A quick reminder; these stories are likely to vary greatly, so if you have younger readers with you, you may want to screen the posts before sharing. I won't write anything kinky, I'm really not that type... But I may write slightly insense stories from time to time, or I may simply have some content that you don't want to get into with your kids right now... I will try to include a "common sense rating" for my stories every week though.
This week's story is pretty innocent, although there is a little bit of "human darkness" along the lines of animal abuse/borderline slavery as (Spoiler alert) the unicorns are sentient, although there is nothing graphic. I would honestly say that any kid older then 8 should be fine reading it, but as always, pre-read it if you are unsure.
Whoever said that unicorns aren’t real? They are completely real, they’re just a bit shy… and dangerous.
If you have ever read a book or watched a movie which included a medieval battle scene, you know about warhorses; large, muscular horses clad in some sort of protective gear, who carry the knights into battle. Well, unicorns are kind of the original warhorses, complete with a freaking spear of a horn on their heads, and the swirling pattern in it, assures that the wounds they leave behind can’t be easily stitched.
How did I get to such a be a self-appointed expert on unicorns? Well… I discovered them a year or so ago. Why didn’t you hear about this earth-shaking discovery? I never told anyone; they are far too precious, and dangerous for the rest of the world to know about.
I was exploring the wilderness on a tiny South American island, hoping to catalog a few new plant, insect or bird species, as well as find some peace and quiet. I was a biologist, although I dabbled in botany, and I loved to explore lesser-known locations, from the inside of dormant volcanos to the depths of rainforests. There’s nothing basically wrong with a lab, but there is also nothing like walking among creatures who have never learned to fear humans, and plants which have never even been photographed.
I had just taken in the lay of the land; from the toe-roasting sand of the beaches to the craggy cliffsides, and the thick humid rainforest. I had already taken maybe 50 photos of critters and plants that I hadn’t recognized offhand, and I was ready for lunch.
I had no interest in eating in the middle of the forest, and with as small as the island was, I decided to head towards the cliffsides; I knew from experience that there was nothing like eating a packed lunch with your feet dangling over the ocean. I had been walking through the center of the forest for maybe 15 minutes when I stumbled upon a small, picturesque clearing.
If you’ve ever been in the middle of the countryside and stumbled across an abandoned plot of land where flowers have taken the place of crops, then you may almost be able to imagine the mystical beauty of that clearing. I sat on a fallen log, covered with soft spongy moss; the scene around me was such that I would have hardly been surprised if a handful of pixies had been picnicking under the blanket of flowers, but I still couldn’t have predicted what happened next.
I saw 5 horselike shapes galloping into view. I thought that they were wild ponies at first, but once they had galloped to within 10 feet of me, there was no denying what they were, even if common sense itself was telling me that unicorns were a myth, I couldn’t ignore or deny the beautiful creatures which stood playing in the long grass before me.
They weren’t all white, like the unicorns I had seen in books as a child, but instead, they looked like appaloosa horses, dappled and slender, with ivory-like horns growing half-way between their ears. I sat in awe for a few minutes, before remembering that I had a sliced apple in my lunch… and the unicorns looked enough like horses and were standing near enough that I hoped they would be willing to eat a slice or two from my hand.
I held out a small slice, hoping that I would be able to stroke their silky-looking mane, when, to my surprise, I began to hear voices; not aloud but in my head.
“A human!”
“I’ve even never seen one before.”
“What is she doing here?”
“How did she get here?”
“Why don’t you answer them?”
This voice took me by surprise, as it appeared to be directed at me. I had been focused on the unicorn nearest to me, but when I raised my gaze, I could see that the oldest of them, with a silvery mane, and wise looking eyes, was looking straight at me.
“Me? I…” I was suddenly struck by the fact that I was speaking to a unicorn, in the middle of a clearing which had never even been found before. “I must have cracked… I smashed my head… or I got bit by a snake… and I’m hallucinating this.”
“No, you aren’t. Now answer their questions.” The voice was kind enough, but it was also rather abrupt, and whether this was a hallucination, or not, I didn’t want to mess with anyone who had a voice like that, so I answered her.
“I… I’m here taking photos of the plants and animals that we don’t know about where I’m from.”
“Why?”
“So that we can learn about them.”
She seemed satisfied by this, and they had, what I could only assume was a conference, but this time, they communicated through typical horse noises, mostly neighing, with the occasional nicker. After a few minutes passed this way, they told me that I needed to leave, when I refused to do so without an explanation they told me about their storied history.
“Once we lived with humans, hand in hoof so to speak. We would gallop with them, both in everyday life and on the battlefields, but in time this changed. We began to gain a reputation as symbols of good luck, as we could communicate with our riders, and serve them better wherever we went, but this made us a valuable commodity. People would trade, or sell us for high prices, but we had never been possesions… we would only stay with men or women who treated us as friends. No one had ever thought to take a whip to a unicorn… until we began to run away from poor homes, and then this became a regular sight. We were kept in chains, never allowed to leave lest we took our luck away from their households. We decided to leave the humans, and come back here, where we were originally from… but they wouldn’t let us leave us so easily, and we couldn’t exactly run a boat by ourselves. It took what I can only call an uprising for us to escape and many unicorns, and humans alike died… we didn’t wish to harm them, but we couldn’t stay with them any longer, and they wouldn’t let us leave.”
“How did you escape then?” I asked, rendered almost breathless by the tale they were unraveling for me.
“Not all humans are evil… I guess that you know that… and a handful of kind individuals took us home, and stayed with us here… but they died long ago, and no one had seen us since… until you, that is.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat. Their story had been so intriguing, and tragic, that I had temporarily forgotten that I was a human… an interloper in their affairs and I knew that they were now waiting to see how I would react to this fact.
“I… I won’t reveal your secret.” The words came difficultly, as this was the exact opposite of my job, but I knew that they would never be able to allow me to share the news of their existence, and besides that, I couldn’t betray them, after hearing about how they had already been betrayed in the past. “But how did you know that you could trust me with your story?”
“We can hear your thoughts remember?”
“It’s almost impossible to hide your true being from someone who can hear your every thought.”
“We knew that you were a good person, but we also knew that you would never leave us alone until you had heard our story.”
“Honestly, we took a bit of a gamble, as we already knew that you were a good person.”
“... Thank you.”
I returned home, claiming that there was nothing of interest, and far too many venomous creatures and ankle-twisting drops in the forest floor to justify a trip there. I hope to return soon, but I need to figure out a way to get there that won’t attract any attention first and figure out a way to convince myself to leave after a few weeks, rather than giving in to a thousand childhood fantasies and moving there permanently.
Thanks for the read!
If you've got a story idea which you would like me to tackle, please share it below!
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