I disappeared for a day to get everything I would need to
start the capturing and ensure the taming process was complete. If she didn't try and get away then I felt
pretty sure I would be able to get her to the van and home.
Just a boundary stood between me and victory. Boundaries, after all, are what domestication
is all about - whether it's a cage, a fence or the hedges that separate fields
of crops. If she could live within it then
she would surely be mine. Or if she
fought and failed then when she gave in she would be still.
I returned with a mattock, some concrete and posts with
slots in for the cross-hatching fence panels.
They were cross-hatched because the unicorn still seemed to look out at
the forest a lot even if she never actually left the clearance for it
anymore. They were also reinforced with
metal, on the forest side, just in case she tried to ram it down. She seemed incapable of magic now, not quite
a shadow of her former self, but part way there. She was still lively and playful, just in a
different way.
The plan was to ease her in with this cross-hatching
fence. I was then going to nail panels
up later, to take the forest away, before taking her away from the forest.
Next morning I set to work, having driven all the kit to the
clearing. I really didn't think I would
be able to do this but, well, it just goes to show... The forest had often surprised me like this;
I should have gotten used to it by now.
Anywho, I started by digging all the holes for the
poles. This took some doing. I had it all planned out so that the fence
would run a few feet inside the clearing to avoid the worst of the roots that
had caused so much trouble before. I
still hit one, though, cutting a deep gash into it. Water and sap poured out and soaked into the
soil at the bottom of the hole. I waited
for something to happen, for the worms to attack or the tree to retaliate. Nothing did so I thought nothing of it and
continued my work.
Once all these were dug, I prepared the concrete before
starting to erect all of the posts.
These took me the rest of the day so that we went to sleep that night
inside a downmarket and wonky woodhenge.
On the second day of the fence and the last of the
domestication experiment, I slotted home all of the cross-hatched panels. They would have been light enough to lift and
drop into place if it wasn't for all the metal.
As it was I had to use a ladder to get higher than the poles. This took me some time and it was around
about lunchtime when I finished.
No sooner was it done than it started to become undone. It was just like my cage at first. The poles began to turn. All together, all anti-clockwise. But the metal soon stopped their movement,
too strong for whatever force was at work.
Not the unicorn, of that I was sure.
She wore exactly the same confused and worried look as I did. And when the poles stopped trying to break
the fence she sat down and bit at the nearest tuft of grass.
I smiled at the failure and shouted out, "Is that the
best you can do? Come on, you'll have to
do much better than that!" I wasn't
sure quite what had come over me, I wasn't normally like this. Suddenly I was winning and I felt ten feet
tall.
It soon became evident that that was not the best they could
do.
A great groan started to surround the clearing. It was all I could hear and it was all around
me. The noise was everywhere and it was
most disturbing - like a long drawn out battle cry. You could sense an anger that meant to do
something bad or dangerous. It was no
surprise that the unicorn disappeared into her stable.
Then the wind stopped and the trees became very still. There had been a slight breezy wind all
morning. and it had gone very suddenly just as the groan took on a new pitch,
becoming more and more urgent.
Until it reached a peak and stopped.
There were a horrible few seconds of anticipation before it
happened.
For a moment the wind started again but it was coming from
above, blowing straight down at the ground.
Then, all at the same time, a branch for every post swung
down and knocked them, their concrete base and the fence panels all outwards
and away. Some of the parts hit trees
and splintered into thousands of pieces.
No mark was left on the trees.
The rest came to rest forlornly here and there. One post made a very nasty dent in my van.
I stood in shock, tripped up in part by my sudden rise in
confidence. And then I just
shrugged. "This doesn't actually
change anything as such," I thought, "I'll just have to skip that
test." The unicorn was, after all,
in the stable. She had not left or made
any attempt to do so despite the anger of the trees surrounding us.
Two hours later the whole domestication plan was finished.
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