Unicorn Lost

Presents

W	hile the others were peacefully asleep, Kamida seemed to have a disturbing dream of some sort.

Her small legs moved a little, as if she was running from someone, or something. She softly cried in her dream, "Nooo, this is not right, you are not a... stop, I have to... don't make me..." The little skunk sat up, tears running over her small face. She looked around the small room and saw Jeanette sitting next to her.

"It's okay hon. It was just a bad dream, nothing to worry about." Jeanette smiled and hugged the little skunk girl warmly, trying to calm her down a little. "It's okay, would you like to tell me about your dream?"

The little skunkette looked up at her then slowly blinked her eyes. "I can't remember? It was a bad dream, but I can't remember anything of it."

Jeanette smiled, "That's good, it can't haunt you anymore. But I will make sure no bad dreams will disturb you tonight."

Kamida nodded and laid back down and snuggled into the blankets while Jeanette searched her room. "Now, where did I leave that thing?" she asked herself, then walked to a small cabinet. She opened a drawer and pulled out something that looked like a circle made of flexible branches, with a web made of silk wires. Blue feathers and a gem hung on its side. "Got it."

Kamida looked at Jeanette, "What is that?"

"It's a dream catcher. It catches all the bad dreams," Jeanette explained while hanging it above the skunkette's bed. "It will help you sleep."

"Oooh?" Kamida watched it very curiously. "What kind of magic does it use? Invocation or deviation?"

Jeanette looked at Kamida and smiled, "You know, you seem to know a lot about magic for a girl your age. Are you a wizard's apprentice?"

Kamida meeped, then shook her head.

Jeanette smiled, "A sorceress then?"

Kamida blinked her eyes, and seemed to look uncomfortable, then shook her head, "Noooooo?"

Jeanette crossed her eyes, then she giggled. "Oh good lord, I always thought I was convincing when I did that with my mom when I was your age. No wonder she saw straight through me. It's okay, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to now, we can talk about it tomorrow, okay?"

The little skunkette hesitantly nodded, then she laid back down again.

Jeanette watched the little skunk going back to sleep, then her eyes fell on a silver bracelet the girl wore around her left arm. It covered her entire underarm, almost as if it was cased around it. There was no locking mechanism, or even a seam that shows it can be opened in any way. "Odd," she whispered to herself. While she was looking, the bracelet glowed with a violet light, an intricate pattern of runes became visible for an instant, then vanished.

"What the?" Jeanette wondered and moved closer to the small skunkette, while she was distracted a gemlike butterfly appeared out of nowhere and flew toward Jeanette and it touched her, an instant later Jeanette saw her surrounding change and she was at another place.

"What... how... this is not supposed to happen?" Jeanette said confused to herself. She looked down and saw a body that is clearly not her own. She lifted her arms and noticed they were covered with black fur. She turned her head and saw she had a black and white tail. She looked around the area. She was standing in a round garden, surrounded by a stone wall. Behind her was a wooden gate that was partially open. In front of her was a path made of cobblestones with stone pillars to the left and right of it. On the top of each pillar a ferret warrior stood in a guarding pose, their faces pointing to a giant wooden door set into a wall at the end of the path.

She stepped on the path and walked toward the giant door. "I have found the scroll and bracelet where you said I could find them," she heard herself say with a familiar lilting voice. "I will use it to dispel the magical lock on the door, but you must hurry, it will only suppress the magic for a few seconds."

"Oh, thank you. I will be forever grateful for your rescue little sorceress. You can keep the bracelet. Put it on, then cast the spell. Hurry, before those awful ferrets return!"

The little sorceress slid the bracelet over her left hand and onto her arm.

Jeanette noticed that the bracelet seemed to shrink a little to a perfect, almost skin-tight fit.

Then she rolled out a scroll and began to read. The runes on the scroll seemed to swirl around on the paper, then they fell into place as the little sorceress read the scroll out loud. Her mind focused on the door in front of her. The scroll flashed, then burned away in a green flame as the sorceress spoke out the last arcane syllable. At the same moment there was a green flash that seemed to come from the edges around the door. A mighty roar came from behind the door and the sorceress looked startled at the door. She heard herself say, "Hurry, open the door and come out."

The door opened and giant fingers appeared around the edge. Then a giant head looked around the door and grinned wickedly at the frozen sorceress, "Surprise!"

"Noo, this is not right, you are not a Wrymling? Stop, I have to... don't make me...," Jeanette heard Kamida's voice say. Then she lifted her arms and started to whisper arcane words.

The giant whispered something, then grinned evilly.

"Do what?" Jeanette hears Kamida's voice speak words but somehow they miss something that was there when she used the scroll. She heard the little girl squeak, "My magic! I can't cast my spells! What?"

The giant's arm moved toward her in a flash. Then everything went dark... and returned back into Jeanette's own room.

Jeanette looked at the small girl who was peacefully asleep, then to the gem butterfly and shook her head. "Aren't you supposed to being her back her memories she lost? Why did you show me?"

The butterfly moved closer toward the little skunk then was swatted away by an unseen force.

"Better do something about that bracelet first. Let's see now," she reached out to the bracelet. But when her fingers were an inch away from it, a blue spark suddenly came from it and gave her a powerful shock. At the same time the small skunkette whimpered in pain.

"Bad idea, that thing is magically protected. How to...," she turned around as she heard a tapping noise on the window.

Kamida woke up and looked at Jeanette. "Something wrong?" she asked, then she felt a slight pain in her left arm and moved her right hand over the bracelet and rubbed it.

"I do not know, but there's someone outside," Jeanette replied.

A soft spoken voice from outside the window spoke, "I'm sorry if I disturbed you, but it's of the utmost importance that I speak to you."

Jeanette looked at the bracelet and decided to handle it another time. "Sure. &nbs;Please walk around the house and I'll open the front door and wake the others." She turned to Kamida, "Lets go. You wake the others now, I'll go and open the door for whomever is outside." The little skunkette nodded and went out to fetch the unicorn, the wolf girl and Jeanette's mom.

Jeanette opened the door and a hooded figure stood in the doorway. She quickly entered the home. "My excuses for this intrusion, do not worry about the guards who are looking for you. I sent them in the wrong direction by spreading a rumour that you had been sighted in the land of bad puns."

Jeanette looked sceptical at the hooded figure in front of her. "Why should we believe you? And even if it's true, why should they listen to you and your suggestions?"

The hooded figure giggled softly. "Why my dear? Because they trust their Queen, and they obey her without question," she moved back her hood and smiled at Jeanette. "My name is Rose. I'm the bride of King Hemlock the giant slayer."

~~~~~~~~~~~{ Later in the Kitchen }~~~~~~~~~~~

The Queen sat at the table with the rest of the party. "I'm sorry for my husband's decision to lock you up in prison. He is acting more and more strange lately. I could not convince him to reconsider his decision." She shook her head. "Things have gone seriously wrong in the last month or so. Ever since that jester showed up. He seems to have an influence over my husband that I can not explain. My husband and I seem to be drifting apart. He's but a shadow of the man who fought the giant once. The man who rescued me from that awful cage, and the father of our children. He seems to be becoming more and more of a stranger to me every day."

"But, that is not how I remember a story my daddy once told me?" Kamida looked confused. "It was about a unicorn and a princess looking for her love?"

Florence looked at the little girl with her mouth open, not exactly sure how to react to that revelation.

Kathy grinned, "Seems her dad somehow knows something about what is going to happen, heh?"

The ferret Queen smiled at Kamida, then her expression became painful. "Years ago the giant tried to become king over our lands. His minions kidnapped me and delivered me to him. He wanted to force my father to give up his throne and instate him as the new king. He locked me in a cage and...," the ferret shivered, as she relived a few very unpleasant memories. "He took off my clothes and put me in an old cage that had not been cleaned in ages. It was filthy and the food and water was horrible. It was degrading. The worst insult however was that he called me George. George! Do I look like a George to you?" the little ferret folded her arms under her chest and pushed it up a little.

Florence quickly moved her hand over Kathy's mouth before she can utter a remark. "Pony! Hush!" she mumbled to Kathy. Then embarrassed as she suddenly realised that it was not her spirit-mate, but another unicorn.

Kathy grinned, then whispered, "He was that bad sometimes?"

The wolf girl nodded.

"I saw the paintings in the court room, and you where fully clothed there," Jeanette said.

The Queen smiled, "Artistic freedom dear. And it wouldn't have been proper if they painted me that way."

"How did he defeat the giant?" Kamida asked.

The Queen smiled, "Mainly thanks to the giant's own clumsiness. My husband stabbed him in his hand and he pulled it back too abruptly. He lost his balance and tripped over his own feet and hit the wall behind him. We had tied him up by the time he came around. We locked him in a special prison. Don't worry, he had enough to eat and drink. The prison was not so much a room, as a different reality.

"A plane?" the little skunk asked.

The Queen looked surprised, "Why, yes. How do you know little one? Anyway we rebuilt the kingdom and later married. Things where going well until a few months ago. Small things at first, and no-one seemed to notice. Then things went from bad to worse. First that Jester showed up and my husband almost immediately gave him a job at our court. Even his jokes where so old and stale you could clobber someone to death with them. Then creatures we have never seen before started to walk around our lands. We had to re-erect the magical wall again to keep small flocks of the local pests out of town. Something my husband was against, but when I asked him why he could not give a logical explanation. I gave the order to the militia to be on constant guard. A few soldiers reported to me that they saw the jester leave the town. He told them he was on secret missions for the King and those where classified. When I asked my husband about this he told me not to worry about it and that the jester knew what he was doing. He also asked me not to ask any more questions."

Florence listened silently, then asked, "Does your husband do other things that do not seem to make sense, or are out of the ordinary for him?"

The ferret nodded, "Somehow he has become very concerned about the well being of our children. He makes sure that they always have an armed guard in front of their room. They never go anywhere without soldiers that he asks me to appoint," the Queen looked very concerned. "I do not trust that Jester. And my girls are downright scared of him. I managed to enforce the rule that the Jester should pipe down his jokes while there are children around, and he accepted it. Although not without an argument about cramping his style. Even my husband was arguing in his favour."

The ferret Queen shook her head. "So much chaos. If I didn't know better, I would say the giant was on the loose again. But we locked him up and threw away the key. No physical force could ever free him from his prison, and no wizard in our service would be stupid enough to do so."

Jeanette looked at the little skunk but saw that she did not react out of the ordinary. "She doesn't remember. Poor girl, what has he done to you?"

The Queen rested her head in her hands. "And on top of that, reports have started to surface about a dragon waking up from its slumber. We think it's a red dragon. Descriptions are vague, but my husband does not want to do anything with that. Every time when peasants come to our castle with stories about a dragon, my husband seems to become instantly deaf. The jester ridicules their story in any way he can, and my husband orders his soldiers to throw them out of town."

"A dragon?" Jeanette jumped up, then sat down again.

"Yes. Quite a big one, even if I take the stories I have heard with a grain of salt. Although size does not matter, specially when concerning spellcasters," the Queen softy smiled at Kamida.

Jeanette smiled. "So I'm not the only one who has noticed," she thought to herself.

Kamida shook her head. "I'm no sorceress. I'm just a little skunk. Nothing more then that. Honestly, I do not have any magic in me," she blushed and looked away.

The Queen looked up. "I have to go now or people might start to look for me. But before I go, I would like to ask you a favour. Please try to find out if the rumours about a dragon are true, and what its role is in things that are happening now."

The unicorn smiled, "Well, we have something similar on our to-do list. We will look into it."

The ferret Queen smiled. "Thank you. May the gods protect you on your quest," she bowed, then left the house and quietly headed back toward the town.

The unicorn looked at the closed door, then back at Florence. "Well, that was interesting, the plot seems to thicken."

Florence nodded and looked at the yawning skunkette. "I think someone has to go back to bed."

Rebecca smiled, "She should, this is draining a lot from her."

Jeanette looked surprised at her mother, but said nothing.

Kamida stood up from her chair, went back to her room and crawled under the blankets where she fell asleep.

The unicorn nodded, "Well, time for us to hit the hay. We can talk further in the morning."

Florence nodded and together they left for the living room.

Jeanette looked at her mother. "You know?"

Her mother nodded, "I have heard of those bracelets dear. They originally where used to keep evil spell casters in line without harming them. That one has been tempered with. Someone placed too many spells on it, making it very unstable," Rebecca shook her head. "That is why she is acting so insecure. As soon as she forms a thought that the magic on the bracelet does not like, it is being suppressed. You try to keep a conversation with something taking pieces of your train of thought away."

Jeanette nodded, "Sometimes though, a thought slips through."

Her mother nodded in agreement. "She is still a sorceress.
A part of her is fighting it.
I can imagine that at times she is strong enough to press one or two thoughts through."

Jeanette asked, "Is there a way to remove it? I tried to touch it and it gave us both a shock."

"There might be, but I'll better do that tomorrow morning. Kamida needs to rest and I need to prepare some things. Lets go to bed now."

Jeanette nodded and moved back to her bedroom.

~~~~~~~~~~~{ Meanwhile, In Another Place. }~~~~~~~~~~~

A giant sat in a huge wooden chair looking extremely bored. Then sat up and looked toward a figure approaching him.

"I bring good news milord. The Queen led one of us straight toward their hiding place. We found them, and the unicorn."

The giant smiled, "Good. Rally some of my previous subjects and take them to their hiding place and smoke them out. Make sure you get the other Unicorn, unharmed! Do not worry about the little sorceress, she's no threat."

The figure in the shadows nodded, and with the jingling sound of small bells moved away.

-page oo23-
written by Guest#1

Copyright and Credit:
  · Florence from "Freefall" © Mark Stanley.
  · Magic Gardener © Hortmage.
  · Jeanette © Jeanette Isabelle.
  · Kathy from "Carry On" © Kathy Garrison.
  · Kamida © Guest #1.
  · ToraKiyoshi - Writer.
  · White Pony from "Cross Time Cafe" © S.Kidwell.
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