Sparkly Unicorn Adventures, Part 4
As a side note–this and the next one of these will be the last in second person. I’m planning on a transition that makes sense, but holy crap I am tired of writing in second person. Sure it won’t be “your” adventure anymore, but these things never really are, are they? I mean, when I did “choose your own adventure” books I always thought, “I wouldn’t pick any of these stupid options.” Ah well.
Sparkly Unicorn Adventures Part 4 – Not the Power of Love
Sand creeps into your sandals and begins annoying the snot out of your feet as you traverse the sandy beach. Khamaleth does not seem to enjoy hooves full of sand any more than you enjoy your tender feets being covered in it. Le’lapo is wearing boots and is trudging through as if walking through quicksand. It appears that you are traveling toward a pier, which becomes larger in your field of vision as you near it. You are able to discern its features more and more as time wears on, like a puzzle being put together before you. It is made of many smooth rocks filled with concrete, as most piers are, and the top is covered in planks of wood.
It becomes apparent that the keeper of the second power lives in a tiny house at the end of the pier. The house is round with a triangular roof. It is orange and has a small chimney from which smoke billows. You step onto the pier with your companions and make your way toward this house, and you are able to make out several fishing poles resting on the railings of the pier. It’s a cloudy evening, and wind begins to stir and knock the poles around.
“Oh!” A peculiar sounding voice calls from behind the house. A figure runs from behind it out to the fishing poles and begins steadying them. “I hate the wind!”
Khamaleth begins laughing. “Marella, my dear, catching dinner will have to wait. You can neither control visitors nor the wind, can you?”
The figure is wearing a hooded cloak. She appears to be a monk of sorts. She is stout and rotund, and demonstrates her strength quickly by reeling in a fish as you approach.
“Nay, my friend!” Marella responds as she drops the fish into the bucket. “I never put dinner off for anything!”
As you near Marella, you notice she is a feline-like humanoid. You are a little bit stunned, because when you’ve seen anthropomorphized animals in cartoons and other artwork, they usually look a lot more human. Marella walks upright, and has no tail. Her body resembles that of a cat and not a human, she stands on her toes like a cat and does not have breasts. It makes more sense this way, you think–a creature evolving from a non-primate wouldn’t have a primate’s characteristics.
Marella walks over to you and extends her hand. It is not a paw–the fingers are much more human-like and does not appear to have claws. However, the palm-side is covered in a thick pad. You grasp her hand firmly and shake it just like you learned how to do in interviewing seminars.
“That one’s got a hearty handshake!” Marella guffaws, speaking of you to Khamaleth. She then turns to you. “I’m Marella, I assume you are the new champion?”
You nod.
“Here to receive your power from me, eh? Well, let me give you a little warning first. This power is the easiest to get carried away with. You will use it sometimes and not even realize it! It comes quite natural once you have it. You must always be cautious.”
“All right.” You agree to Marella’s warning, your curiosity as to the ability growing.
“Well, you have it now. Didn’t notice anything, did ya?” Marella laughs.
You laugh. “I was expecting an incantation–like Le’lapo did earlier.”
“An incantation?” Marella appears puzzled.
Le’lapo sighs. “Yes yes. That was all for show. I just wanted to show you my changing eye-color trick.” Le’lapo frowns, appearing ashamed of himself
Marella guffaws. “Ha! What did you say?”
Le’lapo begins to squirm. “I uh, listed the ingredients of a meat pie, in Elvish.”
Marella nearly falls over laughing at this. You are still bewildered as to what has just happened.
“Well?” You ask. “What is it? What’s the power?”
“The power!” Marella takes in a deep breath before speaking the next words, as if to build suspense. “The power of influence.”
“Oh.” You furrow your brow. You suppose this would be useful in a jury trial. “How do I–uh–use it?”
“You just have to be thinking about what you want the object of your power to do! It’s quite subtle, but incredibly powerful! Be careful not to use it on your friends, because that’s just rude!”
You see how this is the case indeed. You wouldn’t want anyone else influencing your mind. You’d have to try it out later–you already considered the company you were with to be friends, even in the short time you’d known them.
“Ey Khamaleth!” Marella’s mood suddenly sours. “How come Le’lapo was with you guys? I thought you told me we couldn’t travel with the champions anymore!”
“Apparently rules were made to be broken.” Khamaleth sighs. “I suppose you want to come along too?”
“You bet I do!” Maraleth snorts. “Not until I’ve had dinner, anyway. Are you planning to see the former champion tonight for the third power?”
Khamaleth suddenly flushes red. It’s interesting to watch a pink unicorn blush. “I–I guess it’s too late to set out that way tonight. I hadn’t really thought about what we’d do for accommodations tonight!”
Your stomach growls loudly, as if on cue. You frown at becoming a walking cliche.
“Well I’ll be! It must be your age, Khamaleth, old girl!” Marella laughs. Ah–so Khamaelth is female. You could not tell from her highly androgynous voice. You actually weren’t all that sure about Maraleth either at first–but she appears female.
Khamaleth snorts in indignation. “The previous champion just lasted so long–you can’t expect me to remember every detail of what I’m supposed to do!”
Marella laughs again. She is quite jovial. “It was just a joke, friend. How about I fix you all some dinner, and then we head out tomorrow morning?”
“Sounds great!” You quickly interject. This time Le’lapo’s stomach growls in protest.
Marella, Lelapo and you all enter the tiny house, Marella toting a bucket she grabbed from the pier. Khamaleth stands outside and sticks her head through the kitchen window. Obviously this was something she had done before. You all sit on the living room sofa while Marella grabs some pots and pans in order to cook up some fish.
You feel a little anxious about the power of influence, but you’re eager to try it out on some poor, unsuspecting soul. It will just have to wait until morning.
Sparkly Unicorn Story: Part 3
Traveling Toward the Second Power: Please Get This Over With So I Can Take A Hot Bath
You and the Unicorn don’t get ten feet from the Elf’s abode before Le’lapo’s voice begins to chase after you.
“Wait!” He calls. “Wait for me!”
Khamaleth sighs and rears its head back in a display of annoyance.
“What is it, Le’lapo?” It asks.
“Let me go with you!” Le’lapo sounds as if he’s almost begging. “Please? I’ll be a big help I swear! I’m as strong as an fox and smart as an ox! I mean–”
Khamaleth sighs deeply. “I really don’t think our mighty champion will need help. Really.”
“Well, how about we let her decide?” Le’lapo folds his arms over his chest and snorts. “She might want some company!”
You contemplate this for a moment. You thought Le’lapo seemed annoyed and aloof when you first met him. Now he was a different elf. Perhaps his previous attitude was just boredom. “Sure!” You reply. “I like company!”
Khamaleth seems to grimace–well, about as much as a Unicorn can grimace–but Le’lapo becomes elated. He practically starts dancing. His feet practically leave the ground.
“Yipee!” Le’lapo beams.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Khamaleth sighs.
“Why not?!” Le’lapo pouts.
“Look.” Khameleth goes into story-telling mode. “Long ago, our first champion was accompanied by the power-granters. It was a tradition that continued for many years! Le’lapo, do you remember when you replaced the last giver of the strength power?”
“Yeah!” Le’lapo’s face suddenly fell. “Yeah, oh, wow. That was bad times.”
“Yes. It was. We never did tell you why Ja’mare had to be replaced. I suppose I must tell you now, so our champion can make the right decision as to whether you should accompany us. You see, Ja’mare and the fifth champion fell in love.”
“D’aww, did they run away and make babies?” Le’lapo interjects.
“Don’t interrupt me!” Khamaleth orders, and then clears its throat. “They did everything together. Fought together, cooked together, lived together, played canasta together–you get the picture. This seemed fine, until Ja’mare’s mind became slowly corrupted by the evil. The champion could not keep her head on straight. Her love for Ja’mare blinded her to the corruption–and they became agents of evil together. We scrambled to find a new champion, but they nearly laid waste to the eastern borders of this world before we could do so.”
“Wow!” Le’lapo is saucer-eyed. “I swear I will totally not fall in love with anyone!”
“Yeah, I don’t think it will be an issue.” You interject. “Look–as a lawyer it is against the ethics rules to engage in relations with clients. I’ll just pretend anyone who travels with us is my client, and boom! It’s all good.”
“What?” Khamaleth and Le’lapo say at the same time, obviously confused.
“Just trust me.” You sigh. “Le’lapo can come with us, it’ll be fine!”
Khamaleth seems uneasy, and its voice is stilted. “If you say so, champion, I must adhere to your wishes.”
“Don’t worrrry about it, Khamaleth!” You pat the horned-horse’s glittery flank. “I’ve got it all taken care of.”
“All right, then.” Khamaleth sighs. “Let’s be on our way to your second destination.”
The three of you began traveling away from the elvish woods, toward the east, away from the setting sun. You chatted about various nonsense as a landscape of lush grass and woodland gave way to a sandy expanse with a vast body of water in the distance. You’d arrived at a beach! You hadn’t been to a beach in quite some time, and you enjoy the light taste of salt which begins to form upon your lips as the seashore gets closer.
Ch 2 of the adventures of the Sparkly Unicorn
The Law Student and the Sparkly Unicorn: Ch. 2
The unicorn begins to gallop through the creek toward the east–its delicate hooves never breaking the surface of the water. You marvel at its ability to walk on water! Its speed continued to increase, and what appeared to be a rip in the space-time continuum (you’ve watched enough sci fi channel to have a general sense of what such a rip would look like) forms in front of you. The Unicorn leaps through the air into it, and on the other side you and the unicorn arrive in a pristine, meadowy world. A mountain range bordered the horizon in the distance, and beneath you is a grassy meadow covered in wild flowers.
The unicorn again kneels onto one knee, and you carefully slide down its side and land in the soft, dewy grass.
“This is our world.” The Unicorn explains, before you can ask anything. “Look around you, notice anything?”
You look around trying to see what the Unicorn might be referring to. You see lots of mounds that look like tiny ant hills–and nothing seems particularly peculiar to you until you notice tiny billows of smoke rising from some of the hills. You focus your eyes more keenly onto one of them, and you notice that it is a tiny, tiny house! You also notice some flying humanoid creatures buzzing about them, all about the size of a human thumb.
“Amazing!” You gasp, watching this take place. “Are–are these faeries?”
“Mmm hmm.” The unicorn nods. “They are one type of creature that lives in this world. Come with me, we shall meet some others.”
You walk alongside the unicorn down a path next to your spot of landing, careful not to deviate and cause problems for the faerie folk. You wonder how they don’t just get gobbled up by an anteater, which surely should have evolved in this world to take advantage of this abundant food supply.
“I’ll tell you about your mission while we walk. This peaceful land has been battling a great evil for centuries now, and it is only kept at bay by a champion born in your world. The current champion is retiring. You will soon meet him–and two others–who will bestow three powers onto you.”
“What kind of powers?” You ask.
“You will see.” The Unicorn decides to be a smarmy ass and not satiate your curiosity. “They enjoy passing this information onto you. I would not want to spoil their fun.”
You began to contemplate the Unicorn’s command of the English language, yet apparent inability to use conjunctions, when you notice some buildings in the distance. They are fantastically smooth for the most part, but bejeweled in some places. Still a bit blurry due to the distance, you wonder what lives in the cornucopia of colors ahead.
“We’re going toward a village of elves.” The Unicorn said, as if reading your mind.
“Do they dance naked on top of mailboxes?” You ask.
“What?” The Unicorn seems disturbed.
“Nothing.” You quickly blurt, wondering how you could be so casual and blase while walking down a golden path with faerie-laden, dewey meadow on either side of you. You still believed this to be a dream, perhaps.
After a great deal more walking, and after a few blisters had begun to form on your feet, you finally arrive at the doorstep of one of the buildings. It is like a great white tree, but its top branches do not end in leaves. It goes from a squat bottom half and narrows toward the top, and it has quite a few sparkling, stained glass windows. The door is dark red and appears to be made for a creature much taller than you are.
The unicorn taps the door with its horn to the beat of “shave and a haircut.” You now know this has to be a dream. You sit and wait for a moment with no answer. The Unicorn rolls its eyes and sighs and knocks again.
“Who is it?” You hear from the other side. The voice is deep baritone, and the words are said in a sing-song manner.
“It’s Khamaleth!” The Unicorn answers. “Whoops, did I forget to tell you my name?” The Unicorn, Khamaleth, asks you. “So sorry.”
The door opens, and a tall, chiseled figure steps forth. His skin is dark brown, and he has tall, pointy pinnae, as you imagine an elf would have. His hair is short and has two tones–a fire red and a sparkling gold–the former closer to his skull and the latter adorning his tips. His arms are folded across his chest, and he appears a bit grumpy.
“Le’lapo!” Khamaleth begins. “This is the new Champion. You need to bestow your power upon her.”
Le’lapo begins to smirk a bit as he looks at you. “This smidgen of a human? Surely we are all doomed.”
“Hey!” You frown. “I didn’t get my ass dragged through a rip in the space-time continuum to just be insulted like that!”
“Saucy, as well!” Le’lapo laughs. “All right. I shall bestow my power–which is the power of great strength. You may have noticed that I have rather impressive muscles. I work out a lot.”
“I did!” You reply.
“Quit being a braggart and get on with this, we have two more stops!” Khamaleth snorts.
“All right, all right.” Le’lapo steps forward and puts his hands on your shoulders. He begins chanting in a tongue you do not recognize, and his eyes glow fiery red while he does so. They return to their normal emerald color when he is finished.
You don’t feel any different, anyway!
“Go on!” Le’lapo encourages you. “Test it! Try and pick me up!”
Surely you would not be able to lift this massive elf into the air! You crouch down and grab his ankles, thinking he is just going to make an ass out of you, when you inadvertantly toss him over your head about six feet!
“I’m sorry!” You gasp, as you run over to help him up. “I–I didn’t realize–”
“Humans never do!” Le’lapo grumbles as you very gently help him up. “You’ll have to get used to it. I should really stop encouraging Champions to test their strength on me!”
“You’d think you’d learn!” Khamaleth clicks its tongue. “We must go now, Le’lapo. Thank you for doing your duty.”
“No problem!” He nods.
“We have two more places to go.” Khamaleth looks towards you. “Come, we have a long journey ahead of us.”
You realize your blisters are about to get worse.
Law school blogs part 3: Sparkly Unicorns
I said if I did another law school post it will be about sparkly unicorns. This is in second person so it can be your personal unicorn fantasy! If you are a dude you will have to pretend to be a chick for this. I had to do it for plenty of “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories when I was a kid so suck it up. Your gender is only known by the cover art, which you shall imagine has a young geeky girl on the cover.
The Law Student and the Unicorn
You walk though the beautiful forest on a hike, your footsteps are slow and methodical as you desire to soak in the beauty of nature which surrounds you. You just graduated law school, and you decided to take a week to yourself in the woods of Mount Rainier in Washington, USA, to clear your mind. You take a deep breath of air, enjoying the slight blanket of fog which gives the woodland a mystical air and keeps your face from becoming befreckled by superfluous sunlight. You stop at a creek which flows over hundreds of stones which have been eroded smooth over the years, and you poke your hiking stick into it for the hell of it. You haven’t had to use it to fend off any bears yet–stirring up some moss is the most fun it’s had all night.
As you attempt to anger any leeches which might reside in the creek, some tall bushes along side it begin to shake. Fearing a bear has come to devour your spleen, you hold your stick up, ready to defend yourself. However, something totally unexpected emerges from the quivering foliage.
You rub your eyes, wondering if the granola bar you ate earlier was laced with drugs, as a light pink unicorn steps into view and slowly makes its way to the creek. You stand perfectly still and watch it lean down to take a drink. You hope it doesn’t get mud in its mouth from your tomfoolery.
After taking a drink, the Unicorn looks up and stares at you. You feel implored to come closer, and you slowly make your way to the edge of the creek where the unicorn is directly across from you. You notice the glittery sheen of its pastel fur, and you are awed by the glimmer of the sharp, ivory white protrusion which proudly projects from its forehead.
“Do not be afraid!” The unicorn commands. “I have come here to ask a favor of you. You are the only one who can save the last of the unicorns.”
You think the unicorn must be mistaken. You think all the late nights of rum and coke and belligerent memo-writing has destroyed what little was left of your sanity. You can think of nothing better to do but point at yourself, mouth agape.
“Yes, please climb on my back and I will take you to a land filled with elves, fairies and unimaginable evil.”
“But!” You begin to hem and haw. “I–I’m not a virgin!”
The unicorn dropped to one knee for ease of climbing onto its sparkly back. “Come now, that is just a silly wive’s tale. How on earth would I be able to tell if you’ve had sex before? Really.”
“But what about my life here? How long will I be gone?”
“It’s all taken care of.” The unicorn nodded, becoming uncomfortable and impatient from entertaining questions and kneeling onto the forest floor. “We will provide for what you need. You can tell your family that you had an offer from a big law firm, and as you go back and forth between our realm and your own, everyone will think you are just at work.”
“What’s the firm name?” You ask. Your parents would be totally more stoked about you landing a high paying job than they would be about you becoming a superhero to a unicorn world. You were actually pretty sure divulging the latter would land you in a padded room.
“Look, do you want to help us, or not?”
“Yes!” You shout.
“Then let’s go!”
You gingerly step onto rocks to cross the creek, and then climb onto the unicorn’s back. Maybe you would wake up soon, or maybe you were about to embark upon the adventure of a life time. Either way, it sure as hell beat actually working for a law firm.
–I may continue this!
