Child of Earth

7

So her name was Holly.

Had I heard it sometime during a meal or class and not registered it until my subconscious recalled the name? Had I just had a lucky guess? Or maybe, maybe I had actually heard it for the first time last night in my dreams... that sounds weird.

I was really hoping for the first or second option because, to be honest the third option scared me.

The rest of the week flew past, and before I knew it, I was standing in the meeting room wearing a red bandanna, holding a red flag in my right hand and a bow in my left.

Time for game night, first week; Capture the flag.

The bow came with a quiver which had arrows with sucker darts instead of arrow heads.

(Because many of us were too accurate with archery weapons for them to be safe).

On my team was a dark-haired, pail skinned boy called Nick, a short-ish, blonde haired boy with blue eyes whose name was Harry, along with Ebony, Holly and Dakota.

I was team captain.

On the other team (Blue) there was Martin, Krystal, Nathan, Georgia and a boy with brown hair and blue eyes called Ron. Nathan was their captain.

I thought that Ron kinda looked like a guy version of me but not as tall. (Although I didn't tell him that.)

Each team had to have two flag defenders (Maximum) and a Horse rider.

My team's tactic was to have Ebony and myself with bows, Nick and Dakota as defenders and Harry and Ebony were the decoys. Harry, I had learned, was bonded to a horse so we gave him the horse riding position for some extra distraction.

Bonding as I had found out, was a way for an animal to become physically and in some cases mentally attached to you, meaning that they can guess what you're thinking or vice versa. They also tend to be smarter than others of their species. Awnnie was my bonded animal which made sense and that deer that I saw in my forest was Krystal's bonded animal so now I'm glad I didn't shoot it.

Anyway; so while Holly and I would be sneaking silently through the forest with myself in a tree and Holly hiding behind rocks and bushes, Harry and Ebony would be attracting the other team's attention.

(Holly said that she could hide really well in the dark) so I took her word for it.

Holly would run into the opposition's clearing and lead the defenders away while I would climb in the trees until I was as close to the flag as possible then I would grab it, turn around and either Holly or the decoys would have the blue team's fullest attention.

Unlike the game of capture the flag I had played before, the spots for our flags were already chosen.

One flag would have the east side of the forest out the back of the castle, and one would have the west side. The forest boundary was obvious because if the dirt and trees got thinner and smaller you were out of the area and too close to the mountains. Each side of said forest, had a small clearing with a tree stump in the middle which had a slot big enough for the flag to sit in.

Each team could keep prisoners unarmed but if you were unarmed you couldn't scream for help or run away, if you wanted to leave you had to disarm the person who took your weapon or wait for someone else to do it.

The middle line between west and east border was a long river that ran from a waterfall in the mountains to a small lake on the east side.

The core rules were simple though.