Unicorns? Get Real!

kind of magic.” She looked slyly at the princess. “So what do you want?”
    “I need to know more. I cannot continue to sew. I had to stop. Maybe it’s a unicorn, but it could be something else.” Once again Berwynna stepped closer and rose onto her tiptoes. The bells, the moon, the stars reflected in her strange eyes.
“Behold the gleaming unicorn
With its ivory spiraling horn.
The bloodied and the lame do kneel,
Yet none but true hearts does it heal.
Is it pony? Is it horse?
What magic happens at its source?
Some are born. Yet some are made,
And some are torn from warfare’s blade.
So be you strong of heart and mind ,
And the mystery shall unwind .
    And that is all I’ll tell you now.”
    Princess Gundersnap clamped her lips into a firm line. She dared not ask for more. She knew Berwynna would not tell her another thing.
    “Thank you for what you have told me,” Gundersnap replied. “I’d better go back.”
    As she made her way back to the castle, she pondered on the words “be you strong of heart and mind.” What did that mean exactly? Be brave? Be loyal? Be of your own heart and mind? Believe in yourself? But what was her self? Her self had been made by her mother. Was there any little part that was just her own? Just me? thought Gundersnap with great wonder now. Just me!
     
    When Gundersnap returned to the South Turret, again time had turned funny tricks. Though she had left at dinner and this time felt she had only been gone perhaps an hour at the most, the clock was beginning to chime midnight. Earlier she had made a lumpy arrangement of pillows in her bed that more or less resembled her—a squat princess sleeping on her side with her face toward the wall. By the time the tenth bell struck, Gundersnap had replaced the pillows with herself and, even though she had vowed to stay awake and repeat the odd rhyme Berwynna had spoken, by the sound of the twelfth chime the Princess of Slobodkonia was fast asleep.

Chapter 14
    SILK

    “You went to see her again?” Alicia asked, examining her nose in the mirror. “What did she say?”
    “Alicia, if you don’t stop looking at that ferstucken zit of yours which is almost gone, I’m not going to tell anyone anything. I’m sick to death of all this fuss over a ball.”
    “A ball and tournaments,” Kristen added. “Yeah, cut it out, Alicia. Menschmik’s life is much more important than your dumb zit.”
    Alicia looked stricken. “You’re right. It’s just…it’s just well, I’ve never had a pimple before and—”
    “That is the most pathetic excuse ever!” Kristen exploded. “Well, the rest of us have. So count it as an educational experience, an experiment in democracy.”
    “The D word!” Alicia nearly leaped out of her kirtle.
    “Democracy?” whispered Gundersnap. In the empress’s court, any child was spanked who said the D word.
    Kristen just sighed mightily. “Now Gundersnap, what did Berwynna say? Just get on with it. Forget I said anything about the D word.”
    Gundersnap recited the odd poem of Berwynna’s. “It’s that bloody part that makes me really scared.”
    “Say that part again,” Myrella asked.
    “The bloodied and the lame do kneel / Yet none but true hearts does it heal.’”
    “It’s like someone’s going to get hurt, isn’t it?” Gundersnap stuck her bottom lip out. It trembled a bit. She looked as if she were on the brink of tears. “You think my unicorn is all right?” Gundersnap said suddenly. “Oh no, I don’t want to have to worry about him, too!”
    Five minutes later the four princesses ran into the stable where the unicorn was kept. He stood in the middle of an immaculate stall that was lined not with hay but moss the princesses had all gathered in the Forest of Chimes. He seemed perfectly fine and whinnied when he saw the princesses.
    It was the tradition that whoever caught the unicorn was the one to name the creature. So far Gundersnap hadn’t any ideas. Alicia and Kristen had discussed between themselves what name she might pick. They hoped it would not be one of those harsh Slobo words.
    “He is so lovely, Gundersnap,” Alicia was saying. “May I pet him?”
    “Sure,” she replied. Upon seeing Gundersnap, the unicorn had trotted right up to her. She dropped to her knees, and the unicorn folded his legs and settled on the moss. Then gently he put his head in her lap while she fed him. It was enchanting to watch the two of them together. Gundersnap, who was usually so plain,