Into the Land of the Unicorns

    They looked all right from a distance, but up close those sentinels of the forest didn’t seem quite right, looking just that important extra bit alien and warped compared to the trees he’d known in younger days, and smelling even stranger. The smell of their bark bit at his nose with a sharper and more astringent bite than the softer, homier smells he recalled. And their leaves were all the wrong shape, whether underfoot or clinging stubbornly to the branches of trees, and just as disturbingly the wrong colors now too, and even the evergreen needles seemed more sinister and foreign. Galahad was all too aware that he was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

    It gave him the shivers. Yet no matter how he tried to explain them away to himself as the natural, perfectly understandable consequences of entering this strange new world and therefore perfectly safe for an intelligent youngster such as himself to disregard, it didn’t stop the creepy-crawlies from prickling their way up and down his spine. He eyed the dark thick of the woods askance, and opted to skirt the edges of the ominous blackness beneath the trees, so different and wrong did it look and sound and smell. His hair stood on end as he shivered at the very thought of entering those dark haunts. Instead, with considerable relief he turned away and broke into the open as craggy hillsides interrupted the forest’s edge, its less hospitable ground discouraging any leafy interlopers who might get any sneaky ideas about claiming the territory for their own woods. Galahad’s young muscles weren’t entirely happy with the choice, protesting a little, but he glanced nervously back over his shoulder and found the trade-off to be worth it, no matter what sort of whining protests his legs were giving him. There was something so off-putting about that ugly forest…

    So it was that he was too busy keeping an eye on those looming trees to pay enough mind to where his feet were going. The sudden downslope caught him by surprise, and with a yelp the coal-furred youngster went tumbling down the rocky hill’s far side, his clumsy overlarge paws finding no purchase while his bony head made plenty of contact with the unyielding granite instead. He only halted when he plowed nose-first into the sand at the bottom. Scraped, bruised, gagging and snorting sandy mud, the youngster raised his smarting and somewhat dizzied head as he hauled himself up, groaning, and pawed at his muzzle in irritation. He spotted the cold water in front of him and made a beeline for it, dipping his schnozz underwater the moment his paws hit wetness. Still trying to snort the last of the grit out of his nostrils, he perked his ears suddenly at the sound and scent of a panicked fish thrashing its way further from this kamikaze wolf. First sign he’d seen today of things looking up… possibly, he thought with pessimistic grimness to himself. But his hollow belly demanded an attempt at finding some sort of food, and fast, regardless of how optimistic his chances.