Whispers From My Muse: The Archmage and the Unicorn

"Telepathy?"

*Telepathy* came the confirmation in my mind.  *Now remove your hands from my muzzle before ke bandi fastinicly ...*

And then I stopped hearing him completely as I mentally threw up steel walls and everything else I had available to keep the unicorn I had my hands around from digging around in my head.  As he pulled himself free of my hands, which wasn't hard to do, he started to snap at me and I reacted.  Large animal, needle sharp horn, the safest place I could think of other than bugging out completely was onto its back, which is where I teleported before he could turn me into shish-ka-bob.

"Ok, you bastard, I've had enough of ..." and I grabbed hold as best I could as he took off at a dead run.  I let out one hell of a yell, half in anger, half based on the memory of what had happened the only other time I'd been on the back of a horse.  When I managed to get a look at where we were headed, I knew this ride was going to end the same way if I didn't do something because we were headed for the trees at the edge of the meadow.

"No fucking way" I muttered to myself and as I sang to myself my defense field snapped into existance around me, moulding itself to the unicorn's back.  It took him a couple of seconds before he found what he was looking for, and I watched as a tree with a branch just a bit higher than his back was came into view ahead of us.  We hit it at a full gallop and both of us were surprised when the limb exploded from the impact with my defense field.  I felt him stagger, then he turned and continued on towards an even larger tree at an angle.  I might not be swept off his back as easily as he thought, but he obviously intended to see just how big an impact my defense field could take before it lost it's hold on him.

I didn't intend to find out.

"Ok, my turn" I yelled and I began to sing again.  The defense field transformed itself into the normally tightly fitting flight field that I used to fly with and then I expanded it to include the unicorn I was still clinging to.  "You want to play games?  Ok, try this one!" I yelled into his ear as I tightened my grip around his neck.  Looking up into the sky above us, I waited for his next step and then I pulled both of us into the air.

It was his turn to yell.

God only knows what it looked like from the park, probably like some kind of missle launch.  I did manage to get a glance behind us long enough to see people pointing up at us and I saw the meadow shimmer oddly and return to its normal size once we were clear of it.  At about 50,000 feet I leveled us off and lowered my mental shields ever so slightly.

*Ok, either I find out why the hell you're stalking me or I find out if you can fly*

*Both, actually*

It barely had time to sink in before I got caught square on the chin by his head as he snapped it backwards.  The blow stunned me just long enough for me to loose my grip on him and throw me off his back.  My flight field kept me from falling, but to my surprise, when I recovered, I didn't see him falling to the ground below me.  Instead, he was floating in the air in front of me.

*Humans don't have a monopoly on being Mages*

I looked from him, to the ground, and back into his eyes.

*Never get on my back without permission*

*Never dig around in my head without permission* I snapped back.