I am a sorcerer standing in a golden field on a moonlit night, arrogant in my newfound power. I am waiting for a train that will soon be passing through carrying its precious cargo of specially chosen infants, touched by dark powers since before their birth. I intend to steal one. Or rescue one, depending on your perspective.

  A blinding thundercp shatters the night's silence and suddenly across the tracks from me looms a towering horse with a coat of shining bck and mane of purple-white fme.

  The beast propels itself towards me in an explosion of light and trail of smokeless fire and I only barely manage to go untrampled before our duel can truly even commence. The horse runs in widening gyres around me, disappearing as my bolts of magic hurtle towards it and then reappearing in great bursts of that terrible light before attempting to run not over me but through me once more. Again and again this cycle continues in a battle that can surely be seen and heard for miles.

  Unbeknownst to me, an old, retrofitted yellow schoolbus slowly ctters its way towards the midnight light show.

  By the time the battle has ended, the horse is nowhere to be seen, the train has come and gone without my robbing it, and I am utterly spent like I have not been in years. I try to fly after the train, only to crash down next to a long, isoted, single-story house. If anyone is home they have apparently slept through the distant rumble of the sorcerous storm that just ended, for all the lights are out. I try to fly once more but barely make it into a cicada-filled tree. My attempted leap from tree to rooftop nds me back on the ground, too exhausted to do so much as raise an arm.

  I am overcome with the horrifying urge to simply give in and fall asleep here on the grass.

  My st sight before all goes bck is a rusty old schoolbus pulling up and family I believed had long given me up for dead rushing out to pick me up.