50 Trail Fails (2/2)
Jen was staring at her, the pupils of her pale blue eyes wide despite the bright morning light.
Nelda turned to see SmithGuild awkwardly hitching up his pats in a way that was probably giving him a self-inflicted wedgie. ”So,” she asked.”Does anyone know how the unicorn got killed in the first place?”
”Rumors abound. SmithGuild said. ”This is meant to have happened many hundreds of years ago. I may not even have been alive then…”
Nelda took a little while to process that and lost track of a few words of what he said.
”…say it was the dragons.Because the unicorn could do or be used for something they didn't want to happen, Scribeguild might know, but at this time of the year she goes to the snowlands.”
”Yeah,” Nelda mused.”And maybe Phyllis doesn't need to know the dragon twist to the tale. At least not right away.”
[Intuition and guesswork is a bit of a crazy strategy. I hope this idea that my unconscious is more clued into things on Mirth than the rest of me is true.But does that mean that if I learn more, I will be able to do more… or do less.Can ignorance be a super-power?]
[Or this just a stupid idea I've infected them with to assuage my guilt at having no idea what I am doing?]
”Do you mind if I try that again?” Nelda asked Jen.
”By no means.” Jen held the alicorn out, presenting it on her open palms.
This time Nelda wrapped her entire hand around the middle of the horn.The lights started up again like a bunched of technicolor tinkerbells.Despite never having had a vision before, Nelda was struck with a powerful you-are-about-to-have-a-vision feeling.
And then she did,
#
”Every member of the Watson family has been a natural horseman or woman,” the man said.
He reached down to the little girl, she was maybe five or six and dressed in little Burberry riding ensemble with riding boot and a black velvet riding cap.The child was looking at the pony that had been led up to her with obvious fear.
The man was wearing an incongruously black suit with slicked-back hair and a profuse beard.He seemed utterly indifferent to the child's terror.He lifted her and placed her on the back of the pony.
”Hold onto the pommel, little miss.”
The girl flapped her legs like an ungainly frog.With a trembling voice she said, ”I don't want to daddy.”
”You'll like it, girl.No daughter of mine is going to be afraid of a fat little pony.We'll have you a real mount soon.Perhaps one of my polo…” As he spoke, he nodded to the stable hand who was holding the pony's bridle.
As the pony took a step, the little girl immediately freaked out; she squealed at the deafening piercing pitch that only a panicked child can reach.The ponies ears flicked back, and it bolted, wrenching free its flapping reins.
The girl clutched the pommel, but her ass and legs bounced into the air with ever bound. She continued to shriek as the pony left the stable yard and disappeared from sight.
The man turned to his assistant, who was standing back against the wall. ”Make a note to get a genetic test on little miss Brenda.” He turned and started walking back towards his car. ”I really am not sure that she is one of mine. And you know what her mother is like.”