"Blood of the Unicorn - Chapter 1: Descendent (story)" by Stephanie ´Pegacorna´ Nichole Small

My namie is Salipha, and I am one of the last unicorns. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the last unicorn. My parents had died when I was a foal, just after my First Change. When I should have been celebrating Instead I was fleeing an enclave of wizards seeking unicorn horns. My sire was the unicorn Valtos, he passed among the humans for longer than my mother. My mother was the mare Herasha. She was shy and had lived for years among the Wild Ones, the rare, unicorns of the plains. My sire found her after the herd of unicorns had been discovered and attacked. He drew her out into the land of men.

She lived in silence and pain among them, loving my sire, but hating his world. Her magic and nature was strong however. My sire found a home near the outskirts of the city. There, he made sure they were far from others deep in the forest, and had access to running water and bright sun and moon. There, my mother and father lived in relative peace. When I was born, like many unicorns, I was trapped in my unicorn's form for years. My parents kept me hidden until my magic was strong enough. Unicorns are immortal, but not invulnerable.

The horn’s powers had always been there to conceal and protect us. Eventually when the unicorn’s forests had been over-cut and the habitat grew smaller, we were forced to move in among the humans. The magic had shifted. It wasn’t obvious; we knew when it happened. The new shift in magic allowed us to blend in more with the humans we could now mimick. The magic could only be channeled through a fully-developed horn, or alicorn, however. A foal would be unable to channel such power until they were about ten. Until then they would be forced to stay in their unicorn form.

Our myths say that the Unicorns were birthed by the Goddess Abathia in the time of creation. It was said on the brow of the First Unicorn, Abathia placed her finger. She is then drew out the magic from them into a single spiraling horn, like hers. We see her as our mother, and she would be a mother I knew better than my own. My mother was taken from me early. I would never become as powerful as my predecessors, because I had never learned all there was of the unicorn’s magic.

Unicorns are imbued with all types of powers from communicating with all types of animals and plants to speaking with the elements and world itself. The older the unicorn, the more powerful the connection they could establish. I was barely an adult at only thirty, most humans would suspect I was in my early twenties….and they always would.

Most unicorns can take the form of a human, but they always bear signs of their supernatural origins. It might only be the tone of voice, gleam of an eye and the color of one’s hair. Perhaps the way they walk is with too much grace. They are always too beautiful, too still and too foreign. It both unsettles and lures the humans the unicorns are forced to live with.

I have to admit, I have been admired more than once. I have a physique that humans find appealing, if not for the body itself, then it would be the magic within. My ears are slightly pointed, just enough to incite interest. My eyes are the color of amethyst, which pleases me since I love the color purple. Most startling and hardest to hide is the sheen of my hair. It is iridescent gleam fishscales….or dragon scales, it such things existed.