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A unicorn is a thing of purity. It's inherent that anything else feels warped and impure next to such a creature. For someone to desire to hunt down a being of such innocence, something must be decidedly tainted inside their heart. The closer that sort of taint comes to the object of their quarry, the more it spreads, the more it corrupts. When faced with such overwhelming innocence, a hunter cannot help but wish to stain it.
An amateur hunter should have no hope of tracking, let alone catching, such an elusive creature, had a naive individual not decided to venture beyond the safety of its home. Humans surely could not be so destructive as to warrant this sort of isolation, it thought. As it ventured close to the nearest settlement, those thoughts came to an abrupt end as cold metal closed around its leg.
The young hunter had placed the trap the day prior, along with a series of others. He had little knowledge of where such a creature would frequent, knowing not of their diet or habits, simply choosing locations which would be convenient to check. The traps he’d used were not what was common among those who hunted in earnest for the elusive creatures, far more appropriate for a large lumbering beast. It was a trap meant to capture and restrain its intended quarry, not to snap its leg clean off.
Fragile bone snapped beneath metal jaws as the terrified unicorn crashed to the ground. Paralyzed with fear and shock, it simply stared at where a leg once ended, sweetly scented blood pooling on the ground as time seemed to freeze. Soft sobs and pained breathing broadcast its presence to the hunter who’d come to check for any luck. It could have run, crouched onto its remaining limbs, dragging a trail of blood in its wake. Still, it simply shook in paralyzed silence, unable to muster the will to move.
The hunter crept closer in disbelief as he finally caught sight of his target. The figure appeared human at first glance, and even as he approached that impression didn’t wholly vanish. Its face and torso were that of a young, androgynous human bearing a pair of equine ears. Pearly fur blanketed its lower half, drawing the hunter’s eyes to a silken tail and cloven hooves. Most striking of all was the vaunted horn, nestled among the creature’s long hair. Tears more clear and crystalline than the finest cut diamonds streamed from the human-like beast’s shining eyes.
Shimmering blood oozed from a gaping wound that separated one of its hooves from the rest of its body, the lower leg having snapped clean off in the trap. That beautiful pale fur looked only more tempting with dark red matting it. The hunter’s eyes dragged over the slivers of exposed bone and pieces of torn flesh with the delicacy of admiring a lover. Pieces of shattered bone poked out among the torn, glistening flesh, a pearly accent to the tempting meat. Meat? He wasn’t sure where that thought had come from.
The creature looked up, at long last, as dead leaves crunched beneath the hunter’s foot. The look on its face seemed hopeful, human. That innocent expression, pleading for help… it made him want nothing more than to come closer. Perhaps there was some desire to help it, despite being the cause of its misery, but with each step closer, the hunter couldn’t take his mind off of just how helpless it looked. Such a pure creature. Each step, closer and closer, replaced his thoughts with those of desecrating that innocence.
It opened its mouth to speak, some incomprehensible vocalization with the cadence of a question. The hunter found it hard to care. His hand cradled the unicorn’s face, its wide eyes staring into his. That hope in its eyes quickly turned to shock as the hunter grabbed a handful of its hair. Its head jerked back, puppeted by the hunter standing over it, mouth open in an expression of naive shock.
It smelled so sweet, so pure. The hunter’s eyes raked over the unicorn’s body, seeing how even dirt seemed to avoid staining the soft fur. The only thing ruining the pristine white was the stark red beginning to dry, as out of place as it would be on freshly fallen snow. He needed more. The hunter unfastened his spear from where it was strapped to his back, placing it to the side.
Tears welled up in the unicorn’s wide eyes, caught in its long lashes as it let out more soft vocalizations. It almost sounded like speech, but no beast would be capable of something like that, surely. It trembled as the hunter pushed it onto its back, ears flat against its head. It stayed still in hopes that the hunter would take some mercy, surely he only meant to scare it, he would not be so cruel as to follow through in desecrating such a pure creature.
The hunter breathed heavily, long hair curtaining his face. Almost straddling the beast beneath him, he trapped the unicorn’s legs between his own, kneeling down to get closer to his quarry. The spear dug in above where the hunter assumed the heart to be, the cold metal parting warm flesh in its wake. The shaft of the spear lay flush against the hunter’s body, letting him put his body weight into driving it deeper inside the unicorn’s warm flesh.
The unicorn whimpered, weakly trying to grab at the hunter to push him off. The hunter had no way of knowing that he’d missed its heart, only serving to puncture its lung. It would be a messy death rather than the quick and clean kill he’d hoped for. The twisting of the spear aggravated the pain further, tearing up the flesh around the wound as if trying to dig a hole through the poor creature. Blood dribbled from its human-like lips, painting them a bubbling crimson.
Staring at that face, too beautiful and too innocent to be human, the hunter couldn’t resist capturing it in a kiss, swallowing the sticky blood as the urge to take more and more overwhelmed him. Had he been restrained before, that was no longer the case, as the blood trickling down his throat brought him closer than ever before to the purity he could never hope to attain. He needed to snuff out this pure, sweet light. The hunter pulled back, licking his lips without thought. His quarry showed no signs of dying imminently, though it seemed greatly weakened by blood loss. He must have been wrong about its anatomy.
Pressing the tip of the spear once more to the beast, now pointed at its belly, the hunter pressed deep enough to slice into the soft fat. The unicorn stared silently, eyes wide and pleading as the hunter began to slit it open. The spear was dull, needing significant force to push it through getting stuck in the unicorn’s hide. Blood continued to stain its once pristine coat, blooming until it choked out nearly all of the former pale color.
The hunter continued to drag the spear up towards its chest, coming to a stop when his strength wasn’t enough to pass its ribcage. He pulled the spear out before inserting it again to the pained gasps of his victim, slicing a T shape so he could more easily peel back the upper layer of skin and fat. The spear at his side, the hunter pressed his dirtied hands into the open cavity; slick, bloody warmth enveloping him as he grasped at the torn edges he’d hewn.
The unicorn’s eyes were beginning to dull from the blood loss, its tail flicking more slowly as its strength fled. It continued to stare in silent pleading, lips painted with its own blood as its mouth opened in silent gasps. Barely there breath came heavier as its body was peeled open, baring it for the cruel soul who’d seen fit to destroy the helpless creature.
Picking up the spear again, the hunter pressed its tip to a pulsing organ that seemed important. He pressed in, tip parting flesh as greenish liquid trickled into the bloody mess he’d left. The unicorn’s eyes squeezed tight in fresh pain from the bile mixing into its flesh, but the hunter paid no mind. Giving up on trying to make sense of the unfamiliar anatomy, he simply began to stab into any mass of pulsing, slick flesh with abandon. Saliva dripped from dry lips as the hunter lost himself in the sensations.
A small, hoarse noise that might have been a scream was wrenched from the unicorn’s throat. They were hardy creatures, resilient against injury, but even they had their limits. Slight twitching was the best it could do to struggle, before finally slowing to imperceptibility. A bubble of blood swelled, then deflated in the unicorn’s throat, a final breath aborted. Still, the hunter continued.
By the time his rationality returned, the sky had darkened and little was left of the chest cavity beyond a mess of tattered flesh surrounded by the cooling remains of the once beautiful creature. Its eyes were still wide in terror, dull now as they began to dry. The hunter’s eyes fixed on the pristine horn, untouched by the violence wrought on the rest of the body. His trophy.
It was a rough endeavor, the spear being of no help in snapping free the horn. In the end, he’d braced himself against the skull and used his body weight to break it free. The edge was jagged, some of the base still attached to the creature’s skull. But it was enough. Wasn’t it? It was what this was all for.
As the hunter stepped back, his head began to clear. His eyes locked onto the human-like face soaked with blood and tears, the mess he’d made of its chest and abdominal regions, the tears still brimming in those unseeing eyes. In his bloodied hands, he clutched what he’d come for, reminding him why he was here. Still, nausea began to creep up on him, only worsening with each second. It felt as though to take his eyes off the corpse would be to accept what he had done, so he stood and stared. He wasn’t certain how much time had passed, but what finally brought him out of his stupor was the sight of an insect landing on the body.
The hunter turned and ran. The indignities of decomposition were too much, even after what he’d done. Bile welled in his throat, spilling from his lips as his breathing grew rough with exertion. He ran until he’d lost sight of the forest, the jagged base of the horn biting into his hands and beckoning his own blood forth. He looked a mess, covered in a mix of fluids, both of his own and his quarry. He would never be clean again.