Trailer Trashed: A Severely Fractured Fairy Tale

Trailer Trashed: A Severely Fractured Fairy Tale (2)

As the male tin can rubbed his head ruefully, I cut my eyes sideways to where Jimbo sat. She was licking a front paw and, while I watched, clipped several of her claws with quick nips of her teeth, like she had no idea there was a man in a full suit of medieval armor sitting about five feet away. I pursed my lips. "Baby Girl?"

She looked up at me, slightly surprised I had spoken to her, with her paw halfway back to the tongue that poked out of her mouth. She was ridiculous-looking but I wasn't in a laughing mood.

"Do I look alive to you?" I asked her as she resumed her cleaning.

"Mao," said Jimbo, and she stopped cleaning long enough to butt her head against my hand when I reached out to scratch her ears.

The man in the suit of armor looked nonplussed. "Art thou addressing thy query towards that... cat?" His eyes looked about ready to pop out of his visor; if he accused me of being a-"Art thou a witch?"

Dammit.

"No, I'm not a witch, you cosplaying dumbshit!" I snarled before I could stop myself. I was actually rather surprised at myself-when I'm annoyed I generally shut down, I don't blow up. Blowing out a deep breath, I summoned as baleful and deathly a glower as I could and pinned him with it, like a butterfly to a dartboard. "What kind of idiot rides a horse through a trailer park in a costume?" Each word dripped from my lips like liquid doom, or, at least, that was the intent.

He tucked his chin into his chest, and his visor clanked down over his nose. "Venomous words, witch."

"I'm not a witch!"

He kept his eyes away from mine, purposefully avoiding my glare. Finally he said, "I've never met a boy witch."

"I told you, I'm a girl. Doesn't look like it, but yeah. I'm 100% female." I folded my arms under my breasts and turned sideways. "See? Boobs." Trying not to get pissed off, I kept my voice as level as I could. He had to be deaf-or at the very least really, really stupid.

The helmet looked genuinely impressed, then confused. "Thou art a woman! But lo-thy locks art shorn like those of a lad, and thy pantaloons... I confess, I am perplexed mightily."

Heaving a sigh out of my sneakers, I fixed him with my eyes. "You can quit talking like that now. I know it's easy to get into the part, but you nearly ran me over and almost killed my cat-my pregnant cat, I might add. You can stop with the accent, too." I jabbed a hand through my straw-yellow hair, discovered a twig, and tugged it out. It took a hank of my hair with it. "Double dammit." I massaged the area with my thumb.

"Lady-erm, witch?"

"Not a witch," I put in quickly.

"Uhm, art thou injured? Thy face contorted just now, as if in pain." The suit rocked forward on his tailbone, then lurched onto his hands and knees and crawled towards me. "Allow me to see?"

"Er, hey, back up-hey!" The visor was about a foot away when he laid a gauntleted hand on mine-the hand on my head-and commented, "It feels... not poor? Thou seemst unharmed." With that pronouncement, he sat back on his heels and tipped his visor all the way back for a good look at me.

Well.

Remember how I sarcastically painted a portrait of Ralph? This is going to be like that... a lot like that. Except I'm going to mean every word.

He had dark hair, matted to his forehead with sweat. There were little curls at his temples that I found insanely cute, and while I hated that, I hated his eyes more because they were this crystalline blue. They were large and clear and bright, and I could have forgiven that. No, what upset me was that they were concerned, wide and innocent and hopeful and it did weird things to my heart that I don't want to talk about.