Snippet #2717440

The fall to the ground was quick and a little awkward—she could tell by the look on the face of the girl who had broken half of her fall. As Tallyho gathered her bearings and looked toward the two strangers to offer them a brief thank you, another voice, loud and frantic, rang out.

“Holy fucking salad dressing!” A woman with dark curls came bounding toward their group, easing dangerously close to knocking into them. Tallyho recognized her as the cat woman and she didn’t seem particularly OK. In fact, it was amusing that when the woman was asking Tallyho if she was OK, she herself looked like she could pass out any second. Tallyho didn’t have much time to respond when she heard a dull and heavy thud nearby. Her gaze met a well-hammered sword, sharp, intricate and highly reflective. It obviously belonged to somebody who was a somebody.

”RUN YOU IDIOT!!!”

Tallyho glanced up to see who she assumed to be the sword’s owner, pursed and ready for battle. If you asked her, he was the most normally dressed individual in this area if you discounted the fact that he was a bit off-season. He looked strong and a little intense…What kind of warrior was able to disarm him so effectively? It was only after she heard a blood curdling screech that she actually saw it.

This was something out of her Baba’s sickest bedtime stories, a legend that most people mocked by the time they were old enough to ride horses by themselves. A figure whose likeness she shuddered at in picture books. The creature who stole her way in fever dreams. And now it was here in the flesh, ready to rip her apart like a tender piece of chicken. Tallyho felt the ringing in her ears as she searched her brain for some piece of logic that could debunk this experience. Surely this was a dream? When would she wake up?

A loud boom rang in the air. It felt like Tallyho’s left ear had exploded. Gasping in shock, she buckled down into the grass with her hands covering her ears. From the ground she watched in horror as the man who had helped her out of the tree began pointing a foreign object in the direction of the cyclopean, producing the same loud pop that startled her so. As he moved farther away, Tallyho had time to, once again, gather her bearings and probe her brain for everything she had ever learned at bed time—any piece of information that could kill this cross-cultural boogeyman. Besides, nothing anyone did seemed to have much of an impact.

The ringing in her ears continued and the sounds became more distant. She quickly dipped her head between her knees, hoping to delay what was on track to become a full-fledged fainting spell. She peeked out from behind her waterfall of hair to see the other blonde picking up the warrior’s lost sword. Tallyho couldn’t hear her words too clearly but she seemed to be offering it back to him.

“The head,” Tallyho huffed under her breath, finally conjuring an end to this nightmare. She fought her way upright, throwing her head back in exhaustion. This whole situation was stressful and downright disrespectful. It had to stop.

“TAKE THE HEAD!” She called much louder, hoping the warrior would take the sword and then her advice. She rolled back over, holding back the impulse to pass out completely. Baba’s folk stories always ended with the head and then a pile of black jewels (onyx shards), that shimmered brightly in the place where the cyclopean once stood.

As she slipped further into her spell she hoped that she wouldn’t wake up dead, or at least that she would wake up soon enough to get the hell out of town.