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Human society wasn’t ready to see hooves and horns. Kanata didn’t have to be a grown-up to know that.
Her mothers weren’t around. Or maybe they were and they had just been put in a separate container.
“Poachers.” That’s what these folks were. It didn’t matter if the non-human was man, woman, child, or infant: They sought payment, and that came with brutalizing the people they called “beasts.”
One of the children in the same container as her was shaking and feeling at its back. She wasn’t sure what kind of non-human it was, but it kept whispering about how it couldn’t feel its wings. Kanata didn’t have to be a grown-up to know why.
She could smell something gross in the air: something like metal, but at the same time not quite. It made her stomach twist.
Her mama had promised that they’d be safe on this trip and that she and Kanata’s mom had been ensured a safe passage. Why had they lied? Or was it that her mothers had been the ones that were lied to?
Kanata curled up in her corner of the cage and covered her horn with her hands. Maybe the poachers would think it’d been taken already and would leave her alone. She knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to kick them away: They were grown-ups and, hooves or not, she didn’t have the leg power to drive them back. The centaur foals couldn’t do that to the elves that passed through the forest sometimes, and she didn’t have as many legs as they did, so she knew that she certainly couldn’t.
She could smell them. Humans had a strong smell and she was learning that quickly: They smelled like the polluted waters and werewolf-breath. And these ones had a gross metal stench on their clothes, stronger than the one that she’d grown used to. And it wasn’t from the cages because they were iron and iron smelled like burning.
The poachers drew nearer and that strange metal smell grew stronger. It soaked and stained their strange pelts and their hands had it caught under the nails. She didn’t have to be poked by them to know that their touch wouldn’t be gentle like her mom’s touch was.
Her left hoof was grabbed when the door to the cage opened and her body instinctively kicked. She knew it was useless but she was still something of an animal, and that meant she had to fight until she couldn’t anymore. Her voice raised into a cry as she continued to kick her cloven legs out, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “MAMA!” She bleated as her hands lost their grip. “MOM! MAMA!”
Humans were mean. The one holding her raised its hand to hit her, scaring her into silence, but she kicked one last time.
It hurt. The smack hurt. She couldn’t stop the yelp that rang from her throat, which just earned another hit, and then another, until she was sniffling in silence and completely frozen.
She hoped the pain would stop when she stopped giving a reaction and making a sound. But her hands were no longer covering her horn and she’d heard what humans did to unicorns. It didn’t come clean off, nor did it break anywhere close to her head. It was softer than that of a grown unicorn, much like the hooves of the centaur foals, so it was a lot easier for the human’s bare hands to just…
Take it.
Kanata couldn’t stop the ear-splitting scream she let out as her small hands came up to grasp at her broken horn. It was like a flash of cold over her entire body and a silence inside her head that hurt so, so, so much. It was a pain no filly or foal should ever have to feel, but she was suffering it right now.
Where were her mothers? She couldn’t even sob from the pain, because all focus was on the newfound injury that she never expected to get. Her body curled in on itself as it tried to give itself the feeling of comfort that her mama provided, but it was for naught.
Until it was there, holding her close in a hug and kissing her forehead. There was chaos around her even if there were no sounds. And, from the corner of her eye, she could see her mom. She wasn’t in the human-ish form anymore: she was back to how they should be. There was red on her horn that dribbled down as stained the pale fur of her face. Unicorns were meant to be graceful creatures, but there was no grace in murderous rage.
Kanata did not hear her mama’s last words to her. She just knew her mothers loved her very, very, much, and that’s why she fell asleep despite the unbearable pain.