Fragments on the Unicorn Maiden

On the fourteenth day of the waning moon of Thesmophoros, in the season of the Falling Lyre.

First Year of No Kings

Year of Accord 3785

From the hidden papers of @Leandros Hieron, Scholar of the Ancient Library, who writes for the Hesan Empire against his will by day, but writes for the princess during stolen hours of the night. For the eyes of himself and if fate should someday have it, the eyes of @Princess Elara of Alendria.

I write this in the quiet hours, when the magistrate sleeps and the archivists have retired. The library is cold, the orbs are dim, and the dust speaks louder than the edicts I am paid to draft. I have begun to gather fragments—verses, marginalia, forgotten glosses—on a figure that appears again and again in our oldest texts: the kore monokeros, the unicorn maiden.

She is not a metaphor. She is a memory.

I. The Sanctuary and the Sigil

(related to @Aletheia, @Ruins of the Unicorn Sanctuary)

The @Ruins of the Unicorn Sanctuary—our oldest site—predate the Eremic age. Glyphs there suggest a class of women who communed with unicorns not as beasts, but as sacred partners. They were not queens, nor priests, nor warriors in the Hesan sense. They were something else.

@House Landon bears the unicorn as its sigil. This is not coincidence. The annals claim the first Landon ruler hundreds of years ago was born of a kore monokeros and a foreign prince. His legitimacy was forged in union.

The sword known as @The Veil, long given to Landon brides, is said to have once been a ritual object. It is dull, ceremonial, and yet… The sketches of the old carvings of kore monokeros resemble such an old blade. Could it have once belonged to a @Maiden of the Unicorn? This relic may already be lost to the spoliation of Empire, sadly.

III. Song of Creation

I believe the unicorn maidens once sang in harmony to these lands. If Princess Elara is truly of that lineage, she can remind us of who we are.

II. Eremos and the Echoes

Eremos, our great poet, did not invent the unicorn maiden. He inherited her. In Aioniotita, she repels armies with harp and horn. She walks the spheres, her song echoing through time. Allegories or memories?

She marries the Firebird Prince beneath the seventh sphere. I believe these verses describe a metaphysical transformation that occurs when purity is put to flame. To offer my unguarded thoughts: picturing the princess in such a crucible is... unsettling...

V. A Personal Note

I do not know if Elara lives. I do not know if she remembers me—I doubt she ever knew me. But I believe she is kore monokeros, not the term Alendrian men use to flatter women, but truly she is a unicorn maiden.

And if she reads this, I hope she understands:

She is not alone.
She is not forgotten.
She is not a symbol.
She is a song.