Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 23, for Wednesday the twenty-third of October 2024.

unicorns

by Elizabeth Guilt

When the barriers crumbled between our worlds, everyone went exploring. Especially the motorcyclists. On whining two-strokes and beefy Harleys, they tore through the winding roads of Fairyland.

The King of the Fairies met the King of the Bikers at the Border, and begged him to stop them.

The Biker King laughed.

"I will send unicorns to guard the border," said the Fairy.

The Biker King laughed harder, and on Sunday morning he lead the roaring engines down the road.

The unicorns waited, bigger than shirehorses. Bull-necked and wild-eyed; jagged metal battering rams bound at their brows.

Heads down, they charged.

If, like me, you've lived in towns and cities all your life, it's always a bit of a surprise how large and intimidating horses can be. I've never quite believed that adding a huge, spiralling horn would make them into gentle and compassionate creatures.