Author Notes: I make no claims of ownership of Grimm and its respective characters. This is not meant to impede anyone on the show their jobs. I'm just playing with the characters for fun. Because they're fun to play with. :D
~Grimm~
Juliette trudged out of their bathroom and down the hallway. Nick already left for work, summoned by a early morning call to duty. Something about a son of a wealthy politician. She got up late herself, having little to do. It's been a week since she's lost her job and she's unused to all the free time.
The city's Grimm was her significant other and with so many Wesens in Portland they were still blindsided by the occasional complications.
The loss of her job being the latest. Her former clinic needed to hire a new manager and new staff were brought in. They didn't know her and the nervousness of clients requesting a different vet understandably raised suspicions of malpractice and questions of character.
Unfortunately unlike Nick, she didn't have a Hank or a Captain Renard to smooth things over.
Finding a new clinic that was hiring was proving to be difficult too. The nearest job openings were too far away. Nick's drive to his precinct would then be too long.
Maybe she should open her own private clinic, she mused to herself. She became a vet because she loved animals. Or perhaps she could open a pet shop. Sell pet accessories. Start a farm.
She's thinking of asking Rosalee and Monroe if they could point her in a direction where Wesens wouldn't freak out being near her when she stops in the middle of the stairs and gaped.
There was a piebald horse in the middle of their living room sniffing at the computer.
Her first thought wasn't asking what it was doing in their house, or how it got in. But if it was some sort of Wesen thing.
"Heyyy…" she called out softly and the horse turned, grunting at her. Its black ears flicked in her direction, watching her with gentle dark eyes. Juliette slowly came down the stairs. Its tail swished, the ivory colored hair knocked some pens to the ground, and it whickered at her.
There was something odd about it.
She squinted her eyes.
The edges of the horse remained blurry.
There was a wavy haze that reminded her of extreme heat that would distort the air in the far distance.
Juliette walked closer, careful not to spook the horse.
Tilting her head, and her jaw dropped a second time. Calmly, she stepped away to get her cellphone, never taking her eyes off the animal.
Nick has got to see this.
~^~v~^~v~
"There's an unicorn in our house?!" Nick's shocked voice shattered the quiet ride in the Captain's car.
There was a sharp crackling sound from the other end and Nick heard Juliette cry out.
"Juliette!?" Nick yelled with alarm into his phone, noticing the Captain making a U-turn, driving away from the precinct. "Are you alright?"
"She bit right through our computer!" Juliette shouted in shock, her voice sounding far off. "Stop that! No! Please don't eat that!"
He could hardly believe his ears. "It's eating the computer!?"
"Nick! Did your books say anything about unicorns?!" Juliette returned to the cellphone. "Here, horsey. Want a piece of caramel? It's chewy and tasty. Much better than titanium alloy."
"No. Are you safe?" he asked worriedly.
"I think I got it under control," Juliette replied. "She's trying to lick caramel off her teeth."
"Okay, Hank and I will be right over. Call Monroe and Rosalee."
Nick hung up and felt two sets of eyes on him.
"I'm driving us there," Renard said, his tone left no room to argue and Nick glared at his boss. The urge to comment on Renard's ease of familiarity to their residence was hard to resist.
"Seriously!?" Hank incredulously exclaimed from the back seat.
~^~v~^~v~
The four of them stared at the blotchy black and white horse eating out of the fruit bowl in amazement. Hank and Juliette with cocked heads, furrowed brows, straining their eyes to focus their sight past the illusion.
"What are you seeing?" The Captain asked.
Hank straightened up, giving his head a slight shake. "A gold horse with a shiny white spiral horn. White hooves."
"She's a very gold palomino," added Juliette as she gently rolled her head back and forth, stretching. "With a silver mane and tail."
Nick glanced at them both. "You seeing the white opalescent eyes too?"
They blinked at him and went back to squinting at the unicorn. They tilted their heads left. Then right. They looked back at Nick.
"No," Juliette and Hank said simultaneously with disappointment.
Renard spoke up. "I can see it."
Loud rapid knocks at the door interrupted them. They all turned to see Monroe's eager face and Rosalee's eyes peeping above the door window.
The waves of excitement could be felt through the wood and Nick quickly opened the door before Monroe decided to tear it off. The two brushed past the Captain without a glance and greeted Hank and Juliette. "You two got here quick," Nick deadpanned.
"This is so awesome!" Monroe quietly squealed, careful not to alarm the large animal with hooves. Those feet were dangerous.
Rosalee had the brightest grin in the room. "How did it get in?" She carefully inched a bit closer, wanting to touch the mythical creature but a soft stamp of one hoof warned her off.
"I don't know," Juliette answered. "I came downstairs and there it was."
"And you can see it?" Monroe asked.
"We can," Hank answered for her. "But not the eyes. They look normal to us."
Monroe looked thoughtful. "Wow. I wonder why?"
Nick shrugged at him. "Unicorn."
Rosalee nodded in agreement. "Unicorn."
The animal whisked her tail and turned to face all of them. She sniffed the air and they all stood in silence. Slowly the unicorn took a few steps towards them. She was almost close enough to touch, but they waited. One by one, it sniffed them before bumping her head against their chests. Silently, each of them grinned in delight and gently petted the horse's mane.
Finally, the unicorn reached Renard, standing slightly away from everyone else. She nuzzled his chest, and Renard swayed slightly backwards at the force. He couldn't help smiling in pleasure. He ran his fingers through the silvery white hair, not caring at the amused looks he was getting.
A loud crunch broke the magical silence.
… part of a cellphone fell at Renard's feet, glass dropping onto the wooden floor with light clinks.
They all stared in shock as the air was filled with the sound of tearing and crushing metal.
The unicorn lowered her head to the remains of Renard's phone.
… and eyes widened further at the unexpected appearance of a long prehensile pink tongue. Ropey thick and glistening with saliva as it gathered up the Corning glass.
The Captain took a cautious step back.
In unison, the rest of them patted the location where they kept their cellphones on them. Nick and Hank zipped up their jackets. Rosalee buttoned up her long wool coat and Monroe tugged at the neckline of his sweater to move his phone to his shirt pocket. Juliette slipped her phone into the wall table's drawer and leaned against it.
"So," Monroe interrupting the moment, "What are we going to do?"
~^~v~^~v~
Adalind was strolling down the street, stopping at a crosswalk with afternoon coffee in hand, pondering how she can make Sean's life miserable. Something that Sean would find annoyingly irritating that he'd have to personally manage himself. Those were Eric's favorites. He loved hearing stories about Sean's time wasted by needlessly pointless complications. But she's run out of frivolous lawsuits to throw at him.
The clip-clopping sound of hooves caught her attention and she stopped to look.
A red chestnut horse was trotting down on the street across from her.
No one else was paying attention to it. She frowned and watched it. A flicker in the air and for a split second- the horse turned copper gold with a glossy onyx mane, the glint of a long horn shone brightly despite the gloomy cast of the drizzling weather.
She promptly pivoted to her right, striding away as briskly as she could without making a scene. It was time to place offerings outside her doors and windows. There was a market nearby and she's has to buy grain and some expensive natural raw New Zealand honey- the good stuff.
And to stock up so she could hide in her rental house for awhile.
Stories tell that it was bad luck for a Hexenbiest when an unicorn was passing through the area. Even though she's lost her powers, she's not taking any chances.
~^~v~^~v~
It was dusk, but still enough light out to see. Wu concentrated, letting his eyes go out of focus, remembering how to see past the illusion. It was like discovering the hidden image in an autostereogram, but harder. The pictures in those colorful designs raise or sunk with ease in one go. But with the unicorn, there were layers. It was about having the eyes focus on seeing nothing, but being mentally myopic, seeing the horse at each one, holding onto each layer and then pushing every one away in a chain reaction until he could see the unicorn.
Once his eyes adjusted he relaxed, ignoring the descending chill. The bone colored horn's appearance remained fixed, no longer disappearing from view if his attention wandered. He just needed to keep his mind from being distracted by the odd colorless glow that surrounded the unicorn.
He watched the sandy coated unicorn trot easily among the trees from the boulders he was perched on, wishing he could pet it. It shook its white mane when low hanging branches snagged into it and Wu wondered how was it that the unicorn never left hairs or hoof prints.
But he doesn't dwell on it much. Not when he got to see this.
Portland could be so weird. But sometimes? It was so awesomely weird.
~Fin~
Author Notes: The mission for the original plot was Get Renard's Phone Away From Him. A frustrated criticism that inspired a random plot idea which never grew. (And Renard's actor likes unicorns.) I thought it would be funny if Renard kept losing his phone to a Suddenly-A-Wild-Unicorn-Appeared.
And because you know- horses and apples. Soooo, unicorns and Apple.
Please don't feed horses apples. Apples aren't good for horses.
~^~v~^~v~