Fairy Rings

4. Him

It was a cold, hard sprint across the lawn to a bike that 9 times out of 10 wouldn't start on the first, second, third, or even fourth try. Her legs carried her just as fast as she could run till an unmovable object decided to sucker punch her in the stomach; it was almost laughable as Navaeha suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, clutching her stomach and falling to the ground. At least this time, she landed on her face and rolled to her side. . . if that felt any better.

"Never fails to make my morning." Someone laughed. Tears swelled in her eyes as she glanced around at her blurry surroundings. She would need to get up and start running again, but the air continued to fail her lungs while she wheezed on the ground. Rolling to her knees in an attempt to pick herself up, she felt clammy hands drag her coiled body off the cold ground. "Ah, hold on. You're missing something." Another blur of someone gently slipped her now broken glasses back onto her face. Now, with her horrible vision,

She could make out two men directly in front of her, one looking her up and down like a hamburger and the other staring off into the direction that she had just darted from. The two were very misfortunate-looking men; the taller one looked like a bowling pin; his chest and arms looked like spaghetti noodles. The shorter one who had ahold of her arm looked like a short, fat penguin except for double the width. This was what had stopped her? Stupid.

"That's better!" The short penguin laughed, and as he did, his neck wobbled fiercely. If you could call it a neck, it seemed to be nonexistent, as it looked like his head and shoulders connected. His mother had explicitly forgotten about his neck and metabolism; it would have been beneficial, she thought, for him to get the word neck tattooed where he thought it was supposed to be. "Aye, boss man, come look at what I caught."

"Don't call him that; he doesn't like that." the bowling pin stammered nervously, "You're going to get us into trouble again."

"No, I'm not, watch this." The penguin waived his stubby arms in the air. The loose fat jiggling as he did. "Aye, boss man! Come here."

"What did you catch?" a husky voice asked. Finally able to take a breath, she straightened her glasses and her back in an attempt to normalize her predicament.

"Let go of me." She snarled at the penguin man, her arm pulling away only to be rewarded with another dragging her down to the frost-bitten dirt. Lifting her head forcefully by her bundled hair, the penguin shined a blinding flashlight in her face to show the man what he had caught.

"Oh, it's just a little farmhand. She came running at us, and I stopped her." His voice croaked, now tinged with fear. The blinding flashlight clicked off as she was abruptly let go and tossed to the ground like trash.

"Are you sure this is just a farm hand and not the young lady we're here for?"

"Well, I'm not sure who it is. . . It might be a farm hand. . . But the girl came running at us." The penguin stammered. He waved his hands frantically as he spoke, "I don't think it's the girl we're here for! . . ." Rambling on only seemed to make their boss take a deep sigh. Racking her brain, Navaeha began to slowly crawl away. The only other person who called her that recently, other than her mother, was her random coffee date. Who kept reappearing; she had all but forgotten his charm. She even waved and hung out with him on multiple occasions, safe to say they were best friends. Surely, he wasn't a part of whatever this was. Sharp hands grabbed at her bundled hair again, this time dragging her back to where the three stood.

"Excuse me? Is that any way to treat a woman?" The man snarled at the two idiots. The more he spoke, the more she was sure. "Release her at once; you two had better give me a good explanation of why she is on her knees and how you vermin put her there." An unending silence began as the three of them sat there staring, the boss at the two men and the fat man down at Navaeha, unsure whether to let go. His only brain cell seemed to sing in unison with his friends.

"I subdued a dark figure that was running at me. . . You would have done the same thing, Dog. . . ." An answer as poor as that earned the fat man a slap to the face; it was so hard that he stumbled back a bit, his grip on Navaeha's hair releasing while he regained his footing. Navaeha couldn't help but wince at the sound it made as she got her feet back underneath her, exploding into a ball of energy that quickly ran into problems as, this time, her random coffee date caught her. His arms wrapped his unzipped jacket quickly around her shivering body.

"It's boss to you, vermin; you aren't high enough on the food chain to call me that, understand? I know it's your first time tagging along, but so help me god, I'll make sure it's your last if you f**k up one more time." He snarled at the two idiots. It was plain and simple now; no excuse was good enough.

"She was running just now! Don't you see?" Waving his hands more frantically as if they could wash the slate clean, the fat man shriveled up. "She just ran."

"She was running. . ." the bowling pin trailed off in a low voice almost too low for anyone to hear.

"And what? All I see is a woman desperate to get away from attackers." Looking back at the two men, Navaeha held her friend tightly before burying her face into his warm stitched shirt. Her hands seemed to soak up any heat that they could find.

"She ran into my fist..." the penguin braced to be hit again. Smiling down at Naveaha, the man in charge began to laugh, making the other men laugh nervously. It must have been a few minutes of different laughs because the more nervous and terrified the two men laughed, the harder their boss laughed. Finally, the laughing turned into crying and crying. . . Well, that isn't good for business. Wiping his eyes as he slowly hushed himself, the boss shook his head as he fluffed her hair back into the ball it once was. His heart was pounding harder every second she was so close to him; it was entrancing.

"Do either of you have a clue as to who this woman is?" He asked, his hand quick to his shotgun. They all looked down at Naveaha and back at the man, "do either of you know who this woman is?"

"No! We don't know who she is." Penguin took a few steps back; however, this time, no hit came. Relief washed over the fat man until he heard the shotgun click. Navaeha huddled closer to her friend, who strangely smelled like cinnamon.

"Of course, you didn't. Tell me why she just so happened to run into his fist." Unleashing the shotgun on the fat man, he glared at the bowling pin. The fat man, now screaming in agony on the ground, was clutching his leg that had simply fallen off.

"Ambros-" The bowling pin stopped as he heard the gun click again.

"What is so important about either of you pieces of s**t that you both disregarded my orders. . . Is there something wrong with them that led you to believe you could strike our master's daughter and makes you think that you can stand here stuttering, uttering my name in her presence?" Raising his shotgun again, the man laughed while wearing a smile as he wrapped an arm around Navaeha's waist to keep his jacket wrapped around her. "You know what? I'm better off doing this alone rather than pulling your dead weight." Making haste of his time left to live, the bowling pin man dropped to his knees to plead for his life but it was too late. Another shell emptied into his sobbing face as his friend kept screaming on the ground. Dumbstricken, Navaeha seemed to realize how cold it was as he lifted her off the ground and carried her back to the house. Sitting in silence, she didn't know whether to be happy that two men were dead and to celebrate that her coffee date came to her rescue or to question how her coffee date came to her rescue, without a doubt. Navaeha buried her face into his shirt again, happy to be saved for the time being. "I'm sorry you had to witness that young lady, but with where we're going, I doubt it's the last you'll see of it." It was silent as he carried her into the house, through the hallway, and to the living room for a large blanket that he wrapped her cold body up in.

"Thank you for saving me." She smiled, her pleading eyes glancing up at his cold face. His hair was slicked back rather than his usual bent-out-of-shape style, and his blue eyes shone like diamonds as he smiled down at her. All of the blaring noise wasn't there anymore.