Unicorns are venomous.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s like when I told you that the Tooth Fairy wears armor made of children’s teeth, so buckle up. This one’s a gooder.
It all started on the day I decided to dig a better trench for the potatoes in my garden. The hot sun beat down on my lower back where my shirt had ridden up and become stuck due to sweat. Digging a trench is actual work, but the soil smelled so warm and inviting that it was difficult to stop long enough for a break.
Usually when I have to trench the garden, I hitch a deep plough to my unicorn, Belle. But not today. Oh no. Belle was feisty. She looked at the plough with fire in her eyes and her ephemeral unicorn voice sounded in my head with a demonic crackle.
“Not today!”
Something in her expression and the fact that her horn was literally shooting tiny sparks like a sparkler on a birthday cake made me move right along, straight back to where that plough came from. She didn’t have to be so rude about it - I’d have taken a polite no thank you. Oh well.
Back out to the garden with my sturdy shovel and favourite work gloves. My feet were drenched in my sweaty rubber gardening boots, and I probably had dirt smudged on my face.
Belle was normally so pleasant. I had no idea what had gotten into her. I finished the back-breaking but satisfying work of digging the trench, and then laid down on the deck to rest my back. I pulled out my phone.
I thought about playing the click and yay crypto games, play to earn stuff, but moved to the search engine instead. I looked up moodiness in 3 year old unicorns, and to my amazement, it wasn’t just the usual list of hoof care, horn shedding, or prevention of errant magical sneezes. Nope. Not today.
Unicorns are venomous.
Their venom starts to come in when they turn 3, and apparently the process can make them extremely grouchy. The article said to leave them alone with plenty of oats and water, but definitely not to let them out of the barn.
OHNO.
I’d left Belle in the field adjacent to the dark and spooky magical forest, because she was such a good unicorn and never ran off without letting me know.
I chugged some water, shoved the water bottle in my homemade pocket (lady pockets, don’t get me started on how useless they are), and took off toward the field at a jog. I might not know much about this, but I was willing to bet having a grouchy venomous unicorn running all over a magical spooky forest was… probably a really bad idea.
I don’t know what I expected to do when I found her, and I was not at all confident of my chances for success. Belle wasn’t your normal white unicorn with rainbow mane and tail. Belle was dark blue, like the dark and spooky magical forest, with dark purple splotches. Her mane and tail were the colours of the aurora borealis, constantly dancing, constantly changing. Her horn lit up when she was feeling magical… except today it had been sparking. I looked toward the horizon and saw a thin column of smoke rising from the forest. Sparking horn, fall leaves on the ground, no rain for a month. Could unicorns put out fires with their magic? What about the other magical creatures? Weren’t there ones that squirted water?
I heard a hideous snarl that would make a Tasmanian Devil blush, and a blinding flash of light knocked me backward onto the ground. The wind was knocked out of me and I didn’t know if things went black, but there was a gap of nothingness in my perception of time and feeling anything.
I tried to blink my eyes but I couldn’t feel them move, and I couldn’t see anything either. I seemed to be able to think but not to speak. I didn’t feel like I was in my body, but I also didn’t feel like I was out of my body. I couldn’t feel my body. The entire thing was alarming.
“Belle?” I wondered.
A derisive snort answered in my head.
I didn’t know what to say. What to ask. Where to start.
“Where am I? What is going on?” It seemed so cliche, so urban fantasy, but I was definitely curious.
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” she snorted back. “Wouldn’t you like to go, to leave, to see and feel and breath again?”
It was true that with no sensation of my body I had no idea if I was breathing. This was also alarming. If I had a heart, surely it would be beating out of my chest by now? Fear felt icy. At least that was something.
“Yeah, I do want all that, and I’d love it if you’d stop being all weird and just tell me what’s going on,” I replied sternly. If I had a body, it would have tried to sit up and glare menacingly.
“Why do you suddenly care about me? All you care about is your stupid vegetable garden of delicious delights,” she replied. I felt her turn and lower her gaze, even though I couldn’t see her or feel without a body.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said quietly.
I felt her back off.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry this is how you had to learn that unicorns are venomous.”
And that’s how I died.