11"x 14" framed painting, acrylic on canvas -   Where the Unicorn Waits
 
There was once a girl who lived between the lines of reality. Her hair cascaded in curls like spring blooms caught in a quiet, unspoken breeze. Her eyes held the kind of sadness that comes from knowing too much and saying too little. She had been born into a great house of marble and mirrors, a place filled with laughter that never quite touched the soul. The lords and ladies of the court admired her beauty but found her strange, for she did not hunger for their fleeting glances or their gilded dances. She would slip away, barefoot, through the corridors of candlelight, chasing shadows only she could see. One night, as the chandeliers flickered like dying stars, she wandered beyond the garden gate and into the velvet hush of the forest. There, waiting as if it had always been meant to be, was the unicorn. The unicorn’s silver mane shimmered under the moon’s gentle gaze, his horn catching the starlight. He stood still, watching her with deep, knowing eyes. Something stirred deep within her — a memory. She had seen this creature before, not in waking life but in the margins of her dreams, where reality dissolved like ink in water.
The unicorn’s gaze softened into a tender, compelling invitation. In a voice both low and resonant, echoing like the pulse of the earth itself, he spoke:
“Child of both light and shadow, you have wandered the corridors of a gilded cage for too long. Out here, in the quiet sanctum of the night, lies a world uncharted—a realm where your true self awaits, free to write the story of its own becoming. Do not let the echoes of a hollow court define you. Follow me, and together we shall traverse lands where every breath a hymn to the boundless wonder of your spirit.”
She recalled fleeting visions of marble halls dissolving into ancient groves. Mirrored walls revealing countless lives she had once led. In those dreams, she was a weaver of destinies, a guardian of lost tales, a bridge between worlds. The weight of her courtly life no longer clung to her like a chain. The expectations of the lords and ladies seemed as fragile as cobwebs in the morning sun. She was not bound to their world; she never had been. With one final glance at the distant glow of the castle, she turned away. The unicorn took a step forward, and she followed. Together, they vanished into the whispering depths of the night—where myths are born and never truly fade.