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This vignette was written for Catprog as part of my patreon request days for the month of November, and contains brief violence, and TF from a human to a mythological creature.

[center][b][u]A Unicorn's Heart[/u][/b][/center]

All his life, whether awake or asleep, whether a child or an adult, Tim had dreamed of being a unicorn. In his youngest years his parents had told him stories about unicorns from a book of fairy tales, and he had screamed and cried unless they read him one of those specific stories each and every night. Eventually they learned that they could tell any story from the book, so long as they replaced whatever characters were already in it with unicorns, and so from the ages of about two until five or six, Tim went to sleep each and every night with visions of unicorns dancing in his mind.

As soon as he was old enough to play make-believe, Tim begged his mother to make him a horn he could wear on a headband around his forehead, and a tail he could wear on a belt around his waist. He would run around the house and the garden casting blessings of protection upon everything he saw, charging valiantly into battle alongside noble humans fighting for a righteous cause, and giving magical healing aid to the wounded afterwards. Even when he was told to come inside and take off his toys, he would keep on playing the games in his head. He would wolf down vegetables like no other kid he knew because that was what a unicorn would most likely eat, so they had to be delicious. He would make friends based on which kids he met liked unicorns too, and which ones he thought would be most likely to be cool and excited if they met a unicorn in real life.

In school, Tim quickly became known as a real artistic talent, but something of a daydreamer when it came to subjects like mathematics. Regardless of the class, his notebooks would end up filled with drawings of unicorns, pencil etchings of a beautiful radiant white figure walking through a dark and shadowy forest which were more skilful than anything even his art teacher could create, yet which he was told weren't appropriate when he was meant to be writing out the history of the Tudor monarchs of England. He found ways to make his school work bearable though. When learning lists of historical figures, he simply created a unicorn companion for each of them. Every King and Queen had their own private unicorn friend, and by remembering the name and the distinctive horn patterns of that unicorn, he could remember the name of the monarch, the dates of their rule, and all the important feats which they had taken part in, alongside their unicorn companion of course.

His parents probably expected him to grow out of his unicorn [i]phase[/i], but of course he didn't. Up till about age ten Tim was as eager and obsessed with unicorns as ever, and afterwards, when his father sat him down one day and asked if he wouldn't rather play sports or do things like other boys did, he simply learned to keep his passions to himself. He became quiet. Not sad, it was impossible to be sad when you had a whole world of unicorns living inside your mind, but withdrawn and less socially engaged with the world around him. He didn't talk about unicorns any more, he didn't play make-believe any more, and he kept his drawings and stories to himself and within the bounds of art class, but he didn't play sports either. He didn't show any interest in being more 'like a boy', whatever that meant, because he had no interest in being a boy. No interest in being anything so limited as what his father believed to be '[i]right[/i]' and '[i]good[/i]' and '[i]natural[/i]' in the world. Unicorns were above such petty and subjective contrivances, and thus so was he.

Until Tim's parents separated when he was thirteen, he remained quiet and withdrawn. The day after his father moved out though, something changed.

Something changed as Tim rose from bed, walked down to the kitchen to get breakfast, and found sitting beside his already laid out cereal bowl and spoon a very familiar sight.

An old, worn headband with a slightly bent horn upon it, and a belt much too small for him now with a fabric-sewn tail attached to it.

He was still holding those objects in his hands when his mother stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, and when he looked up at her, there was true and deep emotion visible on his face for the first time since that day when he had been told that he was too old to be playing make-believe and imagining unicorns everywhere.

He wept as he hugged his mother, and though he never wore that headband or tail ever again, he knew exactly what his mother meant by digging them out of wherever she had hidden them away, rather than throwing them out as he had always assumed his father had done. He didn't have to hide his passion. He didn't have to pretend that he wasn't interested in anything, just because the things he was interested in might not be what some people expected of a teenage boy.

So long as he did good, and worked hard, he could dream and enjoy whatever the heck he wanted.

And if that meant unicorns... then that was fine by her, and screw anyone who felt otherwise.

For some people, many perhaps, their teenage years were some of the hardest of their entire life. Tim had struggles of his own for sure, but he never once felt like he couldn't handle things, and he never once felt as though the world would be a better place without him in it. Quite the contrary. When he saw something wrong, he wanted to help fix it. When he found a bump in the road of his own life, something impeding his happiness, he was eager to do whatever he could to resolve it. He cultivated friendships, relationships with his friends, his mother, his teachers which they came to cherish just as he himself cherished them in return. And though he wasn't quite so outspoken about it as he might have been as a younger child, Tim never made it a secret to anyone who cared about him that he was motivated by one core philosophy alone.

Act with the spirit, with the heart of a unicorn, and everything would work out alright.

Through high school, through college, through friendships, romances, love and heartbreak, Tim's unwavering faith in his unicorn's heart never let him down. It didn't fix all problems of course, he couldn't simply rely on it like some divine presence and just expect his life to be flawless without any effort on his part. But even when problems did arise, trying to think as a unicorn would think always helped Tim find his way out and into the light again.

Or, rather... it always helped, right up until the one time that it didn't.

Tim lived out in the countryside with his partner and their daughter, but lately work had been putting increasing amounts of pressure on him to work from the office rather than remotely, thus at the end of a long day he found himself walking back to his hotel room through one of several alleyways which cut a considerable distance off the trip around what would otherwise have been several large city blocks.

Had he seen the man coming, he might have been able to talk him down.

Had he known what was going through that man's troubled and fearful, pain-stricken mind, he might at least have tried to do something to help.

The first Tim knew of it though was when he felt someone shove him hard from behind, and felt something cold and sharp drive up into the left side of his chest.

He hit the ground with force enough to shatter the right orbit of his eye, and was unconscious almost before he even had the chance to feel the man rooting around desperately in his pockets for his wallet and phone.

Even after losing consciousness though, Tim could feel the blood pouring out of his body from the knife wound. He could feel his life force ebbing away.

He thought of his lover and child, and how sad they would be.

He thought about how hard it might be for them, not that he didn't trust in the woman he loved and the child he was so proud of to be capable and independent in his absence, but not wishing any additional hardships upon them if he could possibly help to avoid them.

He felt his heart beating. Still beating even as it was drained of it's life's blood. Still thundering with the strength, the passion, the love of a unicorn, as it had since the day he was born.

It still had so much to give.

Tim still had so much to give to the world, so much of the unicorn's spirit to impart to those he loved most, and to anyone else who needed it.

He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

He would live, and he would continue to do good for the world... no matter what.

[center]*********[/center]

Charlotte sighed as she glanced at the clock glowing upon the front of the stove.

If Tim hadn't been dragged into the city, he'd be finishing up work about now. Coming downstairs from his little office and asking if he could help make dinner. Kissing her gently on the lips, holding her hands in his, and saying how lucky he was. Not trying to get into her good books. Not trying to get anything at all. Just being himself. Just telling the truth in the kindest, sweetest way possible. She smiled. There was no other man like Tim in the world. He was one of a kind. Unique. A real...

"Mommy! Mommy look!"

Charlotte's train of thought derailed slightly as she heard their daughter's voice calling from outside where she was playing in the garden. She walked over to the window, smiling curiously as she wondered what kind of bug little Lindsey would be running up to the window to show her this time. An earthworm maybe. A butterfly. Hopefully not a stink-bug like she'd grabbed earlier that summer.

She reached the window, peered outside, and...

For a moment, the grown woman froze in complete and utter shock.

She could only stare out of the window, and peer out across their garden to where her daughter was standing on the grass, her little five year old arms wrapped around the neck of a gorgeous, pure white horse... with a foot and a half long horn emerging from its forehead.

"Mommy, look! It's daddy's unicorn!"

Looking back toward the window with a gleeful smile upon her face, Lindsey told her mother what they both knew to be true. They'd seen Tim draw that pattern on the horn a thousand times, and indeed there were pictures of it drawn all throughout Lindsey's bedroom where her daddy had been teaching her draw just like him. Only now, these weren't pictures. This wasn't a drawing on a piece of paper, it was.... or at least, it seemed to be real.

Charlotte stepped over to the back door adjoining to the kitchen, and slipped outside without bothering to put on shoes or socks. She walked slowly over, still wide eyed and trembling slightly to where her daughter was still hugging the peaceful unicorn, the creature seemingly more than happy to let her do so.

"Mommy, she's beautiful."

Lindsey beamed as she looked back at her mother, then turned her head again and kissed the unicorn on the side of its neck. The horned equine withdrew slightly, but not to pull away from the young girl, just far enough to lick her across one cheek affectionately in return. Lindsey squealed with giddy laughter, and began to run circles around the unicorn and her mother as the noble, beautiful white coated, silvery maned creature lifted its head and regarded the older woman.

Their eyes met, and though Charlotte didn't exactly know why, she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, Tim..."

She whispered under her breath, staring deep into the unicorn's bountiful, pale blue eyes and wondering where her husband was at that moment, why he wasn't here to witness this.

"...everything's going to be okay."

She didn't understand what she was saying, or why she was saying it. But, that didn't change the fact that it was true. That in that moment Charlotte could hear herself saying words which she knew to be objective fact, rather than hope or belief. Just looking at that unicorn, seeing it right there in front of her, as clear and real as her love for her partner and their daughter, she simply knew it to be correct.

"We're safe. We're protected... a-and... no matter what, everything is going to be okay."

Charlotte stepped forward, and wrapped her own arms around the unicorn's neck. She placed her head against its own, cheek to cheek, and as she heard her daughter giggle once more and re-join the hug with a wildly flailing arm wrapping around her mother's sole pair and the unicorn's forelegs, she swore that she felt the unicorn's cheek twitch, as though its muzzle was turning upward in a warm, loving smile.

"No matter what, mommy!"

Lindsey piped up from below, still eager and enthused as ever, but with that same complete confidence and sincerity present in the five year old's words.

"Everything's gonna be okay."

By Jeeves

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