Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [36]
“Well of course we want you to think that’s what we all do!” she exclaimed, now bright red. “This is what a Rusalka is! Only…it…isn’t. Not always. Not…even…mostly.”
“Since the only other Rusalkas I have encountered were certainly luring men, young and old, to drown, you can scarcely blame me for assuming that common knowledge was accurate,” he pointed out dryly. He wondered if he could believe her. He wanted to believe her. Then he looked about, spotted a rock, and sat down on it. “All right, then, tell me—”
He was interrupted at that moment by a whinnying scream and the flash of three glowing white bodies charging out of the forest, heading straight for the Rusalka. With a scream of her own, the Rusalka dove into the water, and the unicorns skidded to a halt at the edge, snorting and dancing with fury.
“We have come to save you, Prince!” one of them shouted, shaking her horn menacingly at the Rusalka, who had poked her head cautiously above the water. It was a sign of her otherworldly nature that her hair wasn’t the least wet, though it floated around her on the surface of the water.
“We will not let this creature of evil harm you!” said another, her hooves thudding on the ground as she reared and curveted.
Safe in the water, since the unicorns were hardly going to go in after her, the Rusalka looked from Sasha to the unicorns and back again, with puzzlement at first, and then the dawning recognition of why they were there. She put her hand up to her mouth, and burst out laughing.
Sasha gritted his teeth. “Don’t say what you are thinking,” he warned. “My patience is not endless.”
“I would not venture a word,” the Rusalka said, then laughed again.
The unicorns stopped dancing angrily, and looked from Sasha to the Rusalka and back again. And back to Sasha. And back to the Rusalka.
“Um,” said one, hesitantly. “A problem…”
“No problem,” said the first immediately, tossing her head. “This is a creature of darkness!”
“But…” the hesitant one said, as she dropped her head to sniff at the water. “A virgin creature of darkness…”
It was the Rusalka’s turn to flush as bright a red as a ghost could manage.
“No problem,” insisted the first, who was evidently the leader of this group. “That is a female. So are we, and we do not protect females. And she is a creature of darkness. We destroy creatures of darkness. Virginity doesn’t enter into it.”
“But…”
“I’m sure there are virgin creatures of darkness all the time,” the leader retorted, stamping her forehoof. “The fact that they are virgins does not make them good or worthy of protection. I would guess that most creatures of darkness are virgins, unless part of their darkness is that they seduce men. After all, who would want to take one to bed if he were not being deceived in the first place?”
The Rusalka flung her head up, angrily, and glared at the unicorns with a dangerous expression. “Now look—” she began hotly.
The leader of the unicorns continued on, ignoring the Rusalka altogether. “It is a creature of darkness. It is a female. We are female, and we do not protect females. It is menacing our Prince—”
“I wasn’t menacing anyone!” the Rusalka said indignantly.
“—therefore, no prob—”
An equine scream rang through the forest again, interrupting the unicorn. A fourth gloriously white body slammed through the underbrush and skidded to a halt beside the pond. The very male unicorn reared, pawing the air with his silver hooves and brandishing his pearlescent horn. “Begone, wretched, bestial man!” he shouted. “Unhand that virgin! Maiden, I have co—”
“Ilya!” snapped the leader of the female unicorns, “You idiot! Shut up!”
Ilya dropped to the ground, abruptly, sapphire eyes going wide, suddenly deflated. “Um…Zhenya? Nelli? Galya? What are you doing here?”
“Protecting our Prince from that creature of darkness!” retorted Zhenya, the leader, with an emphatic stamp of one hoof.
“But that—” Ilya fumbled “—and she—and—”
His head whipped back and forth as he stared at Sasha and the Rusalka in turn. His nostrils flared as he sampled the air. “—and he—he’s a virgin!