Just A Little Bit Jaded

1. A New Start

        A breeze ruffled gently through her hair, light like feathers. Silently, her arrow slid back against the bow, her pale green eyes focusing on the target just down the way. With a slow breath, she let the arrow fly, the sharpened tip of the arrowhead narrowly missing the fragile neck of a doe.

        However, the doe wasn’t her target.

        The tree behind the doe was.

        Frightened, the doe sprang away, taking off through the forest. With a quiet sigh, she crept down from the high branches, agile and deft. One by one, she plucked the arrows from their marked places in the trees, each one of the trunks marked with multiple strikes from previous practices. It was commonplace for her to be out here, no matter the time of day, practicing her shots.

        Every day, she got better and better.

        As long as she didn’t cause damage to the wildlife, and as long as she wasn’t late for her lessons, her practices were encouraged.

        Speaking of late, she sheathed her last missing arrow into the quiver on her back. Her godmother would have a fit over this. As much as their hobbies were encouraged, their private lessons were a must. On top of their normal schoolwork, she and her brother learned things that the normal children didn’t.

        Perhaps ‘children’ wasn’t the right word for it. They weren’t children anymore. She felt like a child compared to their world, but the simple humans that milled around them were on the brink of adulthood and boasted about it frequently enough that she could hardly forget. It was such a treasured thing for them, and rightfully so, she supposed.

        It was just so puzzling when they hardly had anything of the sort. Nothing was quite the same, she’d come to realize over the years. The similarities were there, yes, but the differences created the gaps that they’d tried to bridge in order to fit in. They’d grown up this way, but as long as she could remember, she’d always felt ‘different’.

        “You’re late for your lessons, Letty,” came his familiar voice.

        “Sorry, Dad,” she answered with a small nod. “I lost an arrow.”

        Raising a brow, he watched her set her things down. “That’s quite unlike you, Sweetheart. Somehow I doubt that. You just didn’t want to come back in yet, did you?”

        “Dad,” she protested calmly, continuing to her destination in their large house. “I’m already late-.”

        Gently, he grabbed her wrist, and while she pulled for a moment against his grip, his voice stopped her. “Scarlett Jade, you miss her again, don’t you?”

        “She’s in New Zealand, Dad, of course I miss her. Can you really pretend you and Ash don’t?”

        “We don’t pretend, Letty. We’re just more at ease with it because we talk. You bottle what you feel inside. It’s all right to talk to us. It’s all right to share your burden with us. We love you.”

        “The last of the Primes didn’t share his burden. If I aim to be like him, then I should be more than capable of coping on my own.”

        Before she could leave him, Orion planted a gentle kiss into his daughter’s hair. Quietly, she pulled away, leaving to join her brother in the study that served as their secondary classroom. It was only for a little over thirty minutes each day, but Scarlett viewed it as quite possibly the most important part of their education.