Wild Card 20

This snippet is no longer canon, although it's being saved for possible reassembly into a future scene.

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We're only two days out of Demos when I feel a sickening sensation around mid day; a nauseous tugging at my soul that feels like it's prodding at my strictures - specifically, the one to protect Sparhawk. For a few minutes it feels like I'm teetering on the edge of a wire, and to fall to either side would invite a nameless dread, an unknowable disaster, and all I can do within Vanion's pocket is shake. Then, the tugging eases, and I catch a full lungful of air, which as a mouse, is both rapid and fairly negligible. I squirm my way to the lip of the pocket and look up.

The perspective of a mounted human from this size is... daunting. A towering presence, overwhelmingly powerful, and with the stink of sweat, horse, and chainmail, more than a little malodorous. My claws find purchase on his surcoat, and I reach out with one mouse paw to scratch at his mail ineffectually, attempting to get his attention. Outside of the pocket, and now braced directly against his form instead of within a cushioned pocket insulated from the outside, I can hear the thunderous noise of his horse's hooves pounding against the road with each step, and feel the same in my bones through my limbs. I squeak in frustration, peering up at him as he rides on oblivious.

I scurry up his surcoat, the swaying motion and hammering hoofbeats making me sincerely grateful for the additional purchase the chainmail gives my mouse claws. The road isn't so even as I'd like for this maneuver; I'm forced at one point to cling tenaciously to the cloth and mail with all four paws' claws, my tail winding around the strap of his satchel. I screech up at him with all the miniscule volume and might I can muster. He glances down and swears, swatting at me and only missing because I scramble panicked to the side. Rather than hide like a normal mouse, though, I squeak at him again as I clambor from my tenuous hold up to the front of his shoulder, shielded from sight of the rest of his entourage.

Realization crosses his face, and he scowls at me. His voice is a voluminous rumble as he glares at me, only paying token attention to the road ahead of us. "What are you doing? Are you [i]trying[/i] to be seen?"

While I may not be able to speak a human language, my spellcasting is uninhibited by my diminutive paws and inability to speak normally. I use Prestidigitation to scrawl glowing writing in the air. 'Sparhawk danger'

Vanion curses again, this time more vehemently. "What kind of danger?" he demanded.

'Unsure' I wrote, then, 'felt stricture'. I wait long enough for him to finish reading before I add, 'must protect him'.

He gets my gist immediately. "You're leaving us, then? Going to Sparhawk?"

'Yes' I respond. 'I have to'.

"Is your magic developed to the point that you could heal the Queen?" he asks.

'Should be able' I write. 'If not now' 'Then never could'

He doesn't take much time to deliberate it. "Stay alive, and rescue Sparhawk. And I recommend something larger and more formidable; it'd do nobody any good, least of all yourself, to get eaten."

I don't bother to write more, I simply nod, then change into a dragonfly. Vanion curses and swipes me off as a reflex, and I don't quite decipher the information coming from my newly compound eyes to fast enough to dodge it. I'd never have pegged him to have a fear of bugs. It takes me a second or so of tumbling to figure out the wings, which are startlingly intuitive; I suppose it only stands to reason, though, that the wings would be more structural than mental to control for flight. Insects don't tend to have a whole lot of room for brains.

Which begs the question: where is my mind being housed now? Can't be in the bug brain, as despite what many have said about me, even what passes for my intellect is too large to be housed in this.

Questions to ponder later. I focus on the ever-present sensation of the direction towards Sparhawk - East North East or so - cast Longstrider and Haste, and I am off like a shot. I reach the woodline before I change into something bigger and quadrupedal, and decidedly higher on the food chain: a Siberian Husky with short fur.

Then, periodically refreshing Longstrider and Haste, I begin to run.

The next two and a half days are the longest week of my life - literally a week, in that I find out that while hasted, I don't gain extra stamina. From my perspective, each day is about two and a half long, and while I have Vigor, it only goes so far. I run through rain that falls at a crawl, avoiding people if I see them. Farmland becomes more and more meager, and the people working those farms grubbier and hungrier looking. All the while, my internal clock passes by the casting of Haste, of Longstrider, of Vigor. Vigor becomes less and less effective, my limbs heavier and more sluggish, until at the end of the first day, as the sun sinks below the horizon behind me, I'm barely able to maintain a jog. The pads of my feet hurt, my head buzzing from the constant casting and the sheer amount of time I've been awake, and instead of the Hideaway spell I intended to cast I find myself casting Farstrider. I shake my muzzy head, ears flapping against my cheeks, and carefully cast Hideaway, then follow it with a Goodberry, which I wolf down without tasting. I don't remember laying my head down on my paws.

I regain my senses doused in pain, the impulse to reach Sparhawk jerking me awake. Every muscle screams its protests, my joints throb, and my head pounds. But I can't stop here. I exit my hideaway at a hobble, cast Haste and Farstrider, and set off at a slow trot. The pain eases but doesn't subside, but easing is enough for me to get back up to a run, if not quite so quickly as I ran yesterday. The combination of Haste and Farstrider lets me eat up the miles even over the rolling terrain until I come to my first real obstacle: a river. My sense of Sparhawk tells me he's somewhere on the opposite side of this river, so I change into a dragonfly, dart over the waters - and jink rapidly to the side as something large and silvery leaps out of the water at me.

Holy shit. That was a fish. I nearly just got eaten by a fish. If I was slower I'd have been caught but with my layered enchantments for speed I'm just a little too quick for the thing, and as I turn back into a short haired husky I'm sorely tempted to return the favor. But the need to reach Sparhawk hammers at me, and I start running again.

The terrain beyond the river is even worse than the rolling, mostly barren landscape and shallow hills behind me, as the rain becomes more constant, the drizzle soaking my fur and making me regret having made myself short haired. The land becomes a more or less indistinguishably constant field of mud and rocks that hide in the mud, catching paws and toe nails and aking me stumble more than once as I try to maintain my speed through the mire. My progress is slowed because of it, and I make an attempt around mid morning to fly over it as a hawk, but the chill of the rain is far worse as a bird, and when it starts to sleet I return to the ground. The sleet intensifies, and for a half hour, I'm forced to adopt the shape of a shaggy cave bear just to hold up under it. When it finally lets up, the mud is chilled, and unmelted sleet pellets are mixed in with the thinned out mud that's as slick as grease and entirely impossible to make meaningful progress for a cave bear, but as it turns out, merely miserable for a Siberian husky. By the end of the second day, I'm bone weary, aching in ways that have nothing to do with mere exhaustion and muscle fatigue, and only the nagging insistence of the compass in my mind - and, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, the desperate desire to not lose any of the power of my spells - pushing me forward.

And then, less than a half hour (by my experience) after I get moving the next morning, I find a road.

I could almost cry with relief at the relatively flat terrain, worn horse-and-wagon tracks. Compared to rolling, muddy fields with scrub and tall grasses hiding gopher holes and sharp rocks, this was a welcome reprieve. Not as much as finally finding Sparhawk and company and therefore the end to this long trek, but mendicants can't be choosicants - nor choosy cunts.

I can feel the situation is dire; Sparhawk's peril nearly screams at me. I force myself forward, barely giving myself time to heal my bleeding paws when I pull free a thorn from my pad that's as long as one of my human fingers. My vision is blurry and my exhaustion unrelenting but I can't stop now. Have to keep moving. Have to help Sparhawk.

By evening of the third day I'm passing a city, one with a lot of active guards and soldiery moving about. I almost don't care anymore; I'm at the edge of my endurance and my determination. But the path of least resistance is the path of least conflict, and I wearily leave the road. This does mean I'm forced to slower movement so I'm not sending up a beacon of torn up vegetation in my wake. Attracting attention like that this close to a city on obvious alert doesn't appeal to me. I'm regretting not practicing flight before now, especially not in something other than a dragonfly, because my currently canine ears are picking up a faint cacophony of bats above me. I might be fast when I'm at my best but bats are predators evolved specifically to nullify and overwhelm the advantages of any insects so foolish or desperate as to share their skies when the bats come out to feed.

The scrub and vegetation limits my options only slightly less than it helps me stay hidden; I can't get very clear line of sight for teleportation beyond a dozen or so feet, which isn't really far enough to justify the time it takes to cast the spell. In a few hours, darkness will probably improve my ability to keep hidden, but even at the pace I'm making I'll be out of reach of the city by the time the darkness is a factor.

My mental narrative screeches to a halt as I hear the sound of dogs drawing near. A team of them, similiar sounding to one another. The only reason I can think for something like that is a pack of dogs trained for tracking, and suddenly I'm a lot more concerned about being this close to the city. Is this related to Sparhawk? I can't even guess at this point. My mind is just refusing to process anything more complicated than the basics.

Move. Hide. Evade.

Find Sparhawk.

Haste falters; I try to recast it but my fumbling paws can't make the gestures. I feel a surge of panic as I reach for some kind of reserves, something, anything, and adrenaline lets me get the spell off as I throw caution to the winds. Recklessly, I begin to sprint, noting dimly that I can't be far now because the beacon in my head is shifting slightly, to the North. Shouts ring out behind me and something buzzes spitefully as it whirs past my head but then I'm gone, panic driving me faster than the searchers or their dogs can pursue. I'm riding the high of adrenaline now, and as I crest a small knoll I manage to teleport to another, then most of the distance towards a third. But the adrenaline is starting to fade, now, and my tongue in my canine mouth is leaden and numb. I'm stuck now with what magics I don't actually need to speak or form gestures, but I don't care. I'm close. I can feel the beacon of Sparhawk in motion, and I charge stumblingly towards a copse of young growth trees.

It's careless. It's reckless. But the only thought left in me is to go, to go, to get to Sparhawk. As I staggeringly charge into the small clearing in the trees, I have just enough time to register four large men in mud spattered armor. A fifth nearby seizes up an axe and swings it in a single motion far, far faster than I can adequately dodge in my depleted, exhausted state. There is a burning sensation and a simultaneous chill that slashes down my ribs and across my belly; a sensation of wrongness accompanies a gut-wrenching agony.

As I skid I notice what looks like gory purple ropes trailing behind me as I tumble in the muddy earth. No time. My belly won't drag my hind legs beneath me so I scrabble forward with my forepaws, my shapeshifting bringing me back to my human form as I skid to a halt. A woman yelps and a shrill fluting accompanies it but my sight is narrowing. My hands are clumsy, wooden things at the ends of my arms as I fumblingly drag the emergency bottle I made of Witch's Brew but the pain is receding and I dimly have the sense of the bottle slipping from fingers that respond no more.

The pain is gone. The last light of the sunset is gone too, and I'm surrounded by cottony, silent darkness. I barely notice as the flickering flame of my awareness goes out.