"If we shoot an arrow over her with some string attached it could wind round and catch her." Andrew mused. He'd finally said something half intelligent.
"That's a pretty good idea, I guess." Maedel conceded, "if we take off the arrow head too then there's little to no chance of popping her."
"Sounds like a plan!" Connie beamed
"So who will fire the arrow?" Maedel asked. We all just turned to face her. "Jeeze! I'm telling you that 'elves are good at archery' thing is a myth," she huffed but drew her an arrow anyway and quickly removed the arrow head and tied some string. She took a look around the group before selecting Connie to hold the other end of the string, deciding not to mention that it was because, as a fat pig, she was probably the heaviest.
Maedel took a look into the sky. The witch turned balloon animal was pretty far away already. It would be a difficult shot, even for an elf.
"Well, when I miss completely Andrew can try next," Maedel sighed before releasing the arrow.
We watched with bated breath as the arrow shot through the air, right on target.
"Haha Maedel does it again!" I said, joyfully.
"Hang on a minute, the arrow is too low." Connie gasped.
With a strange squelch the arrow entered the balloon horse. Not by piercing but by its butthole. Madame Majique would probably have words to say about that when we had her back to normal...
"Well, at least its firmly attached..." Maedel joked nervously.
Connie began pulling the string which only served to loosen the other end which fell to the ground.
Soon the balloon drifted off out of sight. I would much later find out that, by coincidence, Madame Majique came to ground just outside of the travelling circus where one of the performers found her. She spent the next year tethered on a string with other balloon animals for sale. No-one dared remove the stick up her arse for fear the balloon would pop and no parent wanted to buy their child a balloon animal with a stick up its butt. It wasn't until a Grey Mare enthusiast and memorabilia collector visited the circus that she was bought and the collector unknowingly came into ownership of the real Grey Mare he'd admired so much. It would be another year before he had the balloon appraised for its value by a wizard and found out a curse had been placed on it. Another 2 years passed before the collector could afford to pay to release the curse and the Grey Mare balloon, once again became an actual horse.
Just glad to be able to move again, the mare licked the collectors face. Her thoughts had dulled from the disuse of having very little to do or think about as a balloon and she happily lived on as a simple, rather dumb, riding horse for her happy owner who spoiled her with carrots and salt licks.
"Well," Maedel broke the silence as we stared into the empty sky, no longer able to see the balloon. "I guess we have to find another way to save the kingdom then!"