The Unicorn, also known as a Kelpie, are watery creatures that take the form of a horse with a single, sharp horn protruding from the center of their head. While in form, they have tufts of longer fur around their ankles that quiet any splashes they take with steps.
Rarely Seen
Unicorns are skittish creatures, tending to make their homes as far away from anything "loud". Loud means active creatures, like most
rela and oql that are either making noises with their mouths or making a ruckus with their
aura. Unicorns would rather have peaceful serenity, fleeing at any large noise or heavy aura.
If they sense someone being loud and running away does not work, they have several defense mechanisms to get away. The first would be to hypnotize and deter potential predators. Their affinity to
Nep & their horn makes this option 90% effective. Many won't even know they've been hypnotized, continuing their lives as though nothing had changed. For the cases where this does not work, they have one more energy-intensive solution, to melt their bodies and dissolve into the river they keep close by. Once the threat is gone, they will gather themselves together and become whole, though this may leave a few parts lost forever, a risk well worth taking for self-preservation.
Unicorns roam rivers, migrating up and down lesser-traveled waterways grazing as they go. They graze on grasses, algae, subaquatic
Estebyel, and lizards. Some of their food sources have a twenty-hand depth requirement for the river, as do the unicorn as they also submerge themselves when sleeping. They will suffer shallower waters to keep their solitude. This happens more and more, due to habitations cropping up on larger rivers and at the mouths of lakes and oceans.
Coveted Horn
Unicorn horn is made of a soapy-glassy organic (looks like a milky-clear obsidian with hazy tendrils of blood and synapses running through it) compound completely unique to the unicorn. They use it as a kind of antenna for their mental capabilities, extending the range of their mental awareness and enhancing their mind-melding and telekinesis. To rela, their horn is an amazing resource, wanted for intense alchemical brewings and machines that process complex data structures alike. This has caused a dwindling in the unicorn population, decreasing the already rare appearances of the majestic creatures.
This was great. I don't know if kelpie and unicorns are typically combined like this, but the felt wholly original to me—and heavily invested with your own personal creative voice. My favorite bit was the line about how they can dissolve and how, though they might lose parts of themselves by doing so, it's worth the risk. Great, great work.
Thank you so much! I've never had my authorial voice commented on before, I feel incredibly honored. I actually got the idea of panicking and losing a piece of their body from lizards, just swap a tail loss with melting into water.