Nike was a typical unicorn, her pelt white as snow. She was happy with her lot in life, attempting to purify a tainted forest in Ustalev with her mate Lochi, and their filly Minta.
Then a necromancer came to their forest, bent on undoing all she and her small family had done to retrieve the wood from evil. The necromancer captured Minta, and even as her parents fought through undead hordes, he slit the filly's throat and raised up her corpse as an abomination to send against her parents.
Lochi, lost in grief, slaughtered hundreds of undead, Nike barely able to keep up with him, but even in his anger, he was unable to attack his daughter's corpse, and the zombie drove her tainted horn into her father's chest, bursting his heart. Even as Nike's world fell apart, and the necromancer and his zombie horde closed in, she began to despair, almost giving up.
It was then that the horde was hit from the side by a great red beast with an equally red rider. It took Nike a moment to realize they were dark red with blood from the zombies they had been slaughtering. The rider and his beast fought their way through the undead, toward the necromancer. Body parts lept in the air as the strange whip like sword the rider used lopped body parts from zombies with abaondon.
Finally though, the great red beast was felled by Minta's tainted horn, just as her father had been. But then the rider was leaping over Minta's body, and his whip like sword removed her head from her body, ending her torment.
Nike, barely alive, was ready to die at that point. Until the rider inexplicably leapt to her back, urging her to stand with his knees. And then a strange sort of energy flooded into her, returning strength to her weakened limbs. Nike and the mysterious rider rose as one, and visited death and destruction upon the undead horde around them, slaughtering the foul creatures to the last one. Finally, Nike's horn took the necromancer in the heart, just as Minta's had taken Lochi's, and the mysterious rider's strange weapon took the necromancer's head with a flick of his wrist.
The forest went deadly silent, and Nike stood, head lowered, breathing hard, blood trailing freely down her body as the strange humanoid male sat astride her back. Eventually the creature slid from her, careful not to injure her further. He began to apologize to her for not being there sooner, for allowing her mate and daughter to die. Even as he apologized, he retrieved a potion of healing and poured it into a bowl for her to consume.
The strange humanoid tenderly removed the bridle and saddle from the great red beast, which she finally realized was a horse that was past it's prime, a once great warrior slowed by age, who had finally died in battle, as it had lived it's life.
Nike's life changed that day. Slowly her coat began to darken from the sadness in her heart, and her carefree ways were replaced with the steely determination to root out evil with implacable will.
When Nike and Tychi left those woods, there were three graves in a blessed grove. And Nike wore a saddle and bridle, her gray pelt a contrast to the white feathers of her rider. A contrast that, over the next 10 years, increased as Nike's pelt became the dark black she now wears.
They have since followed the four truths, the elements leading them from place to place, from evil to evil, always further and further along, to right wrongs and bring peace and harmony back to that which has none.
So it is they two find themselves in Alkinstar, following a whisper of desert wind.
