In a clearing within the bowels of the woods, a clearing of wildflowers ripple in a soft breeze. A man dressed in black and leather lies on his back, his ankles crossed, staring up into the open sky. A bow forged out of midnight lies next to him, the sheath with it. Not even the birds or insects risked making a too loud of noise in the noon of day.
Within the quiet, he remembers . . .
His mother was rarely home, so it was his father who actually taught him how to use a bow. He took him out hunting a lot when he was little.
Facing the targets, he loads an arrow. He pulls the string back and after a few seconds, release it.
It's a bull's-eye.
His father would dote on him constantly, teaching him how to hunt and use the family forge. He always said that composure was the key to a successful archer.
"If you can remain calm, even in the midst of chaos, your arrow will most likely find its target."
A single wheat stalk ticks back and forth between his teeth. His body was sweating buckets beneath the dark clothes. But he didn't care, even when he felt a drop of sweat fall from the small of his back.
"Alright son, you can have the best technique and form in the world, but it won't mean a thing if you can't focus. The key to using any weapon, is focus. If you can keep your composure and trust that each shot is true, then you should be able to quickly handle multiple targets."
His mother would make the best venison chop he ever tasted. Which, from his homeland, isn't much, but it was luxury in his eyes. His father made a living forging weaponry. They lived under the iron fist of a cruel and domineering king who didn't take any nonsense from anyone. He kept the kingdom under a strict curfew, and anyone caught about after hours was killed on sight.
"Often times you won't be able to get close to your prey as you'd like and you'll have to settle with a long shot. However with such a long shot, it's more than likely that's the only shot you'll be able to take before your prey runs off. If you find yourself in such a situation, then you need to make your shot count. Don't rush your shot. Crouch down, get comfortable, and take aim."
How he misses him so.
He remembers his father telling him he'd make a fine smith one day. Things seemed perfect.
Until his great passion is what ended his life.
All too quickly the world shifts beneath his feet and he teeters. His knees ache as he falls into the snow.
The sky was on fire. The flames reached into the sky, pushing forth massive fists of smoke, swallowing everything in their path. Even the moon. He screamed, stumbling back and onto the ashen ground. He coughed as clouds billowed up around him. They shift and shaped in grey swirls, looking like hands desperately clawing at me to pull him under. The ground had turned to swamp. Burned ashen ground that has been drenched by the rains that preceded the fire. If only it had rained that day.
There was a rebellion against the king. Rebels filled the streets like rats. While his parents did believe in their cause, they preferred to solve without violence.
Soldiers came storming into the house. His mother desperately clung to him as the guards accused his father of aiding the rebels.
The wet dirt seeped into his knees. His hands limp at his sides.
His father was an innocent man.
It didn't matter.
One guard clobbered him over the head and dragged his unconscious body out the door. His mother was screaming, weeping. The guards came for them next.
He was terrified; immobilized by fear. He was dragged out with his mother to the castle courtyard, where the chopping block was ready, and the executioner was standing in wait.
His mother screamed and fought to guards while he stood idly by. He screamed into gritted teeth, frustrated. He couldn't help. He was worthless.
Guards held his mother as his father was dragged to executioner's block. He fought them the whole three yards away from him – from his son. They were still trying to protect him.
They forced his father downward, face first, his nose bleeding as he turned his head. His mother was too busy fighting and screaming to think of him.
He was blocked by two guards who had their arms crossed in front of him. One of them mumbled, "Look away, son."
But he didn't listen. He wasn't his father.
The headsman raised his axe, and it rained down towards his father. Blood surged from his neck, staining the blade of the axe and arching through the air. A path of blood spread over his shoulder.
He blinked, and the violent red stained the inside of his eyelids. He blinked again, and he saw his father's eyes beaming with pride as he killed his first deer.
His head rolled into a wicker basket and his body slumped to the side. He could just see a piece of white bone sticking out of his neck.
He was motionless, without breath, and without a head.
"Dad," he said. He meant for it to be a shout, but it was just a whisper.
He clamped his hands over his mouth and screamed into his palms. His cheeks were hot wand wet with tears he didn't feel any beginning.
His mother wailed like a dying animal and called the guards vicious names. She ended up stomping on one of the guard's foot and wrenched herself free. Within two steps, she was surrounded and they dragged her towards the block.
"Mom!" That time he screamed.
His blood was ringing in his ears, and everything was muffled, so when she was screaming at him, he couldn't make out any distinct words. But only three managed to register.
"Get out! Run!"
He turned away just as her head was forced to hit the block. He sprinted at full speed away from the scene. The guards shouted at him, but none give chase. His blood cried out that it belongs to his parents, and struggled to return to them, and he heard his mother's words. Get out. Run.
Run. Run. Run.
He scrambled to rush to the village. He could hear the screams, mixed with the rogue screeching of pain and the unrelenting roar of the flames.
His body had brought him to their house. But he stopped.
Everything was burning, everything ablaze.
He dropped to his knees in front of the house. The screams of people piercing his ears, even greater than the flames, and more traumatizing.
He wanted to call out, call his father, his mother, anyone. But somehow, he had lost his voice; and was unsure whether it was due to the suffocating smoke or the horror.
One by one, he watched the homes of his neighbors, of his friends and family, surrender to the flames. And in the worst of circumstances, many of those friends and relatives surrendered as well, eaten alive by the flames in the very home where he was born.His throat felt tight, crammed with the scream and wailing of grief.
Pain stabbed through him as everything he was made of collapsed, his entire world dismantled in a moment. His eyes burned and he was too weak to rise; the scent of smoke and sweat made him feel sick.
He wanted to rest his head on the ground and let that be the end of it. He wanted to sleep now and never wake up. The shaking hit him so hard.
Something like that just doesn't happen to an average thirteen year old. And it shouldn't.
Fresh tears filled his eyes, causing the world to swim. He blinked and they fell searing the skin of his already raw cheeks. Shutting his eyes tight, he willed the tide of despair welling up within him to subside.
A sob rises from the depths, but he caught it before it could escape. He swallowed hard, forcing it down.
It felt like drowning.
Grief was a yawning pit of darkness blooming at his core. He could hardly stand beneath its weight.
I can't bear this. I can't.
The piercing pain of loss is a double-edged blade he couldn't bear to touch. How could he grieve for them? Cry for them? Bleed for them inside when it won't change anything? It won't change anything.
They're gone.
They're gone.
All the words he never found time to say. All the things we never found time to do. Ripped from him with merciless finality.
Gone.
But he was not gone. He was still there. Deep inside, he heard the anguished wailing – the wordless kneeing of unbearable grief.
He couldn't stand to hear it. To feel it. To let it live.
A yawning pit of darkness within opened wide, whispering promises to take the pain. Swallow the loss. Make it possible to draw a breath without choking on the shattered pieces no one will ever fix.
Loss was a gaping hole with jagged teeth, and he couldn't bear it.The wall of grief inside him slowly subsided into a well of icy silence – deafening and absolute.
It ripped him in two, cutting him off from everything he couldn't stand to face.
But he remembered his father telling him to be brave one day while they were out hunting. And his mother shouting at him to run.
Opening his icy-blue eyes, wafts of his dark black hair tickle his cheek. He inhaled, and the breath was shaky.
Somehow, he stood that night. Fury was a welcome companion, warming him with something that felt like comfort. Revenge took energy. He wouldn't break until the King was dead.
Because his parents were gone. And he was still here. He embraced his rage. Let it sink into his secret spaces and make him its own until he was a stranger beneath his skin. He wore armor on the inside, a metal forged of fury and silence, cutting him off from him.
This was how it felt being bent and broken. How it felt when the dignity was stolen. But he learned, when everything you love is leaving, you hold onto what you believe in.
He was no longer a son. He was no longer a boy with dreams. With hope.
He was a weapon now.
Feeling nothing but rage and resolve made him stronger.
His parents did not die in vain. He made sure of it.
Joining up with the rebellion, he was the blacksmith until he was old enough to recruit. He forged his own armor and weapons and renamed himself.
A new name. A new place. He could be remade.
He climbed his way through the ranks, buddying up to the older soldiers and trainers. Every inch of his skin was wrapped in black cloth, and a cowl that covered the lower half of his face.
Proving himself through the rankings, his insurgent nature earned him the right to lead the final invasion into the King's castle. Troops stormed the courtyard while he invaded by rooftop.
The king would be so focused on the invading troops, attacks from above were the last on his mind.
He could still feel the stickiness of his blood on his hands.
He died too quickly.
His dagger plunged into the king's back. He shrieked as the blade pierced through until it's tip was poking out of his chest.
"Hello, Your Majesty." He said as he twirled the bloody dagger, flecks splattering across the carpet.
"You filthy vermin! How dare you! I'll see to it you rot for eternity in the -"
It was over before it could even start.
He left the king's body for dead and walked out to the balcony. He watched the men fight before he ignited a fire. He aimed high and let the arrow fly. Once it was at the center of the courtyard, it exploded and showered down in streams of smoke. The fighting seemed to have ceased for a moment, like a withheld breath.
Then the shouting began.
The man blinks, remembering he was lying in a field. He was not on a killing field, nor was he sitting in front of his house, a broken boy, weeping for the life that had been taken from him.
The man sits up, sweat sliding down his temples, soaking into his mask. Resting his forearms on his knees, he took deep breaths.
He was here. He had to remember that.
He stands up, his muscles protesting in pain. As he lung on his bow and arrow, his spine tingled.
Deep within himself, he could still hear the unending wailing of the grief-stricken boy.