I watched them with bated breath, as still as stone. Rosa did the same next to me.

The men lunged at us in a sudden, jerky movement, and I immediately started slashing. Two against one was really not fair, but I could probably hold these two off for a minute at least. I let Rosa take the burly man-- she was the quicker one, so she'd have better luck with him. Instead, I intercepted the little one and the fourth guy, who had a beard and hadn't talked the entire time. 

The small 'shrimp' was manageable. He didn't even have a real dagger-- some kind of butter knife, it looked like-- so all I had to do with him was kick him away in the stomach time to time and block out his wide advances.

The other guy was a lot more skilled. His movements were faster, smoother, and more purposeful. But if there was anything I was good at, it was self-defense. And I played dirty.

I blocked one of his swipes and elbowed the little kid out of the way, who landed with a thump on the ground, then delivered a low kick towards his shin, right at his bone. He growled, which, yeah, my boots hurt. With the same foot, I stomped on his toes, grabbed his hair with one hand, and crashed down my other elbow on the back of his head. 

The little boy came towards me from behind again with a yell. Not letting go of the guy's hair, I crouched down and swept my leg against the outside of the shrimp's knees, making him trip while dragging the second guy down with me. 

That was a mistake-- the shrimp lunged at my leg and grabbed it, stretching me out so I couldn't move. The older man was regaining his senses, blindly throwing punches at me. I cursed and flipped the knife over to use the blunt end, since I was not going to use a knife on a little boy like him, then whomped his head a couple times with it until he cried out and loosened his grip. I shook him off and brought my leg back in, then raised my dagger just in time to meet the older man's blade. 

He grabbed my hair with his other hand, but he was in a strange position with my iron grip on his hair, so he couldn't see me properly. I wrenched his head to the right as I struck him on the stomach with the blunt end of my dagger. He groaned and let go of my hair to wrest himself free from my grip on his head. Once he was free, he staggered backwards, breathing hard.

The kid jumped on my back with another loud cry, choking my neck. I stumbled backwards, but ripped his arm from my neck and flipped him over my shoulder. I stood up and backed away slowly, and he scrambled towards the older guy.

We glared at each other from a distance away, short of breath.

"Now, Filly!" Rosa yelled, though I couldn't risk a look at her. 

I set my jaw and lunged towards the two, who leaped towards me as well. At the last second, I twisted, dashing towards the blue tent on the right instead. I threw the dagger at them. They jumped back to avoid it, buying me enough time to hunch down and take out my second knife from my boot. From my crouched position, I stabbed my new blade into the tarp and dragged it into a giant arc as I stood up, the thick fabric ripping loudly. In a matter of seconds, I'd made a giant flap.

A thud of footsteps sounded behind me. Before I could turn, a long slice of pain seared my back. I gasped. My brain momentarily went white, Idel cried out from above us, but I grit my teeth and spun around and used the momentum to slam the blunt side of my knife against the man's face, then stab his arm in quick succession. He yelled, and the boy squawked behind him.

Meanwhile, the loud hubbub around us from the farmer's market had quieted. I groaned from the pain, but I stayed my spot, twisting my knife out of him. He covered the wound with his other hand, glaring at me.

I could see from my peripheral vision that Rosa had the scarred man pinned to the wall with an arm wrenched to his back, and that she was currently fighting the large one with one hand in quick, flashing swipes. 

"What in the world?" someone muttered behind me. 

The boy looked up past me, and his eyes widened. He lurched backwards, tripped on his own feet, and fell on his butt. The man also cursed and pulled back.

"Help us!" Idel called out from on top of the tree, leaning forward. She slipped a bit, cried out, and attached herself to the tree trunk. "Please! Help!"

At that, the one called Dutt stopped and withdrew as well, whirling around to look at the situation. He growled, muttered a few choice words, and gripped his knife harder.

"What is happening up here, young lady?" a new, deep voice said, and a large hand clamped down on my shoulder.

"Ow!" I cried. Ugh, that back was going to be so annoying, wasn't it. I looked over my shoulder, flinching at the pain this caused me, and almost fainted in relief. "Sheriff!"

"Filian," he replied, with a surprised frown. "What is--"

"They're trying to sell the girl up in the tree," Rosa said loudly, in between gasps. She lowered her knife, looking at the sheriff. The scarred man pushed her off and scrambled towards the bulky man, glaring and swearing at the scene.

I looked past the sheriff and saw the inside of the blue tarp tent, where five more knights were setting down plates of--were they crepes?-- onto the table, looking serious.

"Filian?" the sheriff said again, reaching for his sword.

I made eye contact with him and nodded, lowering my own knife. "She's right. They were trying to take her and started chasing us."

The men had been slowly backing away, but when the sheriff looked at them with narrowing eyes, the scarred man hissed something to the rest of them and broke out into a run.

"After them!" the sheriff barked, and the knights unsheathed their swords and ran.

I didn't let down my guard until I couldn't see them anymore. When they were good and gone, all the air whooshed out of me and I let my dagger clatter on the floor. 

Some other guard, who hadn't gone with the knights, ushered me in, though I had to move slowly so that I wouldn't pass out from the pain. "We'll have to call the apothecary," he murmured to another guard.

The other guard groaned. "That's going to take forever."

I tried to laugh, but I was way too shaken to let out anything other than a weak 'heh.' 

Rosa slumped down on a bench they brought her while I was still sitting down, which took me three minutes with every single muscle that moved in my back sent jolts of pain the more I lowered myself. Sheriff and a couple of guards were at the tree, trying to figure out the best way to get Idel down.

"Good job, Fi," Rosa said, looking half-dead.

I didn't dare raise my head in case it pulled on my dagger wound, so I peered at her upwards. She frowned at me. "Are you glaring at me? I'll have to let you know that I did my very best and--"

"No," I interrupted, then pressed my lips together. Breathing was hard. Talking was harder. "Good job, Ro," I said anyways. I wanted to shake my head at the incredulity of it all (we've survived!? We've survived?!), but that would probably not be a good idea. So I smiled instead, or grimaced in a way that made my lips curve upwards. She frowned at me. "Did you know this was the sheriff's tent?"

She blinked. Somebody handed her a warm cup of water, which she held in her hands. "Of course I did. Why do you think I led us here?" She shrugged, and it was totally unfair how even with the crazy hair she had, her makeup all smudged and sweat running down her face, she still managed to look pretty enough for guards to daze out whenever they saw her. I probably looked like a troll from under a bridge, all hunched over in an awkward position to try keep the skin of my back from moving in any way.

Rosa continued. "There were too many crowds, so if we went through the middle of the market, it would've taken longer for any of us to go get a knight. Way faster if we lead the hooligans to the sheriff, don't you think?"

I laughed weakly then groaned, and Rosa patted my shoulder in sympathy as she sipped her water. Well, duh. She was the one who'd calculated the speed of the rabid dog in relation to our speed as running seven-year-old kids to figure out the best escape path, which she had counted before through the very exact measurement of a palm of her seven-year-old hand. I wondered briefly if she still had those measurements memorized, as she used to until we were ten.

Just because I was feeling relieved, I jokingly asked Rosa, "Did you calculate the average time it would take one of us running at full speed to this tent through the crowd?"

Her eyes lit up instantly. "No, but that sounds fun." She craned her neck to look at the space outside the tent. "If I take the average area of space in front of a stand and consider that there is a medium of, say, 45 people within space, which I will now call with the unit of one stand space, I can multiply that by maybe thirty stand spaces, since that's about how many stands there are between where we were standing and where this tent is..."

I rolled my eyes in good nature and let her ramble on, taking the amount of sparkles around her as a good sign that she had gotten over the ordeal. My hands were still shaking a bit from the adrenaline and fear, but there was nothing like a good, boring ramble from Rosa to calm me down.

"Rosa! Filian!" Idel cried breathily, rushing towards us. She reached out towards me but hesitated, and I shook my head almost imperceptibly. No, please do not hug me, unless you want to kill me.

"Oh, I am so, so glad that you two are alive! But Filian, your back!" She put her shining green eyes on me, and I kind of smiled. Rosa coughed once and continued rambling on.

I grimaced. "They were going to take you, you know," I said to her.

Her eyes widened, and she wrung her hands. "Me? But why?"

I almost shrugged before I remembered my condition. I made an 'I-don't know' face instead. "They said you were 'the girl' that their boss talked about, so they were going to take you to him to maybe get a reward or something."

Idel slumped down on a chair that someone else brought her, tucking in some of her now unkempt hair behind her ear.

The sheriff appeared next to her, gently putting a hand on her head. "Well, it's a good thing you girls were smart enough to bring the thugs here," he said, giving Rosa a knowing glance. She stopped talking long enough to give a prompt nod to him, then continued her calculations. She had moved on from speed and time to what sounded like probabilities, though what an 'outlier' was I didn't know.

Rosa and I had known the sheriff since we were very young, thanks to my mom-- they'd apparently been childhood friends, since they had grown up together. He and his wife always made sure to take care of us whenever they could, too, especially since they hadn't been blessed with a child themselves.

"And that was some good fighting skills," he added, giving both of us a grin.

I made a face, trying to ignore my reddening ears. "But I'm regretting not pulling on his beard when I had the chance."

He laughed his signature belly laugh, throwing his head back. "If you visit him in the county jail, I'll give you special permission to do that." He winked at me, and I smiled back. "Well, we're all just glad none of you were fatally wounded, though Filian, you have a new battle scar to be proud of." The sheriff flashed me a smile, but then grew serious. "But really, what was happening?"

Idel shuddered, reaching for a crepe the guards had laid out for us. "I still don't know why, but Filian just told me that the thugs were trying to take me to their boss for a reward, though--"

"What did you say?" a new voice rang out, making all of us look up to the entrance of the tent.

I winced from the sudden movement and shut my eyes from the sudden flash of pain, but not before I saw Idel's hand freeze on top of the table. 

"They were trying to what, Idel?" the man said again, and when I cracked open my eyes, I gasped as well.

"Paul?" Idel whispered, her fingers clenching into a fist.

For there Paul and his handy messenger bag stood, looking at us with a shocked expression and gripping his bag so hard his knuckles were white.

"Perfect," Rosa said, scooting over on her bench and patting the spot next to her. "Come on over for a talk, Paul. I was just getting to the fun part."

---

A/N: What is action anyway? 10/10 would not write again. (but at least I'm on time!) + quick shout-out to skillet for the poster! :) 
(if you didn't know, skillet is me. I'm skillet. You're welcome, me.)