ren’s Reviews > The Last Unicorn > Status Update

"I wait for the one who will see through my seeming,
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave."

"'I wish you wanted something of me. It wouldn't have to be a valiant deed--just useful.'
Then the Lady Amalthea smiled at him for the first time since she had come to stay in King Haggard's castle.
It was a small smile, like the new moon, a slender bend of brightness on the edge of the unseen, but Prince Lír leaned toward it to be warm. He would have cupped his hands around her smile and breathed it brighter."

"'I remember what cannot have happened, and forget something that is happening to me now. People look at me as though I should know them, and I do know them in the dream, and always the fire draws nearer, though I am awake--'
'No more,' he said desperately. 'A witch built this castle, and to speak of nightmares here often makes them come true.'"

"'Lady,' Prince Lír broke in, 'my lady, by your leave, no more.' Her dream was darkening into shape between them, and suddenly he did not want to know what it meant. 'No more,' he said."

"'I cannot tell you all of it,' she said. 'It is never finished.' Fear came back to her eyes like a great stone falling into a pool: all was clouded and swirling, and quick shadows were rushing everywhere."

"If he had even blinked, she would have been gone; but he did not blink, and he held her, as he had learned to hold griffins and chimeras motionless with his steady gaze. Her bare feet wounded him deeper than any tusk or roving talon ever had, but he was a true hero."

"The magician sank back, his face gone as pale and crumpled as a washerwoman's fingers. 'It doesn't really matter, one way or another,' he said, almost to himself. 'She's no unicorn now, but a mortal woman--someone for that lout to sigh over and write poems about. Maybe Haggard won't find her out at all.'"

"'How can we leave, when she has come so far to find the other unicorns, and we know they are here?' Yet one small, tender, treacherous part of her was suddenly eager to be convinced of the quest's failure, and she knew it, and was angry at Schmendrick. 'What about your magic?'"

"It's hard to give up being a hero, once you get used to it."

"She felt relieved that the prince was giving up his courtship, and amused as well, and somewhat sad. 'Girls like poems better than dead dragons and magic swords,' she offered. 'I always did, anyway, when I was a girl. The reason I ran off with Cully--'
But Prince Lír interrupted her, saying firmly, 'No, do not give me hope. I must learn to live without hope.'"

so dramatic emoboy