"Always"

This blog post, you may have noticed, is called "Always." I do not "Always" blog about really sad sucky occurrences but today I am. :(

A month or so ago, I submitted a story to Trove. Trove is a university Creative Writing Journal. It's pretty great. You can (and should) read it here: http://www.trove.arts.uwa.edu.au/

Today I got an email from Trove submissions, in which they shattered my fragile ego (and my heart) into tiny pieces. I'm kidding (mostly). But yeah, they rejected my story submission.

I'm not surprised, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the story that I submitted is about Robot Unicorn Attack. So... but also I rushed the editing etc. so I guess it's not really that good.

Nevertheless, I promised to post the story here on my blog, so today you guys finally get to read it.

Would you have published it? Let me know in the comments or whatevs?

Enjoy! ♥Nancy♬

"Always" - Nancy Elizabeth White, 2012

Gwed stood calmly in his stall. He heard the other horses snorting in fright, but he stayed quiet. Just yesterday they’d seen a horse - just a normal horse - dragged kicking and screaming out of its musty stall and out of the barn doors. He was not sure why they took away the horses like that. Sometimes they were nags but he’d seen a fresh young colt dragged away once. It broke his heart to think about it. Gwed knew that he had never felt as sad as he did in here, in this barn. But at least he was safe: he was special. A slice of purple-tinged light came through the barn door. The sound of footsteps on grass preceded the appearance of two humans in the doorway. One was wearing a fancy suit and dark glasses; the other wore a white coat and carried a clipboard. As they walked by his stall, Gwed heard the low murmur of human voices float up to his sensitive ears.

 “Another horse dead after only one trial? This is simply unacceptable,” said the one in the suit. Gwed didn’t speak human but he could still hear their voices.

 “We’ll get it right. The serum should work. When it does, we can carry about the procedure on the beast,” the one in the white coat spoke next. The suited human was silent until the white coat one spoke again. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter what we call it. It’s never going to get any manlier! Ha...! Ha...”

 “Put it this way,” said the one in the suit, “if this last horse doesn’t perform, we’ll bring in the Percheron and the - what did you call it? - the beast. And then we’ll see some action.”

Gwed tried to look elegant as he stood in his stall. He was sure that the humans were talking about him and he wanted to look worthy of their attention. A nagging voice in the back of his head told him to keep a low profile, that he wouldn’t want to be chosen for this test... but Gwed often ignored the voice in the back of his head, so that was no hardship.

His heart skipped a beat when the two humans stopped outside the stall next to his. He knew the stallion who was kept there, they were friends. And he had hoped, hoped desperately, that perhaps they could be more than friends. Not that he’d really had a chance - who had time for love in a place like this?

Gwed’s heart broke all over again as he heard the screams of his beautiful friend. When they had first brought in Apache Sunrise he’d been fit and strong. Now, he barely even had the strength to struggle. The two humans managed to subdue him and before long he was being dragged out of the barn. The barn door slammed, and the only sound that remained were the echoes of the stallion’s screams. Gwed almost cried.

Two weeks ago, Gwed had been racing through the purple cliffs near his home. He had been wild and free and had loved every moment of his life. Now, in a tiny barn, he struggled to remember the feeling of his pure white mane and tail streaming behind him as he jumped and dashed. He hadn’t even known that the government research facility - which was where he was - had been there amongst the purple cliffs. That was until he’d bumped into their unique weapon, a huge five-pointed explosive, and woken up in the barn with only horses for company.

It was hours before the remaining horses calmed down. Gwed smiled; he was so fortunate, to be so special. He never had to cower and scream and worry the way the horses did. No one would dare to harm him, after all.

A mare said, “is everyone okay?”

 “I’m a little sad,” said Gwed. He spoke horse with a strong accent.

 “We’re all sad, Gwed,” said Pierre Courir, the dapple-grey Percheron stallion with a thick French-horse accent. “Apache Sunrise was a fine stallion.”

 “I liked him,” Gwed said. He heard a nearby stallion snort and felt Pierre Courir’s mysterious gaze on his back.

 “If only we could get out of here, non?” asked Pierre Courir.

 “Don’t get your hopes up, love,” the mare said.

 “Perhaps they will let us out tomorrow?” Gwed suggested.

The mare said, “don’t you get your hopes up either.”

Gwed felt a little awkward. He knew that he was safe here, even though he’d been locked in this smelly barn with all these horses. Horses were such inferior creatures! And yet... Gwed wasn’t quite sure what to think. A part of him, deep down inside, had actually started to care for the horses. He realised that maybe he wasn’t so different from them. After all, they were all locked up together. And he’d had a real connection with Apache Sunrise, one that he hadn’t felt for any other creature in too long a time.

 “Gwed,” whispered Pierre Courir. His French-horse accent was loud in the silent barn.

 “Pierre Courir?” Gwed said. He liked the way the Percheron’s name rolled off his tongue. Apparently French-horse was a little easier to speak than normal horse. Although of course he would have preferred his native tongue, it was just so much more... magical than the crude language of mere horses.

 “Yourself and Apache Sunrise were... close, non?”

 “Yes, we were.” Gwed closed his eyes and continued to talk. “He was taken from me all too soon.”

 “I do not think that I will be taken so soon,” Pierre Courir said, softly. “I think it will be the mare first, and then the other stallion. And then me and perhaps one day you too, Gwed. But I will be here with you for a while, oui?”

 “I hope so,” Gwed said, and raised his head to look over the wall of his stall. And there was Pierre Courir, staring right into his eyes. Pierre Courir had big brown eyes, so much bigger and browner than Apache Sunrise’s eyes. Gwed realised that what he had felt for Apache Sunrise had been nothing more than a foal’s love.

 “Good night, mon cher.” Pierre Courir said. He lowered his head and turned away.

Gwed felt his breath catch in his throat. Perhaps these days locked away wouldn’t be so bad after all. And he knew how special he was - he would surely be rescued soon.

Morning came, and musty light filtered through the barn roof to wake the horses, and Gwed.

 “Think we’ll get fed today?” the mare asked.

The other stallion said, “Gwed will.”

 “Of course I will,” Gwed said. He was confused. He was fed every day. These humans wouldn’t dare deprive him!

 “Gay freak,” muttered the stallion.

 “Homophobe,” muttered Pierre Courir.

 “Don’t even start,” said the mare, “we all need our energy for whatever is coming today.”

Outside, birds began to squawk as the light brightened. The horses fell silent, shuffling their feet or trembling in fear. At one point there had been nearly ten horses in this barn. Now there were only four.

 “What is that noise?” asked Pierre Courir, suddenly. They all strained their ears to hear what he heard.

Everything that happened next seemed to happen all at once, in a flurry of activity. The doors of the barn burst open, wider than the horses had ever seen them. They admitted a stream of purple sunlight so bright that the three horses had to close their eyes and turn against the light. Gwed squinted to see what was coming. The human in the fancy suit was back, wearing dark sunglasses and a permanent scowl. He strode through the barn, followed by a gaggle of humans in two groups: those in overalls and those in white coats. They stopped in unison in front of the first occupied stall: it belonged to the other stallion.

Suit man said, “glue factory. This one will never be strong enough.”

Two of the overalled humans opened the stall and dragged the stallion out of the barn. The suited man and his companions ignored the screams of the terrified horses and walked to the next occupied stall, that of the remaining mare.

 “No!” she cried, desperately backing up against the far wall of her stall.

 “This one too. Tests with mares have been inconclusive.”

She screamed the entire way down the barn. Gwed snorted in fear and knew that the whites of his eyes were showing again.

 “Do not be afraid, mon cher,” cried Pierre Courir to Gwed, “I am still here for you!”

But Pierre Courir’s stall was next in line. The suited man paused outside his stall for a long time, seemingly undisturbed by the fact that the stallion in question was panicking.

 “Take this one to the lab. He may just be the horse we needed to prove that the serum will work as expected.”

 “No!” cried Gwed, as a set of humans in white coats opened Pierre Courir’s stall.

 “Gwed!” cried Pierre Courir. He reared up in fear, trying as hard as he could to avoid the hands and ropes and electric prods that the humans were using to capture him.

As they dragged Pierre Courir down the length of the barn, the man in the fancy suit stopped outside Gwed’s stall. Gwed reared up, screaming in rage. How dare they take away Pierre Courir!

 “Watch out!” said one of the white-coated humans, and they all stepped back. Gwed felt a surge of pride and victory. The horses could only kick or rear or nip or bite. He had an inbuilt weapon!

 “Tranquillise him.” The suit man turned away, pausing only to call back, “I want him in the lab within an hour, conscious or not.”

Gwed rushed at the stall door, head down. He hit the wood with a crash, splintering it, then wrenched himself back so he lift his head to see.

 “Pierre Courir!” he screamed, as his friend was dragged out the barn doors, growing limper by the second.

He felt a sharp prick in his shoulder.

 “Pierre Courir!” he screamed again. “Pierrrrrr Courrrrr...” Gwed found that he couldn’t prevent his voice from slurring. “What’ssssss haaaaaappening to me?” he screeched in utter terror.

As everything went black he thought he heard human voices. “Keep his head tied down. We don’t want him brandishing that horn as soon as he wakes up.”

 “The treatment had better work on the other stallion.”

 “Can’t waste our only unicorn...”

And then the blackness was joined by silence.

Pierre Courir woke first. If he understood human speech, it would have been clear that he had been given a normal horse tranquilliser and was recovering as expected.

Pierre Courir ached with sadness. “Gwed,” he whispered, “je t’aime. Toujours, je veux etre avec toi.”

Gwed awoke with aches in body parts he wasn’t even sure were really his own. Worst of all was the aching in his heart, for poor Pierre Courir. He wasn’t worried about his own safety, of course. He was special; they wouldn’t dare hurt him. But Pierre Courir... he was merely a horse!

 “Pierre Courir!” he cried.

Human voices said, “he’s awake” and “check his vitals.” But Gwed didn’t understand human speak. He heard their brash tones and struggled widely against the bonds that held him to...

 “This is an outrage!” he screamed, but the humans didn’t seem to respond.

Gwed’s vision slowly cleared. He was in some sort of white room, on a metal table. It wasn’t the barn. It wasn’t the meadow or the purple cliffs of his homeland. It was a human paradise: clean and clinical and entirely alien; it was a unicorn’s nightmare.

 “Watch that horn,” said a human, as Gwed thrashed under his bonds. Although he couldn’t understand human speech, Gwed knew exactly what the human was trying to say. He thrashed more, trying to scratch someone, anyone, with his horn. He knew the magical properties that it had and was eager to inflict some unexpected consequences on a human! They stepped out of range and proceeded to have a conversation while Gwed flailed futilely.

 “This is ridiculous, we’ll just have to carry on with the data we already have.”

 “But we have no results from the other stallion yet.”

 “Is he ready yet?”

 “Not yet, we’re running low on the serum so we’ll need another horn sample. Hurry it up!”

 “Secure the specimen-”

 “-Unicorn,” a different human interrupted.

 “Just do it.”

Gwed heard the tone in the last speakers voice and felt his whole body tense. It was so final. For the first time in this horrible ordeal, he felt worried. He had always been proud of his optimism. Even in the direst situation, not that a unicorn faced many of those, Gwed had remained calm and happy. So happy. But now, tied to a metal table, separated from Pierre Courir who, he was pretty sure, was the love of his life... Gwed did not feel happy.

 “I just want to live in harmony,” he moaned.

He felt more ropes slither across his body, dragged by these awful humans. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t struggle when a needle pricked him and stole his silvery blood. He didn’t struggle as they scraped his horn with a diamond blade, collecting unicorn horn-flakes in a sterile jar. When another needle pricked his skin, he found that he couldn’t have struggled even if he’d wanted to. The world went black.

Pierre Courir felt groggy and tired, but those feelings were secondary to the intense torture his body was currently under.

 “What’s happening to me?” he cried out. It was as if nobody heard him.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around the Percheron.

 “Heart rate is high, as expected,” one reported.

Pierre Courir could not, of course, understand what the scientist had said, but he knew that it wasn’t words of comfort. He thought about struggling against the bonds that kept him pinned to the cold metal table, but each twitch of a nerve was pure agony.

 “Neural activity normal,” another human said.

 “Serum administered and absorbed: begin preparation for trial one,” said another.

Pierre Courir saw the room spin as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He cried out in shock as his bonds were tightened. He found himself unable to lift his head from the cold table.

 “Horse status: alive.”

 “Gwed!” he cried out. He latched onto a dim hope: Gwed was special, maybe even special enough that he could rescue him from whatever was going on here.

 “Prepare the mini-star explosive.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

In the split second before pain completely overwhelmed him, Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

Gwed found himself slipping into consciousness again, grasping onto human voices as if those sounds might pull him from the dark.

 “Trial one is complete. The results are due to arrive in an hour.”

 “They’re moving quickly.”

 “The boss is pushing. He wants the procedure done on the unicorn as soon as possible.”

 “What is he hoping to achieve?”

 “New weaponry- woah! There’s a spike in the heart-rate, sedate him again, quick!”

Gwed didn’t feel the needle slide in. He barely felt himself slide back out of consciousness.

Pierre Courir still felt groggy and tired, but again he was preoccupied by the intense torture his body was currently under.

 “Why am I still here?” he cried out. But of course, there was no reaction: again, it was as if nobody had heard him.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around the Percheron.

 “Heart rate is within a normal range. Higher than last time,” one reported.

Pierre Courir knew that those were not words of comfort. He took a breath and gathered all of his strength to try to wrench himself from the cold metal table. Even the thought of that much movement was pure agony.

 “Neural activity is stable, but unusual,” another human said, “have a look at this chart.”

 “Not a problem, we expected that. The unicorn is likely to react differently, according to the analysis on the horn. Begin preparation for trial two.”

Pierre Courir felt movement around him as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He cried out in shock as his bonds were tightened. He found himself unable to lift his head from the cold surface.

 “Serum re-administered. Horse status: alive.”

 “Gwed!” he cried out. He latched onto a dim hope: maybe Gwed would rescue him from what was happening here.

 “Prepare the mini-star explosive.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

In the split second before pain completely overwhelmed him, Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

Pierre Courir awoke once more, feeling groggy and tired. Through a haze of intense pain, he wondered if he could escape.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around him.

 “Heart rate is normal,” one reported. “The horse seems much calmer this time.”

Pierre Courir ignored the human voices and concentrated. He was about to enact an escape plan. He was in pure agony, but somehow he felt strong.

 “Hmm, look at this.”

 “Re-administer the serum and prepare to record all results.”

Pierre Courir barely felt the needle prick his skin, but he definitely felt the result! A tingling feeling rushed through his body, making him shiver under his bonds. He felt strong and powerful and special. He felt as though he could fly, or dance through the air, or jump as high as a rainbow. The pain was gone.

 “Get the print out. Good, results are as expected. Unicorn horn serum one hundred per cent absorbed. Prepare for the final trial.”

Pierre Courir felt movement around him as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He stayed calm as his bonds were tightened, secretly confident that he could escape. In just a moment he would leap into action, leave this place and find Gwed.

 “Horse status: alive.”

 “I’m coming, Gwed!” Pierre Courir whinnied.

 “Prepare the mini-star.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

 “Horse status: dead.”

“It’s time. Carry out the procedure on the unicorn.”

Gwed jerked awake. As he struggled to raise his head from the metal table, he heard the creaking and groaning of metal plates, felt the slide of oiled metal inside his neck and quickly realised that something wasn’t right. He thrashed wildly and heard the sound of metal grating as he moved his legs.

 “What is this?” he cried, and then his eyes rolled in fear as he heard the metallic timbre in his voice.

He swished his tail agitatedly and felt it tingle. That’s when he noticed that he could, in fact, see his forelock. It had grown long while he’d been kept captive - usually he kept it perfectly groomed. And usually it was white. But now it tingled and pulsed in rainbow colours.

 “My hair!” Gwed shrieked!

The shock of seeing what had happened to his beautiful mane and tail hit him deeply. But all that faded when his eyes focussed enough to see what had been done to his body. His fine hairs were gone, his once pure-white skin was no longer... well, it was no longer even skin. Gwed stared in horror at the metal plates that now made up his legs.

 “Vitals are normal, brain activity as expected,” said a scientist.

Gwed slowly started to focus on the room around him. It was sterile in white and silver, and he was still tied down to the metal table. Next to him, there was another metal table.

At first, Gwed could barely make out the shape of the creature that lay on the operating table beside him. Something about it tugged on his heartstrings and he stared and stared. The details slowly crystallised. It was a horse. He liked horses; they were almost as lovely as unicorns like himself. Not as special, of course, but this one was holding his attention. It was a Percheron, he realised. Such a majestic creature, the Percheron. They usually spoke horse-French; it was such a sexy dialect. He even knew this Percheron’s name, what was it...

 “Pierre Courir,” whispered Gwed, and finally woke up.

 “There’s a spike in heart rate and neural activity, can we sedate him?” said a scientist.

 “The plates are going to make that difficult,” said another.

 “Pierre Courir,” screamed Gwed, trying to wish his lover into life again. But Pierre Courir didn’t stir, and Gwed felt something deep and primal snap inside him.

He strained against his bonds and made up his mind to take the last available course of action.

He took a deep breath. He felt his metal organs pumping away inside his new metal body. His mane and tail tingled as rainbow colours washed through the fibre optic hairs.

 “Pierre Courir,” he said, in the ancient language of the unicorns.

And then he dashed.

At the peak of a unicorn’s health and life, its dash can crash through small trees, through soft rocks, through human constructions with wooden walls and fabric banners. But when a robot unicorn attacks, with its powerful dash, that is a very different thing.

When Gwed dashed, he broke through the bonds that held him to the operating table. He dashed through the walls of the high security government science facility that housed him. He burst out into a new world, a place tinted with purple and full of fear and danger.

All the while he was spurred on by one thought, “Pierre Courir.”

Of course, the science facility weren’t going to let their unicorn go that easily. Although Gwed seemed to be unstoppable, they managed to contain him in a maze. They set up five-pointed explosives in the hopes of defeating the robot unicorn that they had created. Still, Gwed had three lives to use - three chances to wish and wish again for his beloved Pierre Courir to return.

And maybe one day, if Gwed runs fast enough and far enough, he will get his revenge and be reunited with Pierre Courir when, eventually, he runs out of wishes.

Acknowledgement: this story was inspired by Adult Swim TM’s computer game “Robot Unicorn Attack.”