Beasts are Beautiful

"I need some help over here!"

Jack looked back at the unicorn that she was attempting to pull into the corral. The poor thing had slipped in an oil spill down in Scotland and had nearly died there. Her team had retrieved it and sedated it. When they came in, the sedation had worn off, and the thing had torn through the halls. Jack had barely caught on to the lead of the oil-covered unicorn. Her calming words were of no help and she could not cast the sedation spell, because the unicorn was too busy trying to wrench Jack's arm out of its socket.

She just needed someone to cast the charm and help get the creature into its pen. From there, they could clean it off, clean its wounds, and begin the search for relocation.

*

Jake had heard that the head of the department, Jack Dylan's, team had gone out to retrieve a unicorn that had been in some sort of oil spill accident and since he was a Beast Specialist, he figured that once they got back he would offer to help them in any way they could need help. Of course he hadn't expected to see a unicorn covered in oil running through the halls, when he went to offer them help.

The creature had passed him just before he turned the corner to go down the same hall where the creature was and if it had been a second later, it would have collided with him, and he would've been , no doubt, the one to end up with a huge injury. The unicorn seemed frightened of the new place, and as it passed, Jake managed to see that someone was holding onto it, and once he recognized who it was, he went chasing after them.

It must not be fun to be dragged around like that by a frightened creature like a unicorn. They were pretty strong, and Jake immediately pulled his wand out and aimed it at the unicorn. He flicked his wand and sent the sedation spell flying toward the unicorn.

Jack dug her heels into the ground as hard as she could, twisting her right arm and wrapping the lead around her arms, holding the unicorn tighter and gaining more control of the whipping of the unicorn's head. The unicorn had tons of weight over Jack though, and it drug her a little from the pen. It reared and Jack held tight, not wanting to harm the creature, but holding onto control. Suddenly, the unicorn's eyes rolled and shivered. He snorted fell back to all fours, pawing at the ground. With a swish of his tail, the unicorn lowered his head.

Jack reached into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of rubber. She carefully fixed it to the point of the unicorn's horn, eradicating the fear of it impaling anyone. She glanced over the flank of the poor creature and saw Jake Collins, a beast specialist. "Thank you, Jake. Come on, I need your help cleaning this creature off." She opened the pen and pulled the unicorn inside.

"Close the door behind you," she called, knotting the lead to a bar in the wall. There were two hoses and a bucket with sponges and combs in this washing cell. Jack filled the bucket with soap and water and dipped two sponges. She threw one to Jake. "Come on, we have to clean him off before it hardens."

Relieved to see that the spell had made contact and the unicorn had calmed down, Jake pocketed his wand and sighed. "No problem. Glad I could help." he said to Jack and nodded as she told him that she would need his help cleaning the unicorn off. He waited outside of the pen until she had the gotten the unicorn in completely, before he entered it and closed the door behind him.

Jake caught the wet sponge and put his hand on the oil covered unicorn, not minding that his hand would be sticky and covered in oil now. "It must've been really frightened of this place." he muttered as he put the sponge to the unicorn's fur. As he wiped the oil off of the creature he stroked it's neck, just in case the spell he cast on it wore off and it started to freak out again.

Jack grabbed her own sponge and approached the creature, vigorously rubbing out the oil, only going in the direction of the boy's fur. She reached over and grabbed the hose and put it on a low setting. With one hand, she worked the sponge and soap through the oil, and with the other, she used the water to loosen the oil from the hair. The unicorn stamped its foot and she threw the sponge aside, picking up a curry brush and working the oil out with that. Jake had the soap covered.

At his words, she said, "Yeah, our hallways are terribly noisy. The poor thing," she said. "Have you had to work with many unicorns? I lose tabs with the beast specialists. You guys are an endangered species of your own."

Jake worked as fast as he could to get the entire creature full of soap, so that the oil would not harden on the unicorn's fur. He was working at a good pace with getting the soap on it, watching it go from white to a dark gray nearly black color, as it soaked up the oil that was all over the creature. Even though it was a bad situation for the unicorn, this was one of the things he loved doing the most. He always liked to clean off any creature that needed it. Doing this now, kind of reminded him of when he was a little boy.

He nodded and sighed. "Maybe we should try to work on having it a bit quieter when we have a creature being brought in." he said softly. "That way they won't get that startled." he added. He chuckled softly and nodded again."Yeah, at least I know I have. I've spent most of my time working with unicorns and dragons, and sometimes werewolves." he told her softly. "I'm not sure what the others are taking more of an interest in." he added.

Jack nodded. "We need carpeting instead of tiling for sure. The rebounding noise of hooves is rotten for a headache and it startles the creatures." The soap covered the creature now, and dragging the curry comb through was getting the oil off the fur, and then the water sprayed it onto the floor. The unicorn was turning from black to grey as they worked.

At his words, she grinned. "Sounds close to mine. I sort of have to deal with all kinds, but I mostly focus on werewolves, dragons, and spectral beings." It was easier saying spectral beings since there were only two poltergeists around presently- Peeves and Vito. And no one ever had reports of Peeves killing anyway. "Hey, he's looking good! Aren't you, pal?" she combed through the small beard under the unicorn's chin.

"Yes. That we do." Jake nodded. He smiled at the change of color in the unicorn's fur and he sighed. That was good, soon it would be back to its beautiful white color. He couldn't wait to see it when it was back to normal. "And it sure didn't help that it was running around with the oil all over it." he sighed. "That was even worse, since it's in a new place and there's something strange on it." he shook his head.

He lifted his head from the unicorn and looked at Jack. "I've never really encountered any spectral beings." he said. "Although, I think I'd like to see one." he shrugged slightly, before looking back down at the unicorn and smiling again. "Yeah. Soon enough, he'll be all clean and ready to go home" he said, and gently rubbed the side of the unicorn's neck.

Jack patted the unicorn's neck and said, "Yes, he has had quite a day today." She began working again, dipping under his legs into the creases to dislodge every bit of oil. This could have been done by magic, but the spell simply was not as thorough as human hands, and if any little oil hardened on the creature it could prove to be very hazardous to the unicorn.

At his words, she shook her head. "Trust me, you don't. Working with the spectrals is a thankless job. A unicorn can't thank you, per se, but you know you're doing right by it. You never can tell with spectrals." She worked down the unicorn's front right leg and sighed as her cleaning uncovered an open wound. "Doesn't look like he's leaving today. We have a small wound here."

Magic could be helpful in these types of cases, but that was the easy way out, and sometimes the easy way didn't work very well. Working by hand was the better way, harder of course, but to see that the creature was thoroughly checked over by them, using their own hands was the best way to make sure nothing was left on it. Besides, Jake was never really one to use magic to get through these kinds of things. He knew how to take care of animals the muggle way best, since he always used to do it that way when he was a little boy.

"Hm ..." he said pensively as he thought about what she'd just said. "They can be very dangerous sometimes, right?" he asked, still in thought. He continued to scrub the left side of the unicorn's body until Jack said there was a small wound on it. He leaned over to the side, taking the sponge off of the creature, to see how the wound was. "Damn. And it was going so well too." he sighed.