The Unicorn Hunters
Imagine the forest primeval. Tall, brooding trees with bases covered in moss and lichen. Thorn-tipped suckers wrapping their way toward the sunlight high overhead. Low bushes and brambles littering the forest floor, with here and there a few narrow paths made by adventurous animals.
Now imagine a sound, a clear high-pitched keening just on the edge of mortal hearing, with some of its higher harmonics a bit over that edge. Mix in a staggering beat of hooves, hooves which normally prance and dance lightly but now stagger and stumble. Hear the mane and tail snagging on brambles and tearing loose. Listen to the panting of something on the edge, struggling to move, to keep ahead of something else.
Now remember your Shakespeare. By the pricking of my thumbs, something… wounded… this way comes.
It's dark down here on the forest floor, most of the light blocked by the high canopy. Yet there's an occasional flash of gold, a glint of red, the rustle of bushes and the snap of twigs, as something comes closer.
The little girl in the long dress stands and listens. There is something unusual about this little girl. It isn't her outfit, even though it's still clean and starched after several hours wandering in the forest. Nor is it in her looks which, although plain and perhaps just a bit severe, are really not much different from any other skinny 9-year-old girl.
No, what's different is the eyes, and the unnatural stillness; not just unmoving but immobile. Not many 9-year-old girls look quite as intense as this one. And not many 9-year-old-girls, hearing something coming through a dark forest, would look so interested in the sound; not scared, not worried, but interested. And she's looking intently right where the thing is coming, even though it's not yet close enough to see.
It comes closer, stumbling and panting. She can now see the flashes of gold and red, until finally it stumbles out of the bushes onto the narrow path, where the little girl waits.
The panting beast is a young unicorn, still gold in its immaturity, with a stub of a horn rather than the elegant spike it will develop when it's older, if it has a chance to get older. Bright red blood flows from a gunshot wound on the left shoulder. It keens in fright, eyes rolling in terror, trying to decide if it must fight this unknown human so it can flee the one tracking it.
Faced with a bleeding, panicked unicorn, most 9-year-old girls would turn and run in fright. This one does not. She stares intently at the unicorn, eyes narrowing dangerously at the wounds. She looks back along the unicorn's trail; she sees nothing, hears nothing. But someone is there; she can feel him coming. But she has time for the first thing she must do, before she must do the second.
The little girl holds out her hand and commands. The unicorn, which had begun to rear and turn to run, suddenly settles and just stands, watching her. Its eyes still show fear and pain, but it stands, waiting, as the little girl approaches.
She holds out her hand and strokes the golden neck, then brings up her other hand to stroke the soft flannel nose. Her left hand strokes up the muzzle and touches the stub of a horn on its forehead. Her right hand strokes down the neck and lightly touches the wound. The unicorn starts, but doesn't move away.
A unicorn's horn has healing powers. If she can make herself a channel somehow, the little girl knows she can heal the wound. She concentrates. The strange powers that have always been with her stir, and she can feel the right way to do it. She focuses, and feels the healing powers flowing from the horn through her slim body to the wound.
Using some unknown sense, she looks deep into the wound and finds the lead pellets. They rise up slowly, carefully nudged out to avoid doing any more damage, and plop onto the forest floor. She looks deeper, finds two more wedged deeply, and suggests they should work their way out. Sweat rolls down her forehead and drips from her armpits as she sees the nicks and tears in some of the veins and suggests they knit themselves together. The blood flow slows and becomes a gentle ooze.
Nearly exhausted, the little girl summons up what little strength remains and commands the damaged muscles to repair themselves, and the flaps of skin to close and knit together. The unicorn doesn't move, although its eyes continue to roll fearfully. But it understands the little girl is helping, and overcomes its fear. Or she overcomes it, somehow.
Finally, with a scab over the wound, the pain lessened, the fear diminished, the unicorn is freed as the little girl collapses in a faint. Its first instinct is to run, to get away from the thing that still chases it, but the unicorn is an intelligent and caring beast. It looks down at the little girl, crumpled in a heap with blood on her hand and on her dress. It lowers its horn and touches the girl on the back, willing her to recover and wake up. After a few seconds, it lifts its head to look back the way it had come, then trots off down the path.
After several minutes, the little girl stirs and tries to sit up, finally managing it on her third attempt. She shakes her head to clear it a little; she isn't used to this. Whenever the magic has come to her before, she's managed it with no trouble. But this, this was beyond anything she's ever felt or done before. She feels drained, her muscles twinging as if she'd run for miles, or chopped kindling all day. She's exhausted and wants nothing more than to stagger home and sleep.
She can't do that, though. It wasn't over yet.
She sits for a while, recovering, listening hard. She can no longer hear the unicorn, but knows it is safe. Hard as she strains her ears, she hears no other sounds except the normal twitter of birds and the scurrying of small creatures through the brush. That's wrong, she thinks; whoever shot the unicorn should be tracking it, and as hurt as the creature had been it shouldn't have been able to get very far ahead. Frowning, she forces herself to her feet, swaying a little, then sets off back the way the unicorn had come.
She hears the voices first, two of them, older men she believes. They've broken through the brush onto the trail, and are debating which way to go. One wants to head in her direction. The other is sure it's gone off the trail and they'll have to track it through the brush. As the little girl gets closer, the deeper voice of the two says, "It was only a young one. Might as well just let it go and see if we can find an adult. Not much horn on it anyway, and that's the valuable part."
She is furious, outraged beyond belief. They shot it just to get its horn, and now they'd just let it die without even chasing it? Horrible, horrible men. How dare they!
Then she hears sounds on the trail behind her, more sensed than heard. The men would never hear them, even if they weren't talking. She smiles, a grim, tight, frightening smile, and steps boldly down the path, whistling a little tune so the men won't think she's the unicorn returning and shoot at her.
She finds them behind a screen of brush, looking back her way as she steps in front of them. The older one, the one who'd suggested finding a new quarry, is perhaps 40 or 50, slightly graying, short and a bit stout. His companion is a few years younger, thinner and slightly taller. Both wear leather hunter's garb and red flannel shirts. Both carry double-barrel shotguns, the older one an over-and-under model. Each is also obviously a wizard, as she can see the ends of their wands stuck into their belts.
"Well, hello, little girl," the older man says, in that hearty tone of people who don't do well with children but think they do. "What are you doing out here? These woods aren't safe for a little girl alone."
She scowls fiercely. "Why did you shoot that unicorn?"
The older man's eyes narrow, and he glances at his companion. "Unicorns don't exist, young lady, whatever made you think we shot a unicorn?"
She snorts. "I'm not stupid. I know you're wizards, I can see your wands. And I know unicorns are real because my father protects them." She raises her voice, wanting to cover up the approaching sounds as long as possible. "And you're not supposed to be out here, because the Ministry declared this a protected area. That means no hunting, and you're going to go to jail." She glares at their guns.
The younger one raises his shotgun slightly, not quite pointing at her. "I think you're a little girl who needs to mind her own business. Bad things happen to little girls who meddle in things they shouldn't. I think you'd best just go home and forget you ever saw us, little girl."
Before she can say anything, the older man cocks his head to one side and listens. "I think I hear one." He grabs the little girl and yanks her roughly off the path, pushing her to one side. "Now you stay back here out of trouble, or something bad might happen to you."
The two men peer around the brush. A large male unicorn is charging up the trail. They grin, flip the safeties off their guns, and step out into the path, raising their guns to their shoulders and pulling the triggers.
Nothing happens.
The little girl stands behind them, willing the metal of the trigger mechanisms to remain frozen and immobile.
The unicorn catches the older hunter high in the chest, and blood fountains out around the horn. Sharp hooves kick the other to the ground and trample him as the impetus of the charge carries the unicorn past. The huge beast shakes the hunter off his horn, turns and drives it through the younger hunter's chest.
The little girl relaxes her mental hold on the triggers. The hunters lay unmoving, bleeding, dead.
The unicorn turns to her, blood dripping from his horn. Little girl and large beast look at each other for a timeless moment. Then the unicorn slowly dips his head in acknowledgement, and turns away, back to look after his foal.
Minerva McGonagall walked home to tell her father where to find the bodies.