Deyan'hutan

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... - (©SunBlind)

The little stallion was extraordinarily shy. No one knew where he came from, he just sort of showed up one day on the Island. Perhaps it was his tiny Nai size. Or perhaps because he was the only Zebracorn any of the others had ever seen. The others welcomed him with open hearts, but he just couldn't seem to play their games.

What the others didn't know was that Deyan'hutan been wandering a long time, trying to find the place where he belonged. He didn't know where that was, and though he liked it here very much, he wasn't sure this was the place either. All the others seemed to be blessed with some kind of special powers, whether they could make things grow, or just do something as simple as tell wonderful tales.

But he couldn't do those things. Plants refused to grow for him, and horror upon horror, some would even die. Plants shouldn't die for a unicorn. He'd tried to tell tales once before, but he'd more often than not put the audience to sleep, and so he'd pretty much stopped talking altogether.

He tried healing and purifying and all the other typical unicorn powers. Though he could do some of them, he couldn't do any of them well. No one had made fun of him for that, not to his face anyway, but he just wished he could do something more. Something no one else could do.

Since he was tired of wandering, he decided to stay on the Island for the winter. Winter travel wasn't difficult for him, he was so small and light he could prance around right on top of the snow without sinking any deeper than his ankles. The larger ones had to plow through up to their knees. But it wasn't magic that gave him that power, many of the foals could do the same as him.

And so he played winter games with the others, though more often than not he'd find a nice comfortable place to snuggle into and just watch the others. He'd never join their games without being asked, and so the others often assumed he didn't want to play at all and didn't bother him.

Then, one morning he woke feeling strange, powerful, special. The problem was, he still didn't know what it was he was supposed to do. He tried to make something grow, but only the most skilled could have woken the seeds in the icy ground from their deep hibernation. No, he tried everything, and nothing worked any better than it had before.

The snow had started to fall and from the clouds above came one of the Winged Ones. They were the Pegasi of the Heights and occassionaly came to visit the land-bound Horned Ones. This one was a beautiful white mare with red and green markings. Her name was Dil'Cresla.

She came to Deyan'hutan, and him alone, for she had a special missing for him. She told him of something called Christmas, and that it was his job to bring some of its magic to the unicorns, just as she had brought it to the Winged Ones for a few years now.

When she soared up to the clouds and vanished in the swirling snow, Deyan was left a little frightened. How could he handle a magic that powerful all by his little self? He wasn't big enough to hold that kind of power. Perhaps the mare was being cruel and was trying to give him false hopes.

But no, she had been gentle and kind, and he had felt her magic and it had felt like the morning. It felt like the snow and the evergreen trees, like the holly and the mistletoe. Yes, to give himself courage he tied a sprig of holly to his tail. It made him feel up to the challenge, and taking a deep breath that came out as a misty puff in the icy air, he returned to the herd, to offer them joy and warmth, and to bring them together in love and wonder.

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