Unicorn of Sorrow

The unicorn lay in the dim, flowing darkness that emcompassed the rocky beach. It's fur, once white and pure as freshly spilt milk, touched with the shine of diamonds and blessed with the softness of warm lamb wool, softer and richer than velvetine, was marred and streaked with small twigs and dark dirt, and matted with dung and stinking faeces. 1

Along its strong, muscular neck, flowed its mane, once a pure, silken banner held high to the world like a beacon, and its tail, which used to flow and ripple like a gracefully plummeting cataclysm alive with froth and bubbles, now hung limp and shaggy over its tainted rump and withers, a lost hope for the world to see.2

Its pupiless black eyes stared remorsefully out from beneath a pair of long, dainty eyelashes, blacker than the night, and shinier than ebony, the last remaining fragments of its immortal beauty.3

Beneath them, pressed uncomfortably against the rounded, even surface of the many midnight hued stones of the beach, it legs were like short, slender pillars, delicately carved from marble at the hands of a skilled architect. Each leg, of four, ended in a perfectly rounded hoof of absolute purity. Strong and brittle, but transparent as spring water, yet fractured like a broken, helpless crystal.4

And far above it all, standing, erect, was a glittering pearlescent horn, twisting supply like a narwhals tooth into the expanding darkness, deeply etched with pure, molten gold, and opaque like a glimmering white diamond. This was its greatest weapon, the bringer of all peace. This was its betrayer.5