Cats Don't Make Good Brakes

Year 32: “Micheal Winmere, I am charged by Queen Valerie of the Court of Mages to collect you to stand trial for rape.”

Morgan inwardly winced at the jumbled mess of a declaration. It wasn't one he was used to making.

“I don't suppose,” Michael Wallace whispered to him, “that you knew he could change into a cougar?”

Morgan didn't waste his breath answering. Winmere intended to flee. His first shot missed. Morgan broke into a run.

Winmere ran into the center of town. An ocean of people split as he ran through, but the edges reclosed after he passed from people staring after him. Morgan ground to a near halt. Michael grabbed his brother's arm and ran up and across using the sides of the buildings as a running surface. Morgan flatly commented, “It would be a lot easier if I wasn't specifically told to bring him back alive.”

It was Michael's turn to be too busy to reply. He avoided signs, windows, flagpoles, and was occupied maintaining his speed and accuracy. Winmere's cat form turned ninety degrees away from them. Michael cursed in elven and German, then sprang away from the buildings and shot towards that alleyway.

The next three seconds were a jumble of one manifestation, deceleration trauma, failed dexterity checks, successful fort saves, several broken bones, two concussions, and a spell backlash. All three came out of it alive, more or less.

Michael regained consciousness lying in Morgan's cabin. He forced open his eyes and turned over to see Morgan lying next him. Morgan was wearing his pants and had a bandaged hand, an eyepatch, a brilliant purple bruise on his forehead, and stitches in his cheek. He checked himself and realized that he, too, had stitches and a sizeable bruise on his face. His legs and arms hurt as if they were all sprained. When he sat up, pain exploded in his head. His groan of agony awoke Morgan.

Morgan quietly said, “I apologize for my reflexive reaction, but it was that or someone was going to die.”

Michael eased himself back down to prone and asked, “What happened?”

“When you shot off the building at around thirty-five miles per hour, M. Winmere was waiting to pounce us. At our speed, his fangs and claws would have been several inches into one or both of us. So, I put a shield in front of us. It formed around my arm. I yanked back on you as best I could, but did not realize that would cause us to carom off a wall and into another. Winmere's head met my shield at thirty miles per hour, breaking my wrist and cracking his face . Our meeting with the walls caused both our faces to bounce off causing contusions, abrasions, and a bruised eyeball. Our speed also swept him into a wall at the end of the alley, giving him a concussion on top of the fracture. Neither of you were conscious afterwards. Valerie expended a lot of healing to put your legs and arms back together. She has decided not to fix her brother's burst eyeball, as an object lesson. She wondered if my life has ever suffered from boredom.”

Michael rolled over singing, “You may have been a headache, but you've never been a bore....”