//------------------------------//
// The Unicorn Effect 
// Story: My Little Fortress: Friendship for the Blood God 
// by jaked122 
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Tholumom Lathonudlerned has been very unhappy recently. He has mourned for the loss of loved ones recently. He has had a mediocre drink recently. He has looked at a masterful engraving of his family and been saddened. He has slept in a decent Alder bed recently. He has complained about the inclement weather recently. He has been angered at his conscription recently. He has been frustrated with his failure in combat recently.
        He is slow to anger, but often feels depressed. He is not particularly sociable. He cannot find happiness in his work. He is not self-conscious. He is reserved.
        He has a wonderful kinesthetic sense. He is very strong. He possesses an incredible endurance. He recovers quickly from sickness and injury.
        His nose is broken. His arms are bruised. His hand is bruised. His legs have gashes.
        He has begun to wonder whether all this death is worth it.



        The dwarf slept in a bed, catatonic, except of course for the involuntary retreating into his mind, he was of course, completely unconscious; the natural response to dwarves in pain was always to faint, and for once, that probably saved him a lot of heartache.
        As far as he was concerned, he had been saved by one of the vilest animals in existence: the unicorn. Unicorns, those disgusting horses ridden into battle by those damned tree hugging elves. The same unicorns that were known to use their horn to skewer the unsuspecting dwarf in all of their righteous goodness. 
        This creature, whose similar looking relatives of Tholumom’s world, had been the only creature to bloody the misfortunate and stupid dwarven settlers who had sought to avoid evil, by moving to its antithesis. The other creatures of the “righteous” or “good” regions of the world were far less dangerous to the fortress. The unicorn was the only creature of that region that was known to really scare the dwarves, who continued to hunt it, because of the value of their bones. 
The world of the dwarves had been quite dangerous after all, motivated by profit and the whims of gods who refused to respond to any adventurer with the faith to really try talking to them. Fortunately, Tholumom had never believed in the first place. His late wife had worshipped a god known as the “Flying Trout” who was associated, or so they said, with gold, silver, mountains, and fertility. Whatever connection that a flying fish had to do with any of those things was anyone’s guess. It had given her comfort, and that was no help to him when he was unconscious.



Twilight, as the unicorn was called, was surprised to have found any creature so far out in the water. The fish were a bunch of pussies, not that she would refer to them as such; she would probably say that they have a highly tuned sense of “Self-preservation”. She was even more surprised to find that this thing was still alive, whatever it was just so happened to float in such a way that it could breathe.
A creature such as that, which can fully pass out in water and live, was pretty special, even in a land filled with three whole races of magical multi-colored horses. So Twilight had decided to take the obvious land-dweller back with her on the boat. 
The expedition so far had been a resounding failure. Nothing that they could make was able to descend to the bottom of the ocean and survive. Even Twilight’s magic seemed completely ineffective for gathering information about what was really down there. This creature, whatever it was, was far more interesting than the failure of all of the bathyspheres which Twilight had managed to either get her hooves on or conjure.
“Spike, any word from Celestia?”
“Yeah Twilight. She says, and I quote ‘Why did you stop studying friendship? Get back to Ponyville.”
“Did you send her the letter I wrote ahead of time for when she said that?”
“Yes Twilight, she sent me the same letter except ‘get back to Ponyville’ was underlined.” The purple dragon glanced over to the creature that lied in bed, barely breathing. “Is he going to be alright, Twilight?”
“I hope so Spike. He’s injured, but as far as I can tell, there’s nothing life threatening about the injuries.”
“Have you figured out what he is yet? Twilight?”
“No Spike, you’ll be the second to know when I do.”


“So are we going to listen to Celestia?”
Twilight gave the small dragon a look of exasperation, “Of course we listen. I wouldn’t want to go back to-“
“Magic Kindergarten.” Spike groaned. “You have to understand that not every failure can send you back to that place. In fact, no failure will send you back to that place. The only place where they can send you is maybe back to the same grade that you were in when you failed.”
“You don’t know that.” Twilight’s eyes almost started twitching, which signaled that Spike either needed to accept his “sister’s” insanity, or press on and accept the consequences.
“I’ve read that damned book about the Equestrian School system. Of course I know that! Celestia is a nicer teacher than most, not to mention that she is your teacher, not anypony else’s. She only teaches you. She can put whatever emphasis you need on whatever subject you don’t understand. She won’t make you go crazy.”
“Spiiike!”
“What?”
“No.” Twilight had picked that one up from Rainbow Dash. It was the most annoying way that anypony could think of to turn around a conversation and generally peeve that pony.
“Whatever Twilight. I’ll just go tell Captain Gruff to turn us around and bring us back to Ponyville.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Too bad, I guess I’ll have to accept knowing more about the surface of friendship than the bottom of the ocean.” She sighed. “There’s probably not much down there in the first place.”
“Why would you want to know about the bottom of the ocean in the first place?”
“I thought that I could learn something about what was down there that nopony had ever known or seen before. I guess you’re right though, the magic of friendship has to be more interesting than the bottom of the ocean.”
“I’m going to tell Captain Gruff to turn us around.”
“Good idea Spike, thanks for your help.”
With that, the small purple dragon with green frills left the cabin. Twilight sighed, “I guess that we’ll just have to wait to learn about you.” She said this to the creature in the bed, which lied asleep. The mouth drooped open, exposing its prodigious size. “Dear Celestia. What are you?” The mouth was big enough to trap a scootaloo. Not that the owner of the mouth would necessarily do that. She hoped. 


	Inside of Tholumom’s body, epithelial cells reproduced quickly to overcome the wounds that were sustained. In his hands, veins knitted themselves back together. In his nose, cartilage began to produce scar tissue, ensuring that it would look slightly wrong for the rest of his life.
His liver was beginning to notice a lack of alcohol to digest; naturally this would be what would awaken the dwarf.
His eyes fluttered open, revealing a blurry room. He noticed the sunlight in the room and thought “not again”, before throwing up. The vomiting actually served to shake his eyes back to working order. 
Tholumom was in a wooden room, with wide, clear windows. It was clear that he had been adopted by a prosperous civilization, probably funded by the various pieces of armor that goblins often left behind after their deaths. There was something that was missing; the stains of blood on the walls, the omnipresent smell of vomit and feces. The elves, who believed in latrines and baths, were not as clean as this. Not to say that the elves aren’t a bunch of hypocritical cannibals, they were still the cleanest creatures that he had ever met.
 Then he noticed what it was built out of… Wood. The association that it brought to every dwarf’s mind was the same capricious cannibal traders known as the elves. He frowned, if he had been adopted by humans, his life would not be too bad, if they was elves, then he might as well eat himself right now. Of course, if it was elves, it would be some kind of damned tree house. He relaxed; nothing the elves built was made with the kind of care or material that resembled planks. He looked out the window, seeing a branch with a multitude of bird nests on it. Tholumom was not sure, but birds didn’t nest at such high densities, at least no kind of bird which he had ever laid eyes on. 


	The dwarf put his hands behind his head, relaxing for the first time in a few months.


	“Spiike! Did you send Celestia our apology letter?”
“Yes Twilight, She already said that it was okay.”
“That’s good.” She paused. Tholumon thought that she sounded like a nice girl, perhaps human, but certainly not of his age group, at most she was sixteen years old. He couldn’t wait to meet his rescuer… What kind of name was Spike though? That sounded strange, even to a dwarf whose first name means “Deep dark” or maybe “dark deep” either way he couldn’t remember how the old ancestral dwarven language worked. “Perhaps you should check on our guest, I mean, after Fluttershy patched him up, he should be fine.” 
For some reason, the name “Fluttershy” sounded appropriate and normal, not like Spike, whose name only had one syllable. “Maybe I should meet this Fluttershy, I’m sure that she’s a nice girl. Though that Spike character sounds very annoying. Twilight sounds nice too. Maybe I won’t be interrogated when she realizes that I’ve woken up.”
The door across the room opened to reveal the purple dragon standing there. “I love dragons, they always amused me when the beast-master or whatever his title was trained one to barbecue the goblin infantry.” 
“Hi there mister.”
“Hello there purple dragon. It’s a long way from the mountainhome to see such a specimen as you.”
“What’s a mountainhome?”
“Damn, I might actually have to elaborate on where I lived.” “It’s a mountain filled with dwarves, gold, wealth, and vomit, especially vomit.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Yes, but who trained you to speak so well? I’ve never heard of such an incredible beast-master that was able to teach a dragon to talk. The best I’ve seen have only managed to train the dragon to barbecue elves and goblin infantry.”
“What?”
“You certainly can’t talk on your own. You must have been trained at some point?”
“I’ve only been toilet trained, if that’s what you mean. I learned how to talk on my own.”
“What’s a toilet?”
“With one, you would have had a vomit-free mountainhome.”
“That’s impossible, we would have found a way of vomiting in such a way to make it ineffective.”
“Why would you search for that?”
“That’s the drinking game that dwarves play whenever they are about to pass out.”
“That sounds unhealthy.”
“Doctors have told us that, at least human doctors have. They never did have the body chemistry to process large volumes of alcohol.”
“I’m afraid for your health mister.”
“I’ve drunk more than enough to kill you a thousand times over. I’m not even a heavy drinker.”
“I’m going to get Twilight.”
“Thank you lad, I’ve been wanted to talk to her, I gather that she rescued me from the ocean?”
“Yes.” With that short answer, the dragon walked out. 
“I can’t believe he fell for that drinking game. We throw up because our eyes are adjusted to absolute darkness. Not because we can’t hold our drinks.”
Tholumon laughed. It pleased him to have landed so far from the ridiculous insecurity of his world. Of course, what walked through the door was a creature of unimaginable horror. A creature that he had been taught to fear for its pointy horn, its scary eyes, and the ferocity which it can attack with unprovoked.
It was the Unicorn.