Brutale

Their fairy tale started like many others. They were a feral and powerful creature of the wildness. They protected their forest domain and lived a simple life. It was their calling to safeguard any being born within their forest and they accomplished it without fail.

Unrest in a neighboring kingdom. A queen, with child, escapes into the unicorn's forest as a quarrel over the throne ensues. The unicorn has no stake in the squabbles of civilization, but the prince is born on the soil of their domain. They nurtured the prince like any of their other denizens, even treasured him. The secret prince thrived in the forest through his childhood and adolescence. He left the unicorn's domain to reclaim his kingdom once he became a man. Even beyond the forest, the unicorn would observe their duty of protection. The prince becomes a king. Attempts to combat his claim only further legitimize him when the unicorn arrives to slay any who threaten him. The story of the lost prince returning with the unicorn's blessing spread quickly and enemy royal factions collapsed. The kingdom flourishes. This marks the beginning of the forest's demise.

The king becomes so different from the boy they treasured. He took terrible glee in summoning them to trample upon any who dared to inconvenience him. They did so without question at first, naive to the workings of civilized folk and trusting the king's desires. They did not break from their loyalty until the kingdom began encroaching on their forest. The king had no intention of preserving the forests that sheltered him, but chose to transform them to his will. The unicorn would not comply- their calling to protect the forest as a whole superseded the king's oath of protection. The king was only further provoked to take more and more from their domain. Heartbroken by betrayal, enraged by the destruction of their denizens, anguished by conflicting oaths- They stood on two legs and sloughed off their innocence, becoming Brutale, a hellion to bring torment upon the kingdom.

Brutale determines that for the safety of their forest and all born of it, they must kill the king. Overcoming the call to protect him was hard enough, but to muster up the will to strike him down? A nigh impossible task. Their multiple attempts on the king's life fail. Their obsession with killing him draws their attention away from further destruction of the forest. Surely if they could cut the head from the snake, the nightmare would be over. Their fixation on this burden meant that they would on many occasions fail to defend the forest from a myriad other dangers. Over decades the forest is swallowed up by the kingdom, only a portion remaining as an enclosed park, meant to be their prison.

Brutale would never get the satisfaction of killing the king. He would die of old age. Their final act of hate was simply to leave with his crown, a burdensome memento. Without the unicorn's presence, the remains of their forest fell to ruin. The blight on the abandoned woodlands would spread to the crops and life would fade from the land. Brutale would roam the world, finally free from responsibilities and yet forever weighed down by the ones they failed to uphold.