This is the story of the magical unicorn who could fly.
Way, way up north near the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole, was a country called Greenland. It's very close to the North Pole and it's got snow everywhere. It's minus 30 degrees centigrade, very, very cold. It's so cold that if you take a glass of water and throw it in the air, by the time the water comes down it turns into snow. It is so cold there.
In this place, not too many human beings stayed, only very few. But there were a lot of ponies. These ponies had thick, thick skin. And then there were unicorns also. There were about 500 unicorns in this city.
You know what was the name of this city? The name of this city was Gamla Stan. Very special name, Gamla Stan. And inside Gamla Stan there was a smaller city called Slussen, and Slussen had only unicorns.
These unicorns were very special. They were big unicorns with a big horn in the front and they could run very fast. They had unicorn ears and they came in many colors: blue, red, green, rainbow, pink, and purple also.
And then there were some unicorns who could even fly. They were the really magical unicorns who could fly very fast.
Every year they used to have a race to see who is the fastest flying unicorn in the whole of Slussen. Greenland was close to the Arctic Circle up north.
So they used to race. The fastest flying unicorn was a unicorn whose name was Rivia. Rivia was the fastest flying unicorn. And there was another unicorn who could fly, but not as fast as Rivia. His name was Lightning.
So Lightning and Rivia were two very fast flying unicorns. Every year they used to race and Rivia used to win because Rivia used to practice a lot. For flying, you also have to practice, like if you run you have to practice. So every morning she used to get up and go fly. She would take a full loop in the air and come back. She would practice to fly fast and she would try to take a somersault in the air. She could even do a back lumbar in the air, and she could do a side shuffle in the air. She was a very, very good flying unicorn. She could do all these things.
Lightning Dash could not do so many things. He could just go up and come down. For the race, they had to race as well as do all these things.
So this time Lightning said, "I'm going to practice a lot and I'm going to beat Rivia."
Lightning and Rivia both practiced a lot. Lightning got up every morning, he ate properly. He did not eat any sugar because if you eat sugar you become fat and you can't fly fast. He ate green vegetables, bananas, fruits, and he practiced a lot and exercised every day. Rivia also practiced.
Finally, the race day came and both of them were racing. Rivia was one meter ahead of Lightning, and then Lightning was one meter ahead. They were constantly just going ahead of each other. They both had to do many loops in the air. Lightning had learned how to do them. Until the last part of the race, both of them were absolutely together with each other.
In the last leg, one minute before the race ended, Lightning overtook Rivia and beat Rivia. He was very happy he won the trophy.
Rivia was a bit disappointed but she was a very nice pony. She said, "Congratulations Lightning, it's good that you practiced. You trained harder than me and you won. I'm very happy for you. But next year I'll also practice even harder."
So they became very good friends. Rivia and Lightning became very good friends and they used to fly together all the time. Everybody used to see them flying and be very, very happy.
Then Rivia one day said, "Lightning, what is the point of us flying like this the whole day? We need to help people. How can we help people if we're just not doing anything?"
Lightning said, "You see what's happening is that it's become very, very cold in Gamla Stan and Slussen because it's been very cloudy. The sun cannot come out. None of us have seen the sun in many, many weeks and months because the clouds are covering the sun. Everybody's feeling even more cold and very depressed because they can't see the sun."
So Lightning said, "What can we do?"
Rivia said, "We can fly so fast, right? We'll both fly full speed and we'll go up in the sky and we'll push the clouds out so that the sun can come in."
So both of them went up and they circled the cloud. But the clouds are very, very light, you cannot push them. The moment you try to push them, your leg goes inside the cloud. So it's not easy to push them.
They said, "What can we do now?"
So they said, "What we're going to do is we'll take a big bed sheet. Both of us will hold the bed sheet."
So they went and took a big bed sheet. Both of them put it in their teeth and they went and covered the cloud with the bed sheet and slowly moved it away.
Suddenly the sunlight could reach Gamla Stan and it was nice and bright and sunny. Everybody could come out of the house and they cheered for these magical unicorns because they were very happy. Everybody clapped.
After this, both Rivia and Lightning, the magical flying unicorns, helped everybody. They used to go to different cities and wherever the sun was not coming down because of clouds, they would take the clouds out with a bed sheet. That's how they started helping people. And then they made bigger and bigger bed sheets so they could take out bigger and bigger clouds.
