze that sends searing heat burning through my horn. Light grey shone bright from my forehead, and a ring opened in front of me, shimmering in the same light grey color. I groaned at the energy drain.

"Get the horse!" a Guard shouted.

"Get it!" the King had roared, jabbing a violent, pale finger at me.

Raising its wings, the Dragon advanced upon me, white teeth sharp and dripping saliva. The Dragon exhaled a low, rumbling roar.

Eyes rolling as adrenaline and panic flooded my body, the ring of light shone brighter. In one heartbeat, two, three, it swallowed me whole, and suddenly I was gone from the Throne Room, standing upon grass I'd never seen before, surrounded by scents I didn't recognize. Hooves crushing the blades, I'd wandered around for a while before stopping, dropping my head and gasping for breath and basking in the smothering silence.

With no one around, I'd stood until the sun set, and after the moon rose into the sun and I found a spot in the trees after a drizzle started, I leaned against the rough bark until the first rays of sunlight bathed the sky with light. I'd grazed for a while after that, lost with nothing to do, without the Guard and Soldiers giving structure to my day and asking jobs of me.

xxxx

I'd met Jabez the day after I portaled myself out of the Throne Room.

Confused and terrified, I'd seen him and readied myself to bolt.

"No," Jabez had said, expression tired. "I don't want to hurt you. Did... did the... King do that to you?"

I widened my eyes. I couldn't speak with how tired and scared I was, but Jabez took my reaction for the answer it was.

"Fuck."

He sighed, shaking his head, lips pulling to the side.

He ticked his head to the side, then looked up at me. "I'm Jabez. What's your name?"

"I don't have one," I'd answered, throat twisting around the words. I hated how speaking made me feel, forming sounds in a way I'd never done before.

Jabez shrugged but didn't otherwise react. "What do you want to be called?"

I paused. I'd never given much thought to what name I'd like to have. I did not know my parents, having been taken from my mother as soon as I could stand to begin training, so they couldn't name me. The Guard and Soldiers had never given me a name, either.

With the question, the choices were limitless. Almost too limitless. Too many names swirled through my head, while simultaneously I could think of almost no names as well.

I'd taken a step back, until a memory crossed my mind.

Blue eyes like those, I'd've named you Brook.

I thought back to the words of the person I didn't know whose soul now resides within me, somewhere alongside my own.

"Brook."

xxxx

Some hundred-odd years later, Jabez lays beside Astra now, a short distance from the Erebus Tree, licking his paw while Astra toys with the bones of a fawn she ate. The tight set of Jabez's jaw feels far too familiar and the way he keeps eyeing his daughter echoes my own feelings.

I chew on a mouthful of grass.

I feel much quieter than I did that day in the Throne Room. I've only set foot in the Throne Room twice since the day the King turned me from a draft horse into the blue unicorn I am now: once for the faux trial of Jabez and Freedom over the King's accusations of child abuse against Astra and once after the King had chained Jabez to the Amethyst Throne with the chain snake.

After the Dragon set fire to the Sea and Arcane shed the Midnight Tear to reset the world, the King left it the Ragdonians in the Sea to rebuild. Grey, Ky, Phoenix, Myles, and Wyatt still had not returned, and no one had seen Alex.

Camden and Katelin frequently stop by, but no one has seen Alex and rebuilding takes time, longer when the King refuses to help.

"If you listened and obeyed, your King of Ragdon would provide everything," a lead Guard had said early on after the Dragon burned the Sea.

I consider taking Astra and leaving the Sea behind, fleeing like some of the Ragdonians have done.

But I don't know where we'd go. Ragdon is an island.

The King can find us. The King will find us.

Grey and the others know we are here, and if Alex returns —when Alex returns, I correct— she will return to the Sea. I need to be here, and so does Astra. Jabez, too.

There is safety in numbers.

In the Field, we were safe for ninety years, but when the Guard and Soldiers came, we almost died, outnumbered as we were.

We ran, but the King still found us.

Where can I take you, Astra, that the King cannot follow?

I don't know, and I hate it.

I promised Freedom that I would keep her daughter —and my stepdaughter— safe, and I don't know how to make sure that I keep my promise, no matter what.

I don't know where I can go that the King's necrotic touch cannot follow. The King has to die, but I don't know how to make that happen while keeping Astra out of his reach.