The Unicorn Who Lost Her Glow: a free five-minute bedtime story about a unicorn who lost her glow

In a meadow at the edge of a forest, where the grass was always soft and the flowers never quite closed, there lived a young unicorn named Bluebell. Bluebell was white as milk, with a mane the colour of the evening sky, and a horn that glowed. It glowed in the morning like sunshine on water. It glowed in the afternoon like honey. And at night it glowed the softest of all, a pale silver light that the rabbits and the mice used to find their way home. But one evening, as the first star came out, Bluebell looked up and saw that her horn was dark. No sunshine. No honey. No silver. Just a plain white horn, like a stick. "Oh no," said Bluebell. "I've lost my glow." She looked for it everywhere. She looked under the big flat stone where the beetles slept. She looked in the hollow log. She looked in the stream, in case it had floated away, but all she saw was her own worried face looking back. She asked the owl. "Have you seen my glow?" "I have not," said the owl. "But you've been galloping about all day. Perhaps it's tired." She asked the hedgehog. "Have you seen my glow?" "I have not," said the hedgehog. "But you've been shouting across the meadow all afternoon. Perhaps it's gone somewhere quieter." Bluebell sat down in the grass. Galloping. Shouting. It was true. She had done both all day, with the butterflies, and she had loved it. But now her legs ached, and her voice was scratchy, and her horn was dark. A tiny mouse came and sat beside her. It was the smallest mouse in the meadow, and every night it used Bluebell's light to find its door. "I can't help you tonight," said Bluebell sadly. "My light is gone." "Maybe it isn't gone," said the mouse. "Maybe it's just resting. Why don't you rest with it?" So Bluebell lay down in the soft grass, and folded her legs under her, and let her eyes half close. She stopped galloping. She stopped shouting. She listened to the stream, saying the same quiet thing over and over. She felt the cool air on her nose. She let her breath go slow. The mouse curled up against her warm side. After a while, something tickled at the tip of Bluebell's horn. She did not look up. She stayed still. The tickle became a warmth. The warmth became the faintest shimmer. And slowly, slowly, the way a candle takes a moment to catch, her horn began to glow. Not sunshine. Not honey. Silver. The softest light of all. The night-time light. "There it is," whispered the mouse. "It was waiting for you to be quiet." All across the meadow, the rabbits and the mice saw the silver glow and found their way home to their beds. Bluebell did not get up. She was far too comfortable. Her horn glowed gently over the sleeping grass, and the sleeping mouse, and the sleeping flowers that never quite closed. And the unicorn who had lost her glow fell asleep in her own soft light.

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The Unicorn Who Lost Her Glow

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