1/11

1/11 I really like unicorns, so I wanted to give this one more room than a quick creature rundown. There is a lot to work with, both in Grimm Fairy Tales and across fiction. You can put a unicorn in a story about friendship, extinction, religion, power, or the end of the world, and the creature can carry a very different meaning in each one. For Grimm, the starting point is #43 of the original series, The Last Unicorn. A unicorn appears in Central Park, and Sela and Belinda are drawn toward it for very different reasons. Sela wants to protect it and get it back to its own realm. Belinda wants to use it. Another hostile party makes an already dangerous situation worse. Putting that encounter in Central Park gives it an immediate contrast. Something associated with an enchanted world has turned up in a recognizable place, and the people who understand its significance are already making plans for it. Its arrival becomes a race over what happens to a living creature. That is a strong place to begin a longer unicorn discussion. The wonder is there, but so is the danger of being something rare that powerful people want.