The hunter's bow

Introspection

Aksel's POV
I rotated my arms feeling the muscles scream in defiance as I sat with Erik, he looked over and asked "wanna go for a walk?" I sighed and replied "fuck it" as I slowly stood. We walked around the base as it slowly returned to its typical lively self, we watched the medics work on our wounded, it seems my group got off lucky. Other teams had taken heavy wounds but luckily we didn't lose anyone, an achievement not many other units from the battle could say. I mused "we took a lot of casualties" Erik replied "we took a lot of Masks with us" I asked "do we have an official body count?" He replied "the most recent number coming in is 382" I asked in surprise "that many?" He nodded and replied "and they're not done counting, my money is on 700" I looked over and replied "I'm thinking more towards 800" he looked at me and asked "willing to bet 15 dollars on it?" I looked at him in challenge and replied "hope you're ready to lose money" as we shook hands and smirked confidently at each other. The culture of special forces, even from different units the brotherhood is there.
We continued just walk around trying to find something to kill the boredom before we walked past my dorm and I asked "wanna watch a movie?" He shrugged and replied "shit, why not?" As we walked in and I turned on the tv. We looked through the movies before we landed on Blackhawk down, we looked at each other before nodding as I slid the movie in and we sat down watching the movie. Freyja, Craig, Meghan and Sanaa walked in about 13 minutes later, they took a single look at the tv before clambering to get around the tv so they could join in on the viewing of a classic military movie. Meghan asked "so Erik is this why you joined the unit?" He replied chuckling "yes actually" I asked incredulously "seriously?" He nodded and replied "I saw this movie and decided that's what I wanted to do so here I am." I chuckled as Freyja muttered "skide amerikanere(fucking americans)" I replied with a cocky edge to my voice "de indser, at det er en sindssyg grund til at slutte sig til hæren, ikke?(they do realize that's an insane reason to join the army right?)"
     She laughed as we saw the others looking on in confusion. We watched the movies commenting during different parts, we got to the part where the rangers were quick roping in when the guy missed and I spoke "that wouldn't happen to me" Sanaa looked at me and asked "what would you do differently" I replied cockily "use 10% of my power and levitate" Freyja looked at me rolling her eyes as she commented "I wasn't expecting you to keep saying that joke" Meghan asked "what joke?" Freyja explained "when we were kids Aksel would keep telling our parents that he was a demigod and he had powers and other things, we realized he was just joking trying to get our parents attention so it became a running joke. A way for our parents to connect" I leaned back as Craig asked "you didn't get much attention as a kid, did you?" I shook my head no while staring at the ceiling, I spoke "Freyja was the star child, she got the attention and I bonded with our butler. He'd play games with me and teach me how to cook and properly set up a table"
Freyja gasped and mused "so that's where you learned it" I nodded as Meghan asked "you two had butlers?" I nodded and replied "we come from a rich family" Sanaa spoke "we never had a butler but I did get to travel a lot, I don't think my الآب(father) wanted one. I think he wanted to stay independent" Freyja explained "my father was a busy man, my mother always had something to do so we got taken care of by tutors and help staff. I was just more vocal about my achievements than Aksel was. Aksel many times did better than I did, it's just he would want to do good infront of our parents and mess up" I sighed and spoke "plus you were the favorite because I liked weird things, Mor(mom) and far(dad) could relate to what you liked but that wasn't me. Humphrey understood" Freyja sighed as the dysfunctional family aspect became clear to the others in the room. Erik asked "so what were your interests your family didn't relate to?" I shrugged and replied "marine life, dinosaurs, jets, anything other than what they wanted me to be interested in"
Freyja replied "because they wanted you to be the successor to the company" I looked over and replied "otto can do that, he's always been more numbers oriented than either of us" Freyja snorted as Craig asked "who's Otto?" I silently said 'oh' before I explained "he's our little bror(brother), he got born 5 years after me" Sanaa said "you never said you had a brother" I heard Freyja point out "you didn't know Aksel existed either, I don't talk about my family" I nodded and replied "he's the only one who didn't join the military, did what our parents wanted. Such a kiss ass" Freyja snorted and replied "always has been, kept trying to take favorite child. Like it fuckin mattered" I could sense the growing resentment at our parents for having favorites before Meghan asked "so what does he do?" I replied "he's the CEO of my father's company, took over after he died" they all murmured "sorry for your loss" we waved them off since it's been a couple years and our grief has mostly dissipated. Deep within myself I knew I made him proud but I needed the drive, I needed to have something to keep moving forward. Maybe if there's an afterlife I can find him and we can have the talk he always wanted to have, I'm regretting not making time now.