"This is what you get for letting every random spirit and talking animal into your parties. I used to tell my nephew, don't be so trusting. Don't believe everything everyone says. But did he listen? Of course not. And then he had to go and trust that heron spirit...."
As Ory's lecture droned on and on, Den curled up tighter on his caltrop rosette bed. He had a headache. A bad headache. And, to dose injury with insult, it didn't even come from a hangover after a night of glorious partying. No, it was the result of getting monologued at all evening every evening for the past two weeks by a megalomaniacal mage who couldn't wait to go camping in the Wilds.
The Wilds! Nothing good ever came out of the Wilds! No one good ever went into it either. It was the preserve of demons and newly awakened animals who didn't know better and demons and demons and more demons.
"Ory, I don't think you're helping," mumbled Paddy. She'd tossed her coils haphazardly over her own caltrop rosette bed and was all ready to drop off to sleep, as soon as Ory stopped talking.
"Yeah," seconded Sati, "it's not like he can turn back time and kick Rosie out of that first party. He's just gonna have to go through with it."
"Urgh," moaned Den. He pulled a leaf over his head and pressed it against his temples, but it didn't help the throbbing.
A rustle of caltrop leaves. From overhead, Ory's voice ordered, "Get some sleep. You're gonna need it for tomorrow."
"Urgh," repeated Den, which about summed up his thoughts on his life.
Back on the road at last! Perched on the seat of a wagon, reins in hand, Floridiana reveled in the freedom of travel. Her duties fell away, one after another, with each successive hoofbeat.
Clip.
No more having to get up every morning at a set time so she would be ready to start teaching at a set time.
Clop.
No more wrangling overenergetic small children into sitting quietly and learning their reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.
Clip.
No more grading quizzes and tests and wondering how her students could possibly get so many questions wrong.
Clop.
No more coming up with quizzes to reinforce lessons and tests to assess knowledge in the first place.
Clip.
No more wracking her brains over lesson plans that would keep the slowest learners from falling too far behind and the fastest learners from getting too bored.
Clop.
No more taskforce meetings.
Clip.
No more taskforce meetings.
Clop.
No more taskforce meetings!
Freedom!
Although, she had brought a fellow taskforce member with her.
Floridiana took her eyes off the bumpy dirt road just long enough to glance in the wagon bed. Wedged between a crock of pickled cabbage and a sack of rice was her fellow taskforce meeting escapee, the Dragon King of Caltrop Pond, a.k.a. King Densissimus Imber, a.k.a. Den. The dragon looked like he'd been up all night partying to celebrate this expedition. His head was pressed against the burlap sack, and every time the wagon jolted over a rock, he moaned.
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
