Enchanted

First, a bit of background to this story as I usually don't write stories about unicorns. Or fantasy in general, actually. I wrote this piece for a science fiction/fantasy course I took while in college. The professor asked us to write a story about either a dragon and/or an unicorn. Most people wrote about dragons because, well, they are dragons. I decided to go for the horn and write about an unicorn. For the story, I used this fantasy book called, Dragons and Unicorns, which takes the form of a natural history of the creatures. It was a neat little book, akin to the Star Wars Essential guides I cut my nerd teeth on back when I was thirteen.

I am sheepishly proud of this story. I like how I described the actual hunting scene, but I agree that the ending is a bit ho-hum. However, those are my own thoughts about my own piece, so any comments are appreciated.

I read this at a public reading in a vain attempt to impress my favorite writing professor ever. He left before I got to read it and I think that was a good thing because it is about a unicorn.

Peace!

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Cuernos

By Garik Charneco

Kaia sleeps with a stuffed panda she calls Lily that I picked up when I bought her “Save the Whales” bed sheets at The Nature Company. Lily has a sprig of plastic bamboo leaves glued to her mouth and Kaia adores how accurate that is. Kaia has cheetah pajamas, dolphin posters, and a baby jade plant, but she loves Lily the most; she has told me this personally. Her giraffe growth chart, jellyfish lampshade, and tiger sheets are all cool, but there is something mystical about that panda. Just like this unicorn I have in front of my arrowhead.

The unicorn drinks from the edge of this stream that runs to a fjord on the Baltic Sea. As I cock back the bowstring I notice that I have been in Norway for two weeks already and I haven’t really seen a fjord! Most unicorn lore puts them back into the interior, so I follow. How could I argue with ancient Norse seers?

I am glad that I paid the extra two hundred dollars back home for the cable guard. This bow is so quiet. All the life histories, legends, and field sightings mention a unicorn’s acute sense of hearing. But this one seems perfectly content, sipping away at the rippling water. I stop my pull and hold onto a 309 feet-per-second bolt of aircraft carrier steel. Kaia has nothing like this. All her friends love galloping satyrs and fairies, but Kaia prefers real animals with real problems that she can solve. She tells me and Lisa, every night, about the wildlife preserve she is going to open. “And Lily will be the grand attraction,” she announces, waving the stuffed bear in our faces. I’ll definitely get her something on the way out at the gift shop. There are endangered species in Norway. One is bound to please her.

This unicorn is covered in a thick, shaggy fur that would make a great coat. The white fur shimmers in absolute perfection; I can’t tell whether the water is reflecting the unicorn or whether the unicorn is reflecting the water. The image is a bit disconcerting and I struggle to steady the bow on the actual target. Lisa would look great in a unicorn pelt. She complains and nags about how I spend more time at work than home. Right now, southern Norway is my office and I cannot just leave to pencil in some Animal Planet time with Kaia. A nice gift like a unicorn coat would get me some peace. And Kaia can wear it when she is older. Once I get that horn I will worry about skinning this thing. I did not plan for a fur, but I’m flexible in the field. I will not have to saw that into pieces for transport.

The unicorn is big but the horn is really huge. One of the sources Gangy gave me said that some unicorn horns can reach up to six feet in length. This one’s horn is loosely coiled but, almost a good five feet. I guess it is a male, but I really don’t care about sex. This isn’t a nature trip.

When the unicorn bends down to drink some water, the tip of the horn just cuts across the surface of the stream. Water dances along the tip and the streams seems to get a lot clearer. Gangy was right about the horn’s powers. This unicorn horn could solve a lot of the world’s problems. I give the string one last tug and let the arrow fly.

The arrow head is capped with a tri-fold Revolution tip. On impact, three tiny stainless steel blades inch out and bore out a good, golf ball sized, entry wound. The unicorn’s blood is an un-legendary red. The shaggy fur wicks up the excess and the wound develops a mottled crimson look. The unicorn moans low and ailing, creating a dirge that stirs the rest of the forest to life. I whip out another arrow from the quiver and set it on the rest. I don’t have to bother with being silent anymore. The unicorn wails on and the forest is alive with the snap of branches and flutter of feathers. I come out of my crouch and the blood returning to my legs makes feel woozy. The unicorn still has steady footing, but it thrashes in the stream. Even with its wielder wounded, the horn still manipulates the water, but only on a greater scale. Huge sheets of water come up from the stream like geysers; just pure water, no silt, rocks, or dirt, but just liquid. I cock the bow again. Another arrow slashes through the air.

The second wound brings the animal down. The unicorn doesn’t tuck it legs under itself, but instead juts them out in all four directions. Now it can’t leap away like the one in the foothills of Galdhopiggen. It stops moaning and switches to zipping wheezes—its nostrils flaring for air. The stream undulates between rippling bands of red and brown as I prepare another arrow. With the bow readied, I step towards the unicorn. It only notices me when I am four feet away and looks up at me with a huge blue eye. Every other unicorn on this expedition had brown eyes. The curiosity only flickers in my mind and I launch another arrow, cutting through the soft flaps of flesh in its neck.

When the unicorn’s head hits the water, the horn slides under the surface and breaks the turbulent stream. The horn appears even larger up close and the twisted braid of it sparkles. The water around the horn bubbles and the silt and blood shy away from it. The horn cleans the entire stream to a sparkle as I hack it off.

And now, with Gangy complaining about how I didn’t bring him the entire horn, Norway feels like all my other jobs. In the back of Elements Natural Food Co-Op looking over at the baggies of powdered unicorn horn, the unicorn is just another catch. Nothing mystical about that.

“Man, I wanted the entire thing. I told everyone on the team about the entire thing! The whole thing, Chase! We even came up with a name for it, Horn of Gaea.”

I finger one of the bags and leave an indent in the plastic. The bags are the tiny kind that pharmacists use for pills. Gangy has hundreds of them back here, for the store’s Botanical Pharmacy section.

“You saw that powder cut through that motor oil in the pool yesterday. I ground it in Oslo, so I could get it through easier. I told customs it was beach sand from Hardanger fjord.”

“They didn’t hassle you?” Gangy asks curiously, but also concerned.

I laugh. “I was coming from Norway, Gangy! Fucking Norway! What is so dangerous about Norway?”

Gangy shrugs and mutters a brief chuckle. “Nice.” He holds up one of the bags to the light and slowly tilts it around. Flecks of silver and gold shine through the cream colored powder and clear plastic. “I guess this stuff will work.” He carefully places the baggie on top of the stack.

“Any ideas as to where you’ll use it?” I grab the same bag I poked and flip it through my fingers.

Gangy sees me playing with the baggie and he scrambles over to me. He snatches the baggie out of my hand and cradles it against his chest. “Chase! This is valuable!”

I can imagine the value. I can see the powder break up giant oil slicks, eradicate colonies of zebra mussels, and purge salt from Great Plains aquifers. “Ok, sorry. And speaking of value, when do I get paid?”

“C’mon, Chase, don’t give me this shit!”

I sense an excuse coming. “Gangy, you sell oranges at this market for six bucks a pop! Don’t tell me you don’t have the money!”

Shaking his head, he walks back to the table and starts gently placing the baggies into a tote bag. “I guess mercenaries have never heard of fair trade.” The tote bag begins to swell up with all the powdered unicorn potential and I see the sea turtle print on the side. “You’ll have your money soon enough. I need to authenticate that advance I got from the Prince William Sound fishermen.”

I decide to humor him. “So that is your first target? Huh, you would think that 16 years would be enough to clean all that oil out?”

“Not at all. Once we finish there, we can go global. There are plenty of places out there: the Aral Sea, the Danube, Chesapeake Bay. Keep an eye on the news, man. This will be big.”

His rhetoric sounds beautiful, but I just want my money. Obviously, he does not have the money in the store, but I set a timeline. “Ok. I can wait, but no longer than a week. The airfare alone was killer.”

Gangy nods and his beaded dreadlocks flail around like Kaia’s jellyfish lampshade. “Sure, man.” He starts to tie the tote bag together. “Oh, did you get something for Kaia? She came into the store every day and asked if I knew where you were. I said nothing, but she always looked sad and Lisa always looked pissed.”

“Of course I got her something.” I reach into my own bag. I leave most of my equipment in the field and, hence, the bag is easy to maneuver in. I plunk the gift down onto the table and say, “I got her this little plush unicorn.” The toy looks nothing like the one I brought down. This one is purple and with a sky blue mane, but I can pass it off as authentic Norwegian. Just need to rip off the tag that says ‘Made in Taiwan.”