Shadow's Of The Archer

Chapter Five: A Lady Never Tells

Sagittarius:

I needed to Hunt.

I felt far too cramped in my room, because I had been stuck there for a while, and no Marks. Seemed that either no one wished anyone dead for a while, or people just knew who I was now living with. The Doctor was doing nothing for my reputation. But I needed to be on the move.

Fastening my armour and boots, I filled my quiver and headed out wherever he'd parked for a bit, thankfully a forest and not a city. Then I just began to run. Fresh air, moonlight, the gentle breeze of early autumn The perfect time to Hunt.

It took a while to find, but eventually I picked up the tracks of a large herd of deer, grazing by the river. Too many of them to be able to keep the rest of the forest without damage, so I began creeping closer. Readying myself to hit one of the other ones to hit one of the older ones, killing it quickly, and humanely.

Archery isn't something you can be taught, not in the sense of how I worked, I had to learn by myself, through experience. Any extreme, any stimulus, I would strike my Mark. Trust your instincts when you're aiming, listen to the wind around you, the stars above you, and breathe.

But these are just things I do. 

To be fair though, I am the best Archer in the universe, and my services were expensive and well sought over.

"Rest easy, gentle sister," I breathed softly, releasing the nock to let the arrow fly, soaring through the air towards the old doe.

Before there was a whistling sound behind me, and the metal body and fletching fizzed into sparks to be sent off target. Scaring away the herd of deer.

On instinct, I twisted to attack whoever had come up behind me, but had to quickly stop when I saw the Doctor. If only I could actually kick him in the face. "What do you want, you great wet paper bag."

"Oh, I'm the wet paper bag, am I?" He asked me with his arms folded. "Surely that would be you, after your disappearance post Pompeii? What happened? You never cry, and your nose was bleeding."

"I told you. Emotions literally boil my blood. So I used that as the conditioning required to prevent them. You won't see me cry again." I replied, starting to walk through the cleaning to pick up the wayward arrow. "Could you not have waited to get my attention? I'm Hunting, idiot."

He just shrugged, putting the sonic screwdriver in his pocket, wearing his stupid brown coat over the blue suit and red shirt. "Hunting for food, fine, but three of us still can't get through your last Hunt. No need to overstock the pantry, My Lady."

Only so many times I was going to tell you before I snapped. "My name is Sagittarius! And I was going to either take it to sell in the nearest settlement, or find the nearest carnivore to feed. I saw evidence of wolves two miles back."

"Oh, that clears all of it up, right," patronised the moron. "Why are you even Hunting? Surely you've got enough target practice with Marks?"

Yeah, like I'd be doing something as easy as Hunting deer if I'd had a mark. "Distinct lack of interest recently. Probably people working out that the legendary Archer is hanging around with the universes wettest cabbage, Jalassandr."

He was staring at me now. "Did you just call me a wet cabbage?!"

"Is that the only thing you heard then? Okay, I take it back, you don't even have the intelligence of a cucumber. I came here to be alone, so just fucking leave, okay?" I started to run again, keeping good pace to try and find where the deer had gone. Only I still heard someone else, too large to be a wolf or a deer. "Doctor, are you still following me? Doctor!"