Short Fiction Fridays #5: Unicorns

Knives, clarinets, fading memories, and more...

For the fifth installment of Short Fiction Fridays, I’m delighted to bring you a theme unsurprising to anyone who knows me: Unicorns. Since childhood, I’ve been a fan of unicorns and their widely varied symbolic potential. It was harder than I expected to find modern unicorn stories, but these stood out to me. Read on for knives, clarinets, memories, and (of course) unicorns.

“Ponies” by Kij Johnson

It’s finally time for Barbara and Sunny to have their very own cutting-out party! Sunny is a pastel pony with a voice, wings, and a horn, and if she chooses two of the three to give up, then Barbara can be friends with TheOtherGirls. Sickly-sweet, disturbing, and cold.

CW: Bullying, animal abuse

Ponies | Tor.com

If you want to be friends with The Other Girls, you’re going to have to give something up; this is the way it’s always been, as long as there have been Ponies.

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“Six Fictions About Unicorns” by Rachael K. Jones

You are a young girl who has diabetes, a clarinet, and—after you run away from home one rainy evening—a unicorn. This story follows you through six brief scenes of life, from youth to old age. Gentle, patient, and warm.

CW: Death of a wild bird (mentioned)

Six Fictions About Unicorns - Uncanny Magazine

1. Your unicorn first finds you when you run away from home. You had planned to live forever in the woods. You packed all the necessities: three cans of baked beans, a packet of butter crackers, your insulin, a water bottle, your clarinet, your marching band shirt. You drew yourself a map…

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“The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory” by Carlos Hernandez

An American reporter on a London vacation finds herself in the middle of a unicorn hunt. Although she knows unicorns are just animals transferred by Large Hadron Collider experiments, she struggles with the truth when faced with a frightened child. Unvarnished, scientific, and decidedly non-magical.

I particularly appreciated the evolutionary science in this story, and learned something new about narwhals!

CW: Child abduction, poaching, animal death

The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory - Lightspeed Magazine

Vocations don’t grant vacations. I’m supposedly on holiday in London when I get an offer no reporter could refuse: to see a unicorn in the wild. I’m with my friend Samantha, hanging out at her Dad’s pub after a long night’s clubbing, still wearing our dance-rumpled dresses, dying to get out of our heels…

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“And Her Eyes Sewn Shut with Unicorn Hair” by Rosamund Hodge

In this novelette, Zéphine dreads the night she must dance for the unicorns. She cannot see them, so she knows they will kill her, and her younger sister Marie will have to become the Reine-Licorne in her place. Ornate, blood-soaked, and noble.

CW: Suicidal ideation, child abuse (threatened), death

Beneath Ceaseless Skies | And Her Eyes Sewn Shut with Unicorn Hair by Rosamund Hodge

I know that I will dance with the unicorns every full moon until I die, when my body will be left on the Plaine d’Ossements; and when the unicorns have gnawed away my flesh they will crack open my bones for the marrow. And I wish I could change any part of it…

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“Survivors” by Elizabeth H. Hopkinson

No one believes the children that came back from Fairyland. Their memories of unicorns are clouded with pills and doubt. Liese strikes up a friendship with Mrs. Schiller, an elderly woman who has also suffered great loss, and together they survive. Regretful, quiet, and misty.

CW: Abduction (referenced), overmedication (referenced)

Strange Horizons - Survivors By Elizabeth H. Hopkinson

There are lots of children in my dreams, happy children dancing in rings and under arches. They are always dressed in white with flowers in their hair. The sun shines on butterflies and hummingbirds flying round them. I think I know their names just before I wake up, but when I do, I forget…

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IF: “Hunting Unicorn” by Chandler Groover

An interactive fiction game with sixteen paths, in which you play as a maiden whose choices have been limited by society and fate. The maiden is always bait for unicorn hunts, because that is what is written in the stars. Personal, classical, and a little sad.

CW: Not possible for me to know what is in all paths, but the two paths I have played contain death, sexual assault, and animal cruelty

HUNTING UNICORN by CMG

A maiden leads a unicorn hunt.

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THANK YOU FOR READING

If you enjoyed any of these stories, please support their authors and the magazines that published them. I’d also love to hear any suggestions for future list themes! Just reply to this email or contact me elsewhere and I’ll use your theme (within reason) for a future newsletter.

I have contacted the Revue team to request the ability to add alt text for photos, since these back issues are available on the web, but until that is an option please note that all included images are non-informational cover art for linked stories.