ren’s Reviews > The Last Unicorn > Status Update

"Schmendrick looked at her over his shoulder. The morning sunlight made his eyes seem gay as grass; but now and then, when he stooped into the horse's shadow, there stirred a deeper greenness in his gaze--the green of pine needles that has a faint, cool bitterness about it. He said, 'I fear it, for her sake. It would mean that she is too a wanderer now, and that is a fate for humans. But I hope, of course I hope.'"

"'Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.' But his voice was a little doubtful, and he laid his arm softly around Molly's shoulders. 'It cannot be an ill fortune to have loved a unicorn,' he said. "Surely it must be the dearest luck of all, though the hardest earned.'"

"I will go back to my forest too, but I do not know if I will live contentedly there, or anywhere. I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, though I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret."

"She turned a little away from him, and the sudden starlight of her shoulders made all of his talk of magic taste like sand in his throat. Moths and midges and other night insects too small to be anything in particular came and danced slowly around her bright horn, and this did not make her appear foolish, but them most wise and lovely as they celebrated her."

"'Unicorns have passed here,' she whispered to the magician. 'Is that the cause, or is it Haggard's fall and the Red Bull's going? What is it, what is happening?'
'Everything,' he answered her, 'everything, all at once. It is not one springtime, but fifty; and not one or two great terrors flown away, but a thousand small shadows lifted from the land. Wait and see.'"

rip peter beagle you would've fucked w/ EEAAO

"... Smells slipped by in ribbons: pale grass and black mud, honey and walnuts, mint and hay and rotting applewood; and even the afternoon sunlight had a tender, sneezy scent that Molly would have known anywhere. She rose beside Schmendrick, watching the gentle advent of the spring and thinking of how it had come to her, late but lasting."

"A stranger would not have noticed the change, but Molly could see that the withered earth was brightening with a greenness as shy as smoke. Squat, snaggly trees that had never yet bloomed were putting forth flowers in the wary way an army sends out scouts; long-dry streams were beginning to rustle in their beds, and small creatures were calling to another..."

"So the three of them rode away, and the men-at-arms followed on foot. No one looked back, for there was nothing to see. But King Lír said once, without turning, 'It is strange to have grown to manhood in a place, and then to have it gone, and everything changed--and suddenly to be king. Was none of it real at all? Am I real, then?'
Schmendrick made no reply."

dicK, you just hugged him c'mon he needs comfort

"This is not the end, either for you or for her. You are the king of a wasted land where there has never been any king but fear. Your true task has just begun, and you may not know in your life if you have succeeded in it, but only if you fail. As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her."

"'Magician, she is mine!' He paused, and then went on in a gentler tone, close to pleading. 'She has twice raised me from death, and what will I be without her but dead for a third time?' He took Schmendrick by the wrists with a grip strong enough to powder bones, but the magician did not move. 'I am not King Haggard. I have no wish to capture her, but only to spend my life following after her.'"