Emily wishes that she could just squeeze her eyes shut, breathe against the pain, and ride this out until it’s over and she’s out of Blue’s grasp. But as she watches Blue sprint into the busy camp full of tents, supplies, and easily-hurt people, she knows that she has to act fast. As for what exactly she’s supposed to do, Emily doesn’t have a clue.

  But that’s nothing out of the ordinary for her, these days. She’s slowly getting better at just winging it.

  Frantically, she looks around herself, trying to find anything that could actually help her wing it. Surprised soldiers all around her halt what they’re doing and watch as the mage and her out-of-control ostrich barrels past them and down the narrow, orderly rows between the tents. Blue’s legs are still a frantic blur beneath Emily, and there’s no hope of him tiring himself out before he hurts anyone.

  Unfortunately, Emily doesn’t spot anything that could realistically stop Blue without harming him or her within easy reach. She does, double unfortunately however, spot something that could definitely stop them with great harm:

  A pile of crates being stacked by two very surprised, burly men.

  Emily feels her heart jump in her chest as she screams at the men to move out of the way, watching with some relief as they drop the crate that they were carrying and dive out of the way. Which thankfully gets rid of one obstacle, but what the hell is Blue going to do about –

  Emily feels a sharp impact run up Blue’s legs and into her body as he steps heavily onto the first crate, followed by the second and third and fourth. Running up them with the ease of climbing stairs, Blue reaches the top of the stack in no time, before leaping off of it and into the air without a second’s hesitation.

  Emily screams as she feels gravity abandon her for a moment, Blue’s angle slightly off and pointed directly towards the side of a large tent held in place by thick, sturdy poles painted a garish gold. Gravity reasserts its hold on them once again, and they begin to fall straight towards it.

  Emily squeezes her eyes shut and buries herself in Blue’s feathers, clinging tightly to him for comfort. She feels an impact run up Blue’s legs, followed by the sound of tearing. But the expected feeling of ricocheting off of the tent never comes, and instead, they continue to fall right through it, the tight canvas passing by Emily painfully and forcing her eyes open just in time to see Blue crash heavily into a tall table, smashing the contents held on its surface into tiny porcelain bits and scattering the liquid held within against all of the guests standing around it.

  “What the –?”

  “Who dares to–!”

  “Run!”

  “Monster! Monster in the –!”

  They recoil in shock and fear, some of them pulling out their swords while the smarter ones dove out of the way, as the table collapsed under the sheer force of their landing. The legs jettison out from underneath it, bringing the entire thing crashing down onto the ground in a puff of dust and wood splinters. Blue loses his footing for a moment, his talons scrambling against the wood and gouging deep marks into it, before his body tilts heavily to the right and his long neck flails around, trying to keep himself upright.

  He falls into the canvas tent once again, his razor-sharp beak piercing right through the canvas and creating a hole that widens as his entire weight follows swiftly behind himself. As he falls, he forces himself through that hole, popping out on the other side with his balance intact and his motivation to move it reinforced once again. He grasps Emily even tighter and takes off down the narrow pathways once again, swiftly getting back to his full speed and knocking over a poor, unlucky messenger as he does so.

  “Blue! Stop! I’m gonna… I’m gonna be siiick!”

  But Emily’s cries fall on deaf ears, as the ostrich’s wide eyes and dilated pupils keep looking ahead of it, with no signs of stopping or slowing down. Emily tries to reach up for that panicked face, hoping to snap him out of it or at least control where their mad dash takes them, but just barely can’t reach it. She stretches her arm out as far as it can go, her fingers outstretched but barely not able to reach.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She sees movement out of the corner of her eyes, and she turns her head in panic, watching as a group of soldiers carrying spears and shields forms a wall at the end of the pathway. They interlock their shields together and point the business end of their spears towards Emily and Blue, their faces set and their stances widened, ready to receive the full might of Blue’s charge against their spears.

  Emily watches this happen with a surprised look on her face. Don’t they know that she’s here?!

  “Stop! Just get out of the way!” she screams at them, but their faces remain set and their spears remain lowered.

  Emily tries to prime her mana in an attempt to do something, watching as the magic slowly glows brighter and brighter - too slowly - until something long, thin and brown whips out of nowhere and smacks Emily painfully in the eye.

  She grasps it in her hands and pulls it away from her face as tears fall down her cheeks, her eye squeezed shut against the pain. In anger, she pulls her arm back, about to fling it away from her, until the rough and hempen feeling of the thing registers in her mind and she realizes just what smacked her so painfully.

  The rope!

  Thinking quickly, Emily pulls up the rope as quickly as she could until it goes taut in her hands. Leaning to the left, she tugs on it as hard as she can, putting all of her weight behind it…

  And slowly, ever so slowly, Blue’s head tilts to the left, shifting his mad dash away from the line of soldiers just waiting to turn them into an ostrich spit roast.

  Instead, smashing them directly into the line of tents on their left, painfully ripping pegs out of the earth and collapsing poles with their weight.

  Blue manages to barrel bodily through the first one, popping out on the other side and smashing into the next one pressed up against it. The second one takes most of the fight out of the ostrich, collapsing underneath his legs but not without a fight. His legs high-kick through the grippy canvas as his talons tear through the material and get caught in their web, dragging him down with each step.

  By the time he gets to the third tent, the ostrich is panting and wheezing for breath, his legs lifting and lowering with great effort as he takes each step after the next. He manages to make it all the way to the side of the tent before he drops Emily painfully against the canvassed ground, the breath getting knocked out of her as six rivulets of blood start to leak from the unclogged holes in her sides.

  Blue takes one last step, then another, determined to escape from this thing that’s trying its hardest to hold him back, before he collapses forwards in exhaustion, the tip of his beak touching against the third tent and tearing a long line straight down its surface, exposing the inside for all to see.

  Emily takes a deep breath as she collapses on her back, willing her racing heart to still as the world spins around her. She takes another deep breath as she hears the frantic sound of boots hitting the earth approach her, and the feeling of nausea in her stomach rises and rises.

  On her next deep breath, Emily loses the fight, rolling onto her side and throwing up before collapsing. She closes her eyes and feels the world spin faster and faster around her, and she places a hand against the ground in an attempt to steady herself.

  Faintly, she hears a pair of boots approach her, unhurried and without a care. It stops in front of her face, narrowly missing stepping on the mess Emily made in the canvas.

  “Well, well. What do we have here?” a deep voice says, in a smooth and almost amused tone. “I can’t wait to hear this story.”

  Emily tries to open her eyes and get an idea of what she’s dealing with, finding that the world has calmed down just enough for her to see. She spots a tall and gangly man standing in front of her, his black boots polished to a sheen and his scout’s uniform crisp and laden with medals and gold embellishments.

  Unsure of what to do to get out of this situation, Emily decides to just wing it and use her cunning wits and cutting charm to get out of it.

  She also starts preparing her mana, for when the inevitable happens.

  “Archmage Emily, reporting for duty.” She says, her voice coming out more slurred than she expected.

  The man gazes down at Emily with an amused twinkle in his eyes, his arms crossed behind his back.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Great, looks like it’s on to plan B.

  Not wanting to give her enemy another moment to act, she points her glowing hand directly towards his face, ready to blast –

  – Until suddenly, a furious screech breaks the moment, and the canvas next to Emily shifts and bucks and tears, as Blue slices his way through his prison and inches ever closer to freedom.

  on time, on Wednesday!