Three Thousand year old dark wood with reinforced silver tips, as much flex as the best woman I’ve ever had. This is my beauty, my pride, my bow. She is called by many names, none of which are true. She has no actual true name and she chooses to be that way. I received her from a stranger who I found out to be John Colton and he received it from his grandfather and him from Quinton Rail, and before that no one knows but the bow, for Quinton Rail died and told no one. But what we do know is that I am the first girl it has chosen in the past 700 years. And so far no one likes it. I suppose I should tell you how I came upon such a bow. So here it goes.
Just six months ago I was living at my grandmother’s house. She was like a mother to me as my mother had left me when I was just a child. She left no explanation, just left me on my grandmothers doorstep. Thank Apollo it wasn’t raining at the time. Although it has been for 5 months now, but that is the rain season for you. My grandmother came from Ireland and so we inherited her hair and paleness as well as her accent. But around here ethnicity doesn’t matter, it is your faith. We lived remotely with a small town. There are groups of families, all completely harmless and all worshipping different gods. Our house worships Apollo, the god of archery.
Apollo is the god my grandmother chose to worship him as she was young and in want of wisdom. Apollo is the god of the sun, music, poetry, medicine and prophecies. He is also the god of archery. All of these things add together to create a thoughtful yet deadly young man. Apollo is and always has been the Greek ideal; he is eternally youthful, he is one of the most attractive gods and he is warm hearted. He thinks a lot and thinks well whilst still being potent in battle. He is Apollo, God of Archery and Clarity and we choose to follow him, so as to be like him. And so we worshipped him, and he kept us safe until my grandmother was out teaching me archery. I was already good, but no matter how much I already knew, she could always teach me more. Prayers to pray, winds to watch and even how to make my own bow. But never had she told me of a soul bow.
It had been dark for about 4 hours and there were no lights on. My grandmother woke me and dressed herself, and I in black robes with purple silk lining the inside. She had kept them hidden in her room this whole time and I had no idea. We walked out the door and into the forest that I practiced archery in. But we went much further than ever. My grandmother seemed in a strange mood. She was sad but still happy that she could finally tell me about soul bows. She said that I had finally completed all of the humanly possible steps to mastering archery, and now I was venturing into the real art of it. And leaving the “practice” behind. We arrived at a clearing completely surrounded by trees and it was a place I had never seen before, but it was only a few kilometres from the house.
And then she spoke “From now on you will have no practice but the present. Experience is all you will get. And you must learn from it”.
To Be Continued...
