Inaccurate: The Tale of an Incompetent Mage

“It doesn’t count if you’re already planning your defeat, Zev.”

"You always seem to be anticipating my defeat, why can't I?"

"That- is just- grief, Zev, you can't possibly be thinking that by expecting to fail your magic will actually do what your heart is wanting, can you? You're magic knows, Zev. It knows."

"That sounds ominous, Win, cut it out."

"Your magic is ominous! Every time you use it it's like a portent of terrible things to come. Just watching you pull in magic makes my hair stand on end."

"I thought that watching me pull in magic was magical. Hey! Don't snort like that! It's rude. And unladylike."

"Stop pouting and folding your arms that way, you look like you're three. Besides, I don't have to act like a lady, I'm a cat."

"Oh yes, Winifred the all-knowing white cat of the infinite stomach. Bow before her prowess and tremble."

"Don't forget 'familiar to the great dunderhead Azeveus, son of Inzibus the great.' My expression is so unimpressed right now, too bad I'm on your head or you could see it. Oh, so now it's your turn to snort? Gentlemen aren't supposed to snort, either."

"I'm a ma-"

"Don't tell me mages don't have to act gentlemanly."

"I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say that mages are occassionally exempt from such constraints."

"Oh, please, Zev. If that were true, would we be in this mess? You could have told Josie to shove off, but no! You had to be a gentleman, or besotted, I honestly don't know which, and invite her to your personal target practice!"

"I did not know she was going to aim for kidnapping us! Blame her if you must!"

"How about I blame the both of you and- oh no, Zev, you're up."

Mage and familiar looked down on the vast expanse of water in front of them. The GreyWater Ocean was the color of a cold, blue sky. Where it entered BlueShip Bay, the water turned murky and grey. It was also filled to the brim with ships. From their vantage points on top of a cliff, they could see their "employer", Josie, Josie the Cruel and Blonde as they liked to call her. Behind her back, of course. She was standing on a massive warship and was waving her sword in a command. A flare was fizzling out above her ship.

"What if we just don't do anything, Zev?" Win's voice echoed in his head.

Before he could respond, a burly man lumbered up behind him, the ground shaking with each step, and placed a hand the size of Zev's head on Zev's shoulder. Zev hoped his swallow wasn't audible.

"That was your sign, boy," the deep voice rumbled through Zev's soul and set his bones to shaking.

"Ok, ok," he brushed the man's hand off, or at least he tried to, all he managed to do was jar his pinky. "Step back, I need to focus."

The mammoth man took one step back, his shadow still looming over Zev and Win. Zev took a deep breath and stepped marginally forward, almost at the edge. His job was to blow the pirate ships out of the water. 

"Why are we doing this, again?"

"Because they'll kill us if we don't, Win." 

"Why can't Josie just solve her own problems?"

Zev smirked, "she's been trying, remember, she told us all about it in one of those schpeels I'd expect from a villain in a cheesy novel."

Win's tail flicked in a pleased way, "that was rather entertaining, wasn't it?"

Zev grinned. Apparently Josie and the pirates had been enemies for years. Josie's crew did the same thing as the pirates, just more brutally and with far more damage in their wake. Josie had been attempting to annihilate the pirates for as long as they'd been enemies, and her most recent attempt? Him. It was also the attempt she was most proud about. She'd said that about seven times, he'd never known anybody to be so full of themself! 

Apparently she'd heard about a highly destructive mage from the next kingdom over and decided to kidnap him and force him to do her dirty work. She was apparently unaware that the "highly destructive mage" was that way because he had no control over his magic. None.

He swallowed and started to gather magic, knowing that he was beginning to glow with the sheer power of it. He swallowed again, this was not going to end well.

"Hey, Win," he thought, so as to not attract the attention of the mammoth, "remember that time I tried to put a huge fire out and my magic made an enormous ice rink with matching bleachers?"

Win snorted out a laugh, "yes! Remember when it melted and travelled 30 miles to flood the mage school's teacher courtyard?"

"Half the teachers came to school with soaking robes and fishes falling out of their sleeves! That was a good day!"

The man behind him took half a step forward. And Win cowered on his head.

Zev took a deep breath, silently pleaded with his magic to take out everyone, and let a ball of crackling purple energy form between his hands. It grew larger and larger as he spread his hands apart and the ball changed to a deep orange color. He spread his arms as wide as they would go, watching as the ball turned white and started sending out tiny lightning bolts. Then he threw it and dove for cover behind the mammoth man, cradling Win in his arms.

The world exploded and the entire side of the cliff gave way, the last thing he felt was the earth falling out beneath him and he was falling. The last thing he heard was Win saying, "of course it would only blow us up. What else could I possibly have expected!"

*Note* - this prompt inspired a new chapter in a book I am writing called "Inaccurate: The Tale of an Incompetent Mage."