The Finished Pages
I planned on making them into a book, but due to time pressure (That and I wasn't confident enough in my book making skills that I felt that I could make a neat enough one for my final piece) I decided to instead print each page on glossy paper and mount them onto black card. These (essentially) are my final pieces (Along with a short version of the story, written by me; edited from the original book by Peter S. Beagle).
Official Cover
1.
Deep
in an ancient forest, there were once two hunters; the elder one spoke of the
beauty of the forest and how it was the way it was because of the presence of a
unicorn… the last one in the world. Unbeknownst to them, the unicorn of the
forest was hidden in the trees, listening to every word.
2.
The
unicorn began to wonder if she truly was the last in the world. One day a
traveling butterfly appeared in the forest, and she asked him what he knew of
the unicorns in the world.
3.
The
butterfly tells her a horrible story of a fiery beast called the red bull; who
had hunted down all the unicorns of the world. Spurred on by this frightful
tale, the unicorn leaves her forest, determined to find the truth.
4.
The
unicorn travelled for many days and nights, entering vaster, darker lands
filled with humans.
5. One
night, the unicorn was captured by a cruel old witch who kept mystical
creatures on display in her wicked carnival. There, the Unicorn befriends a
clumsy but kind and talented young magician named Schmendrick.
6.
Schmendrick
released the Unicorn, who then set every other creature in the carnival free.
As the unicorn and Schmendrick escaped, the cruel old witch was devoured by one
of the creatures she had held captive.
7.
Soon
the pair came cross a woman named Molly, who used to be visited by unicorns
when she was a girl. She decides to join them on their quest for she could not
bear to live in a world where there were no unicorns.
8.
Finally
the three of them entered the land of King Haggard, who was rumoured to be the
master of the mysterious red bull. He ruled in his castle by the sea for fifty
years; from the moment he took the throne, the land became a dark, barren place
where almost nothing grew.
9.
Out
of nowhere fire appeared before them, and it then took the shape of a monstrous
blood-red bull. It caught sight of the unicorn, she ran and it chased her.
10.
The
bull was drove her towards King Haggard’s castle, but suddenly Schmendrick
desperately used his magic to save her; and she transformed into a human. The
red bull could no longer tell she was a unicorn, and so it returned to its
master.
11.
The
three of them continued to make their way to the castle where they offered
their services to the king and his son Prince Lir, so they could secretly
search for the lair of the red bull, and find out what happened to the
unicorns.
12.
For
many moons Schmendrick performed magic to entertain the king. The unicorn
slowly began to forget who she was the longer she stayed human; she even fell
in love with the prince. Eventually Molly is told the whereabouts of the
entrance of the red bull’s cavern by the castle cat.
13.
One
night the four of them made their way to the great hall, to go through the
secret magical entrance to the cavern, inside the giant broken clock. A skull
sitting on a pedestal in the hall cries out “Unicorn! Unicorn!” Alerting the
King who had the clock destroyed after they entered the cavern. They couldn’t
go back.
14.
The
clock transported them to a dark dank cavern, which suddenly lit up bright red
as the monstrous Red-bull once again appeared; only this time it recognised the
unicorn in her human form. It chased her through tunnels; leading her to the
same place it drove the others.
15.
Schmendrick
cast his magic upon her again and the Unicorn tried to reach for her love one
last time before returning to her true form forever.
16.
The
bull drove her out of the tunnels, onto the beaches that surrounded the
castle’s cliff. The Prince made one final attempt to protect the Unicorn, but
the Red Bull trampled him to death. The unicorn saw this, and emitting a
horrible, sorrowful cry that no immortal creature had ever made before, she
swung about and charged towards the bull.
17.
Using
her magic, she drove the bull into the sea and the moment its hooves touched
the water there was a burst of dazzling light as every unicorn in the world was
set free from their prison in the sea.
18.
Thousands
of Unicorns ran up the cliffs and the force of their movement made the castle
crumble into the sea, along with its king.
19.
As
the unicorns ran through the land, it erupted into fifty years worth of springs
and once again became beautiful, as though its dark king had never existed.
20.
The
last Unicorn remained on the beach, where she touched the fallen prince with
her horn, and he awoke fully healed. Prince Lir would become king, and Molly
and Schmendrick his loyal subjects, but the unicorn would not stay with them.
21.
The
Unicorn returned to her forest, forever burdened with the knowledge that she
was be the only unicorn in the world who had ever loved and lost, but she was
content none the less, for unicorn’s were in the world again and all was as it
should be.
