Lutscintorb

by Mary Sue

Do Over

Pine needles fell onto Sparkler like hot embers, poking her with their pointed tips and getting stuck in her fur. She furrowed her brow, watching the small shower come down on her until it quietly ceased. A sharp pain impacted the back of her head, but she knew it wasn’t the swelling headache that followed her the past two days. She knew that issue had left her for the time being. But it would return, as it always had.

She groaned and sat up, wincing at her sore tail. She didn’t quite remember how that happened, but she decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. Instead she focused on the dampness clinging to the back of her head. She gently ran a hoof over the area and found the pink of her fur marred by a deeper, darker red.

She wiped the blood off in the dirt and after a moment of thought, looked around for her satchel. It had fallen just beyond the reach of her hooves, actually, and she awkwardly leaned over the grab it. It was still damp from the dunk in the river and was now covered in dirt and other debris. That pulled another frown from her, but again she ignored it to worry about the present. She plucked her notebook out of the satchel and tore out a bunch of blank pages, then folded them all together until they were one thick, flat bundle.

Then she unwound the bandage that had been stuck to her foreleg for the past couple of weeks. It was dry and tried to remain its shape as it slowly came undone, taking some hairs and scabs with it. As it got down to the last layer against skin, Sparkler tried to peel it slowly, but as the pain grew too much she quickly yanked the whole thing off. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sat there for a second to regain her composure.

This was her first look at the old wound. It looked like a sponge, but every pore was covered by a tiny scab the size of a pinprick. Tufts of fur poked through the mess. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have thought a drooling chimera had bitten her. But she could dwell more on it later. She took the folded up paper and pressed it against the wound on her head, then used the old bandage to tie it off.

“I hope this doesn’t get infected,” she muttered, returning the notebook to her satchel. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I probably look like a ninja who escaped from a psyche ward.”

Sparkler grimaced as she threw the dirty thing back over herself. Finally bothering to gather herself, she stood up and glanced around.

Thick pine trees and a dense screen of bushes and ferns didn’t let her see much. She stood in the middle of a forest, that much she gathered, hidden away by the shadows of the canopy. Chasms of light splintered into thin beams, spotlighting odd segments of the forest floor. Moss clung to several trunks and boulders, and even an overturned log that wasn’t too far away. The occasional chirping bird in the otherwise silent wood persuaded her she was, as with the Green Stretch, in the middle of nowhere. Again.

But she needed to make sure, still. She glanced up at the tree she fell out of and concentrated a spell, and the next second she found herself at its very top. The pine tree swayed with her weight, but held strongly enough to keep her still.

The sun was hidden behind an overcast sky. She wrapped as many legs as she could around this tree’s trunk and branches, and with another she produced her binoculars. And from here atop this perch, she was able to get a good lay of the land.

And she saw nothing but the tips of pine trees, stretching out in all directions and all across the horizon too. All except for one mound of rock in the far distance, perhaps five or so miles away. It just barely poked above the treeline. She rummaged again through her satchel for her compass, and discovered this rock was to the south.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve gone south,” she said to herself, carefully sliding her belongings back inside her satchel. Making sure it was secured to her person, she once again concentrated a spell.

But this time, she was more careful. She felt for the ethereal thread that linked her to some spot on that distant mound, a thread warped by the bonds of an infinitely compact mesh of similar magical wires. They all permeated the mana field, a dimension all their own, fraying off of everything in the world and reconnecting to all those loose strands. If one concentrated just enough, whether they were horned or not, they could surely feel the electrifying tingle of this field that connected themselves to the world.

It was kind of like gravity, in a sense. Teleportation was a lot like jumping, then. Sparkler just had to make sure that the wire she pulled on would lead her to where she wanted. And with all these other trees in the way, warping the mana field like gravity warps space and time, it was prudent she took her time with such a distance. Teleportation without forethought was as reckless as jumping into a void.

Every blind teleport she made just put greater emphasis on the ones she could see. To begin with, she didn’t want to end up embedded inside of a tree. She already dealt with that once before, and it wasn’t fun.

Finally, confident she was going where she wanted, she unloaded a powerful burst of magic and fell into and along the wire. Nearly instantaneously, she disappeared from the top of the pine tree and reappeared on top of a fat rock just over five miles away.

Comments

[Emotional Flight]

I probably look like a ninja who escaped from a psyche ward.

4chanmemeandmotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ninjas_-_there_are_four_of_them_in_this_picture.jpg?w=720

[Revan]

Well, things are going to be interesting, that's for certain.