Chubby Lumpkins

Chubby Lumpkins' once shining coat and flashing horn were dull now. He no longer shimmered through the trees and bushes of his home, no longer shone as he sat under the trees, no longer seemed like a ray of sunlight as he drank from the crystalline ponds and rivers of his home.

Chubby Lumpkins, as his name implied, was a rotund unicorn, an animal of wide girth. He wasn't born this way, oh no, when he was small he played as cheerfully and as nimbly as his other unicorn friends. But as he grew older, he played and ran less and less, slept and dreamed more and more. He loved to sleep, that Chubby Lumpkins, dreaming of beautiful princess who would brush his fur, comb his mane, and they would be the most beautiful friends all the other unicorns had ever seen. They would be jealous of his beauty and friendship. And he dreamt on.

One day while wandering, thinking the same thoughts he always thought, he went to drink from his favorite pond that he always drank from. He stretched out his neck to drink, filled with his thirst, and he suddenly saw an odd animal reflected in the waters. It was a grotesque pale horse-animal, drab and fat, balanced on stick-thin legs. He snapped his head back, surprised at the appearance of this hideous creature in his forest. But when the animal turned out to be himself, the one called Chubby Lumpkins, he was terrified. Had he been cursed, could unicorns be cursed? What had happened to him? What had happened to him?

Chubby Lumpkins, was thrown into a deep depression. He was no longer beautiful (had he ever been beautiful?); he no longer wanted to be seen. He hid in the deep thickets of the forest. He no longer dreamed of his elaborate fantasy, but dreamed of loneliness. No princess would want to brush his fur and comb his tail now. No princess would want to be friends with a unicorn such as he. He mourned for the life that he had lost.

He stayed there for many months, occasionally sneaking out under the cover of night to grab a few mouthfuls of nettles and water from the fast-moving streams. He did not want to see his reflection ever again. But the grass grew, the snows melted, and while Chubby Lumpkins now noticed it, he still could not contain his despair, still driven to seeing the mocking illusions of his dreams. He could not give up those dreams, they were all he had ever had.

So when he saw a maiden sitting on the banks of the river, drinking from his favorite pond, sleeping under his trees, he dismissed them as delusions and passed on. Were they all delusions, though? Unicorns are rare creatures, magical and full of a certain power. Even the broken-hearted Chubby Lumpkins had those aspects still. Even if he couldn't see them, there were others who did and they sought him out.

Perhaps Chubby Lumpkins was caught by them, perhaps he left his forest, driven to seek new lands like he sought a new self; perhaps he found a princess to comb his hair and braid his tail and brush him until he shone; perhaps he exercised and became the unicorn he dreamed of being. All I know is that when the trees started to bloom, filling the air with their love, I never saw Chubby again.

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I never did.