Keeper of the Lost Stars

I'm a frigging unicorn, so what? It's not like I shit gold coins from my ass.

Yeah, I've got a horn. My mane sparkles in sunlight, and sometimes flowers grow where I sleep. None of that means I want to carry your kid around a birthday party or grant wishes for free. I don't prance either. I walk, and when I'm annoyed, I stomp.

My name's Steve. My mother named me Starfire Celestia of the Enchanted Vale, which is exactly why I stopped speaking to her.

Anyway, I was down by the creek last Tuesday eating blackberries and trying not to get stabbed in the nose when some idiot came crashing through the woods in full armor. He spotted me, stopped dead, and dropped to one knee.

"Oh, great and magnificent unicorn! I have traveled seven days and seven nights to find you."

I kept chewing. "So what."

His head jerked up. "You can speak?"

"No. You're imagining."

His name was Percival. That figured. Once he recovered from discovering I could form sentences, he told me his kingdom was in danger. A dragon was in the mountains. Villages were being burned. Crops destroyed. Princess kidnapped. He delivered the whole thing with the kind of breathless seriousness people use when they've already decided their problem is about to become yours.

"We need your magic."

"No."

"But you're a unicorn."

"And you're wearing a chamber pot on your head. We all have problems."

He begged for another five minutes before mentioning the dragon had burned an orchard.

That stopped me.

"What kind?"

"Apple."

"What kind of apples?"

Percival frowned, like he couldn't see why that mattered. "Golden Honeycrisps."

I stared at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Son of a bitch."

That's how I ended up walking toward Mount Galdor with Percival clanking behind me the whole way. He tried making conversation for the first hour.

"So, Steve, do unicorns really live forever?"

"Do knights really die young?"

After that, he developed an appreciation for silence.

By sunset we reached the first burned village, and whatever smart remark I might've had died before it made it out of my mouth. Houses had collapsed in on themselves. Trees were black to the roots, and a wagon had melted around one wheel. People moved through the wreckage quietly, carrying whatever they could salvage.

A little girl saw me and came over holding half an apple, one side burned brown and black.

"For you."

I looked at the apple, then at her, then toward what had once been the orchard.

"Thanks."

Percival looked at me like he'd just witnessed some beautiful act of kindness. I gave him a look that told him he better not ruin it.

To his credit, he didn't.

We found the dragon the next morning.

Nobody had mentioned his name was Bernard.

I'd expected something like Vorthrax the Bone Eater or Malgrath the Eternal Flame. Bernard was sitting outside his cave wearing spectacles and reading a book. He was enormous and red, with smoke curling lazily from his nostrils, which almost made up for the name.

Percival drew his sword. Bernard glanced over the top of his book and said, "Oh, for God's sake."

I stopped.

Percival glanced at me. "What?"

"He talks like me."

"I heard that," Bernard said.

I walked closer. "You burn the orchard?"

Bernard shut his book. "If you're here about the princess, she's inside."

"I asked about the orchard."

He stared at me. "You came all this way over apples?"

"Golden Honeycrisps."

Bernard nodded. "They were good."

I lowered my horn.

He raised both claws. "Easy fella, it was an accident."

"An entire orchard?"

"I sneezed."

"You burned an entire orchard sneezing?"

"I have allergies."

Behind me, Percival remembered why we'd actually come. "You kidnapped Princess Elowen."

Bernard sighed hard enough that smoke rolled from his nose. "I did not kidnap anyone."

"She was seen being carried away in your claws."

"She asked me to."

Right then a woman walked out of the cave wearing a blue dress, muddy boots, and an old blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Percival gasped. "Princess!"

She winced. "Oh crap, you found me."

"We've come to rescue you."

"No, thank you."

Percival's sword dipped. He looked genuinely wounded, as though being rescued was the least she could do after he'd walked all this way.

Princess Elowen leaned against Bernard's front leg. "My father wants me to marry Lord Hargrave."

"The duke's son?" Percival asked.

"The one with the wet lips."

I looked at him.

He nodded. "He does that a lot."

"Yeah, I'd take the dragon too."

"Thank you," Elowen said.

Percival looked from the princess to the dragon.

"But the villages, what about the fires?"

Bernard's expression changed. He lifted one wing. Three broken arrows were buried between the scales.

Elowen answered for him. "My father sent soldiers."

"They shot me," Bernard said. "I got angry."

"So you torched half the countryside."

"I lost my temper."

"You burned my apples."

Bernard frowned. "Your apples?"

"Spiritually."

Elowen covered a smile.

That was the part nobody put in songs. The knight gets to the mountain and finds out everybody screwed something up. No evil dragon, no helpless princess, no noble king.

Things were usually messier than that.

I paced for a minute while I thought. Keeping my horn down made everyone nervous, which didn't hurt.

Finally I stopped.

"All right. Here's what we're doing. Bernard, you're going to help rebuild the villages."

His eyebrows went up behind his spectacles. "I am?"

"You're huge. You can carry lumber."

Then I looked at Elowen. "You're going home."

Her expression hardened. "I am not marrying Hargrave."

"I didn't say you were."

Percival opened his mouth. I pointed my horn at him.

"And you're going to tell the king the princess wasn't kidnapped."

"He'll never believe me."

"Then bring Bernard."

Bernard coughed. A tiny flame puffed from his nose. "Is that necessary?"

"Probably."

Three days later, we marched into the capital.

People screamed. Guards ran. Bells rang. Bernard nearly turned around twice. Elowen rode on his shoulder while Percival walked in front waving both arms and yelling, "DO NOT ATTACK THE DRAGON," which wasn't especially effective.

Then I stepped forward.

Everybody stopped.

Bernard caused a panic. I got their attention.

The king came out onto the palace steps and looked at his daughter, then Bernard, then Percival, and finally me.

"What is the meaning of this?"

I hate that question. Mostly because by the time somebody asks it, the answer is usually standing right there.

"Your daughter doesn't want to marry Lord Wetmouth."

Elowen made a choking sound. Percival looked away. The king went red.

"Who are you?"

"Steve."

He stared at my horn for a while after that.

It didn't help.

What followed was about an hour of shouting. The king shouted. Elowen shouted louder. Percival explained what happened, and Bernard apologized for the fires while also mentioning that he'd been shot with arrows first.

Eventually the wedding was canceled.

Bernard agreed to help rebuild the villages, and the king agreed to stop sending soldiers after him. Percival got promoted for "rescuing the princess." Complete bullshit, but he bought me six baskets of apples afterward, so I let it go.

Bernard replanted the orchard himself. It took three years before the new trees produced fruit, and he still sends me a crate every autumn.

So I guess the whole thing worked out.

People tell it differently now. Apparently I charged up the mountain in a blaze of silver light, defeated a terrible dragon, rescued the princess, and saved the kingdom.

Complete crap.

I mostly argued with everybody until they stopped being stupid long enough to fix things.

Apparently that counts as magic.

But whatever.

I'm a frigging unicorn.

Try not to make it weird.