Unicorn Lost

Presents

H	ave you any idea," Florence mused softly, "what it's like to know a unicorn?"

Kathy opened one eye, Her chin was on the hearthrug and she'd nearly been asleep. "Um...I'd like to think I do," she answered in a yawning voice. "I mean, wasn't it Sigmund Fraud who said 'Know Thyself...?'"

Florence rolled over, her head cushioned on Kathy's opalescent flank. "No...you're not a *real* unicorn. And knowing one is a lot different than being one." Florence's eyes went all unfocused on the dying embers of the fire. "If I lose him...," she whispered.

As no further comments were forthcoming, Kathy decided it might be safe to try to doze off. But even as she shut her eyes, a sudden, excruciating pain shot down the length of her horn and crashed into her mind with the force of a thousand thunderbolts.

She leaped up, legs rigid, and destroyed what was left of the livingroom furniture. Florence tumbled over backward in her haste to get away from the sudden explosion of legs.

"What's wrong? What is it?" Florence cried, terrified by the unnatrual expression on Kathy's face. The unicorn's eyes were half goggling out of her head, her tongue was lolling and she looked like the image on a horrible tapestry Florence had once seen in a museum.

"Danger!" Kathy gasped. "Danger! We must flee!"

But it was too late. A shout rose up from outside the chipmunk house, and fearsome, shadowy figures could be seen swarming over the yard. Screams echoed in the darkness as the chipmunks were torn from their beds and hurled out the windows into the waiting arms of the menacing ferret hordes.

"Come out and surrender or we'll slaughter the lot of 'em!" a ferocious voice bellowed. Standing amid the heavily-armed minions was a wolverine of impressive dimensions. In his hand he grasped Jeanette's torch.

Kathy looked at Florence. Florence looked at Kathy. "We can't let them die," they said in the same voice.

"You've got three seconds to surrender, or they're salsa," the wolverine hollered.

"We're bigger than them--we could take them," Kathy began to say, but Florence shook her head.

"They have the chipmunks. They'd kill them before we could take two steps. No. We'd better surrender. Chances are they'll just take us back to the castle."

So they left the house in attitudes of submission. The ferret soldiers made quick to throw many silvery bonds around the necks and legs of their captives. What surprised Florence more than anything was the vision of a female ferret similarly bound.

"I recognize you," Florence said to this figure. "You're the Queen, aren't you?"

The female lowered her head. She did not look so queenly now, her resplendent colurt robes exchanged for the dull cloak of someone who is out on dark business. She made no reply. Jeanette began to speak, but a sharp look from the Queen urged her to immediate silence.

"It'll be up to His Highness if she's still the Queen come morning!" the wolverine shouted. He was the sort of person who shouted even if he was standing next to you. "Get moving!"

The ferret guards closed in, and urged their prisoners to walk with many swift jabs of their needle-sharp spears, and hissed curses under their breath for having been gotten out of bed at such an impossible hour. The strange cavalcade moved off into the inky shadows.

When the sound of the troop died away, and only the night wind made any protest in the leaves of the chipmunks' tree, the door to the outhouse slowly creaked open, and a skunk edged her pink nose outside. "Hey, where'd everybody go?" she wondered in a tiny, lost voice; blinking her big eyes.

Then, shrugging herself all over to gather her wits, she looked at the ground and followed the churned-up trail of footprints off into the woods, as the two moons sank into the arms of the blue-black mountains.

-page oo24-
written by Nightstar.

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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