Unicorns? Get Real!

mother.
    “Eininhorken schneer vissen bish vyn vott idiot nincompoopen.” The other soldiers accompanying her began to laugh as well, for when the empress laughed, everyone laughed.
    This is unbelievable , Gundersnap thought. Her mother did not believe in unicorns. Therefore they did not exist. Therefore anyone who did believe in them was not simply impractical but a fool, an idiot, and a nincompoop, and she would never even deign to go look. The commander of one of the fiercest armies on earth, commander in chief of Operazynggen Bluffyn Klompen —which translated from Slobo meant “Operation Blow ’Em Up and Stomp ’Em Out”—would not go into a woods to chase fairy tale creatures. No siree, not Maria Theresa, Empress of All the Slobodks.
    The shadow receded. Gundersnap stepped out from behind Silk, whose head was bent low over the wounded pony. And now it was the princess’s turn to gasp. The terrible gash in Menschmik’s head had stopped bleeding. She was stunned as Menschmik began to raise himself to his knees. She blinked and inhaled sharply. Where the pony had lain, there was a scattering of rubies. But Gundersnap would have traded all the rubies in the world for what happened next.
    Silk bent his head again, and his horn touched where the gash had been on the pony’s forehead. Something different was happening. The skin was healing, but a bump was pushing up beneath it. Gundersnap’s eyes widened as she realized that she was witnessing a kind of miracle. There was magic in the woods, and slowly a horn began to emerge from Menschmik’s brow.
    It was a short little horn with only two rings, one for each of the five years Menschmik had lived.
    Gundersnap turned to Silk. Her eyes welled with tears. “He shall live many more years, for now he is a unicorn. Empress Mummy will never be able to take him away again.”
    And it was true. On this night, near a blood-drenched and fiery battlefield, a unicorn had been made. And Gundersnap’s mother, the empress, did not believe in unicorns. Thus Menschmik would be safe forever after.
    Gundersnap climbed on Menschmik’s back. His wings were just unfolding. Together the princess and the new unicorn rose into the night with Silk at their side, the words of Berwynna like a song filling Gundersnap’s head.
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.

Chapter 21
    A GLOW IN THE DAWN

    Princess Kristen was leaning out the window of her chamber. She could not sleep. They had been back an entire day and a night from Camp Burning Shield and, although the excuse they had given for Gundersnap’s absence was generally accepted, she was beginning to worry. Gortle had to make himself scarce, as he was supposed to have been the one to escort the princess back to the palace in Slobodkonia.
    Dawn was just breaking when suddenly, on the hill where the princesses had last seen Gundersnap, Kristen saw a glow. It was as if the hill were powdered with the gold of the rising sun. But it was not the sun. Kristen ran for her high-powered binoculars that had just come from Royal Outdoor Life Catalogue . She pressed them to her eyes. It’s her! It’s her, and there are two unicorns! Immediately she rushed into Alicia’s chamber and then to Myrella’s closet.
    “She’s coming back. We’ve spotted her!” Myrella sat up so suddenly in her draw that she smacked her head. “Ouch! Gundersnap’s back?” she asked.
    “Yes, and it’s summer. We’ll just swim the moat. No one will be up for hours.”
    “Let’s get Gortle!”
    They ran to another closet and knocked on a drawer in it. “Get up, Gortle, get up! She’s back!”
    “Oh, bless Saint Gubbins!” he exclaimed. Saint Gubbins was the patron saint of dwarves.
    The three princesses and the dwarf raced down the banks of the moat, swam across it, and struck out across the field. Gundersnap spotted them immediately and raced forward. She slipped off Menschmik’s back and hugged the wet princesses and the wet dwarf. “This,” she exclaimed, “is Menschmik, believe it or not!”
    “I’d recognize him anywhere!” Gortle said joyously. “Look, his gold mane is back.”
    “Then it’s true, not just a faction nor a fiction. A horse or pony can become a unicorn,” Alicia said, her voice full of