The Petulant Princess
A response to the Unicorn Challenge prompt by Chris Hedges of The Bad Influence.
As a young woman wandered through the forest, she daydreamed of seeing her first unicorn. She was a petulant child, aloof and mysterious, thinking herself above all others; much like a princess would.
She yearned for the lavish lifestyle, loving the thought that she, a teenager who was used to manipulating her parents into whatever she asked for, might come upon an enchantment so fantastical. If she was lucky enough to see a unicorn, she vowed to use every machination available to bend the beast to her will.
Maybe she should use some bait, she mused, wandering through the woods looking for something edible. With bait, she might incite amity with the beast. There were some cactus nearby, with ripe prickly pears atop each paddle. She carefully picked a few, set them on a tree stump, and hid behind a tree to wait.
She waited for hours, never considering her behavior the apotheosis of such a mythical creature, just assuming one would arrive because she wanted it to. As she waited, tiredness overtook her and she lay on a bed of moss and slept. When she woke, she looked to the tree stump and her prickly pears were gone!
Of course, she never considered other animals like deer or bears might have eaten them, in her mind, it had to have been the unicorn. Such a silly child. Yet all the way back home, she told herself she might have missed seeing the mystical creature, but at least she did a good thing by feeding it. ‘Such a noble thing to do’, she thought to herself.
Maybe she wasn’t so petulant after all.
Be kind everyone, this is my first piece for TBI, not necessarily badass, but I did use all the required words. ;)
I’ll try to do better in the future, in the meantime, if you enjoyed this one, consider some of my other work:
