“I was called forth to serve, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think for myself.” – Sam

As her master instructed, Sam watched the small shop. She didn’t always understand what was happening at the time, but from what he said, there was something going on in the city.

It was a magnificent city. Sam enjoyed looking at the large structures and different animals, but above all, the different kinds of peoples. There were humans, elves, and dwarves. Even half-breeds like the half-elves and half-orcs. There were others of similar heights, but they were rare. She was fascinated by the smaller folk, too. The halflings that looked much like miniature humans and the gnomes that looked like miniature elves.

They were her favorite, the gnomes. Most of them did magic, and Sam loved magic. They would shoot sparks out of their fingers, make strange noises, or create fancy illusions. She would clap for them, if she could. Master had taught her what clapping was, a common humanoid gesture to show appreciation or enthusiasm. She would neigh and stamp the ground since she couldn’t clap, but that typically caused people to give her strange looks.

Now, however, was no time for any of that. Master had given her a job to do, and she always did her job.

She watched the front door of the shop with vigilance. Many different peoples passed her, giving her no more than a glance.

After a few minutes, a human crossed the street and entered the apothecary. Master, someone entered the shop. A human, I think.

Thank you.

Sam continued watching. About a minute later, a cloaked humanoid opened the door and went into the small building. Another person walked in the front.

Keep watching, something may be going on.

Master clearly thought there was some plot ahoof, so she was determined to be ready for anything.

The minutes passed as nothing happened. Sam was used to standing all day without too much to do, so this was easy work. She often got wrapped up in her own thoughts.

For almost two years she had spent most of her time here, on the Material Plane as Master called it. He said she was from another plane, one he referred to as the Celestial Plane.

The two couldn’t be more different, in her opinion. For instance, it was much brighter there. It was also peaceful. There were no wars or conflicts, at least not for as far back as she could remember. Time may pass differently there, though. Sometimes Master sent her back, supposedly for days, but it would only seem like a few minutes to her.

While it was relaxing there, she often preferred the Material Plane. There was much more excitement! People, including Master, were always getting into some sort of trouble, and she enjoyed watching and being a part of that.

Movement at the door interrupted her thoughts. The second figure exited, but this time they looked down the street toward Sam. It looked like a female elf. Even from this distance, Sam could see the pointy ears and long hair. Master, there is one leaving out the front.

Follow them!

Sam started to trot, immediately feeling the jerk of the rope that was tied to the post. She turned back and pulled the rope as Master taught her. It unraveled with ease, then swayed lightly back and forth as she started her pursuit.

The elf was slow, compared to her, especially at a normal walking pace. It was an easy task to follow the humanoid.

The two-legger didn’t suspect a thing. Who would? She was just a horse strutting around.

Sometimes humanoids tried to lead her away when Master wasn’t next to her. She noticed when she was tied up to the hitching posts, she was often left alone, though. The only thing that could stop her from following the elf would be for someone to try and grab her. Sam knew that that would cause a scene, possibly drawing the elf’s attention, which was the last thing she wanted right now.

Left, right, straight, left again. The elf was zigzagging, but Sam couldn’t tell what the destination might be. She didn’t look back, though. Not once as she gracefully navigated the traffic. She had no idea that Sam was in hot pursuit. Master would be pleased to learn what the woman was up to.

Sam was not as graceful while trotting, but the two-leggers moved aside for her. She was getting the occasional odd look, being a horse waltzing through the street with no humanoid, but she paid no mind to the attention.

Though the horse didn’t notice, she was following the elf further and further southwest. This led to some of the poorer areas, but also where there were large warehouses for storage.

The traffic gradually changed from a sea of people with some carts around, to the opposite. Eventually, Sam found herself following the elf where there were only a few people walking about.

The elf went up to a warehouse, which was smaller compared to some of the others nearby. She turned around, looking to see if anyone was watching her.

The elf’s eyes skipped right over Sam. Sometimes she felt invisible and didn’t like it. This wasn’t one of those times. She trotted up to the large opening the elf had just passed through and poked her large head around the corner to look inside.

It was very dark. The sun outside made it hard to see into the warehouse. Though her eyes were better than a human’s in the darkness, they were hardly as good as some of the other two-leggers. She paused a few moments listening. Hearing nothing, she cantered quietly into the structure looking for the elf and to find out what was in the place.

As her eyes adjusted, she looked around. The room was almost three times her height, and lined with large wooden shelves. It looked like a horse could easily fit in each of the spaces, but there was nothing in any of the compartments.

“Well, how did it go?”

Sam heard a rather annoying voice, most likely a man.

“We will see,” replied a pleasant one.

The elf? Sam had to get closer to see. She carefully paced over to another opening across the large room.

“What do you mean, ‘We will see?’ You had one job to do!”

“I did more than one thing, you know.”

“Sure, sure. You know what I mean , what about the...”

“Shut it! Come on, I’m still working. On. It.” Her voice changed as she said the last three words.

It was quite odd. Sam felt like she heard people talk like that before, but couldn’t place it. She continued sneaking up to the entryway.

“Ah. Well, good luck, I suppose.”

“Thank you.”

The horse heard some shuffling from the next room, but no more discussion. It sounded like a couple people were moving around.

BANG!

Sam leapt forward, into the opening in front of her as she spun to face the sound. The elf was standing there, smirking as some smoke evaporated from her hands.

“Welcome to your new home.” The elf grabbed the handle of a large wooden door and slid it shut, locking it from the outside.

Master! I need help!

She scanned the room, but it was fairly small. She could turn around, but would not be able to get a running start.

Master!

There was no response. That was exceedingly rare. Even if he was asleep, he would wake up quickly to her calls.

Master?

She tried, repeatedly over the next hour, but she heard nothing. She wondered if Master had abandoned her, or if something else was going on.

Sam was confident Master would never leave her, so she waited.

-

Sam wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The room was dark, so there was no light of the twin stars to go by.

It was just light enough that she could make out the room, especially once she adjusted to the darkness.

The room was practically empty. Some hay lay in the corner and there was some kind of small wall that separated part of the room, though even she could walk around it. The barrier itself only came up to just below her shoulders.

A dim, flickering light emanated from under a standard door on the adjacent wall to the large sliding door she had come through.

That smaller door opened and the elf came in followed closely by a male human holding a lantern. “Nice work. Why did we have to wait again?” It was the annoying male voice Sam heard earlier.

The elf put her elbows up on the barrier, crossing her arms as she watched Sam. “Well, I figured she might be agitated and it would be good to let her calm down a while.”

“Ah, I suppose that makes sense. What do we do now?”

“Wait, I guess.”

“Ugh. I hate waiting!”

“I’m painfully well aware of that fact.”

“Mavechel said we wouldn’t have to do this very long!”

“Shh! Be careful what you say around her.”

“What? Why? It’s just a horse.”

“A particularly smart horse.”

“Smart horse. Smart dog. So what? That just means it follows orders well. Maybe not our orders… It’s not like the thing can think for itself other than ‘I want food’ or ‘I am going to s*** right here.’”

“Perhaps.”

“Why can’t we just kill it?”

“Our intel says that he can just bring her back.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, I don’t do Divine Magic.”

“So? Magic is magic, right?”

“Ha! No.” The elf paused for a moment, thinking. “I suppose yes and no. There is Divine Magic, like the type that brought forth this mount, and then Arcane Magic, like what I use. Scholars have talked about other forms, but I’ve never run into anything else.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Have you really never talked about this before? This is like… basic information many children learn.”

He shrugged. “Not really. Didn’t grow up around magic, so I never learned it.”

“Hmm. Well, Divine Magic is derived through faith; most commonly through the following of a deity, hence the name, ‘Divine.’ Arcane Magic is pretty much everything else, generally learned through study. Certain people, like Sorcerers, have an innate ability to do Arcane Magic, but they are much more restricted in their amount of different spells. That is uhh… brief synopsis. You could talk about the intricacies of it for well over a human’s lifetime and barely scratch the surface.”

“Huh. That’s pretty cool.” They both fell silent for a few seconds before he spoke up again. “So you are going to make me babysit this horribly smelling beast of burden? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. But I expect to be rewarded.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, you’ll get your coin.”

“Good.” The man looked at the horse, then back at the woman. “Gah! So boring!”

“It’s literally been five seconds since you stopped talking! Can’t you just shut up for a bit?”

He glared at the elf, “No.” He turned and stomped off through the door, complaining as he walked, “Can’t believe I get stuck on babysitting…” his voice trailed off as he slammed the door behind him, leaving the elf alone with Sam.

Sam considered spinning around and trying to give her a nice kick.

As if the elf could tell what she was thinking, “I wouldn’t try anything. I can restrain you painfully if you attack me.” The woman held up her hand, conjuring a small flaming rope before her eyes.

The horse backed up into the wall. Fire was painful and she didn’t want it to touch her.

“Now stay here and feel free to eat some hay. I’ll be back later. Don’t try anything, we’ll know if you do.” The elf released the flaming rope and retreated through the door she had come through, leaving Sam alone once again.

Master…

-

Hours passed. Maybe days. It was hard to tell for Sam. All she knew was that man was still behind the door, because she heard him talking. At first, she stood near to listen. After a few minutes, she grew annoyed, because the man was insufferable.

The normal door he was behind wasn’t very thick, Sam was confident she could break it down easily. The problem was, she couldn’t fit through it. The only way it seemed she would be leaving would be the sliding door.

She walked over again, inspecting the door for the hundredth time at least. There was no locking mechanism that she could see. The wood was also much stronger looking than the small door.

Sam experimented, not for the first time, trying to push it open from different angles. She tried gripping the edges of the frame with her mouth, but that wasn’t getting her anywhere. The efforts she was making were causing a decent amount of noise at this point.

The human opened the standard door, entering with the lantern once again. “Hey! What are you doing?”

Sam backed away, putting the barrier in between the man and her. She watched him, warily.

He walked up to the half wall, putting the lantern on top. The human folded his arms, placing them next to the light and then laid his chin on his hands. “Mind if we chat? I mean, I’m not doing anything and you’re not going anywhere...” He stared at her for a moment.

She contemplated making any response at all, but slowly lowered her head and raised it again.

He stood back up, “Wait, you understand me?”

Sam paused again, wondering if this was a good idea. She nodded once more.

“Cool! Where are you from?”

Not knowing how to answer that, Sam cocked her head to the side.

“Oh, I guess yes or no questions would be better?”

Another nod.

“Shaylarin wasn’t lying! You are smart!” The human was leaning over, hands on the barrier and looking rather excited. “Ok, umm, are you from here? Mith-Fell?”

Sam snorted and shook her head.

“Nearby? This country? This continent?”

Each time she answered in the same manner.

“Alright, I give up on that one, then. Do you have a name?”

She nodded.

“Oooo I wonder what it is? Do you know the common alphabet?”

Sam neighed lightly, nodding once again.

“Awesome!” He proceeded to go through all the letters until he got her name, which only took a couple minutes. “Sam huh? Nice. Well Sam, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Arthur; born and raised here in Mith-Fell.”

She neighed and took a step closer to show she understood.

“So cool! Shaylarin mentioned a bunch of magic stuff earlier. Does that mean you are magical?”

Sam nodded.

“Nice! Can you show me any magic? No? Aww man. Wait, I guess I should have asked first. Can you do any magic?”

Sam shook her head to all the questions.

“Ahh I guess that makes sense… You’re magical, but can’t do magic? Oh! Is it because your master does the magic?”

A neigh in response.

“Got it. Well now I kinda feel bad. I didn’t know you were so smart and awesome. Sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean it. Well, I guess I did at the time, but I’m sorry now, alright?”

Sam nodded, taking another step closer. If the human was warming up to her like this, maybe she could learn a lot of information from him and find out how to escape.

He didn’t react, but kept talking. “I wonder why they want you so bad? They didn’t tell me anything…”

She recognized that he was crestfallen. Whenever Master was, he liked to pet and nuzzle her. She approached Arthur to see if he wanted to do the same.

“Can I pet you?”

Sam nodded as she moved up to him and put her head over the barrier.

The man reached out, slightly hesitant at first. After a minute, he was extremely comfortable, petting her and letting her nudge him. He was talking the whole time. “I always wanted a horse. And you’re so nice to talk to. Not like Shaylarin always telling me to shut up…”

Sam didn’t react to that, but suspected the annoyance was warranted. She felt that this could pay off for her somehow. At least it couldn’t hurt.

Over the next hour, though it felt considerably longer to Sam, Arthur communicated with her. He asked a lot of questions, though he spent more time just talking at her. Sam learned a lot about him and what he did.

Turned out he was involved with a guild in town, though he never said which. He seemed to have ambition to make it on his own and to open his own shop in the city, but he had nowhere near enough funding to do so. Arthur was hoping to strike it rich at some point by picking up a lucrative long term job so he could fulfill his dreams. All this didn’t seem too helpful, but Sam suspected Master could have a better understanding of what she had heard.

Sam wasn’t the best at knowing what information could be used for or how it factored into making smart choices. She had a very good memory, though. She was confident she could give all the details of this conversation at a later date, assuming Master asked the right questions.

“What in the gods are you doing?” The elf was back, looking aghast.

Arthur turned around, nonplussed. “Huh?”

“I thought I told you to not talk to her?”

“What? Oh, what’s the big deal? She isn’t going anywhere and can’t even talk.”

“That isn’t the point! She could give her master the information you have so carelessly been telling her.”

“I didn’t say anything about what we’re doing! Was just telling her about my dream to open a shop.”

She walked forward, grabbing him by the ear.

“Oww, oww, oww. Stop that!”

“Come on, you aren’t staying in here and spewing information like a sick donkey spews… waste.”

“You should work on your analogies, that wasn’t very…”

She squeezed his ear harder, “You’ll be lucky if you are given anything at this point!”

He looked back at Sam. They met eyes for a moment. “Hey! I did my job so far! Oww, oww. Let me go!”

The elf dragged him off to the other room, closing the door behind them. She heard a continuing argument, but barely paid attention.

They left the lantern sitting on the thin ledge. Sam knew fire made buildings crumble. Maybe it could make the large sliding door crumble, too?

Seizing the opportunity to possibly escape, Sam made a plan. She knew fire needed something to keep it going, and there was hay in the corner. Assuming that could burn, she grabbed all that she could with her mouth, placing it against the sliding door within a few trips back and forth.

Next, she carefully grabbed the handle of the lantern, taking her time moving it to the ground.

Now for the next problem. Glass breaking made sound. That sound could alert the two-leggers that were still arguing in the next room.

Sam had seen lanterns like this open, so she inspected it to discern how that happened. Searching it, she found a diminutive metal knob. It was far too small to grasp with her mouth. The glass was, however, open ever so slightly.

She grabbed a few thin pieces of hay, and tried to put them through that opening. It was extremely difficult, for she didn’t possess fine motor skills with her mouth, or much at all for that matter.

The endeavor was painstakingly tedious. The sounds in the other room had died out by the time she managed to get a few straws inside. The pieces lit, so Sam grabbed a bunch more and placed it on those. She waited, somewhat patiently, but the hay flame died out due to being smothered.

The lantern was still lit, since there was airflow from small holes in the top and bottom. Sam tried to pull the top off with her teeth while she held the lantern in place with a hoof on either side. The item kept slipping and coming up when she pulled, since her hooves were too smooth to grip it. It was also much too strong to be yanked out, unless she broke the glass.

When she placed it back down, she noticed a squeak. Upon closer inspection, she found that the lid twisted into place. She had seen items like these before! If Sam were able to twist it enough, the lid should come off!

The magical steed got to work, confident that this would work. At first, the lantern would twist with the lid, as it was screwed on decently well. Again, her hooves had no grip.

She decided to put hay all around it and see if that would help. She pushed it against the lantern with her snout, then tried again. She was able to twist it!

After another few minutes, the lid was off, revealing a sizable opening. Sam tipped the lidless lantern over onto its side, then pushed it into the pile of hay.

It quickly lit up, engulfing the full pile in less than a minute. Sam had already backed up, hoping the door would catch fire.

The flames spread to the large sliding door, much to Sam’s pleasure.

Fire, as Same knew, but never really understood, was hard to control. Before she could even react, it had spread to the wall on either side of the door. The steed realized she may have made a mistake, as she had no exit and the flames seemed like they would soon engulf the whole room.

Smoke started to billow, causing Sam to cough. She brought her head lower, toward the ground since the air there was much clearer.

The steed heard a muffled, feminine voice come from the smaller door, which was also ablaze. “What’s going on in there?”

There was a rattle on the door, immediately followed by a painful cry. It opened slightly.

“FIRE!” Footsteps told Sam that the elf had left the adjacent room.

The only wall not on fire was opposite the large door, but it would soon be burning, too.

Deciding it was now or never, Sam approached the door, swinging around to kick it with her hind legs. The heat was sweltering, and the horse had no way of cooling herself off other than exhaling, and breathing was becoming difficult.

She kicked out at the door, slamming and rattling it. The wood was still thick, but it was becoming brittle with the flame.

Again she kicked, hearing splintering.

Another and one hoof went through, getting stuck. She neighed and yanked, causing a laceration on her leg. She barely noticed the pain as the smoke continued to build.

One more kick, slightly lower than the others, where both hooves knocked out a large section of boards.

Sam retreated to the back, which was now alight. She faced the broken door, and charged.

She aimed her head for the opening she had made, allowing her shoulders to take the blow. She shattered more of the wood, while also bruising and burning herself. As she backed away, a sizable opening lay before her. Enough that she could jump through.

With another running start, she leapt through and kept galloping. There were burns, scrapes, and cuts all over her body now, but she ignored it all. She had to get back to her Master.

“Stop her! Don’t let her leave the building!”

Arthur was standing in front of the exit and he had already witnessed Sam kicking through the door from the other side. Now she had burst through and was heading in his direction.

Neighing, galloping, and desperate, the magical steed looked into the man’s eyes.

He stepped aside.

“What are you doing?”

He held his hands up, innocently, “You want to get run over, then you should be standing here.”

A bolt of fire screamed at Sam from the back, striking her hind quarters.

Though she was severely injured, she was still running. Harder than she ever had. She passed Arthur, neighing once again, this time in thanks.

He winked out of view of the elf, then returned to arguing with her. “Hey, you’re the one that said not to kill her and I don’t fancy becoming roadkill like one of those possum.”

It was bright out, but the fire she had just stared at made it an easy adjustment. She ran back the way she came a few days ago, drawing odd looks along with the occasional yelp or scream. A bloody, burnt white horse, running through the street alone.

She lost all of Master’s gear, but suspected that he wouldn’t be too upset about that. Master?

A few moments of silence, then, Sam! Are you alright!?

Injured… and being chased, I think. Release me. We’ll talk later.

A slight hesitation, then, I am so sorry I was not there for you. See you tomorrow.

She blinked from the Material Plane, returning to her home. Pain free, blissful, tranquil. And so, so boring without two-leggers.