A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

“There is that.”

“And if it did, he’ll just be the same as he was.”

“That too is a possibility.”

“Or the horn will reattach itself, there will be an explosion of rainbows and glitter, and then Gary will be so powerful that he’ll sing a song with a troupe of shirtless backup dancers choreographed immaculately before he turns on us and murders us all for hiding his horn from him under your magical mesh after you stole it back from a roving band of thieving nuns.”

Randall sighed. “I don’t know how it is that I get sucked into your shenanigans.”

“There’s no escape,” I told him solemnly. “Should we try and take this out of the camp so no one gets trampled and/or gets a ticket to Gore City after—oh. You’ve already opened your pack and uncovered the horn. Well. I honestly have no idea how this is going to go.”

The horn was… ethereal. It shimmered in Morgan’s hand as he pulled it from his pack, glitter filling the air around it and sprinkling onto the floor. Little rainbows shot from the tip, fractals of light that moved almost as if sentient, swirling with a purpose, bright and beautiful. I was hit then, right in the center of my chest, with a sense of purity, of a white light that felt warm and inviting and incapable of corruption. I’d never felt magic like it before, so untainted and clean. The fact that it belonged to Gary was almost unbelievable, given that he tended to shout my name while he while getting rimmed by a dragon.

It struck me then that maybe we needed to have a talk about that.

But before I could formulate a course of action (Gary, please don’t say my name while Kevin is tongue-fucking your butthole, thanks, I really appreciate it), there was an unearthly shriek from somewhere in the camp.

Everyone froze and turned toward the source.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

From the barn came a blinding burst of light and, inexplicably, the strong odor of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, which probably meant that Gary had shit himself. Unicorns were fascinating creatures that tended to make gross things smell like a kindly grandmother’s kitchen. I once stumbled upon him and Tiggy planning on selling Gary’s poop for profit, trying to say that a unicorn’s feces had magical medicinal purposes. Somehow they’d roped me into the whole thing (“Just think about it, Sam! We’ll call it Gary’s Mystical Magical Wonder Shit and will make a fortune!”), but Morgan had discovered us hand-feeding Gary large quantities of fibrous foods and had quickly put the kibosh on the whole thing. (“Just think about it, Morgan. We’ll call it—” “No, Sam.”) But that had been so long ago, when we were younger and more foolish.

(It was two days before Justin had been kidnapped by Kevin.)

(I often did things I regretted later.)

“Maybe I didn’t think this through as well as I should have,” Randall said with a frown.

“GWAAAAHHHH!” Tiggy bellowed.

“Probably not,” I said weakly. “Whatever you do, don’t run. A unicorn’s vision is based on movement.”

“Isn’t that what all vision is based on—”

There comes a time in every young wizard’s life when he has a unicorn best friend named Gary who bursts out from a barn in a makeshift camp looking majestic as all fuck. It’s part of growing up.

And Gary did not disappoint.

He leapt into view, white coat practically glowing (or actually glowing, I wasn’t quite sure), his mane billowing around him like the gods themselves were sending a wind just for him. His head was held high, and one leg was raised out in front of him, bent at the knee.

“What is he doing?” Randall asked.

I sighed. “He’s posing. I swear, that unicorn. He gets it from Ryan. Or Ryan gets it from him. Either way, it’s a vicious cycle.”

“And is he… singing?”

I sighed harder.

I didn’t think singing was the right word for it. Yes, his mouth was open, and yes, he was making a noise that I assumed was his impression of an angelic choir, but then in all the years I’d known Gary, I’d learned that whether you wanted it to happen or not, unicorns tended to surprise you.

“Ooooh,” the crowd said.

“Yes,” Gary said, puffing his chest out farther. “Ooooh is right.”

A large shadow fell on the crowd from a creature circling overhead. People shouted and scattered as Kevin landed, kicking up dirt and grass. “My love!” he cried. “I felt something that I’ve never felt before! While I was flying high above Camp HaveHeart—which I do believe we all agree should be renamed Camp DragonCorn in honor of our epic love—protecting you and the little tiny bugs known as humans from any danger that would dare show its face, a shock of great power rolled its way through me! It was the strangest thing, but it felt familiar to me, like I had once been inside of whoever the power belonged to. So there is a chance that one of my exes is here, and I ask that you don’t fight over me, even if you feel the need to cover the both of you in oil and wrestle. I shan’t allow it.”

“I can’t believe he’s one of the dragons that are supposed to help save the world,” I muttered.