Celestia drops in

I had been lucky in life – winning the lottery just after leaving university meant I didn't have to work, so I didn't and haven’t. I had just brought a lovely country house and farmland on the edge of a small town, and spent my life to date with no stress and no commitments. It was a little bit of a lonely life, living by myself but I could not trust other people to like me for me, and not my money…

*****

It was a late autumn night. The sky was clear and I was just sitting in my house minding my own business as I always do, watching TV whilst surfing the internet on my phone. It had been a lovely day catching up with some old friends in the big city, but returning to my secluded farm meant returning to my little slice of heaven.

Flicking through the channels with one hand whilst playing a town building game on my tablet with the other, I did notice the TV had the usual rubbish on. So I went over and looked at my DVD collection to see if any of the films caught my eye, although bed was also feeling like a very tempting option at this stage.

Suddenly, I heard something that sounded like thunder. I looked out of the window and noted that the sky was too clear for a thunderstorm. The wind then seemed to pick up, blowing around some of the loose hay and leaves that was lying around the yard. This was followed by some flashes of lightning and more thunder. Something about the storm didn't feel right, it wasn't like anything I had ever seen and seemed unnatural. Snapping back to reality, I started to worry for my animals so I went upstairs to get changed into some outdoor wear.

When I was busy upstairs, suddenly there was a huge bang followed by the sound of wood being snapped and a heavy thud.

Finishing getting changed, I quickly put on my boots and ran outside noting that the storm seemed to be disappearing as quickly as it started. I could just about hear the sounds of an animal whining in pain. Running over to the stable, I found the few horses I had were fine, and I quickly tried to sooth them. I then ran over to the barn, and whilst the chickens and pigs were scarred, nothing else seemed wrong. I was relieved that the animals were fine and looking around the wood snapping I had heard didn't seem to have been any of my buildings.

The animal moans sound seemed to have stopped, so I thought the best thing to do would be to see if I could find if a tree had broken. If this was the source of the breaking noise, I could stop worrying, go back inside and deal with it tomorrow. Doing a quick lap of the farm on foot, I soon spotted a grouping of trees at the edge of a copse had been knocked over, and an animal was lying on the ground.

As I run over towards the animal I could see through the darkness that it was a white horse, but I soon noticed something about it which made me stop. The animal appeared to be a horse to which somebody had stuck some wings onto. It also had something sticking out of it’s head, which I feared would have branch or something else causing a mortal injury. Based on the fact the trees had all been snapped the same way, it looked like the animal had been thrown into the trees.

Fearing for the worse for this poor creature, getting closer I notice the animal seemed to be breathing but in a lot of pain. The horses coat was a brilliant white, whiter then any animal I had ever seen, and apart from the wings (Apart from the wings!) the body also seemed to have the wrong dimensions. I hadn’t yet even started to think where it had come from, my first thoughts was the more instinctive concern that the animal was hurting.

Looking from a distance, the horse clearly had a broken hind leg, with some cuts and bruises at a minimum on the other legs. One of the wings seemed to be very different to the other, and I suspected one of them was broken (I wasn’t sure if it was natural or artificial, my brain simply couldn’t process this, but either way it wasn't right). The forehead seemed to have a white horn on the horses forehead, which seemed to have a crack down the middle of it and was glowing.

The horse spotted me and startled tried to get to its feet, managing to do so with great agony and emitting a terrible cry. One wing started to move, but the other hung limply and the horse looked at its wing, before started to try to move away by foot. The poor animal was in agony and could barely move.

I instinctively started making calming sounds like I do to my horses, and the animal stopped and turned to look at me. I could sense great pain and confusion in the animal’s eyes, which were bigger than a normal horses’. The horn started to glow a little brighter, then faded suddenly causing a visible bolt of pain across the animals face, causing the horse to look up at its horn.

“Shhh, you have no need to fear me” I softly cooed and slowly approached.

The animal backed away at the same speed, but the standoff gave me a chance to look closer. The body was definitely different to any horse or pony I had ever seen, and the coat looked too white to be natural, almost if it glowed. The wings seemed to be fully integrated into the body, as did the horn and neither looked like artificial attachments. The horse also had a long tail and a very long hair on its head like a humans hair, both of which were multicoloured.

This didn't look like anything I knew, and the alternative was mind blowing – I was looking at some sort of Unicorn…or Pegasus?

“I am not sure what you are, as I haven’t seen anything like you before” I softly spoke. It seemed a redundant phrase, but just wanted to speak soothing words. And my brain was too confused to currently think of anything more poetic.

The horse looked back to me, seeming to understand my words, but still backed off as I spoke.

“I understand your fear of me, I am a stranger, but you are hurt and I can help you” I cooed

The horse seemed to start to look around, like it was trying to find a route to escape. I stopped walking forwards and then the horse stopped, seeming relieved at not having to move it’s damaged body.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” I gently whispered, trying to get the horses trust. I slowly backed off a little to give it some space “It will hurt less if you lie down” I chuckled, but to my surprise the horse actually lay down, the poor thing probably needing to rest. I looked at the animal, and it appeared to have a tear in its eye.

“Please, let me help you” I pleaded to the wounded animal “You are injured and need to heal which I can help you with”

The animal looked at me as if it understood, and gave me a look up and down, before resuming searching around the farm with it’s eyes. I wondered if this creature could somehow comprehend my words, my mind trying desperately work out how to communicate with this strange beast in front of me.

“However, I won’t try to stop you should you decide to leave... If you decide to go, I recommend going to the north away from town into the forest by the hill” and I pointed away from town “I suspect that others may not let you leave if they saw you”

The horse looked at me as I said, and I swear it had a look of confusion on it’s face. It was then I realised that the face was much more expressive than any animal I had met, and I swear it had false eyelashes on. At this point I decided the horse must be female. Of course I was sure I was dreaming, but it was so weird I thought it was best to go along with it – afterall, as dreams went, it was a cool dream.

“You appear to be some form of winged unicorn. These…do not exist and so other people are probably going to want to know what you are!” This seemed to startle her so I continued “But you are safe here, I don't know what you are but I can see you are hurt. You seem to be unable to walk, or fly”

The horse gave me another look over with a slightly more aggressive look in her eyes, like she was trying to work out if I was a threat.

With this I slowly backed off a little and then stood up “I don’t know what you are, or where you have come from, but I would help any hurt animal I come across. Rather than hide in the woods, you can come and hide on my farm over there” I pointed “Its remote and I don’t get many visitors”

The horse almost nodded in agreement, or at least seemed to relax at me a little. I explained to her to wait whilst I went and got a trailer she could sit in. I went back to the farm, and brought the trailer over by hand fearing the loud noise of a motorised vehicle may scare her away. After looking it over, she slowly got into it and I pulled her back towards the farmhouse. She was heavy, not as heavy as a normal horse, but it was very hard going to pull the trailer by hand up the slight hill.

When we got to the yard, I set up the ramp to let her down and she slowly limped down “Sorry I can’t carry you down but you look too heavy for that” I joked

The pony stood there looking at me at a face that basically said she was un-amused. She was about the same height as me, before the horn, and our eyes were at the same level. I smiled again, trying to show that I was no threat.

“So, do you want to stay in the stable with the other horses, in the barn with some of the other animals?” I asked, not expecting a reply but just thinking out loud. The creature in front of me looked at the horses, who all had their heads sticking out the stables looking at the strange pony infront of them.

I decided that she would probably resist going into a small stable, so I went over to the large nearly empty barn and I opened the door, motioning inside “If you go in, I’ll return with some medical supplies”

She limped towards the barn as indicated and I headed to a storage unit where I grabbed bandages and equipment for a splint. At this point I must have been in autopilot mode, as if I had stopped to think about the logistics of putting a splint on a winged unicorns leg, even in a dream, I would have had to commit myself to an insane asylum…

I walked back to the barn and noted that she had lay down in the centre of the barn, in a big pile of straw. I approached her and said I was going to clean her wounds with antiseptic, which may hurt. I gingerly knelt down beside her, worried about her striking out at me, and started to clean the cuts. She flinched a little but didn't kick out as she seemed to understand it was medicine and I was trying to help.

I also explained about splinting the leg and she seemed to allowed me to add the split, although she was a little more wary as I had to get much closer to get a good grip.

“What about your wing?” I asked “I don’t know if you splint a wing or not?”

The white pony looked down at the wing hanging limply at her side. I looked over to the other wing which was folded up against the body “Perhaps I should bandage the wing to hold it in place like you have your other wing?”

She looked at me in a dispassionate way that I took as agreeing and folded the wing as gently as I could, although it must have hurt a lot as she cried out a little. I wrapped the bandages around her body to hold the wing still, leaving the other wing free.

Once I was done, I got up and brought over a bucket filled with water. “I’m going to close the door to ensure nobody else sees you and keep the wind out”

She gave what seemed an approving nod and laid her head down to sleep. I walked back in the house, and went straight to sleep, pretty convinced I would just wake up from the weird dream...