Primrose
I unsheath the final arrow from my quiver, my fingers shaking with fatigue as I place it in my bow and pull back the string. At this point I am being driven more by my frustration then my determination. I take a quick glance at the groung beneath the target where my other eleven arrows had landed beforehand, well the ones that hadn't flown into the tangled shrubbery behind the target. alot of the arrows . just as im about to fire my final arrow my sister Katniss crouches beside me and grabs my shooting arm with hers, repositioning it slightly.
"Aim higher little duck and try not to tremble." Katniss lightly nudges my hands up and helps me pull back the arrow, my arms had begun to ache and I could feel them tiring by the second. I didn't understand how Katniss could do this for hours at a time without showing any signs of fatigue. I turn my head making direct eye contact with Katniss, she smiles at me sweetly but never loosens her grip on my hands. Katniss is my older sister who recently turned eleven and received and was given her first proper bow by our father, lord John Everdeen. He taught Katniss how to shoot when she was eight and now shes passing her knowledge on to me at age eight. Although I doubt I'll ever reach her mastery with the bow and arrow. I once saw her impale a squirrel with one arrow from fifty meters away, sending the sharp arrow right through its eye and that was at age nine. I still remember the way the squirrels brains splattered out in all directions covering the surrounding mossy green trees in a blanket of pinkish-red blood and I still remember the way I cried for the poor squirrels life. I haven't been hunting with Katniss or my father since and the poor squirrel still haunts me. Poor creature, it didn't have to die we had plenty of food. Yet whenever I bring it up to Katniss or my father they laugh and call me a squeamish little lady who doesn't understand. My brother once laughed when I tried to revive a doe that father had shoot with an arrow. Mother says its in my blood because she's descended from house Saurmont , a house well known for its excellent healers and midwives. Katniss notices me daydreaming and waves a slender hand in front of my face to regain my attention. As I refocus on the task at hand I notice Katniss still smiling brightly at me and sigh. Katniss is amazing in everyway she's smart, agile and stunningly beautiful with her long brown hair and light grey eyes. The annoying thing is that she doesn't even have to try. She only rarely wears dresses and prefers boiled leather trousers to woven silk gowns and her hair is usually slumped on her shoulder in the form of a braid, she is the furthest thing from ladylike yet mother says she is almost a woman and I don't see it. Katniss releases her grip on my hand and stands up beside me. The top of my head just reaching her neck, she takes a step back and whispers something that sounds like "fire". I release the arrow from between my fingers and watch it fly into the bottom left corner of the target. The arrow only stays attached to the target for a brief second before falling to the groung amongst the other arrows, it was still better then all my other attempts. A second later I hear faint clapping coming from behind me which I assumed was coming from Katniss, until I heard the snickers. I didn't even have to turn my head to know that the laughter was coming from my eldest sibling Gale. As Gale laughs his coal black hair bounces and shakes around his olive coloured face, I wanted so badly to scream at him but the sound wouldn't come. Suddenly it felt as if my throat had been stomped on and I was left completly mute, I feel the heat building in my face. In my silent rage I decide to hurl my empty sheath at his face, he dodges it swiftly and starts to laugh harder. All of a sudden the laughter was all around me, not only was Gale choking on his own breath but I could now hear loud chuckling coming from my two cousins Rory and Vick. They laughed so hard they almost fell from the stack of hay bales they were perched on. I even hear a small laugh coming from ser Darius, the head of my fathers household guard. The frustration soon becomes to much to bare, I throw down my bow in defeat, slump down onto my knees, cross my arms over them and scream, I scream until I can scream no more. I hear someone come up behind me and I look up, seeing Katniss staring down at me with a comforting expression on her face
"its okay little duck, I didn't get it perfect on my first time either." she offers her hand to me and I take it without question. As she helps me back onto my feet, I cough multiple times while brushing the dust off myself, my voice felt so hoarse. Katniss volunteers to retrieve the all the arrows while I go and put m y practice bow back in the armoury. Ser Darius greets me chuckling, his straight red hair bouncing above his ears. As I wander into the armoury I do my best to ignore ser Darius who was polishing a steel helm with a damp cloth. I place my bow down on the birch wood table beside me and stretch my aching arms out, I feel so sore.
"Not tough enough for the bow yet aye Prim." Darius says while smiling warmly through crooked white teeth. Darius has been the head of my fathers household guard since I was just a babe, he has always been kind to me and my siblings. He taught Gale how to use a sword although he's much more skilled with a bow. Darius says it comes in handy for close combat but ive never actually seen Gale use one. Darius is the most experienced I know when it comes to swordsmanship he's very strong and very quick and father says those are the only things you need be if you wish to be a great swordsman. Darius once told us a story about how he became the head of fathers household guard. Apparently, during the annual trading ceremony between House Everdeen and House Mellark in which a select group of traders and guards go out into the toast woods and trade wheat, barley and other various baking materials for coal, wool and medical remedies. He told us that a large grouping of sellswords were hired by a petty Mellark merchant to kill as many of the guards and traders as possible and take the survivors as hostages. I dont remember much of the story after that, I tuned out because it was frightning me but I know Darius slew the sellswords and thats why father made him head of the household guard. Despite the fact that he was only the son of a wool merchant. I dont remember these events occuring because I was so young although I still believe they occured, I trust ser Darius the same way I trust my father. Darius was now twenty three and still faught with the same plain steel longsword with a deer bone hilt he's had since that day seven years ago, he named it coinslayer and it was currently sitting beside him unsheathed beside him on the table. He catches me eyeing it and laughs.
"Admiring my blade are ya? Ha, not much to admire these days but it stll serves me faithfully and thats all I ask of it." He picks up the worn longsword with both hands and flips it around running his thumb up the blade.
"But it could use a sharpening." Darius reaches under the table and pulls out a yellow-grey whetstone. Ser Darius begins sharpening coinslayer as I grab my bow off the table and hang it back on the rusted hook it came from. While it hangs I examine it, sighing. It was a very old bow. Infact it was the same bow that Katniss, Gale and even my father used to practice with. It was pretty much worn out with a thin string and a chipped wooden handle, my practice bow was on its final days.
"We should probably replace your bow soon little duck." Katniss comes up behind me with my quiv er completely restocked and focused look on her face, examining the decomposing bow in front of her. She spins around the old patched leather quiver and hangs it on the bent up nail beside my bow, fiddling with the stained goose feathers at the ends of the arrows with steady fingers. Katniss holds up her own bow and quiver. I gaze with jealousy at Katniss's practically brand new pine and oak bow with a thick string made by our father which was accompined by a quiver of specially carved deer wood arrows with fresh pearly-white goose feathers on the ends. Katniss's twenty four arrows narrowly squeezed into her hole-less grey quiver while my twelve arrows loosely sat around the sides leaving a large gap in the center of my quiver. Katniss hangs her perfect bow and quiver side by side on adjacent rusty hooks and kneels down in front me.
"Tuck in that tale little duck." Katniss says as she grabs the back of my shirt and tucks it in to the back of my trousers with her thumbs.
"There, much better." Katniss smiles at me as she stands back up, brushing off the front of her pants. A gentle autumn breeze blows past causing gooseprickles to come up on my forearms, Katniss crosses her arms over her chest and shivers. The sun was lowering in the sky and I knew soon the evening would be upon us and that meant the wind would get worse. Lately the wind had been blowing fiercer during the evening hours, some say its the gods way of telling us winter was coming and others thought that it was just wind. Katniss is among those people. Katniss brings one of her hands out of her armpit and takes mine, leading me around the yard to my room like im a confused toddler. It doesnt surprise me though, people have always treated me like this because im the youngest. "Dont talk about that in front of the little lady." A phrase i'd heard from everyone, from my mother, my father , Gale, Katniss and even sometimes in mocking sense my bastard sister, Rue. Mother told me that she bought shame to our house and I could tell she strongly misliked her. Gale once told me that mother hated her because she wasn't her daughter, only fathers. But when I asked her about it she shouted at me louder then she ever had before and sent me to my bedchamber while I sobbed. Rue was only a few months younger then me with her seventh name day arriving in just a week. Just thinking about her made me feel bad but luckily Katniss distracts me from my thoughts by talking about making me a new bow and suddenly I rise to attention.
"I'll ask father about making you a new bow, that practice bow oughta fall apart any day now. Ser Darius told me that a bad bow can effect your accuracy." Katniss and I arrive outside of my bedchamber and she releases my hand. Another gust of icy wind blows past causing me to shake.
"Go inside for now little duck, and if you come back out wear a cloak. The winds will probably return tonight." Katniss shivers once again and I can hear her teeth chattering faintly. Her arms were bare and covered with gooseprickles. On her top half she only wore a brown leather hunting vest which she had also received for her last name day. Her hair did't offer much coverage as it was slumped on her left shoulder in a braid.
"I'll see you tonight at dinner little duck."Katniss wraps her arms around me and embraces me for a quick hug. She then brings her arms back around her chestand saunters away across the dusky yard. I run up up the old cobblestone steps into my dark bedchamber, theb first thing I do is open the shutters to let in the golden evening light but instead I get a strong burst of wind to the face. I quickly close the shutters and am left in a dark room once more. The air in my bed chamber is brisk and dry which causes me to shiver even more. I brush my fingers along the walls of my bed chamber feeling almost as many chips and dents in the ancient cobblestone as there were in my practice bow, my bedchamber was the second oldest in all of Firecress. It was known as the burning tower and it was where lady Saffron Mason was murdered three hundred years ago. I've always felt a little frightened in here especially when it was dark. I decide to climb under the furs on my featherbed for a while, just waiting for someone to come and retrieve me for dinner.