Once upon a time in Faeryland there were one thousand unicorns and ten thousand maidens. All of the maidens wished to tame a unicorn of their very own.
"Oh me!" said Maid Merona. "How shall I ever get a date to my prom if I cannot tell my suitor that I have tamed a unicorn?"
"Why yes," said her friend, the lovely Maid Windorinaette Fairchild, "but I have heard that Papa Unicorn has decreed that there are so many maidens, and so few gentle, noble beasts yet to be tamed. I have heard that Gustav Gooberstav the great unicorn wizard is trying to procure a spell whereby many `uni-rabbits' would be created in order to serve the many maidens."
"Yes but would they not be called rabbit-corns?"
"Hush now, sweet Merona! Tsk! We are but silly, silly girls and we should not trouble our silly heads about such things!"
"Oh and how! I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know why I was thinking. Oh goodness, I forgot about my hair. Isn't it lovely and fair? I say, do you wish to stroke it?"
"Oh may I, dearest friend? Yes, it's so flaxen and golden and lovely. I would love to pet of it. It feels like fine silk born of the bosoms of the finest silky worms. And it smells just as the dew on a rose petal bathed softly in the first mead of the spring. And what of my hair? Will you touch it?"
"Yes! Your hair is like the down of a baby duck who has just nuzzled with a newborn mewling kitten in a down pillow made from the feather of a silly, giggling goose."
After they finished admiring each others' hair, the maidens fair held hands and skipped along merrily and they finished the day giggling about how positively silly Mr. Duck looked as he preened his feathers by the waters of Placid Pond.
Papa Unicorn stroked his long, white beard thoughtfully and looked out of his chamber from his high parapet atop Castle Fairplay. He seemed grave and deliberate as he turned to his advisors, The Confederates. They adorned their manes with a coat of arms that symbolized their independence from the uppity Northern Elves. It was a horizontal X with stars. "We must reward the purity of our maidens," said Papa Unicorn, "but while the humans have made many a maiden, we have so few of our kind left to be tamed. What are we to do?
General Eel, Supreme Commander of Allied Warcorn Forces, stepped up to speak. "Yesterday the Northern Elf King Maharab Colnim issued an edict saying that we unicorns must allow all beings and species to tame us, even the Homosexuals. This flies in the face of traditional unicorn taming. If we are allowed to be tamed by the Homosexuals, it is said by our seers that the next generation of unicorns will no longer grow their horns and they will become weak, and seek to frolic with the ponies until they are slain by their enemies."
"Thank you for your council, General Eel," said Papa Unicorn. "And what of our pure, white maidens? What of them? I am told that the Wizard Gustav's rabbit-corns hop erratically and make not a worthy maidens' prize."
Another advisor felt the maidens would lower their standards. "Indeed Papa Unicorn," he said. "But some of the maidens may find the rabbit-corns a worthy novelty, with at least the respectability of an online diploma in the liberal arts."
Papa Unicorn nodded gravely. Outside, the Confederate gathering could hear a `meep meep,' `meep, meep.' They looked out of Papa Unicorn's window and saw a gaggle of rabbit-corns giggling and jumping into the Castle Fairplay moat and drowning. Near them, a group of servants were attempting to rescue some rabbit-corns who were being pecked to death by tame geese. They watched as a goose pulled one of the horns from the head of a rabbit-corn and then swung it at the little creature like a club. "A worthy prize," said Papa Unicorn as he shook his noble head in disapproval. "A worthy prize for the daughters of paupers!"
"Maybe we should not be tamed at all," said a fierce voice to the left. It was Dudley Deadlycorn, the unicorns' warcorn. "Maybe it is we who should tame the maidens. We have been tamed by these silly, silly maidens for far too long. Their virtuous ways will not save us from the elitist Northern Elves with their hybrid trees and Energy-Saving Home Gnomes!"
"Fie on thy tongue!" said the other counselors. "It is only by the virtue of the maidens that we preserve our race. For every sexless virgin, we can have carnal relations and make one more unicorn. This ageless wisdom cannot be replaced by the points of our horns and other protuberances in battle."
Papa Unicorn held up a perfect, all-wise hoof to silence them. "My brothers! If every worthy virgin cannot tame us, then we must make some of the virgins un-worthy."
"How shall we do that?"
The two maiden friends awoke in a berry patch after they had giggled themselves to sleep about how funny Mr. Duck looked eating duckweed. "Oh dear! He seemed positively polyphagous!"
"Positively indeed! Do you want to talk about our beautiful, perfect dresses or our perfect skin, Maid Merona?"
"Actually," said Maid Merona, "shall we talk about how lovely and straight and white our teeth are? We have not spoken of that in almost three days."
"Say, what's that?" said Fairchild. Slowly approaching them was a most unusual beast. It was a snail the size of a rather large canine. It was wearing a black bowtie and a top hat, and a shell that looked to be gilded of silver and marked with the Apple computer logo. It looked like a creature straight out of mythology.
"Excuse me, Mr. Thing," said Merona cheerily, "what sort of business have you here?"
"I bring the tidings of the unicorns," said the snail. He opened his shell and out fell a scroll of the sacred parchment made from the ground horns of the dead unicorn ancestors. There were two scrolls and each one was fastened with a golden bow made of maidenhair. "I bear a message for each maiden in all the land."
"That seems most queer, Mr. Thing," said Maid Fairchild. "The unicorns never send messages. What does the message say? Open and read it at once."
"My dear lady, I cannot do as you request. This message is for the maidens only. I am a snail, and a snail's eyes are rude and incorrect for seeing the wise words of the unicorn."
"You are not a snail. I say you are a thing, Mr. Thing," said Maid Fairchild.
"As you wish miss, but I am still quite unable to comply with your request."
"If I were not a maiden fair, I would pound and beat you for your insolence. You have insulted my purity."
"I am but a humble servant of the unicorn, miss. Please forgive any misstep I have made."
Maid Fairchild pursed her lips poutily and sniffed the air and looked down at the creature before her. "You have been most unsatisfactory, Mr. Thing, and you have made us cross and sullen. We order you to find us a ripe, acorn squash, Mr. Thing. You will cut the squash into equal, transverse sections. Then you shall make a four centimeter longitudinal incision along the anterior, subcutaneous seed complex. You will then remove the left, superior seed complex membrane, because this portion displeases me. Next, you will bake the squash in an antique, elf-crafted pixie-dust-powered oven for no less than forty turns of the hourglass and no more than forty-seven turns. Then you shall open the oven door so that we may smell of it, because it is this smell that we find most pleasing. Have we made ourselves abundantly clear, Mr. Thing, or do you suffer from a mild to moderate cognitive impairment?"
"Miss, there is only one of you. You speak as though there are many."
"There are me, myself and I, and that makes three. Do you see now, you ignorant fop? If you had ever pursued grammar as we have you would know of the royal we."
"Oh, you have made her very cross indeed," said Maid Merona, smiling brightly.
The snail appeared to quiver nervously. "I...I...do not know what to say, miss. I must deliver the message of my masters to all of the other maidens fair in the land of Fairplay. May I return at some later date to do these things you wish to have done to this squash? May I possibly remind my lady that squash is not yet in season, squash not oft known to be a spring fruit?"
"Of course we know it is not a spring fruit! We demand that you find a magical squash!"
The snail wondered if it was too late to pretend of be hard of hearing or slow of understanding, though it appeared that the time to feign these qualities had long passed. Instead, the snail bowed low and most courteously. "And a most excellent and joyous evening to you fine maidens!" said the snail.
Maid Fairchild chased after him. "Obey me!" she yelled. And she pounded on his shell with her fists. Maid Merona laughed and covered her pretty mouth at these antics. The snail turned around and no one ever saw a snail slither as quickly as the snail messenger making his hasty exit from the demanding yet surgically skilled maidens. As their rage diminished, the maidens became calmer and more interested in each others' hair...and the message of the unicorns.
Maid Merona undid the silky strands that bound her scroll. She unfurled the beautiful, perfect, pearl-colored parchment. She and Maid Fairchild looked upon the rainbow-colored words with mouths agape, for their eyes scanned a calligraphy so beautiful, truthful and perfect that only an ancient faeryhand could have made a more perfect script.
The unicorns' message was simple and pointed.
Dearest Fair Maidens of Fairplay,
You are invited to the Unicorn Debutante Ball. You will be judged on Manners, Purity and Delicacy of Nature. Only the Fairest among you shall advance to the next level. Those fair maids who are deemed rude and unworthy will be mocked and shall never be allowed to stroke the tender mane of the unicorn. Any maiden who farts at the ball will automatically be disqualified. Prepare yourself at once! The ball begins at moonrise this eve. Thank you for your participation. If you fill out and promptly return the attached survey, you will be entered into a drawing to win lots of great prizes, like a weekend getaway with a rabbit-corn!
Yours really,
The Unicorns
A unicorn ball! Who had ever heard of such a thing? The two maidens clapped their hands and danced gleefully. "We're going to the unicorn ball! We're going to the unicorn ball! We deserve to win because we deserve it all! Hurray! We're light and gay! We're going to the unicorn ball!"
A woodpecker overheard this joyful display. He rolled his eyes and pecked harder to drown out the noise. Finally he stopped and turned to the maidens. "Can you not see I'm trying to build my house? Can you please be quiet? Your song annoys me greatly."
"Insolence!" cried Maid Fairchild. She hurled a stone at the woodpecker. It hit him square in the left eye. The bird fell out of his house. The maiden approached the dazed bird to stomp him to death but by then a woodpecker posse had arrived carrying chains and pecking out gang signs. The maiden seemed about to throw down with them, but Maid Merona urged caution.
"We shan't wish to sully our reputations before the unicorn ball!" she said. Maid Fairchild pointed at the woodpeckers and gave them the evil eye.
Maiden Fairchild declared, "I'll be back, you little red-feathered pecker-heads."
"We're right here, blondie," they all said.
"Humph! That unfortunate incident added a shade of angry crimson to my tender, milky skin. I fear that the unicorns will assume that I once had eczema or perhaps stress-induced rosacia catalyzed by a hyper-immunological response, or an environmental toxin. My face! It no longer feels as soft as the tummy of a baby lamb. Boo hoo! Oh, boo-hoo-hoo!"
"Are you sure my dear?" asked Maid Merona. "Here, let me caress it. Hmmmmm. It feels so soft and silken. It invites my fingers as surely as a mossy knoll invites enchanted dew."
"Really? Your gentle caress stimulates nerve endings in my cerebral cortex that had heretofore remained inactive, awaiting the touch of some rough prince perhaps. How much softer and refined is a woman's touch."
"Indeed."
Up in the far reaches of Castle Fairplay, Papa Unicorn and his advisors had gathered in their messengers and questioned them about the general reaction to the news of the ball. "This is excellent!" sighed Papa Unicorn. "We will finally be able to turn down ALL of the maidens based on our stridently discriminatory criteria! Not even the purest of maidens will be able to truthfully say they never had an impure thought! Once we eliminate the `virgins' who have claimed a `second virginity' we will rule out half of the human population right there!"
General Dudley Deadlycorn stamped his iron-shod forehoof. "No more will tamed unicorns end up in prissy poems and petting zoos! We are a warrior race! We shall never be tamed by virgins again."
As the sun began to set in Fairplay and the moon began its ascent, all of the maidens were lined up before the gate of Castle Fairplay. The castle was purple and metallic-hued and it was shaped just like a unicorn horn with twists and spirals reaching up and up, a pearled and bejeweled edifice to rival the Taj Mahal in form and function. Two ornately-attired snail gatekeepers held the entrance agape while a golden nutshell- attired squirrel barker announced the beginning of the ball through a conch-shell trumpet. "Hear ye! Hear ye! Fair maidens of Fairplay! You are most welcome in this sacred castle," the squirrel barker squeaked.
"You will form a procession and enter the promenade in pairs. From this moment onward, your Elder Brothers invite you to partake in their sacred-hoofed hospitality. You will drink. You will dance, and The Great Horned Ones will be watching every move you make, every breath you take. Yes fair maidens, every step you fake...they'll be watching you. Come young debutantes! Forget the lies and politically correct propaganda of the Northern Elves! Liven your spirits and celebrate the freedom you enjoy in our secession from the tyranny of our fuel-efficient overlords and their godless liberal corporate paymasters!"
All the belles came forward, many wearing their Confederate Maidens of Faeryland pins as signs of support for the agrarian social system that placed the unicorns in the realm of the gods. Maid Merona and Maid Fairchild entered the promenade and found a banquet table stretching the length of several orchid-ball courts. At the end of the table there sat a centaur. He smiled gamely at the entering maidens and raised a bronze cup to them. "I am Spearmynt, Captain of the Castle Guard, and I shall be your host this evening." He bade them eat and drink of the feast before them. There was every manner of culinary delight that one could fancy. The centaur told the maidens that the feast was a magical one, and that the maidens might eat and drink all they chose and never gain a pound, but that they would be compelled to tell the truth and would do the bidding of the unicorns for the entire evening. The centaur bade all the maidens swear an oath as testament to their chastity.
Maid Merona winked at Maid Fairchild. She nodded to her crossed fingers beneath the table. Maid Fairchild covered her mouth coquettishly, giggled and repeated the gesture. "We swear our purity and dedication to innocence!" all the gathered maidens cried. Spearmynt the centaur poured libation and then all of the maidens descended upon the feast in a gluttonous passion. They tore at piles of meat, both cooked and raw, and crunched and swallowed all the bones, skin and gristle. Drink was spilled and filthy plates embossed with the unicorns' coat-of-arms fell the ground. Sacred chalices fell or were hurled by the maidens at each other in drunken fits of aggression and rage. The centaur smiled wryly. Finally, he raised a hand for silence. He had to pound on the table to get the maidens' attention. "Fair, fair maidens, please! It is now time to dance in our First Annual Unicorn Idol. Gradually, the impure maidens will be removed from the competition and only the pure will remain standing. Only the most pure of you all will be able to tame the noble unicorn."
The maidens began the dance whilst a band comprising a bullfrog blowing a reed trumpet, a tambourine-shaking, bead-bedecked hippie woodchuck and chickadee that pecked and plucked at an upright bass did their thing.
Then, the music suddenly stopped. Papa Unicorn and his advisors arrived in the room to the bowing and prostrating of all. There was silence. The maidens all thought about their hair. Too much bounce? Not enough frill? They agonized.
"Who among you has known a man?" asked General Eel. None of the maidens moved. "Who among you has known a man but has wished that it had not happened and has begun their second virginity?" Immediately half of the maidens groaned and stepped forward. "Do not leave. You must wait in the Waiting Chamber for further instructions. A gift awaits you there. Go."
Maid Merona and Maid Fairchild clasped hands. "We're in! We've done it!"
"The dance will now be resumed and at the end of the dance, more of you will find out you are unworthy," said General Eel.
"What?" cried Maid Merona. "But all who remain are pure virgins! You MUST let us tame you. It is our right."
"Child," said General Eel, "you are our subject. Your only right is to do our biding. Such talk will gain you nothing but a horn through your heart. Resume the dance!"
Again the dance resumed and then stopped. "Who among you has known a man from behind, and known a man betwixt your brown star?" Several hundred more maidens groaned and made their way through the crowd to the Waiting Chamber. The dance began and ceased again.
"Fair maidens, who among you hath known the mouth of another upon your jade gates, and who hath known the touch of the manstalk of man betwixt thine lips or plied the secret garden of another maiden?" Dozens more maidens left the room.
Finally the crowd thinned out to just twelve. Maid Merona and Maid Fairchild yet remained intact in their standing among these grand, puritanical judges. The music stopped again.
"Dearest maidens, who amongst thee hath manipulated thy secret garden in order to falsely obtain ecstasy using a phallus-shaped vegetable or a varnished wooden dinghus...?" Several maidens gasped and walked out of the room. "What's so wrong with THAT?" one of the maids said, incredulous at the decision.
"And how many amongst thee hath manipulated thy secret garden to wrongfully obtain ecstasy using only thy hand or a feathered pillow?"
At this, all of the maidens left excepting Maid Merona and her friend Maid Fairchild. They both looked at each other. "Really? Never?" asked Merona.
"No. I mean...I've thought about trying it but my hands never leave my hair long enough to do anything."
"Yeah...makes sense," said Merona.
The unicorn judge was undaunted. "Let the dance continue," he said. The music stopped again. "Dearest and most innocent fair maidens," he said, addressing Merona and Fairchild, "how many among thee hath experienced the moistening of thy secret garden due in part to an accidental or happenstance daydream whereby a fleeting thought hath initiated a feeling of ecstasy betwixt thy nether region?"
"Are you insane?" screamed Maid Fairchild. "That happens to everyone! Don't tell me unicorns don't have sexy thoughts! This is all a lie."
"Answer the question!" yelled General Eel.
"We both have...but only when thinking about our perfect hair and skin," said the maidens. "Really...it was strictly an involuntary, physiological response borne of hormonal release and the baseline maturation response of the human female estrous cycle."
"I'm afraid that we unicorns expect virtue to supersede physiology or the barbarous instincts of men."
"We're not men. We're women," pointed out Merona.
"Mere semantics," argued the unicorn. "The term `man' describes your dubious race."
"I don't know if that comment was more racist or sexist," said Maid Fairchild.
"Enough! Proceed to the Waiting Chamber and claim your gift."
"Maybe I don't want your gift," Fairchild said.
"Oh really," said General Eel. "You don't want faery-made hair toner along with a pre-tamed rabbit-corn? Very well..."
"Wait, wait! I suppose this wasn't all for naught!"
The maidens proceeded to the Waiting Chamber where many thousands of disappointed and downtrodden maidens were already resting their chins in their hands. "We're screwed!" they said. "All I did was touch myself. I didn't even feel anything."
"I hate my body," said another.
One tearful maiden stopped sobbing just long enough to ask, "Will I really go blind from parting my...my...maidenfern...every day? I never climaxed. Well, only once."
The unicorn who opened the door to the Waiting Chamber was not General Eel, but Dudely Deadlycorn, the warcorn. He clip-clopped up to the waiting maidens. "You came here with your girlish charms seeking to tame the mighty unicorn, but you instead were tamed! None of you were worthy to tame any of our superior race! By coming here you have chosen a difficult fate. For you shall be mocked whilst you toil and slave in the candycorn maze. Your fingers will become oily and gross and your teeth will rot from excess sucrose intake. Finally, you will take up the countenance of hags. The fortunate among you will be allowed to clean up the droppings of the rabbit-corns." The many rabbit-corns in the room began to murmur with confusion. Some started to whimper submissively.
The assembled maidens began to boo-hoo-hoo something awful. The cruel Deadlycorn cracked a licorice whip and commenced to guffawing with diabolic laughter. Just then, Spearmynt the centaur appeared in the room. He strode into the center of the crowd and held aloft a silver goblet.
"I come at the bidding of the Northern Elves," he said. "The tyrannical reign of the unicorn is at and end!" The noble centaur then upturned the gobblet and poured out a libation. He yelled an incantation. "Great Pan! Make mighty what was weak and weaken what was mighty. Give innocence what it seeks! Do it in the name of the wind!"
"Traitor," cried Deadlycorn. "You are the spy of the Northern Elves! We should have known." He drew a bow and a candy corn-tipped arrow. The arrow missed its mark and hit Spearmynt in the tooth, causing a cavity that eventually became fatal to the tooth.
An earthquake seemed to shake the room. Summoned by the chaos, the other unicorns came running. They were enraged but their falsetto voices barely penetrated the din. The bold and powerful unicorns had shrunk to the size of mice. The source of the earthquake became apparent as the newly gargantuan but friendly rabbit-corns began hopping about wildly, cracking chunks of alabaster from the walls and snapping oaken tables to bits.
The world took awhile to get used to unicorn-sized rabbit-corns; it seemed that no farmer could ever raise a crop of carrots anymore that wasn't gone before it ripened-but they quickly became a source of affection and cuddling that had never been known in Faeryland. The unicorns, meantime, became the prized playthings of little girls, who combed their hair, fed them oats and placed them in their doll houses. "My Pet Unicorn" became the hottest selling Faeryland Christmas item of all time.
Spirited away by Spearmynt and his perfect abs (obtained from a secret potion known only to elf magicians as "sexy water"), the maidens became poster children for the North. Many elven bards told the tale of how the beautiful maidens and their hair and perfect skin had become enslaved by the unicorns' arbitrary and anti-egalitarian, sexist moral standards.
One day, many years later, Maid Merona had a girl of her own. "Mother," the little girl said. "My pet unicorn keeps telling me not to think impure thoughts. It tells me that I'm dirty."
"Child," said Merona. "What do you call your unicorn?"
The little girl looked worried. "I call him Patches, but he doesn't like it."
Merona smiled wryly to herself and twisted a curl of her silver hair around her index finger. Her laugh-lines spread as she smiled. "Child, tell Patches that you think impure thoughts every day, and that your favorite flavor of gum is spearmint."
The child nodded seriously. "Okay, Mama."
© 2009 by Justin Teerlinck.