Run! I needed to speed up if I wanted to make the jump. This was more than just keeping up, I had to run much faster than the horse’s slow trot so as to overtake it. Thank whatever god may be listening that it was close enough, and slow enough, for me to accomplish this with a short burst. After I got on and started to ride would be much less tiresome than all this running.
My lungs started to burn once more, I was running with such ferocity I could hear the pitter-patter of my feet against the ground even over that horrid clomping noise of the stallion. I could even hear the wind in my ears and feel it across my face.
Run … LEAP! I coiled my hind legs at the last possible second, kicked the ground with intense force, and held my arms high above my head and in front of my chest as I sailed through the air at two feet off the ground. I’ll say one thing for this new mouse body, it could jump! Inches away from grabbing those long, stringy hairs of the horse’s tail, it swung to the side and flew high above my head. My arms grabbed nothing, I panicked.
Twisting around in midair, I tried to grab it a second time around, but such miniscule arms could not possibly close that distance. I fell, landed hard on my back, and curled up in both pain and preparation. The momentum was enough to carry me forward after I hit dirt, so rolling was preferable to flailing.
SMASH! The horse hadn’t even slowed down, the back of it’s hoof swung backward ever so slightly as it was walking. The hard hoof seemed to come out of nowhere, pain simply exploded into the back of my skull, fallowed closely by my nose, my chest, my spine, and my tail as I ricocheted off. The whiplash from switching directions so quickly and smashing into the ground unprepared wasn’t fun either.
I took a leisurely two seconds to cradle my aching skull. Took another lengthy second to make sure everything was still attached and no broken bones required a splint. Three full seconds, much too long in my opinion, to find the still trotting horse and orient in on it, then finally, finally ran after it to make another leap.
This time running was a heck of a lot harder, my legs seemed about ready to give way at any moment. It was hard to focus, hard to keep my eyes open, with such an annoying headache. My spine wasn’t handling the strain of all the flexing, bending, and bouncing that goes on in a mouse’s run as well as it had before. My body was constantly screaming at me to slow down, or stop. It said to pay attention to those wounds and make absolutely sure this sort of damage doesn’t repeat itself.
I was never very good at listening to things like that.
I neared the tail again, watched it twitch up high out of my reach to swat a fly, then fall back down … swinging. Dangling. I leapt! My paws outstret- … paws? No, hands! Think of them as hands moron. With my hands outstretched I gripped hair, I felt my full weight slump down as my arms now took the full force of that evil, evil gravity. My momentum carried me forward, the tail yielded, and it was like swinging on a vine.
I saw legs thicker than trees rushing past on either side of me, I saw the fat, round belly over my head, that light tan colored fur above and around me. Then the tail swung backwards, the warmth of such a large body was noticeably absent. Time seemed to slow as there was no longer constant movement, I saw the mildly unpleasant view of … yeah … this horse didn’t have any more cloths than I did. Not nearly as disgusting when your human sized than it is when your mouse sized. Any foul smelling orifice I can fit inside isn’t something I want to think about.
And then it was past. The tail had reached the end of it’s arch and started to swing back down between the two legs. Assured in the fact I had a firm grip, and a decent feel for the swinging tail, I began to climb. It was like rope climbing, but there was a lot more ropes than usual. And all of them were much thinner and stronger than any rope I’ve ever encountered.
My bruises felt as if now was the time to remind me of their existence ...
and …
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