Cursed, Charmed, and Uninsured

Somebody Call Osha

By her third chicken leg, Kay would never consider unicorns cute and fluffy ever again. Every glimpse of gnarly stained sharp teeth revealed by those deceptively soft horse muzzles would haunt her dreams. If someone told her last week she would be engaged in the mortally dangerous act of horn polishing mythical creatures, she would have laughed herself sick. Now, she was trying not to throw up from the smell. Kay thought her nose would adjust to the odor, but within the hour, she fought to keep her eyes from tearing up at the potency of it.

The stench was a physical thing, the scent of rot and meat, old blood, piss, and a dozen other unseemly substances mingling in a soupy muddy mire stomped beneath dozens of hooves, coating their legs and flanks. A grotesque odor that had settled in and grown claws. It swiped at her every time she dared to breathe through her nostrils, and stung the back of her throat as she took short shallow breaths.

She felt light headed by the time Stanley slid off the last mare, thoroughly coated in horn dust and streaked with filth. The unicorns slunk low in the corners of the pen like a herd of wary jungle cats, their unsettling eyes watchful as the pair took their leave. Kay sucked in a deep lungful of the significantly fresher hallway air, coughing as the air conditioned chill caught in her chest. She glimpsed back at the herd as Stanley shut the door, unnerved when her gaze connected with the baleful glare of the roan.

Kay bit the inside of her cheek. "How can they live like that?"

Stanley glanced between her and the closed door, a vee crease in his brow, his confusion magnified by those ridiculous glasses he'd strapped to his face. He would probably be scratching his head if not for the grease and filth coating his fingers. "The unicorns?" He shrugged. "They don't seem to care about the mess. We had a cleaning crew for a while, but they kept mauling the groomers. Think they prefer it, honestly."

Kay doubted that. Okay, she didn't doubt the mauling part, but that stench practically burned the inside of her nose. "But do they live like that in the wild--"

"Listen, I am going to change real quick so we can finish the tour. Mind waiting here for a minute?"

From the odor coming off him, Kay couldn't really blame him, but she knew avoidance when she heard it. She gave Stanley a tight nod, who took off for the locker rooms in a wince worthy bow legged angle. Those unicorns had wide backs; poor guy probably had chafed thighs.

There wasn't much scenery to chew in the corridor of the Grid. To avoid pacing and counting rivets again, Kay reviewed the territories Stanley toured yesterday. The locking mechanism on the doors was sort of medieval, which made sense given what Tiny told her about the unfortunate fate of electronics, but the doors, aside from their reinforcement didn't seem all that secure. From this side, she couldn't see how a determined dragon couldn't nudge their way free, a rather uncomfortable thought. She was in the midst of imagining herself being trampled beneath vindictive unicorn hooves when Stanley emerged in a fresh uniform, hair wet from a quick wash.

"Hey Stanley, what keeps the unicorns in their pen?"

Stanley shook himself, tilting his head as if to rid it from water. "They're keyed in."

"Pardon?"

There was that damn vee again, creasing his brow. He waved his hand, as if her questions were a gnat buzzing in his face. "Magnetic locks. Magic immune." He wiggled his hip, where a fat ring of keys gave an obligatory jingle. So many keys, the ring had to weigh like ten pounds. How did he walk without sounding like a small out of tune brass band in these halls?

"Every cell has a key. Now, come on. Time to finish the tour," said Stanley. "We need to feed the pixies before noon or they get mighty testy."

Kay stumbled over her own feet. "Do they eat raw meat too?"