The first version of this story (also posted under this name) was my baby for a good while, but I eventually succumbed to complaints from my friends about its totally confusing nature. This, then, is my effort to fix it up as best as I can, so please, I urge you to IM, review, or e-mail me with anything you see that you don't get or don't like. Honestly. Please, please. Oh—and, enjoy the story: it should be updated regularly.
I was five when they enrolled me. My sisters were excited, and therefore I was excited; it was a great honor to be here, they said, and so I was honored, because at that age I didn't know enough to have my own opinion.
That day was a trying day, with the sounds of rowdy teens and hollers of instructors flooding my ears, and I resisted the urge to hide and play with the little truck a cousin had sent me. All around me, children were being led away from their families by orderly adults, down the lane where they would spend their upcoming lifetime. My mother and aunts and grandfather wept over my head before I went with the others—some of the kids seemed scared to go but my uncle told me to be brave, and so I was.
I remember what I looked like that day only because I have a picture from it; my hair was mud brown, unlike the long amber-red I've sported every year since, and I was at least a head taller than the slower aging humans around me. He is in the picture, by the corner, but his back is turned so I didn't notice him for years--no one did, really. He dressed strangely, he was white as a cloud, and he always had his head in a book.
One of the teachers called us into a line—a werewolf, a vampire, a few species I didn't recognize, and him—and explained the rules. No destruction of school property. Students were not to be harmed in any way, and we all looked a bit sideways at the vampire, who seemed amused by this. Our food needs would be catered to us, within reason, and the teacher glanced at me. Even at that age, I thought that was dumb, for I had already been told many times that students-who-are-prey were not to be touched here. Then there was roll call, and I lifted my hand when Szymon was called, the rest of the syllables tripped over in typical human pronunciation attempts.
He must have recognized my name because he gave a jump, and our eyes met: the first introduction of the prince of Pegasus and the prophesied heir to the unicorn throne. The teacher noticed this and started to say something in warning, but by that time I had a black eye and he was missing a chunk of hair.
His name is Daiei, and he was my enemy, because everyone said so. It became our custom, kick, punch, bite, whenever we met.
Every day, always the same. He is my enemy, and that's how it has to stay.
---
"Hey, Daiei! Where do you think you're going?"
I focus on placing one foot in front of the other, slapped down at double time—left, right, left, right, echoing off the dirt and gravel in a regular pattern that makes me feel rather proud. No one in my clan had mastered this unbalanced way of travel before my enrollment, although I hear it is now a fashion among the younger members to try out human form at least once. As far as I'm aware of, however, none have attempted this wildly precarious running motion, flinging oneself into the air in a haphazard mesh of limbs.
A stone, or perhaps something heavier, whistles past my ear to clatter on the brick and gravel before me. I change my course to account for it, speeding up as their shouts join the resounding thud of footsteps placed in counter to mine--another rock follows its brethren, this time to land a strike on my shoulder, and I get pitched forward but am somehow able to regain my footing and continue on.
Certainly none of my clan has tried running in conditions like these.
The sounds behind are growing steadily louder and I both despair and take comfort in this familiar result: it is like the continuity of a tropical storm, of a tidal wave: unstoppable, necessary for renewal of life, inevitable in its destruction. There will follow me here until the world's end, and through this residual patter salvation almost finds me, wrapping arms of bruise and hurt around my damaged soul. Regular as death and homework, their fists hunger for my blood—I do not deign to starve them.
A unicorn's blood is poisonous—not naturally, of course, but due to the aoini we get in our diet—and it is partly for this reason that most species do not look to my species for food. Ten years consumption of ninth-rate cafeteria food has dulled the toxicity of mine to no more acidic than a human's, however, and so they have no idea they should be getting their just reward when they strike me, this gang trailing now worryingly close.
I know throughout my soul and bones that if I were to just turn around and strike out, they would go away. Not a one of them is in this for money or duty, except maybe Marcus, dropout extraordinare. He does it because he is honestly concerned, simply can't understand why I never defended myself, and wants to cure me of the primal fear that keeps me from running missions with even the mere threat of violence. Today he shows this concern by lunging ahead of the others and flinging me to the ground with a force that makes me bounce; I am unable to stop a short gasp as a stone splits my brow, spilling blood ineffectually into the cement.
The others are there already, hauling me up. These are the lonely ones, the bitter ones, those no one cares about, and my heart aches in pity of them even as this fake form of mine gets driven through the blender. They can sense this pity, and they curse me as much as I curse myself for loving this world that causes me such pain.
They do these beatings outside of the school barrier and never think to question why I would venture to the other side of the gates so often when I know they're waiting for me. I know they need this, and I know I deserve it, know that it is penance for everything I have said to him today and the other days this week.
The blows have stopped already and it hasn't even been five minutes, couldn't have been, so that means it is either the police or the guards again. The police have a woman who watches for me now, asks questions with a sympathetic tone, and leans closer every time we meet; I cringe with the mere thought that one day she will be emboldened enough to touch my bare, human skin. She is no virgin and her fingers will leave scars on these un-furred cells that will cause her distress and surely get her fired, and I would be put through the grill by my father, who will just as surely want to know what things I had gotten myself into on this terrible planet of pain.
It occurs to me now, lying in my blood on the alley ground, that while the blows may have stopped, the sounds continue on. I open my eyes and turn my heart to stone, because of all people, he is standing there. They are running away, so he was victorious, although I can see from the limpness of an arm and blood in his absurdly colored hair that he hadn't prepared for Marcus's iron knuckles. He is harmed, because of me, and so are they: just another long line of sins to add to my less-than-stellar record.
I am a unicorn, trapped in this body so that the school-board can continue in the Earth pursuit of keeping its people in the dark about the existence of the non-humans that attend. Those who beat me do not know the golden strands that had been clenched between their fingers should have been the soft silver of a unicorn heir-eligible, but it would not have mattered if they had. Like they were for all of my people before the Uprising, my hooves are dull to avoid damaging the plants and grasses I might trod upon, and the crystal length on my forehead is designed only for healing. I am a pale possibility, as my lone friend Asher calls it, one of those that can be selected for the throne, and therefore I can harm no one. Ever.
No one except for him, because he is no one.
Szymon—a ridiculous name only marginally pronounceable in my native tongue—stalks over to my location on the ground, crouching down from his absurdly tall—and like me, human—height to make sure I can see him. His topaz eyes flash hate, and, feeling absurdly offended, I almost challenge him on it—what have I done to you?—but the question is too stupid to pass my lips.
"You unicorn bastard," he hisses, but my enemy doesn't strike out or touch me, and for that I am grateful. His tone and words hurt, but I truly deserve them as much as the beatings, and I stay silent. "Why didn't you... never mind. Your stupid code of conduct." He breaks off into swearing that makes me cringe back, but still I say nothing. To defend is weakness. To attack is sin.
Behind us, on the other side of the wall, I can hear the bells of classes changing. The sounds are coming from the direction of The Force, as it is called: the name suggests violence, and my clan disapproved of it, but sent me light-years away from the golden fields I called homeeven still. I had learned only far after my inception that I had been placed in the school simply to keep the quota secure—a unicorn heir to counter the Pegazi prince—but it didn't bother me. Enrollment there gave me a chance to redeem myself in front of my family, even if it had allowed for the likes of Szymon, a unicorn's only and most hated enemy, to join as well. I merely felt the pressure of failure when I had to continuously fall short in my species' most sacred duty: to thwart the scourge of the air at every occasion.
The Pegasus is turned away, doing something out of sight, and I force myself to sit up. He is trying to unknot a pack, one handed, cursing as he goes, and seeing his injuries adds to my pain, something he most likely knows and is trying to inflict.
Do not aid the enemy.
Do not fail to give aid to any individual in need.
(To defend is weakness. To attack is sin.)
I am spared from an agonizing decision by Szymon, who grabs the traitor hand already creeping forward to heal his arm wound, his tanned skin contrasting sharply with my pallor. "Don't even think about it, hornhead." He jerks on the grip unexpectedly, and I tumble once more onto the ground. These actions I am allowed, commanded, to fight against, and I kick out, but this is not our first battle by any means and he is expecting that particular maneuver. He throws his weight across my legs, and I dig my fingers into his wrist, and he bites my shoulder and freezes, because we can both hear the sounds of shouts and whoops coming from the end of the alley.
We make our escape, somehow. I do my best to assure they follow me, and later that week, when Szymon and I pass in the halls, we say nothing. We are indebted to each other, and that is unacceptable.
Life goes on.
---
No one knows exactly when the unicorns became self-aware, but it was about a millennium ago that the Great War took place, and records usually focus on that.
While unicorns are known for occasional naïveté, they are not stupid and quickly realized that absolute pacifism in the world-eat-world universe was going to be the end of their species. It caused quite a quandary for them, for a unicorn that deals fatal harm to another must, by law, sacrifice itself without delay. To decide their fate, every member of the species gathered together in a colossal meeting: they went to choose, as the Earth story goes, who would bell the cat; went to see if an individual would sacrifice itself for the good of the all.
At the end of the meeting one of the most controversial issues of Known Time was passed. The unicorns closed themselves off from the outside lands for an entire half century. When they finally rejoined the galaxy, they did so in a burst of steel and death that raged across every world with deadly precision and a crystal clear message: unicorns were not to be touched.
Not one of the expertly trained warriors was killed in battle, but due to the species strict beliefs, the fatalities on their side were 100. To prevent anyone from believing it was a one-time fluke and taking advantage of the much diminished population, the unicorns began a species-wide program of rigorous training which every individual follows with rigorous effort. None except the Pegazi now bother them.
To retain their base ideals, however, it was declared that every generation, a committee is to select the purest and most innocent individual to lead the race in all governmental decisions, to prevent any corruption that could ever turn the race to war once again.
--Luana, Observations, Journal 3.2
---
I can feel lips on my neck, and I have to take awhile to remember why that is. Ah, yes, I had gone drinking with a vampire prince, my buddy Asher, and had managed to drown the thought out of my head that alcohol doesn't really affect him, which was most certainly not the case with me—probably not any Pegasus at all, but absolutely not me, because I am drunk. Really drunk. Why, again? Asher, right. The person kissing his or her way up my neck probably isn't him, unless he has changed his sexual preferences, shrunken a few inches, and dyed his hair black... or has it always been black to begin with? I'm pretty sure Asher is a blonde. Asher... blonde. Kind of like him, but Asher drinks, and has a possibility of being in this, well, wherever I am, and that obnoxious grass-eater does not.
I am so drunk.
The lips are against my ear now and my stomach churns. I hate anything touching my ears. The magazines and movies and girls I know all say that ears are a major turn-on, so maybe it's because I'm a guy, or maybe, and this is a thought I hide beneath layers and layers of booze and denial, maybe because only girls have been the ones doing it.
I'm pretty certain that this one is really a girl now, because a guy kissing me would be pretty gross and my father would murder me, but, anyway, a guy hopefully wouldn't have nails as scary as this person's—inch-long painted daggers have wandered into my view as they attempt to remove my shirt, and, far, far from being in the euphoric state that this is supposed to bring on, I feel more annoyed by the moment. When she moves down to my waist, I get my act together enough to push her off the bed—not maybe the nicest of motions, but I am furious now, and drunker than I ever have been.
"Get out of here," I manage, and she slaps me, an act that does more to wake me up than it hurts. She can't be drunk, or at least not as much as I am, because I can barely figure out which of her to look at, let alone which I could make physical contact with even if I wanted to.
"This is my room," is her answer, and it seems to be true, because my walls are white and I don't have a picture of Asher stuck onto one with heart stickers. She probably wants to use me to get to him, so I don't feel too bad about having pushed her off the bed. I do stumble to the door, and write a drunken, slanted mental note to myself for the creep who seems to have ditched me to stay away from girls with nails and black hair, before going down the hall.
After an agonizing walk to the window, I realize that this can't be my dorm, and that there isn't any way to get all the way to the other side of campus in the state I've gotten myself into. All my friends live over in my building, so there also isn't anyone over here that I could crash with.... hell, the only person I know in this spinning, blurry pile of bricks is him.
And that's enough to send me reeling that way, because even flat-out drunk I can make it to Daiei's room, having spent so much time there stringing up buckets, doorknob currents, and precarious jugs of water throughout the years. The last one makes me laugh, in a stuttering kind of way, until I remember the crickets he had put into my room in retaliation. I couldn't go to sleep for a week in there.
Yep, room 209, this is it. I sort of fall against the door, too out of it to knock, and try to remember to what end I was there. If he was me, then I would be promptly locked outside, but the kid can be somewhat sympathetic when he isn't being in a holier-than-thou grass-eater mood.
Realistically, he would probably kick me in the head before locking me out, but that would be sympathetic because it might make me unconscious.
He must have yanked the door open in a "what the f is someone doing bothering me at this hour" way, with the asterisks because Daiei never would dream of doing something as terrible as swearing, but anyway, must have done that because I was now laying face-down on the floor in his room. I knowthat because what's in my mouth currently is dirt, as the lovely accommodating school board lets him transfigure his carpeting to whatever would make his blessed self feel most at home, and dirt seems to be the "feel good" substance of the day.
My body gets sick of suffocating and rolls me over, so I get a close-up view of his too-bizarre golden eyes and pale lips as he checks me for a head injury. I doubt, even with Asher as a friend (because who isn't our resident vampire buddying up to?) that he has ever been drunk, and probably doesn't even know what alcohol is, so I may come away with more sympathy than I expected.
Like, maybe he will kick me in the groin before the head, because he will think this is another cruel joke I'm playing on him due to a just-now, too-late realization that this looks like the boy who cried fox or bear or whatever. As his expression slowly darkens, I feel pressed to explain it to him... as soon as I figure out which him to explain it to. The one on the right is somewhat clearer, but it goes away before I can start, fortunately enough, as I'm not sure if I can remember how to form sentences at the moment. He's so thin that he keeps fading out completely, and the roaring in my head doesn't help matters any. A part of me is fairly sure that I'm drugged, not just drunk, and some of this must have worn off on my looks because he actually does seem concerned. This is a rather cheerful thought, because it means I can possibly stay.
"Prnxyl," I begin, and then panic for a bit before realizing he can't speak Pegazi and has no idea what I've said. "Daijei," I try again, and that is at least fairly close and a hell of a lot more pronounceable than his name actually is, "Don't... kick inna' head." That wasn't what I was going to say, but it at least conveys the important part of the issue.
"Why?" is all he replies, and I curse mentally because I was forgetting he was smart, and mentally because he'd break my fingers before the nuts n' noggin if I did start swearing.
Anyway, it means that I will actually have to think of a reasonable answer, which I can't. "Feel bad...ed," I conclude.
The kid does nothing but watch me suffer, except to reach up and fix the thin golden frames on his nose. "I'm sure we both would feel bad, yes," he says, and my heart sinks. I will be sleeping in the hallway, and I will wake up naked with my hand in a bucket of water.
He picks me up, even though I have at least six inches on him and he can hide behind saplings, because unicorns are crazy strong and my bones are built for flying. Instead of throwing me out, however, he tosses me onto a nest of grass and exits, just walking out and closing the door behind him.
The unicorn is most likely going to get the campus cops, but I don't care. The green stuff is soft, the room is too dark to be spinning, and there isn't any girl to bother me: in other words, this is as close to heaven as I'm going to get. I take a drunken moment to ponder why he picked grass for bedding, when leaves are so much better. It's a unicorn thing, I suppose after some contemplation.
Daiei comes back, no guards in sight, and sits on the edge of the nest... bed... thing. "You know I'm not--" he starts, and stops. "You can't..." This is amazingly funny to me, because he's usually rather eloquent and stuff when talking, and I start to laugh. That certainly helps him find his voice, and his eyes narrow.
"Who were you sleeping with?" He asks, and his voice is as icy as I've heard it get. I'm feeling less drunk than before, and the tone makes me feel ashamed, and, to some extent worried, because my reputation for the night is hinging on the goodwill that's letting me stay. I take a breath, and feel better—maybe these grasses have healing properties or something; plants aren't my strong suit.
"Nobody," I reply, because that's an easy question. The boy looks furious, and I give myself a once-over: bite marks on my shoulders and chest, spots of lipstick on the corners of my vision, not much of a shirt, pants undone. I close my eyes and sink into the grass. "Wasn't my idea. Wouldn't take no for an answer."
His voice is down to a hiss now, and I can't for the life of me figure out why he's so upset, unless he's going to have to burn his now impure bed down. "Yes, right." I'm just as furious as I was before, now, because I've never lied to him, never lied to anyone, and now he isn't believing me just because. I yank off one of the black leather gloves he always dons and grab his hand before he can move, because a Pegasus is always going to be faster than a unicorn.
"See? No burns." I glare at him triumphantly, but he has turned his face away, bottom lip caught between his teeth and exotic eyes squeezed shut. Unbelievable.
"What are you crying about?" He has lost me completely, even though I'm feeling relatively focused now; the drug, or whatever it was, seems to have worn off. I loosen my fingers from around his, just in case that's the cause of his distress, but the skin beneath them is the same pale as the rest of Daiei--not that anyone ever sees the rest of him, so I have to go off of his neck and face, which are at least close to the same color.
At age fifteen in a school with absolutely foolproof pregnancy and STD prevention methods, as well as no rules on rooming partners, the number of our classmates who haven't slept with someone yet have to be about two—one of them is Daiei, since unicorns react really badly to a hormone released after stuff like that and he fries if someone touches him (and no one knows if unicorns would fry themselves if they weren't virgins, since unicorns just don't get around), and the other is me, because I just haven't found a girl that I like enough yet—thinking of girls reminds me of the scary-nails kissy one and I whimper mentally.
Anyway, that's why he dresses like he does—black outfits that cover him from neck to feet, in material that can't get ripped or easily pulled apart, so that hands of people that do stuff can't get to him. While the school doesn't have anything like bullies that would be actually trying to rip clothes he wears, Daiei can certainly find his own trouble outside of it, as I've found out on numerous occasions. He comes back from past the walls, clothes immaculate except for all of the blood, beaten but absurdly proud in a way that makes me want to punch him myself. Sometimes he doesn't come back at all, and that means his clothes have gotten punctured because the bastards have brought knives, and they send Asher and me out to get him, because it's not like I have anything better to do with my time than rescue some dumb unicorn.
Daiei doesn't answer my question, because it doesn't look like he's crying after all, just choosing to sit and stare at some spot on the distant wall instead. We aren't exactly on terms where we'd offer the other support in situations like this—really, I've made him upset more than probably anyone else, although it's somewhat annoying to think of now since he has really rescued me at this point. He hasn't taken his hand away, so I look at it while I'm waiting for him to do something more interesting. Like the rest of himself, his hands are small, but his fingers are long, maybe the length of mine. His nails are short, I note with relief.
Then he moves his hand to touch my forehead and murmur a string of vowel-y words in unicorn and all I can see are the inside of my eyelids... and dreams.
When I wake, he is gone, and we're back to the same routine again.