A Pooka Problem: Part I

The Pooka reflected later, as he stood harnessed in bit and bridle and tied to one of the corral posts, that perhaps the humans were taking his little pranking spree a little more seriously than he did.

It was his nature, that was all. A little mischief here, a bit of mayhem there… Immortality tended to be very dull unless one made an effort to entertain oneself.

How much harm was it to stir up the livestock once in a while? Those fat show-ponies needed exercise anyway, or they’d be too round to fit through the barn doors, and who cared if the cattle spooked a bit? A few broken fences and some trampled crops, and one would think he had burned down a temple to the Thirteen Gods, the way people reacted.

High strung, that’s what they were. No sense of humor. Couldn’t take a joke.

Kolrantin would fit in perfectly here.

He had not given the humans enough credit this time around. Usually they were so slow and stupid that they only realized something was happening after he had come and gone and the goats were already halfway through demolishing the vegetable garden. This time, though…

The first night, he had loosed the horses from the livery stable and taken them for a healthy run through the surrounding woods. They would all come home (eventually) and probably feel worlds better for the exercise.

The second night, he had herded the pigs into the winehall. That had been a fun night. He had not known pigs could get drunk, much less that they were such lively drunks. Oh, he wished he had been able to stick around to see the people’s faces after that one…

But the third night, he had miscalculated.

It was going to be his grand finale, the last big bang before he set off for the next town in need of his services. Seeing as Bydwin was a cattle town, it seemed only fitting that he let the cattle have a tour of the place. It simply wasn’t fair that they be stuck on the outskirts in those nasty crowded pens, was it?

He had not thought that there would be a mavin in town who knew enough of the Arts to bind a scion, much less that such a mavin would be one of the cowhands camped on the city outskirts.

The Pooka had ghosted toward the first of the cattle pens, prepared to work his own special talent upon the latches and to call the cows to stampede… and he had awoken the next morning, stiff, cold, and aching, with a leather bridle upon his head and a bit within his mouth.

To add insult to injury, the bit was made of black iron – not the brittle stuff humans normally used in their smithing, but black iron, the horrible, icy kind that bound magic, – and the fierce burn of it against his mouth and tongue continued unabated even now, three days after his initial capture. He wondered if he would ever get free with his tongue intact. There were scions who bore scars from black iron even hundreds of years afterwards. The Pooka was among the eldest of the scions, but still… How embarassing, to have a scar across the top of one’s tongue.

His brethren would say he used that particular appendage too much anyway.

The massive black horse jerked his head once more against the rope that secured the bridle to the corral post. There was a faint hope within him that some time the rope would snap, and he would be free to escape, inasmuch as a spirit could escape without use of his magic. Travel through the Mists would be impossible with that infernal bit in his mouth, as would shifting himself through the shadow-plane. That would mean walking. Lots of walking.

The Pooka hated walking.

Yet another group of wide-eyed children clamored over to stare at him between the corral slats. They giggled and whispered, and one particularly enterprising young boy started pelting the scion’s flanks with tiny clods of dirt. The Pooka shifted as far away as the rope allowed, but the boy merely repositioned himself closer and resumed his play. The Pooka twitched with every stinging impact, his ears pinned back against his head, and he growled as no mortal horse was able, a deep, gravelly rumble, as he bared long, yellowed teeth.

“Hey, now! You kids get away from there!”

The Pooka’s head jerked up in surprise at the sudden shout. A woman ran toward the corral, skirts bunched up in one hand, eyes wide.

“Get away! Go home! Leave him alone, do you hear me? Tommy, Bettany, Leelas, I said go home!”

The children scattered, shrieking and cackling like a flock of magpies, but not before the boy threw one last dirt clod at the Pooka’s hindquarters.

“Tommy Fargus, I saw that!”

Running still, the woman plucked something from a pouch upon her belt and held it before her. The tiny object flared white, and a flicker of that light leapt forward and snapped across the child’s backside like a thread-thin whip. The boy yelped, clutching his rear, and fled.

The woman stumbled to a halt at the fence, puffing and red-cheeked, her once-neat braid in disarray. She watched with narrowed eyes as the children disappeared behind the general store, and she merely stood for a long moment, drawing deep breaths and glowering.

“Qui-hi-hite a show,” whickered the Pooka, his voice thick around the metal bit. The woman jumped and turned wide eyes upon him.

He noted the tiny bubbles of amber within her green irises with interest.

“My Lord,” she said, still breathless. “My Lord Pooka, what are you doing here?”

He tilted his head, dropped one ear to the side, and fixed her with a thoroughly disgusted look.

“What do you thi-hi-hink?”

To Be Continued…