An Example of the Anti-Patriarchal Fantasy Stories I Write for my Daughters

"The Zebra Unicorn and the Sleeping Princess"

Hello Friends!

You know, the last couple weeks have been awful. They’ve been just awful. I have posts scheduled until the end of the month, but I thought I’d provide you with something whimsical to take your mind off things.

Right now conservatives are trying to tell us that we’re “not allowed” to speak openly about the horrific injustices gripping our society. Well fine… FINE! I’ll just write stories that are not at all related to the real world then. This is total fantasy, it has a zebra unicorn…

For the last few years, I’ve been writing stories to my kids as a way to detox from all the awful things I see in the real world. My stories always feature strong female characters in the fight against awful patriarchal brutes. My girls think they’re hilarious, and hopefully you will too.

We could all use a bit of a laugh right now, not to mention a bit of catharsis. Hopefully this story has both. If you like it and want me to keep going, just say so in the comments. I’ve been thinking of publishing a book here on Substack, so it might as well be something like this.

The Zebra Unicorn and the Sleeping Princess

Roland was the seventh son of a minor lord, so he set out to make his fortune. His father had agreed to this without much convincing. He knew that Roland would either win his fortune, or die in the intent. Either way, Roland wouldn’t be the lord’s headache anymore.

So the lord, who slept around a lot and wasn’t even completely convinced that Roland was his, gave his “son” one of the lesser battle unicorns in his herd, and sent the boy off with a pat on the back. He gave him the unicorn that looked like a zebra. He’d always thought that was weird.

“I will make you proud father!” Roland yelled.

“Huh?” the lord replied. Then he waved in case Roland mistook his exclamation for interest.

And so, the story of Roland began.

Early on in the trip, the unicorn found that he disliked the boy even more than he disliked being mistaken for a zebra.

First, Roland was too heavy. He was one of those burly bordering on obese boys who couldn’t keep his gym socks white. Roland had a head like a mace. When he was in grade school he couldn’t control his own body and he used to run around and crash into the other kids, sometimes causing them severe injuries.

Second, he smelled bad. The smell was the most unappetizing combination of sour and sweet you could imagine.

Third, he took every chance he could to chase after damsels, urging the unicorn on with sharp kicks to his barrel.

What Roland didn’t know was that the unicorn was pro-damsel. He wasn’t about to use his fae powers to contribute to the corruption of any girl or woman.

In fact, the unicorn could do quite a lot that neither the lord nor Roland knew. He’d been biding his time in the stables because the oats were okay and he’d already lived many thousands of years. His name was Artemix, and one of the first things he’d learned in life was that there was no greater waste of time than attempting to dispossess ignorant human beings of their idiotic opinions.

In fact, Artemix’s great joy in life was to watch the people in his presence age right before his eyes. His favorite part was when the skin fell off.

The unicorn had been considering leaving, but sometimes it took him as much as a decade to make a decision. Immortality, or semi-immortality, often isn’t as great as it’s made out to be.

Artemix could always tell when Roland was roused by a young woman. His smell changed and he began shifting in the saddle in a way that made Artemix uncomfortable. So, Artemix would pretend to shy and run off into the bushes, and by the time Roland got control again, the girl was nowhere to be found.

In fact, it was a result of one of these frenzied sprints that led Artemix and Roland into the enchanted glade.

Roland was furious, “Darned beast! Why don’t you do as I tell you?”

Roland did know better than to hit Artemix. Some long forgotten unicorn had figured out a way to make the humans understand that much at least, bless him whoever he was.

The prince sat on the back of the perturbed unicorn like an adult sized baby, his hands clenched to fists.

“Why I ought to...” he began, but then his voice trailed off as he noticed the coffin made of crystal. The coffin was highlighted by a beam of virgin yellow light. Inside lay a girl of astounding beauty.

“Whoops,” Artemix thought. It hadn’t been his intention to save one girl at the expense of another. Then he took an experimental sniff and realized there was some sort of enchantment going on here. A flutter of a smile passed across his lips. He didn’t bother to try and hide it, Roland was indifferent to the happiness of others.

“A girl!” Roland said. Then he gave Artemix a kick to urge him on.

Artemix sighed. It always had to be a kick. The guy couldn’t even pretend to be nice. Seriously, why kick him? Why not try a little nicker instead? It was easier to nicker. Roland was cruel even when it caused him more work, that made no sense.

But Artemix was still a good decade away from losing his patience completely and dumping the lad on his butt, so he dutifully marched forth.

Arriving at the crystalline coffin, Roland blissfully swung his bulk off the saddle. Artemix ruffled his nose. Anywhere Roland had sat for any length of time stank!

“Look at her, horse!” Roland said.

Artemix disliked being called “horse” even more than he disliked being called “zebra.”

“She’s beautiful! She can be my bride! I must awaken her!”

Roland began to examine the coffin, eventually coming to an exquisitely crafted latch.

Even from a few steps away, Artemix saw the latch could be opened by twisting the knob at the end. Instead, Roland reached down for a rock and started bashing away.

“No! Come on, you don’t have to do that!” Artemix said. But Roland mistook the words for a whinny. The lord’s son reached into his pocket for some sugar cubes and threw them on the ground.

Artemix rolled his eyes.

After a few seconds of completely needless destruction, Roland had smashed the lock to pieces. The once beautifully crafted mechanism hung by a strand of stubborn, twisted metal.

Never one to finish a job, Roland left it at that and pushed on the lid.

It opened with the sound of a seal being broken.

Roland flipped the lid over the side where it landed with the crash of broken crystal.

Artemix winced again.

“What a beautiful woman, too bad she’s dead,” Roland said. Then he shrugged. “Well, I’ll kiss her anyway.”

Then, before Artemix could do anything to stop him, Roland leaned down, his lips puckered grotesquely.

But Roland came up short. He was surprised to find himself kissing a chicken’s foot.

“What?” he said.

“That’s a little weird don’t you think?” asked a female voice.

Artemix, who had looked away, looked back. The girl was awake! Not only was she awake, she was repelling the loathsome Roland with a chicken’s foot she held against his face.

Roland’s face, with the puckered lips and bloated cheeks, now resembled a puffer fish.

Artemix began to snicker.

In response, Roland absently reached into his pocket and dropped even more sugar cubes on the ground.

That killed Artemix’s mirth. He hated sugar.

“What’s weird?” Roland said, finally extracting himself from the chicken’s foot.

“It’s weird to find a coffin of a girl in the middle of the enchanted woods. It’s even more weird to smash the latch of that coffin with a rock. Finally, it’s extra weird to lean in for a non-consensual kiss with the woman who is lying there. Don’t you think?”

“What’s non-consensual?”

“Exactly!”

Roland looked at the girl in confusion.

The girl looked back.

“I don’t think you fully understand the situation,” Roland said. “This is your lucky day.”

The girl laughed. “Is it?”

Roland nodded. “You see, I happen to be a very eligible bachelor and I find myself currently in the market for a wife.”

The girl snorted.

Roland’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you know it’s unbecoming for a lady to snort?”

“Oh, is it? Well then!” the girl said, then she proceeded to snort loudly three times.

Artemix snorted too, he thought this conversation was awesome.

Roland sighed in frustration (which also delighted the unicorn). “No, no, no,” he said in a calm, smooth, patriarchal voice, “this isn’t right at all.”

“What’s not right?”

“You’re supposed to be more grateful.”

“Grateful! For what? The fact that you ruined my coffin and woke me up?”

“No!  You’re supposed to be grateful for all I have to offer you.”

“Ha! Okay, just for the sake of argument, tell me how it’s going to be.”

“I...” Roland said, then his eyes narrowed. “First, tell me what that business with the chicken foot was about.”

“The chicken foot is my lunch,” the girl said.

“Lunch?”

“Yes!” she insisted, then she brought the chicken foot to her mouth, took a big bite, and began chewing spitefully at Roland.

“Um...” Roland said. He cleared his throat. “Yes, as I was saying, how it’s going to be, right!” He held up his hand in what he probably thought was an endearing gesture. “You will live with me in my hereditary castle.”

“Oh, so it’s a castle that was just given to you that you didn’t build?”

“Uh...”

“Why shouldn’t it be my hereditary castle?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, if they’re just giving castles out, why not give one to me instead of you?”

“That’s not how it’s done.”

“I don’t think I want a castle anyway, who is going to clean it? You?”

Roland simply looked at her, he’d never even once contemplated the idea of cleaning anything. Artemix could have told the girl that.

The girl waved her chicken foot, “Go on, go on, you were saying something.”

“Yes!” Roland said, recovering his steam. “I will take you as my bride, and you will have baby after baby after baby...”

“Hard pass. I’m too focused on my career right now. My goal is to kick field goals for the Kansas City Chiefs.”

Artemix snorted again.

Roland paused, and then recovered steam. “Girl, you are disrespectful and ungrateful!”

“You know, that’s probably the most offensive part,” the girl said. “Not only are you an exploiter, you also think I should thank you for it. Ha! What a world!”

Now Roland’s face screwed up in annoyance. “I see that you are willful!” He began to roll up his sleeves. “Very well then, I’ll have to break you.”

The girl gave an enormous, humorless sigh. “Sir, I will not tolerate any threats against my person. Now, I will politely ask you to stop molesting me and go away or I will be forced to defend myself.”

“Now don’t get hysterical, I’m hardly molesting you…”

“I haven’t finished!” the girl continued. “As you might have guessed, I am in the throes of an enchantment. I live, but for the moment I can only move my mouth to chew and speak, and my arm so I can snack on the chicken feet.”

“Where do the chicken feet come from?”

“There stored here in a compartment by my leg, but that’s irrelevant. The more important issue is that you, sir, have broken the spell.”

“I did? Well then, you owe me.”

The girl started laughing. “Boy, do you have a one-track mind. Is that the way your universe works? You just declare debt and everyone throws themselves on the floor to abide by your arbitrary rulings?”

“Arbi—what?”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Girl, listen...”

“Princess.”

“What?”

“You shall address me as Princess.”

Roland smiled at this. “As in helpless princess?” He began wringing his hands in an unmistakable show of menace.

Princess’s eyes narrowed. “No, as a matter of fact, I’m the other kind.” Then she gave a sharp whistle of command.

The whistle had no effect whatsoever on Roland.

However, it had an enormous effect on Artemix.

Out of nowhere, he felt an almost irresistible compulsion to drive his horn into Roland’s back.

The word “almost” is significant there. It wasn’t a bewitchment. Artemix knew he could resist the impulse if he wanted to.

However, once the idea was placed in his mind, he found he didn’t want to.

So it was that Roland looked down in surprise to see the spiraled unicorn horn exploding through his chest.

“Quick, quick!” Princess said. “Turn him to the side so he doesn’t bleed all over my coffin.”

Artemix turned to the side, then he took a few steps and shook the body of odious Roland onto a pile of rocks.

There was a river nearby, and Artemix went over to rinse the blood off his horn before coming back to check on Princess.

“Thank you sir unicorn!” Princess said respectfully. “Now, if you’d just touch me, you’ll free me of this awful paralysis.”

Artemix was only too happy to do as he was told.

Gently, he kneeled down. The moment his horn touched the body of the young girl, she let out a squeal of delight.

“That feels wonderful!” she said. “By the way, I love your stripes. They’re very slimming.” 

Artemix took a step back and blinked, it had been a long time since anyone had paid him a compliment.

The girl sat up and stretched. She regarded the unicorn with a radiant smile. “What’s your name?”

“Artemix,” Artemix said, expecting that she would only hear a whinny.

“Well, Artemix, what should we do?”

Artemix’s eyes widened in surprise. “You... you understand me?”

“Well, of course I understand!” Princess said, climbing out of the coffin. “What did you do with loverboy?”

“I dumped him over there by those rocks.”

“Perfect, I don’t plan on coming back here, but I’d prefer his rotting cadaver didn’t stink up my crystal coffin.” She looked around, “This really is a nice spot, although I still think it’s inappropriate to leave the bodies of dead women lying around in the woods.” Looking back at the coffin, she winced, “Would you look at what the brute did to my latch? He also broke the lid… idiot..” She fiddled with the latch a moment before realizing it was hopeless.

“Oh well,” she said, then she began rummaging around in her coffin for some items. A moment later, she emerged wearing a sword and holding a backpack. A small bag with a couple of chicken feet sticking out rested on her opposing hip.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Where?”

At this, Princess smiled. “Think about every story you’ve ever heard.”

Artemix just looked her.

“Go on, close your eyes and try it.”

Artemix closed his eyes.

“Are you imagining every story you ever heard?”

“Yes,” Artemix said.

“Now imagine the exact opposite, because that’s the kind of story we’re going to have.”

Artemix smiled. Then he opened his eyes. He found that Princess was smiling back at him. In all his centuries of existence, he couldn’t recall having ever felt so good.

“May I ride you Artemix?” she asked.

“Nobody’s ever asked me that before,” Artemix replied.

“There will be no non-consensual riding in my story,” Princess said. Then she winked. “I told you this story would be different.”

Artemix winked back.

Princess was about to swing onto the unicorn’s back, but her nose wrinkled. “But first we have to get rid of that stinky saddle. Let’s go and dump it over by puckerface macehead over there.”

Soon, the unicorn was running through a golden field.

The girl rode him bareback.

She was light and smelled nice and treated him with kindness.

She was everything Roland wasn’t.

Artemix stretched his legs, and accelerated. The girl giggled and showered him with praise.

This was indeed a different kind of story.

Artemix found that, so far, it was in all ways better.

Also, Artemix noticed that the girl didn’t seem to be aging. There was something odd about that, but he was having so much fun, he elected not to think about it.

Why ruin a good thing?

For the moment, Artemix was content to sit back and see where this story went.

Next up: Chapter 2. The Necromancer