The night air was cool and fresh.
Reina crouched adroitly on a high thick branch that fanned out from one of the tall centuries - old trees that made up the large forest she was at the middle.
The dark sky held a thin crescent shape in the place of a full moon. Below, crickets sang melodies, and were joined by owls and other nocturnal creatures. Their songs formed one beautiful rhythm - such was nature.
The rhythm created the right scene, the right space, the right opportunity for Reina. She was still as a statue, only breathing, blinking, and occasionally looking up to the barely visible moon.
Her boot soles had firm grip on the rough bark of the branch, but her left hand wrapped tensely around its thick stem the much they could. The air picked up in her direction, leaving trails of goose bumps on her dark skin, however the wind was not enough to move her long braided hair that rested its tail on her back. She had always fancied the cold, even to point of chattering her teeth.
She caught on it immediately - the sudden quietening of the crickets some miles behind her. Before she could think or act on it, a sudden force had her jerking forward, and she would have fallen. Pain exploded through her chest from her back. She looked down to find an arrowhead pointing out at the middle. Her favourite white shirt - one of many other white shirts that hung blandly in her wardrobe - had been condemned. A red circle spread with the arrowhead at its centre, and she knew there would be a bigger one on her back.
Carefully, she pulled out the arrow by its head while she gritted her teeth in wrenching pain. It left a wide hole through her body. Disconnectedly, she stared in front of her until the hole closed up, the only evidence being a drilled shirt and a wide round spread of blood. In her hands, the thick arrow crumbled into dust and was the wind blew it away, and then her eyes searched until she found what she was looking for. Stealthily, she jumped off the meters - high tree, raced at inhuman speed to play with her prey.
The war her people had been waiting for, the war she and others had been conditioned for, was at its brink of break - out.
