ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2014-06-25 06:02 pm
ladysprite) wrote2014-06-25 06:02 pm
Endings And Beginnings
There are some jobs for which "don't bring your work home with you" is sage and reasonable advice.
Actually, I suppose it's good advice for all jobs - it's just more feasible for some than it is for others. I promised after my poor brain-damaged midget kitten that I wouldn't bring home any more heartbreak cases, but I knew somewhere inside, even as I said it, that it wouldn't last forever.
I've had more of a break than I had any right to expect - my Ultimate Boss isn't known for her patience and understanding, but somehow word must have spread among my special clients that I was out of commission for a while. As of last week, though, it looks like my grace period is over.
I was driving home from a friend's house somewhere five miles west of the middle of nowhere, late last Thursday night, when a flash of pale fur at the side of the road caught my eye. I almost drove by - this is roadkill season, as sad as that is - but no truly wild animal has ever actually been that pristine a shade of white, and I knew precisely what hid in the wooded hills behind the sub-sub-suburbs of Nowhere, MA. Thanking all the Powers that Be that there weren't any other cars on the road, I veered over to the shoulder and stopped my car. One glance in my rear-view mirror confirmed my worst fears.
I know I make a big deal here sometimes about my place in the Seelie court, but ultimately, I'm not that special. I mean, I'm pretty darn awesome in my own right, but I'm not the only mortal who knows about them. And, unlike me, not all of those with opened eyes have the best interests of the fae in mind.
And of that latter group, the unicorn poachers are the worst.
I forced myself to get out of the car and look at what I've found, though it was hard to see through the tears in my eyes. It's hard for our soft, limited minds to hold that much beauty and ruin at the same time. Moonlight and marble, and desecration like our jaded modern hearts can't imagine, and none of it even belongs in this world in the first place.
They'd taken everything. Hooves, horns, mane - even her eyes. What kind of sick fuck carves the eyes out of something that close to divine? I pulled out my phone to call the herd overseer and let her know what had happened, but when I opened my mouth to talk, no words would come out. I knelt down in the gravel on the side of the road, buried my face in the unicorn's flank, and bawled like my heart was breaking.
....until something quite firmly and clearly nudged me in the noggin, and I opened my eyes again, taking in the one detail I'd missed in my initial shock.
She was pregnant. Days away from delivering, if the shape moving under my cheek was any indication. And the body was still warm...
If I have learned one thing this year, it's that having an emergency library in the trunk of my car is not nearly enough in terms of preparedness. Relatedly, a close second would be the fact that I never again want to perform a C-section on something the size of a deer with a miniature Swiss Army knife.
But needs must, and about half an hour later, awash to my elbows in the literal blood of the innocent and by the headlights of my secondhand Honda, I pulled the baby unicorn, shivering and silent, from his mother. He was tiny and cold, and so perfect that it hurt to look at him and still that was all I wanted to do - just look, for hours, to wash the sight of the scene beneath me from my mind.
Unfortunately, even summer nights are cold, and even magical preemies are fragile. So instead I wrapped him in the neon-orange StubHub blanket that my husband insisted on stashing in the back seat of my car "just in case," and drove him home.
We're lucky, in a way. His horn won't grow in for at least a few weeks, so he can at least pass as a particularly odd-looking goat for the time being. Our neighbors complained at first, but their three-year-old daughter has taken enough of a shine to him that they've quieted down - and since she and the other little girls in the neighborhood are the only ones he'll tolerate to hold his bottle, that's a blessing in and of itself.
He's only staying in our yard until they can relocate the herd - now that the poachers have found them, they're not safe where they were anymore. And that's fine; we wouldn't be able to keep him long-term anyway. And he won't let me touch him now that he's stable and aware enough to make his opinion known. And having something that beautiful that close and not being able to be near it is its own special kind of torture. And he wouldn't be safe here. And every time I look at him I see the scene where I found him. And, and, and, a world of and....
....and I know I'll let him go when I have to, and I know it'll break my heart again.
Actually, I suppose it's good advice for all jobs - it's just more feasible for some than it is for others. I promised after my poor brain-damaged midget kitten that I wouldn't bring home any more heartbreak cases, but I knew somewhere inside, even as I said it, that it wouldn't last forever.
I've had more of a break than I had any right to expect - my Ultimate Boss isn't known for her patience and understanding, but somehow word must have spread among my special clients that I was out of commission for a while. As of last week, though, it looks like my grace period is over.
I was driving home from a friend's house somewhere five miles west of the middle of nowhere, late last Thursday night, when a flash of pale fur at the side of the road caught my eye. I almost drove by - this is roadkill season, as sad as that is - but no truly wild animal has ever actually been that pristine a shade of white, and I knew precisely what hid in the wooded hills behind the sub-sub-suburbs of Nowhere, MA. Thanking all the Powers that Be that there weren't any other cars on the road, I veered over to the shoulder and stopped my car. One glance in my rear-view mirror confirmed my worst fears.
I know I make a big deal here sometimes about my place in the Seelie court, but ultimately, I'm not that special. I mean, I'm pretty darn awesome in my own right, but I'm not the only mortal who knows about them. And, unlike me, not all of those with opened eyes have the best interests of the fae in mind.
And of that latter group, the unicorn poachers are the worst.
I forced myself to get out of the car and look at what I've found, though it was hard to see through the tears in my eyes. It's hard for our soft, limited minds to hold that much beauty and ruin at the same time. Moonlight and marble, and desecration like our jaded modern hearts can't imagine, and none of it even belongs in this world in the first place.
They'd taken everything. Hooves, horns, mane - even her eyes. What kind of sick fuck carves the eyes out of something that close to divine? I pulled out my phone to call the herd overseer and let her know what had happened, but when I opened my mouth to talk, no words would come out. I knelt down in the gravel on the side of the road, buried my face in the unicorn's flank, and bawled like my heart was breaking.
....until something quite firmly and clearly nudged me in the noggin, and I opened my eyes again, taking in the one detail I'd missed in my initial shock.
She was pregnant. Days away from delivering, if the shape moving under my cheek was any indication. And the body was still warm...
If I have learned one thing this year, it's that having an emergency library in the trunk of my car is not nearly enough in terms of preparedness. Relatedly, a close second would be the fact that I never again want to perform a C-section on something the size of a deer with a miniature Swiss Army knife.
But needs must, and about half an hour later, awash to my elbows in the literal blood of the innocent and by the headlights of my secondhand Honda, I pulled the baby unicorn, shivering and silent, from his mother. He was tiny and cold, and so perfect that it hurt to look at him and still that was all I wanted to do - just look, for hours, to wash the sight of the scene beneath me from my mind.
Unfortunately, even summer nights are cold, and even magical preemies are fragile. So instead I wrapped him in the neon-orange StubHub blanket that my husband insisted on stashing in the back seat of my car "just in case," and drove him home.
We're lucky, in a way. His horn won't grow in for at least a few weeks, so he can at least pass as a particularly odd-looking goat for the time being. Our neighbors complained at first, but their three-year-old daughter has taken enough of a shine to him that they've quieted down - and since she and the other little girls in the neighborhood are the only ones he'll tolerate to hold his bottle, that's a blessing in and of itself.
He's only staying in our yard until they can relocate the herd - now that the poachers have found them, they're not safe where they were anymore. And that's fine; we wouldn't be able to keep him long-term anyway. And he won't let me touch him now that he's stable and aware enough to make his opinion known. And having something that beautiful that close and not being able to be near it is its own special kind of torture. And he wouldn't be safe here. And every time I look at him I see the scene where I found him. And, and, and, a world of and....
....and I know I'll let him go when I have to, and I know it'll break my heart again.
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Waiting patiently for the "buy now with one click" button! :)
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(It would be interesting if that were paired with some normal-world stories of animal cruelty/poaching.)
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Thank you - I'm incredibly flattered by this! :)