The Boy With The Arrows

P R O L O G U E

A young family fled from the sound of horses' hooves, small feet struggling to keep up with their father as they ran for their lives.

"Where are we going, dad?" Phil, the only one old enough to question, wanted to know.

"I don't know, Phil," the boy's father sighed, his words disjointed due to the fact that he was running, a satchel of belongings banging heavily on his back. "As far away from here as we can get."

"But why?" Phil insisted.

"Phil, please don't ask anymore," the taller blonde pleaded. "Take your brothers' hands, you need to help them, okay? I have my hands full with these two."

The desperate father glanced down at his youngest son resting in the crook of his left arm, still miraculously fast asleep, before his eyes trailed further to the blonde haired toddler who gripped his other hand tightly. She blinked up at him innocently, not yet being old enough to speak sentences, and his heart clenched at what she was going through at such a young age. At what all his children were going through.

"I'm tired, dad," Techno grumbled, a small hand coming up to rub at his cheeks in an attempt to remove some of the dirt on them. "I wanna rest."

Phil squeezed his brother's hand tightly in an attempt to comfort the small child, and Techno glanced up at him with fear-filled eyes when his father omitted to reply to his request.

"I'm scared, Phil," he spoke, his voice small and trembly.

"I know, it's okay," was Phil's only response.

"I think we can rest for a moment," said their father, pausing for a moment at a large tree whose trunk had been hollowed through the passage of time. "Not for very long though."

Phil pulled his two brothers into the hollowed out area immediately, Techno dropping his hand as soon as Phil released his iron grip on it, and Wilbur, the other, collapsing dramatically to the ground. Their father released his daughter's hand, and she immediately joined her twin on the ground. Their father watched the two of them with sad, affectionate eyes. Between the boy's soft brown hair, and the girl's small and delicate features, they were all he had left to remind him of his wife.

"Dad, why are the horses after us?" Techno wanted to know.

The second eldest was standing in the entrance to the tree trunk in which they'd found refuge, staring out at the semi darkness of the forest beyond. It wasn't anywhere near sunset, but the canopy of trees above prevented most of the sunlight from reaching the floor below.

"I stole something that was very important to their government," Techno's father explained, adjusting his grip on his youngest son to run a hand through Techno's hair.

"Are governments bad, then?" Techno asked, his small brow furrowing with confusion.

"Not necessarily," said his father. "But this one is."

"Is that why you stole?" Asked Phil.

The eldest's blue eyes met his father's matching ones almost knowingly, and his father sighed, but did not respond. He turned, and dropped the satchel that had been on his back to the ground, causing the twins to sit up and look at him with interest. Wilbur began to babble incoherently, reaching out tiny hands towards the satchel.

"I'm sorry, baby, I know you're hungry, I wish I had something to give you," his father sighed, unzipping the satchel, and reaching inside. He drew out two small discs, no bigger than the size of his palm, one green, and one purple. The twins watched, mesmerised, as they began to change shape until they more closely resembled rings instead of discs.