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Earendil knelt on one knee and turned his back to Miyuki, but he looked up at Lin at the unfamiliar phrase that she used.

"Magic words?" he repeated, confused.

"So ... in this case, what would those words be?" Earendil asked, still kneeling and waiting for Miyuki to climb onto his back.

He glanced back at her, wondering if she had to say some of those magic words before Lin would let her climb on.

"Ah, I think I understand," Earendil chuckled, hefting Miyuki to make sure she was securely on his back before standing up again. "Careful now, Miyuki. Hold tight - but don't choke me."

He started down the hall, making sure not to get ahead of Lin. "Have you seen the unicorns of our world up close?" he asked her curiously as they went. "I know we saw them in the distance when we traveled the Southland ..."

"Oh, was he able to see them close up before?" Earendil beamed. "I wonder - was that in the wild or here in the stables?"

Out on the wild would have been so much more amazing, even Earendil had not experienced that before.

Earendil let out a low whistle. "That's amazing," he murmured. "He's got to be one of the only people who can claim that ... it's amazing he's alive to tell the tale."

Suddenly it occurred to him: Elnara was his aunt, and yet Lin's sister. Of course, that relation wasn't by blood, but it still amused him. He grinned as he thought about it.

Just when things looked simple.

"Unicorns are proud and territorial," Earendil explained. "It doesn't take anything more than a perceived slight or a perceived invasion of territory to get them to attack."

He had never seen a wild unicorn up close either, and though the unicorns in the stables would allow him to touch them, he was not able to ride them.

Earendil laughed and bounced Miyuki a bit on his back. "For this world, that's unusual," he grinned at her over his shoulder. He looked back at Lin. "Though now that you have wings, they might be curious about you as well. To be fair, you were human when we were there last - for all intents and purposes."

And Miyuki was right, she was even more unusual than Triton or Lin, she would probably be of interest to the creatures. And if the unicorns knew about his affection for the two, they might even consider him an oddity!

"You're right, Miyuki," Earendil laughed again. "She's not. But a long time ago, before your mommy's wings grew, she thought she was human, and so did the rest of us."

And she had just about scared him to death when she had fledged. Even thinking back on it he couldn't believe sometimes that it had really happened. It just seemed so surreal now.