Mookyvet is the best artist ever, and she made me the best unicorn sequence ever over the period of about two weeks. So you should go and favorite her originals (one, two, three), favorite everything else in her gallery, and commission the dickens out of her!

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The Tale of Nyati of Kylan

"Ladies and gentlemen, Samorog's Theater is proud to present...the exotic dancer, cursed to exile from her beloved native soil...one of the last daughters of the fallen Kingdom of Ceros...Nyati, princess of the House of Kylan!"

"Princess of the blood, idiot," Nyati grumbled backstage. "Princess of the blood, that's the most important part!" How else was the audience to know how closely related she was to the former king, and that the glorious House of Kylan was a cadet branch of the formerly reigning House of Genda?

Stagehands on either side of Samorog's pulled aside the curtain, and Nyati walked out with regal bearing. She wore the traditional costume of far-off Ceros, light and blue with plenty of ventilating ruffles appropriate for its scorching climate. She tugged at the decorative spats covering her ankles to make sure they were well-fastened while the announcer went through more of his spiel to wind up the crowd.

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this dusky Cerosian beauty has come to us across the Sea of Eraldatu, made homeless by the dastardly Popular Revolution that swept away the old royal family!"

That much at least was true; Nyati and her mother and sisters had barely escaped ahead of the torch-bearing mob that had so unjustly lynched King Edinorog. Really, were a 1000% tax increase, universal conscription for a war on Njebriresh, and the occasional hunting of freeholders for sport grounds for such ill-treatment? Edinorog's government had been a model of liberal restraint compared to that King Jednorog IV the Mad, after all.

"Watch in amazement, ladies and gentlemen, as Samorog's stage is lit up by the exotic royal dances of far-off Ceros! Watch in amazement at the lithe and regal beauty inherent in the Cerosian stock!"

The announcer was laying it on a bit thick, but that was probably because the house was only half-full and the crowd looked listless and bored. Nyati frowned as she looked out over the audience of pale and pasty Licornians. Many sported sky-blue hair or ruffled dresses in the Cerosian fashion, which had become a fad since the arrival of refugees after the Revolution. Naturally, their hair was dyed and their dresses were cotton, while Nyati's was a natural blue and her clothes were woven from the rare cords of aragne universelle silk.

"Take us, O princess, on a journey to far and distant Ceros!" the announcer finished with a flourish, bowing off stage.

"Princess of the blood," Nyati hissed at him.

"Bloody whatever," the announcer whispered back. "This isn't a history book."

Nyati closed her eyes and regally held out her arms, one foot forward, feeling only the silk against her skin and the center-jeweled circlet she wore. A deep breath, and then she launched herself into a lively vienaragis dance.

Starting with windmilling of her arms and legs, each movement releasing a spray of colored fabric as the ruffles followed, Nyati moved into a series of arabesques, balancing on one big toe and then the other as she bowed closer to the floor each time while kicking up her other leg higher and higher. Just when she was tickling the stagefloor slate with the tip of her nose and shooting her leg into a nearly vertical position, she spun into the most complicated series of moves.

Nyati, still spinning, launched herself into the air over and over again, her bare feet slapping loudly on the stage with each forceful landing. Keeping the proper orientation while spinning and jumping was fiendishly difficult, and had earned 7-year-old Nyati more than one swat on the ear from her old teacher. She was, the old crone had harped, a princess of the blood and a perfect vienaragis dance was not only proper, it was expected.

After the final spin, Nyati took a short running start before flipping herself across the stage end over end in a blur of color and ruffles. The stage band, which had accompanied her performance with lively but inauthentic "Cerosian" music (which sounded to Nyati like the moans of a dying accordion), followed her pace with a frenzied crescendo. A final set of tumbles and spins brought Nyati to center stage, where she stopped and bowed deeply as the music ended with a flourish.

Some polite applause drifted in from the house, though it was nothing like the rapturous encores she'd received at first. Most of the audience still looked rather bored.

"Bravo, bravo! Encore, encore!"

Well, bored with the exception of one exceedingly enthusiastic spectator in the front row.

Nyati snorted in annoyance. Bubalo was back again? That was the fourth time this week alone. How did a junior conjurer working part time at The Conjury on Rue Roi make enough to come to the Samorog Theater--which wasn't cheap--all but every day? Then again, the motley and patched robes he was wearing, the partly collapsed top hat, the commingling of freckles and acne…maybe he'd been scrimping on the essentials just to save up for the Samorog.

Which made it even more irksome for him to be hanging around Nyati like a bad rash almost every evening.

The next act had Nyati dancing a duet with an Ukssarvik kassoc--this despite the traditional enmity Cerosians had for the smelly, uncouth, and drunk Ukssarviks. But they were both foreign to the Licornian audience, hence the duet, which was always tricky given Nyati's refusal to touch the kassoc and his tendency to bring down his heavy wooden boots on her unprotected toes. She did note with some relief that Bubalo seemed to have disappeared as she took her final bows of the night, though.

That feeling quickly faded backstage. Limping back to her dressing room, she saw Bubalo standing there waiting for her, hat in hand and a cheap buffelblossom in his hand.

"N-Nyati!" he cried upon seeing her, his pasty and greasy face lighting up ."That was a wonderful show tonight!"

"It's the same show I always do," Nyati muttered.

"Yes, but even so there are so many beautiful subtle variations! Looking closely it's almost like seeing a new one each time with all the nuance."

The princess (of the blood) sighed and rattled her key in the dressing room lock.

"I brought something for you," Bubalo continued, holding out the buffelblossom.

"Oh, how…buffleblossomy…of you," Nyati said, taking the offering gingerly between thumb and forefinger as she might have done with a soiled diaper. Surely he must have known that Cerosian royalty were only ever given niebriresh roses, the symbol of the dynasty. Anything else--especially buffelblossom, a peasant's flower at best--was an insult.

If Nyati had been less tired, she probably would have told Bubalo so. But then again she knew from bitter experience that even her most bitter and sarcastic tirades weren't enough to drive that particular leech away.

Also, she could see Mr. Samorog approaching from the other direction.

"Oh, Nyati…I was wondering…" Bubalo continued, turning his collapsed ruin of a hat over in his hands. "After you're had a rest, would you be willing to accompany me to The Blossomry? They've a whole stand of buffleblossoms in bloom, and it would honor me greatly to pick you out a full bouquet."

The thought of being seen in public with Bubalo--not only a commoner, not only a low conjuror, but an irritating one at that--pushed bitter bile to the tip of Nyati's throat. Thinking of a bouquet of common peasant flowers being borne by a princess--a princess of the blood--pushed that bile to her very lips.

With Samorog almost upon her, Nyati had to think of a way to get rid of Bubalo without too much fuss, and fast.

She did her best to crack a fake smile. "I'd love to, Bubalo. You're a lovely person, but…well, I'm afraid that I'm just not, ah, pure enough to accept your offer."

"Not pure enough?" he parroted back, looking confused.

"Yes, I can tell that you are a pure-hearted soul. It's a gift we Cerosians have. And I, regretfully, have been influenced by the world, given in to its many crushing temptations and errors. You who are pure of heart deserve someone equally pure, Bubalo."

"Hmm," Bubalo said, looking crestfallen but thoughtful. "I suppose you have a point there, dear Nyati. Let me take my leave of you to think on your words and study."

"Please, please do. Take your leave, that is." Nyati said, doing her best to shove him away without actually touching his hideous motley robe.

Once he was safely away, she unlocked the door to her small dressing room. Mr. Samorog followed her in, a cigaroid smoldering with scented smoke in his hand.

"I do wish that you wouldn't do that in my presence," Nyati sniffed, sitting down at her mirror.

"And I do wish you'd draw more of a crowd to justify what I'm paying you," Samorog countered, deliberately breathing a lungful of smoke into the mirror.

"What do you mean?" Nyati said. "The house was half full. You heard the applause."

"The house was half full and all bored, missy," said Samorog. "And all the applause was coming from one guy. Admittedly one who's a good customer, but it's not enough."

"It's just a slow patch. Things will pick up again and then it'll be like it was before," replied Nyati. Soon after her family's arrival in the Grand Duchy of Licorne, Nyati's shows had been a sensation, playing to a standing room only crowd. It was that--and only that--which had led Samorog to offer her all that he had, even paying for authentic Cerosian clothes to be smuggled out from under the new government's nose.

"You know, I don't think it will," Samorog puffed. "You're a victim of your own success, missy. When no one had ever seen a Cerosian? Sure, it was hot. But now that all the royal family whose heads aren't on the Popular Revolution's pikes are here? Now that you've started a bunch of fads?"

"People will still come back to see authentic-"

"You think people care about authentic?" Samorog laughed. "Look, you and yours got half of the upper crust ladies in the Duchy dyeing their hair blue."

"But mine's natural blue!"

"I can't tell the difference. You got half the idle rich wearing Cerosian clothes…"

"But they're knockoffs! Mine are real aragne universelle silk!"

"You can't tell that unless you're wearing the damn thing. And you got half the street performers in town doing 'Cerosian royal dances' on street corners!"

"It's not the real thing!"

"I don't care if it's the real thing!" cried Samorog. "You think the people on the street know what a real Cerosian dance looks like? But if they see it for pennies in a hat, they're sure not going to pay a silver a head to see it here!"

"Just because trendsetters in Licorne are baking themselves under the sun to get the beautiful dark skin that we Cerosians naturally have doesn't mean that they are anything like us! I'm a Cerosian princess of the blood, and I have all the skills and social graces to be expected of someone with that rank," Nyati said. "If the rabble can't appreciate that…"

"That's enough!" Samorog cried, waving his cigaroid. "Your imperial attitude has been rubbing everyone here the wrong way since you came. I was willing to put up with it when the silver was rolling in, but now it's just a trickle. You'd better start bringing in new business or else it's out on the street with you! Dance on a street corner for all I care, see if you can get anymore copper than the dyed and painted up wannabes."

The theater owner left in a huff; the cigaroid smoke took almost an hour to dissipate fully.

Nyati went home disconsolate…what would she do if Samorog fired her, or worse, reduced her salary? Took away her dressing room? She thought about it in her private quarters in the spacious mansion the Grand Duke had set aside rent-free for her, her mother, and her sisters.

What would she do without her silver from the Samorog Theater? She had lost the generous monthly allowance that was her birthright as a princess of the blood when the Popular Revolution had toppled the Cerosian monarchy. Without the silver from her stage appearances, how would she buy her expensive clothes? How would she add to the strategic stockpile of shoes and Cerosian spats for every occasion, and some occasions that hadn't been invented yet?

It had scandalized the Lady Kylan enough to see her daughter stoop to laboring for money, and in a theater of all places. Nyati could only imagine what would happen if she were fired.

The next day, Nyati appeared on stage for her daily show as usual, padding out in her glorious traditional costume behind closed curtains. A night of thinking and carefully trying on outfits had led nowhere, and she was prepared to trot out her same routine once more and hope for the best.

The announcer was trying to talk her up again, to build some excitement (and word-of-mouth): "My kind and curious assemblage of notables, once again Samorog's Theater is very pleased to present…the dusky lost royalty of a foreign land…bringing you exotic and entrancing motions forbidden to all but a select few… the last of the Cerosian artists of old...Nyati, princess of the House of Kylan!"

"Princess of the blood, idiot," Nyati sighed. Honestly, did that oaf get it wrong on purpose?

She calmed herself and carefully adjusted her circlet as the curtain began to move. The symbol of princesses of the blood, it delicately held an emerald to the center of her forehead. Or rather it would have; she wore a copy made of brass and glass, at Lady Kylan's insistence. But the crowd didn't know that, and she could still carry herself as if it were real.

The crowd was a bit livelier than the day before as Nyati stepped out, with enough sustained applause that she demurely closed her eyes and gripped the trailing ends of her Cerosian dancer's costume to take a short bow. Once again, to her annoyance, Bubalo was in the front row, but he wasn't sheering or calling for an encore this time.

His lips were moving and his gaze was fixed on the stage; the snatches Nyati caught were unintelligible. "გარდაქმნის, ლამაზი ერთი, შევიდა სახით საბოლოო სიწმინდეს...გარდაქმნის, ლამაზი ერთი, შევიდა სახით საბოლოო სიწმინდეს!"

Nyati moved into position to begin her first dance move, but she stumbled awkwardly halfway through the setup to mild titters in the audience.

"Urgh…" she grunted. A sudden and intensely strange feeling was growing in her stomach, making her miss a cue for the first time in the history of her act. 7-year-old Nyati would have received quite the thrashing from her teacher for such a mistake.

She tried to regroup, but was struck with a splitting headache and stumbled once more. There was no laughter this time; a hush had fallen over the crowd instead. She saw why a moment later when her circlet popped off her forehead with a sproing and tumbled to the stage, shattering the glass and bending the brass. A quick probe of the area revealed why:

A spiral horn had begun sprouting out of Nyati's forehead.

"Wh-what?" she cried.

Her skin began to prickle and itch intensely, as white hair began to force its way through her dark skin in patches all over her body. There were audible gasps from the audience, none louder than that from Nyati herself as she watched her Cerosian tone--the one pale and silly Licornian girls lay in the sun for hours to attain--swallowed up by something even paler than they were.

Pressure build up around both her ankles, and the traditional Cerosian spats snapped off Nyati's bare feet. The white hair was growing thickly around there, much more so than anywhere else on her body; her feet were also growing and forcing her to stand on her toes. She stumbled, kicking up one leg in a mockery of her dance pose, as her toes began to grow heavy and stiff. She watched, horrified, as they fused into masses, quickly losing any semblance of human anatomy as they became what could only be described as hooves.

The audience was unsure how to react; some applauded, while others watched in mute astonishment; transfigurations such as these weren't everyday occurrences, even in a city with 500 The Conjury locations. Bubalo, especially, looked stunned to the point of near-hysteria; he was shouting now, barely audible against the din. "I-I didn't mean for that to happen! Stop! Reverse! შეწყვიტოს! შეცვალოს!"

"What's happening to meeeee?" moaned Nyati. She grunted and stumbled further as a bizarre weight at the base of her spine made itself known; a moment later, the expensive designer silk gave way at the base of her spine with a resounding shriiiip and a waterfall of azure hair--just like that on Nyati's head--spilled out, whipped about by a tail in its birth pangs. Her skin resembled, briefly, that of a cow, with patches of dark and light of roughly equal acreage…but the visibly human parts were shrinking.

"It was just supposed to be a purity spell, something to give you your purity back!" Bubalo moaned from the front row. "I-I knew I should have waited for the last lesson, but I wanted to help you so badly! I'M SORRY!"

Nyati held her hands up to her head, where the pain and only gotten worse with the emergence of the horn. It was longer now, iridescent in the harsh stage lighting, but it wasn't the only thing changing about her head. Ears were throbbing to pointed and erect new forms on either side of her head, and Nyati's fine dark Cerosian features were being reshaped before her. One amber eye open in shock, the other clenched shut in pain, she watched her face elongate into an increasingly inhuman muzzle.

"S-somebody, p-please! HELP ME!" Nyati's fingers cracked and popped as their bones were rearranged, the four fingers in each fusing into two is a milder form of what had befallen her toes. There was a louder crack as Nyati's body finished rearranging itself; her hips, wider now, pressed against the fabric of her costume, while her newly-changed hand clutched instinctively at the white-furred breasts straining at her bodice.

She shifted desperately from one hoof to the other, but there was no getting away from the fact that her legs were more equine than human. Not a single inch of bare skin remained, while Nyati's head now boasted a shimmering foot-and-a-half long horn and a shape to fit it.

For her first appearance after being accused of having a stale act, Nyati of Kylan, princess of the blood, had transformed into a hybrid of dancer and unicorn.

And the audience? They erupted into cheers.