One on the head

Keldava Wolfe-Denahlii · 08-30-2012, 03:10 PM

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This is dated 2 days before Levent leaves Arte. When that has a set date, so will this Big Grin Approx late August

Keldava took a deep breath and faced the target she had set up, a simple wooden square with some circles painted on it nailed to a tree. If she closed her eyes and blocked out as much as possible she could almost pretend that she was back before the incident, about to take part in her regular archery practise.

But as always an unpleasant mix of numbness and ever present pain at the end of her right arm brought her back to reality. Opening her eyes Keldava glared down at the hand that was giving her so much trouble. Everything about the hand looked ugly to Keldava, from the raised scars all over the back of the palm and fingers to the crooked position the fingers tended to take now if she didn’t make an effort to straighten them. The hand was still pretty much useless; Keldava could barely move the fingers at all and forcing them to straighten or bend more than a tiny fraction caused her a lot of pain. The amount she could bend them was slowly improving day by day but the progress was so small that it was hard to be optimistic.

Still she had forced herself out to at least give using her bow a go. While it would seem a rather complicated task for her first attempt at using her hand again Keldava didn’t actually have to fully close her right hand to use the bow. Still she was well aware that she was unlikely to be successful and was standing a good 20 yards closer than she normally did, an wasn’t one bit happy about it.

Keldava exhaled and then pulled an arrow from the quiver mounted at her hip. She managed to pull the arrow out alright, but when she tried to raise the bow and pull back on the string. As soon as she tried to put the bowstrings pressure onto her fingers fire seemed to shoot down from her fingertips and she let the string go with a yelp; the arrow sinking into the ground halfway to the target. Keldava could just about bend her fingers far enough but she hadn’t thought about the amount of force working a bow put on her fingers. Wincing she grit her teeth and set to work.

Half an hour later Keldava’s hand felt like someone had been hitting it with a hammer and she had nothing to show for it but a quiver full of arrows buried in the ground around the tree, in the trees trunk and pretty much anywhere except the target. Gina had showed up behind her at some point but Keldava had paid her little mind, concentrating on her attempts at archery. Now she was done she stared at the results of her efforts, anger slowly growing inside her. One moment of anger on her mothers behalf and Keldava had gone from being able to hit the center rings 4 times out of 5 at 30 yards, to not even being able to hit the target at 10. Head filled with shame and anger Keldava growled at the target and stalked over to retrieve her arrows.

Dalgina Wolfe-Denahlii · 08-30-2012, 03:35 PM

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OOC Laughs

Dalgina stood behind Keldava, watching as her sister fired the arrows. They arched through the air, graceful in flight. None of them went where they were meant to though. Softly she ran her fingers through Tehu's feathers, brown eyes thoughtful. It wasn't right, what had happened. Each time the arrows arched Dalgina's heart would raise, hoping that maybe this time the arrows would do what Keldava wanted, and strike the target. They never did though. Time slipped past as she watched, hating Keldava's failure. Hating the pain that her sister faced at having her abilities stripped away.

Humming softly Dalgina came over to Keldava, lightly touching her shoulder. The last one almost reached. Not much comfort, as both of them knew how good Keldava's skill truly was. She let her sister go ahead to collect the arrows, knowing that she couldn't fix it. Dalgina had tried when Keldava came with her hand bloodied, and Tal himself had patched it up. The wounds on her hand were so ugly. As ugly as the mother that had inflicted it, as the monster in the night that haunted her dreams. The nightmares were fewer now, but always it was there, Mahn hurting her again and again, her siblings dead in the background. How could she fix this?

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Keldava Wolfe-Denahlii · 08-30-2012, 04:15 PM

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Keldava hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings in her anger and flinched in surprise when Gina touched her on the shoulder. Gina’s words and tone were soothing but Keldava wasn’t in much of a mood to be soothed. ”Almost won’t make a deer fall over dead so we can have something to eat!” she snapped, stalking off angrily towards the target without giving Gina a chance to reply.

Picking the arrows up was repetitive and gave Keldava a chance to cool down, though her annoyance was drawn out a bit when she saw that several arrows had broken upon impact with either the hard wood of the tree or stones that littered the ground; Keldava’s arrow making skills still left much to be desired – in truth they were little more than sharpened sticks with fire hardened tips and feathers – they were accurate enough but were weak and good for little more than hunting small game. The target she used was made from an odd, soft wood she had found a large amount of in Halifax one time she had visited which her arrows could hit without breaking but that didn’t make any difference when she couldn’t hit the bloody thing.

With an angry snort Keldava threw the broken arrows over to the side, gathered the ones that were still intact and made her way back over to Gina. She had calmed down a bit now and her ears flattened apologetically as she approached. ”Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just…” Keldava let out a frustrated sigh and leant back against a nearby tree, running her good hand over her brow, ”I get frustrated. I’m useless like this! I can’t fight, I can’t hunt, I can’t do any heavy lifting… I can patrol the border but if anything actually happened all someone would need to do is squeeze my hand and they could put me on the ground!” Keldava snorted, looking down at the ground but said no more, she just remained silent before sighing and pushing herself up. She paused a minute to brush a hand gentle against Gina’s shoulder and then set back to her archery, taking more time to aim this time and grunting occasionally at the pain coursing through her hand.

Dalgina Wolfe-Denahlii · 08-30-2012, 04:33 PM

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OOC Laughs

A light flinch followed Dalgina's touch. The delicate black wolf's ears flattened, knowing the truth of the words. Despite the anger behind it, it was true Keldava couldn't bring down prey, or anything else for that matter. Tehu chirped scoldingly, not caring for the harsh words directed towards Dalgina. She couldn't really say anything against it though. Dalgina knew that Keldava hated how weak she was at the moment, in turn hating that she couldn't help. She tried, she really did. Dalgina just wasn't like Keldava. She wasn't brave, and wasn't any good with weapons. She could paint, but that wouldn't produce food to eat.

Nodding her head she accepted Keldava's apology tonelessly. I know. If only the arm could be fixed! She watched Keldava go back to her attempts. Perhaps she could help. Taru made arrows. Maybe she could show Dalgina how to make some, so she could give it to Keldava. She would like that, wouldn't she? Good arrows, ones that would fly true. A sudden sound in the bushes brought Dalgina's attention up. Ears flat she pressed into Keldava's body, careless of the danger of interrupting an archer. What was that? Was Mahn coming to hurt them?

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Keldava Wolfe-Denahlii · 08-30-2012, 05:46 PM

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Keldava was feeling hopeful about this latest arrow when a screech sounded out from the forest and a warm body was suddenly pressing against her own. Keldava let go of the string in shock and the arrow went careening off into the undergrowth. Keldava cared little for this though as she swung her head around towards the direction the noise had come from, trying to figure out what the hell it was.

”I don’t know.” she said quickly to Gina, swiftly licking her sister’s ear before disentangling herself from her and prowling off towards the forest, ”Stay here.” she called out behind her as she set out at a slow run towards a second screech which had sounded from the same location as the first. The sounds behind her told her that Gina had ignored her and was following her but she didn’t have time to turn around and chide her.

Eventually Keldava burst out into a clearing and was immediately hi by the strong smell of blood. Things seemed to go into slow motion as a sleek, black furred big cat raised it’s head from whatever it had attacked, turning slowly towards her. Strangely Keldava felt no fear, her mind was cold and focused even as her body moved seemingly without cue. By the time she had processed just how fucked she was, that if the cougar got close neither she nor Gina could fight close quarters, she already had her bow raised and an arrow nocked.

Her hand was screaming with pain, worse even that when she had first taken the wound but it seemed muted, the pain slowed to her senses just as time was. Even so she felt the vibration from the bow as she released it running up her arm like a wave of fire, though her attention was focused on the arrow as it flew through the air, striking the cougar in the back of the neck.

For a moment the cougar seemed to freeze just as Keldava had and then it pitched forwards, slumping to the ground with a lethal stillness. Almost as soon as the threat had passed time brushed back to normal, and more important so did the feeling in Keldava’s hand. With a cry Keldava dropped to her knees, cradling her hand against her chest.

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