The Wild Unicorns of Emuna

Unicorns challenge pegasi as symbols of equine excellence. While clearly unable to fly, they are tireless and sturdy, less fussy in their habits, and smarter. In a way, they are even too smart.
Unicorns are magical beasts gifted with telepathic abilities. Their herds roam in the underdeveloped grasslands and unkept pastures, and their mental capabilities make them move with the dazzling coordination of a flock of starlings (and, in fact, sometimes the term “murmuration” is used for both).
The herds are sex-segregated, with females and males meeting during the mating season in spring. The mating rituals are a spectacle, with stylized combats between males, exquisite dressage-like displays of the females, and elaborate, almost romantic, “dances” between the stallions and mares who found each other. This elaborate courtship is one of the factors why Unicorns are unbreedable in captivity: how could such “ceremonies” be accomplished anywhere but in an open field?
The other factor is the unicorns’ love for freedom: confinement in a stable or a corral makes them apathetic and unwilling to feed themselves, just letting themselves die of starvation. If other unicorns know that one of their kind is kept prisoner, they will jailbreak them. The horses will first surround the farm, menacingly. If the farmer doesn’t “release” their mate, they will start bullying him, damaging what the captor deems valuable. As a last resort, the leader of the murmuration will impose their will on a person, telepathically coercing them to open the gates of the stable.
Unicorns rarely use their ability to subjugate people’s minds because it can backfire: strong-willed people can overpower the unicorn and take control of them.

The chance of getting control of a Unicorn has always been too tempting for the horse-obsessed people of the Angelic Unison: having a mount that is an extension of oneself is the dream of any rider. The Emuna’s Drovers are among the few that can catch a unicorn, being able to mask their intention with the enchanting whistling of their lassos. Once a horse is separated from the herd and cornered, it is not too hard to restrain and confine to a stable, problems come afterward.
Taming a Unicorn is a battle of willpower, with the beast and the human trying to dominate each other in what, to the uninitiated spectator, looks like a staring contest.
A taming lasts a couple of days at most: by that time, a victor emerge, or the unicorn’s companions come to free the captive. The unicorns usually win, and in that case, after a night of mental confrontation, the wannabe rider may emerge from the stable on all fours, chomping grass and neighing. Other times, even if the rider imposes themself, the concentration needed is extensive and continuous, resulting in an obsessive and neurotic attachment to the horse.
But, during the centuries, it appeared clear what are the best riders for the unicorns: the youngs. There have been various occurrences of kids befriending the unicorns, and even joining a murmuration for a while, running on the horses for weeks, or sometimes forever.
Apparently, the youth’s open-minded naivety and energic enthusiasm (or maybe stupidity and impulsiveness), resonate with the unicorns and can be the base for developing an even relationship, almost a symbiosis.
Unicorn mares tend to be friendly with the boys and are more likely to “abduct” the kids, taking them with them in their roaming. Most of the time these escapades don’t last past autumn, since the unicorn mares understand the winter’s difficulties, but there have been cases (not so rare as one may think) in which the mares kept a boy for years returning him as a young adult, partially reversed to a feral state, forever trapped in a state of delight and confusion.

Male unicorns are more inclined towards the girls, leaving their herds for a bit to stay with their “friend”. The “friendship” between a girl and a unicorn is seen as a testament to the young woman’s character, clearly someone honest and pure of heart, yet strong-willed and independent.
Emuna’s clerical hierarchies, from bishops to the hierophant himself, look for unicorn riders to employ them as their agents, especially in diplomatic assignments. The Unicorn Knights are like a symbol of the population’s good nature and a way to impress and show off to other priestly courts. The Unicorn and the girls accept in part for the money and prestige but also for the chance to see the world, sent out as ambassadors in faraway lands.
The Unicorn kights, while invested in all the paraphernalia of knighthood are, more often than not, thrown into the role without real training.
Firstly, the temperament of the unicorns and their chosen is not well suited for military discipline: they are creatures of freedom after all.
Secondly, the bond between a girl and a unicorn has an expiration date, unknown and possibly far away, but ultimately unavoidable: the horse and the rider will inevitably go out of synch, maybe due to the girl changing personality in their growth or just the animal getting old.
To put them to good use for as much time as possible, Unicorn Knights take missions as soon as they are found and invested. When possible they are flanked by a mentor, but sometimes they have just to learn on the job.
Thankfully for them, very few want to engage with the Unicorn Knights, their fearsome swords, full armor, and formidable mount will dissuade almost anyone. The bond with the unicorn gifts the girls with empathic abilities, making them able to sense intentions and lies, another asset to avoid confrontations and to scare off the ill-intentioned.