A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

“Oh my gods,” Justin groaned.

“Bleh,” Gary said, like he was dying. “Ack. Argh. Blech. Urgh. Bleh.”

“No,” Kevin whispered. “No, no, no. I can’t watch this. It’s far too terrible.” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“Muahahaha,” I said as I snapped the hair holding the folded paper in place. I held the horn above my head, ribbons still shooting from my sleeves. I was probably overselling it, but it looked really cool, and Ryan seemed as if he wanted me to fuck his face right then and there, so it was a win/win. “I have taken this unicorn’s horn. His power shall be mine.”

And then I faded back into the corner of the tent.

Tiggy trained the spotlight back on Gary’s fallen figure. He lay on the ground, tongue lolling out of his mouth, eyes closed.

“My love!” Kevin said. “You must rise. Get up! Get up so far into the future, we can meet and I can go to your bakery and eat the royal hell out of your croissants!”

Gary opened a single eye and glared at Kevin. “Would you shush? I’m acting.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

He closed his eye again, tongue falling out of his mouth.

“This was sad,” Tiggy said. “The forest cried. The earth wept.”

And even though this was all bullshit, even though we were mired in the ridiculousness of it all, I couldn’t help but feel my eyes burn a little. Because regardless of how overly dramatic we were being, this wasn’t too far from the truth. One day Gary had been poisoned and unable to move, a man standing above him, sawing through bone on his head, taking from him part of his identity. And he’d been alone. This was before me. Before Tiggy. He’d been in the forest with no one to help him, and he’d been attacked. He didn’t deserve such a thing. No magical creature did. Even though he tried to laugh it off, tried to put on this play as a way of coping, I knew how it had affected him. He’d been stripped of his autonomy and then assaulted. It’d taken him a long time to tell me what had happened, and when he did, he hadn’t been able to look me in the eye. Tiggy and I had held him for a long time after that, until he’d told us to fuck off, that he was an independent unicorn who didn’t need to be coddled.

My mom was crying, Dad’s arm wrapped around her shoulders.

Terry’s eyes were wide and suspiciously shiny.

In fact, the only people in the room who didn’t seem affected at all were Lady Tina and Vadoma. The former looked bored and the latter annoyed. If this hadn’t been Gary’s performance, I would have gladly bitch-slapped the both of them.

“Everything was sad,” Tiggy continued. “Because poor Gary don’t have no horn.”

Gary’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh no,” he whisper-sang. “What has happened to me? Someone has stolen my iden-ti-ty.”

“Whyyyyyy,” Kevin wailed. “Oh gods, whyyyyyyy.”

“I… have lost my horn. Now I wish I’d never been… born.” He took in a great sucking breath.

“Tiggy sad now,” Tiggy said, great globular tears streaking down his face. “Tiggy so sad.”

Gary began to push himself up, still singing. “I am seething with a momentous rage.” He propped himself up on his front legs, rear to the ground. “My heart has been locked into an unbreakable cage.”

I wanted to run and hug him, but I couldn’t, because I had already exited the stage, and he would kill me if I interrupted his final moments.

Gary stood on wobbly legs. “Who am I supposed to be? When I can no longer be the me I see?”

“O

kay,” Kevin said, tears streaming down his snout. “I think we can agree that line was awkwardly worded. Still effective.”

“My horn,” Gary sang, “oh why have I been forsook? My world, how it has been shook. And now! How will I go on? When everything I knew is now gone?”

And then he went for the kill with the last verse. “I am filled with such terrible remorse. Am I now no better than a common… horse?”

Tiggy covered the lantern completely.

The tent fell into darkness.

Then Tiggy pulled the parchment completely off the lantern, illuminating the tent, and Gary bowed.