the unicorn rears up on his hind legs to reach toward the sun. he could pierce through its veil with his shining horn, if he wanted. he could open his mouth and clasp it between his teeth. he could devour it like the wolf in his heart demands. his rage is pure but his love is not. he sees red in the smallest glints of pain.
the unicorn is free of sin, for he does not believe in sin. it is a concept both below and beyond him; all that he could ever be is held back by who he is now. he knows this, and it makes him want to gnaw on his own tongue.
"who, then, are you right now?" you could ask him. you could ask him, and his nostrils would flare but he wouldn't bite you. not yet.
"i am a shroud. i pull the eyes of the dead closed. when you have not the strength to do so for yourself, i will be there to do it for you." he does not like being asked questions about himself, but it is the only way to get him to talk.
"who, then, do you want to be?"
that -- that is the question he has been dodging for the last 900 years.
"i want to pull the sun's cart. i want to chase the moon. i want to howl with my brother, and swim with my sister. i want to be seen in the light of day, not just beneath night's shadow. as i am now, no one sees anything of me but the flashes of magic and gold -- but i want them to see. i want them to see me plain and dark and full of life. i am only death when the end has already arrived."
his horn and his hooves are golden, as he says. he will not say silence is the same, but you have heard as much before. does it matter, then, whether or not he speaks his truth? if it is only shared to be splintered into shards of glass that catch in the back of his throat? he couldn't tell you even if he wanted to, for he himself does not know. oh, how he wishes he did.
he wants to pull the sun's cart. he wants to chase the moon. he wants to howl with his brother, and swim with his sister. he wants to have never been denied his truth, so that he doesn't know the sensation well enough to do it to himself. he is a self-inflicted wound, drilled deep to the core with his spiraled horn.
"who, then, will you become?"
