Chapter Two

  Self Proclaimed Goddess

  Grains of sand littered the air forming a small cloud that swirled with the calming breeze of the cool beach shore. The rhythmic waves continued their timeless dance, as the sand settled from N?mi’s unexpected arrival. Emerging from the dissipating dust, N?mi pokes her little head out of the cloud of sand, with a blue overcoat that goes unnoticed by her, hanging on the strange stone-like object that was on the crown of N?mi’s head. N?mi vigorously shakes the sand and coat off of her, clearing the air around her in the process. As the coat fell just behind her, she pats herself down, shrugging off the remaining dust.

  She begins to look around, searching for the woman she had just struck. As she scans the area, N?mi’s spots a group of four towering burly men out in the distance. N?mi assumed this to be the group that surrounded the woman just before N?mi made contact. N?mi focuses her sights; she then notices the woman she had just struck lying face down on the ground behind the heavily armoured men.

  All the men, in full black and grey tactical armour, seemed to have been covering their eyes and are now just recovering from a state of disorientation, looking around in a panic as they all then focus on the woman on the floor. One of the men however, notices N?mi and points her out to the rest of the group. N?mi begins to jump up and down with a smile on her face.

  “Hey! What’s up guys!?” N?mi yells out while waving at the men, excited at the thought of making new friends.

  But just as quickly as all the men acknowledged her existence, they just as quickly ignored N?mi and began to instead focus on the woman on the ground. N?mi pouts, annoyed at the feeling of being ignored. She begins to angrily stomp her way towards the men, taking small heavy steps with her little feet.

  As N?mi goofily stomps her way over, she notices one of the many fully armoured men, wielding rifles, carelessly kick the woman over. N?mi stops in her tracks now noticing how carelessly they prodded and laughed at the woman. All of this gave N?mi an uneasy feeling. She had no idea what situation the woman may have been in before N?mi unintentionally intervened, but seeing in how the men were dressed and how carelessly they prodded the woman, it was clearly no small matter. This made N?mi feel guilty for the woman, afterall it was due to N?mi's negligence that the woman lied on the ground in the first place. This in turn made N?mi feel obligated to insure the safety of the mysterious woman.

  And just like that N?mi was on her first mission. The excitement overflowed out of her little body. The thought of an actual adventure with actual stakes out of her control made her little frame quiver with excitement. This caught the attention of the one man that had pointed her out before, and does so again to the rest of his group. This time however, everyone takes note of the bizarre little girl that was violently trembling in place and with an eerie smile on her face. The men immediately begin to make their way to N?mi with their weapons in hand.

  N?mi stops her shaking and then firmly stomps her foot down on the ground as she salutes the men out in the distance. Suddenly, the ground around N?mi violently caves in. The sands she stood on, no longer able to support the sudden change of weight N?mi gave herself in order to plough through the earth beneath her feet. The men instantly raise their weapons, completely terrified at the sight they just beheld as N?mi burrows her way behind the group from below the sands.

  N?mi slowly pops her head out of the ground, like an alligator stalking its prey from beneath the waters, ensuring that she was between the woman and the group of goons. N?mi notices the men all staring out to where she stood just moments ago. A smug grin forges onto N?mi’s face as she casually floats out of the ground and, like a balloon carried by a gentle breeze, makes her way towards one of the many goons in front of her. N?mi, lying in the middle of the air, rests her head on the man's shoulder closest to her, and casually speaks out to the group.

  “Hey there bud! What are yall up to?” The man N?mi rested on looked down to see a pair of bright silver eyes staring deep into his soul. The little girl's expressionless eyes widened, focusing on the burly man with slicked back blond hair. The man then lets out an uncharacteristic screech, falling to the ground in a panic and instinctively points his large rifle to the little girl floating in the air.

  “Uh oh…” N?mi mutters as the rest of the men follow suit, all of them pointing their weapons directly towards her.

  N?mi looks to the woman on the ground and then back towards the men. Concerned for the woman's safety, she decides to take action and with the whisk of her finger the stone that laid on N?mi's head then pops off her head and rapidly charges towards the goons. The stone hits the man on the ground and then quickly ricochets off of him, hitting the other men in rapid succession, the stone bouncing off of the goons like a ball in a pinball machine. The men all fall in unison as the stone N?mi flung then gently lands back on the top of her head.

  N?mi falls to her feet, gently landing on the ground, pumping her fist straight into the air and chanting to herself. “VICTORY N?mi!! WOOHOO!” jumping up and down, relishing her first successful mission.

  N?mi’s eyes pick up on a blue spec, out from where she first initially fell. N?mi quickly and goofily puts her guard up, waving her arms around like a self proclaimed karate master. However, as she focuses on the spec, she makes it out to be a blue coat flapping in the cool beach shore breeze. N?mi tilts her head in curiosity and then recalls the woman with beautiful blue eyes, but also that she wore a large blue coat as well. But when N?mi looks back to the woman she notices the woman possessed no such coat.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  N?mi stands there motionless for a few seconds, hypnotised by the woman's beauty. The young woman, with long layered golden blond hair was short and with flawless, slightly pale skin. The woman was dressed similarly to the goons she had just taken out, with tactical black boots and seemingly oversized blue pants along with a brown leather pouch that was strapped to the woman's upper right thigh. However, unlike the rest of the goons, The woman only had on a simple black tank top that made it easy to see that the woman, although slim and petite, had an above average muscular physique. With slightly wider shoulders a woman of her size should have and arms that appeared delicately slender but well toned. Even though the woman laid on the ground N?mi could still tell that the woman was not much taller than herself. N?mi stood at an adorable 120 centimetres, or in her own eyes, exactly one N?mi tall. If she had to guess, the woman on the floor was no more than one and one thirds N?mi’s tall, or 160 centimetres.

  "If I ever grow up, I hope I'm as pretty as you."

  N?mi then shakes off her trance, And looks back towards the coat out in the distance. She then begins making her way towards the blue coat, thinking it would be best to return to the woman as a way to absolve her little blunder. But as soon as N?mi picked up the coat, she couldn't help but admire its stylish design. The coat was a beautiful shade of blue and had a red contrasting inner lining. It was pretty but heavier than she expected, not only that but it appeared to be absolutely massive.

  N?mi turns back and holds the coat between her and the woman who laid just a few metres away from where N?mi now stood. She looks over to the woman, and then back at herself, looking down at her simple brown robes as a grin begins to form on her face.

  With a gleam in her eyes and a full grin on her face, N?mi tosses the coat around herself, slipping her little arms into the coat's sleeves. She takes a twirl, the long coat covering her up completely, the coat looking like a train style dress on her. With the end of the long coat dragging behind her, and the oversized sleeves hiding her hands entirely. She then notices the satisfying yet oddly artificial smell of what seemed like a flower garden. The scent of jasmine tulips and roses coming from the coat, drowned out the smell of the sea and comforted N?mi.

  While admiring the warmth, style, and aroma of the coat She notices the asymmetry in the weight of the coat. An added bulk weighing it down from the left side. This catches N?mi’s attention, she lifts up the coat, inspecting it thoroughly, finding an obvious protrusion in the coat's inner left pocket. She sticks her hand in and then feels a cold hard surface. She grabs hold of the object only to pull out an intricately engraved pistol.

  “What the!?” N?mi is taken by surprise. She holds up the gun with both hands, thoroughly inspecting it.

  The cold hard surface, cased in a gold trim, shined brightly in the daylight. The barrel of the gun had an elegant floral design to it. Following its flourishing waves down the barrel, she comes to a spot, just above the trigger, where the pattern stops, and in its place, a name, etched in gorgeous lettering.

  “Sair… uh.” N?mi reads the engraving out loud. “Sarah! is that her name?” N?mi thought to herself. It had to be, right? “Well I guess I better make sure she's okay.”

  N?mi sticks the gun back in its pocket and then takes a huge leap back to where the woman laid and falls to her knees. She looks down at Sarah with a hesitant pout on her face thinking of a way to wake the woman. After sitting completely motionless for a few moments she then smacks the side of her cheeks with both hands, whispering to herself. “you got this.”

  The little girl begins to apprehensively hover her right hand over the woman's forehead. N?mi then closes her eyes and takes in a slow deep breath, taking in her surroundings. The crashing waves from the sea, although seemingly chaotic, accompanied with the sweet floral scent coming from Sarah's perfume, and the chanting of the seagulls above, put N?mi’s mind at ease, before abruptly and carelessly slapping her little hand across Sarah’s face in order to try and wake her up.

  “HEY LADY! WAKE UP!” N?mi begins to yell her little head off as she repeatedly shakes the poor woman, in a desperate attempt to wake her. but to N?mi’s surprise, her little tantrum worked, as N?mi began to hear a slight groan coming from Sarah.

  N?mi immediately jerks her arms back, causing Sarah to fall and smack the back of her head on the ground. Luckily the sands from the beach shore cushioned the blow, and prevented Sarah from going out once again. N?mi then begins to poke Sarah with her index finger. “Hey! Hey! Are you awake?” N?mi asks while the woman slowly begins to open her eyes. N?mi lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god…”

  “Wha… where?” dazed and confused, Sarah sits up slightly putting her hand over her head before suddenly jumping back and getting up on her feet, paying no attention to The little girl who sat on the floor next to her. N?mi watches Sarah looking around in a panic and is then amused by Sarah's panic expression turned to pure disbelief. Sarah then quickly jerks back when she accidentally stumbles on to the one burly man that laid unconscious just below her feet.

  Before Sarah could do anything, N?mi reaches out, grabbing Sarah by her black tank top when Sarah desperately lurches back, pulling away from the sudden grasp but then looks down to realise it was not what she was expecting. “What the!?” Sarah sees a little girl wearing her blue overcoat, waving back at her with an innocent smile. N?mi couldn’t help but find the woman's confusion amusing, and is the reason why she openly smiles at Sarah. N?mi then hops on her feet and leaps over to Sarah, looking directly up towards Sarah's magnificent Sapphire eyes.

  “HI! You got really pretty eyes, you know that?” N?mi says as she leans in further to get a better look at The woman's eyes. N?mi couldn’t help getting enchanted by Sarah's eyes, shyly looking away when Sarah looks back to meet her in the eyes.

  “What? Who are you? What’s a little girl doing all the way out here?” The woman had an orotund voice that was slightly deeper than N?mi would have imagined. It was firm and confident. This in turn made N?mi want to present herself in such a way that would match the level she sensed from this woman. A small smirk grows on her face as she turns back to face Sarah in the eyes. N?mi hops back, landing in a widened stance

  “My name is N?mi!” She loudly boasts with her right hand on her hip and the other pointing at herself with her thumb “I'm new here!” N?mi then flails her arms out with open palms, doing her best to appear bigger than she really is. “And I will be The Goddess of this wonderful world you call Dirt!”