Yeehaw Au

3: A World Unlike Ours

Boots kicked dust up as they ran towards the center of town. The sheriffs ran towards the doors of a polished building with green embellishments, and a sign that said 'Ace Bank', in bold lettering. As soon as the girls could hear the alarms they stopped in their tracks. The sheriffs followed suit as a masked figure with protruding ears with fur exited the building, only to stop dead at the entrance. In their hands was a large, potato sack , presumably filled with money. The robber pulled out a large knife and threatingly pointed it around in a circle, yelling obscenities in a raspy but clearly male voice.

 "STAY BACK! I ain't afraid to use this--stay back or get cut!"

The citizens parted away even further to the other side of the street. Whispering amongst themselves worriedly, and some taking shelter inside buildings or behind walls.

"This is our first robbery ever!"

"Correction--first robbery in quite a while. Hold your mouth child."

" 'Ey who's pushing over there?"

The sheriffs, however, remained a good few feet in front of the crowd, seemingly nonchalant at the threat.

"Hold it robber!" Miss Co-Sheriff held up a stopping hand as she hollered."You're not going anywhere! Hands up and empty, step forward and I might show mercy!" Both sheriffs now had a hand on their sheaths.

But the robber just snickered and more knives began to emerge from behind him and glow ominously as they floated in a formation. "You asked for it!"

The knives whizzed in the air, on a clear but very shaky trajectory towards the sheriffs. The citizens were thrown in to a frenzy, breath caught between yelling out or staying dead silent. Hazel and Eleanor, caught in the street, were glued tight to their spot, similarly fearful. No one could watch.

--but it was merely a minute after the girls clenched their eyes shut in horror, that the faint sound of metal clanging onto sand was heard. Eleanor was the first to open her eyes, and she quickly urged her friend to watch.

Both Sheriffs had pulled a horsehair bow from their sheaths, a violin and bass bow for the Liphe and Chief Sheriff, respectively. The bows emitted a light themselves, as the horsehair entwined from the bow in large strands, and could seemingly stretch at will. The strings were probably the ones who stopped the knives dead in their tracks, causing the weak mage-robber's magic to be used up quickly and drop to the floor. The robber's ears prop down in shock as his attack is halted by thin threads that float back to their rightful place on the bow without a fuss. The robber is terrified, as while he is technically a magic being himself, he had never encountered such transmutation magic before. They stared at him threateningly, but before the Chief Sheriff could say anything, the robber had made up his mind. Uttering a low shriek, the bandit made himself scarce and ran out of town.

The town applauded the Sheriffs for a job well done after they had stepped out from behind buildings and in shops. A couple of the townspeople came up to shake their hand and formally meet their new sheriff, and children came up to meet them themselves, squealing and jumping into their arms to give impromptu hugs.

But Hazel and Eleanor still couldn't move. They were in utter shock of everything, as nothing quite this exciting had ever happened before in any of the places they had lived. These people who were in a world of their own, ruled by foreign rules and a strong sense of fantasy. But for the girls, this was their first taste of that world, and they absolutely loved it. On the way home after a day of excitement, all they could think about, is how lucky it was to end up in Erpiari, and what it would take to enter a world like theirs.