= = =
Happy Birthday!
How was he supposed to know what would happen? How was he supposed to know what giving that little coin as a present would do to him?
It’s easy to cast blame, and he would scream and shout about it if he could, but deep down Eric knows he should have been more careful. He shouldn’t have tried anything clever. He should have learned that much about the Realm!
He knows that he should always be more careful as he seems to attract trouble like pile of gold attracts a Dragon. But there is something in his mind that takes over when these sorts of decisions are made, an override switch inside him that automatically thinks… well, nothing can go wrong this time.
Of course, it does go wrong. He can’t help himself.
If he’d thought about it he might have realised what sort of trouble that trinket would get him into… the pictures on each side of the disk, one face smiling, one face frowning; the feel of malicious magic around it; the look of perverted glee on the shopkeeper’s face as he’d taken it from the shelf; and above all else Dungeonmaster’s warning!
Ah, yes, a cryptic warning from Dungeonmaster. That really should have rung enough alarm bells to stop him doing something so dumb. But he’d thought it would be funny to play a trick on Uni (and Bobby) like that. After all, who’d ever heard of a Unicorn having a birthday, let alone getting presents as well!
And now…well, now he’s stuck like this until they can find a way of changing him and Uni back to the way they are supposed to be.
He hates being a Unicorn. He hates everything about it.
First of all, they didn’t swap places, he wishes everyone would stop saying that. He’s still a “he”, just as Uni is still a “she”. He has a darker mane than Uni did, and there is a little tuft of brown hair on his chin. He has blue eyes instead of pink. And he has other parts that Uni didn’t have (but then he keeps that well hidden with his tail)! Besides, they seem to have no problem with Uni being a she!
But being a magical creature sucks. Teleporting was fun the first few times, then he tried it too soon after the time before, and boy was he ill after that, though no one seemed to notice. And galloping wasn’t as easy as it looked, either!
But that wasn’t all he has to deal with. It’s difficult to make out what they’re saying, it’s difficult to understand as everything seems muffled and far away. Sometimes, the words all seem to be slurred together and he doesn’t understand a thing. Then all he can do is echo the last couple of syllables and hope for the best.
They took to calling her Unity pretty quickly after the change, and she seemed to get quite good with the Shield pretty quickly as well.
But the fact that she had a new name still irks him. That wasn’t right; she might have a body, and armour and his Shield, but she shouldn’t get a new name as well. It wasn’t as if she was going to stay like that.
And somehow, it all has become a little bit skewed. To Eric, it seems as if his friends don’t pay enough attention to him. He’s on the fringes, watching the discussions and the arguments without being part of what was really going on. Everyone ignores him.
Besides, nothing seems to be happening!
Time does strange things when you are a Unicorn; that can be the only explanation. To Eric, it feels like he’s been stuck like this for months. Surely they could have figured it out by now! Even Presto and the stupid Hat should have been able to do something to help him out of his predicament.
But he just can’t understand why it’s taking so long to change him back.