Royal Linkage

NNGWE

Woman don’t fight. Woman don’t wield spears. Woman don’t hunt. Woman don’t read. Woman don’t do anything really, but my mother told me never to be just a woman, I was a silent queen and I had to be able to do it all. I learned how, I perfected every skill, every single one. Currently I was practicing my favourite love, archery.
 
"Could you miss just one time and let me win? I am the hunter after all, have you no heart? Does my confidence mean nothing to you?" my younger brother asked, making that face he swore was meant to make me melt but he looked constipated and it usually made me laugh, but this time there was no humour,
 
"Brother,what good is a victory unearned? What will it say about your hunter skills if you can only win because I lost?'' I retorted, wearing my serious face, "if you are eager to win, why don’t you put that energy wasted on whining into winning fair and square?''
 
He merely gave that 'you sound like mom' look and walked the other way to make sure we were still safe,  if we were caught out here at this ungodly hour, doing what we are doing, it'd get us both killed. Me because I should never touch a weapon and him as an accessory to my sins, that would be after we were convicted of witchcraft of the highest order.

"We need to leave soon, take your last shot" he said upon his return from making sure the coast was clear.
 
Take a shot I did, without looking I knew it hit the target. My brother groaned and this time I laughed at him while we made quick work of collecting the arrows and covering any trace of us every being there.

Although he hates that I am better than him at archery, my brother was one hell of a huntsman, he was the best among his age and he faired pretty well against grown man who were already official huntsman.
He was a trainee still but he was better than all of them which came as no surprise considering who his father was.

The man was a legend after all, one of the greatest huntsmen who every stood in this kingdom, my brother knew we were proud of him, he was exactly what my mother would have wanted him to be, exactly what I raised him to be. He was the man we envisioned he would become.
 
"Don’t drag your feet, you know I have to get back to camp before they notice I'm gone" he said even though he was the one behind me, my brother loved to complain, something he didn’t get from any of us. I guess it was his way of being cautious, we had always been a family of mischief. 
 
"what will you be doing today?" I asked, although I already knew, I was a silent queen, I knew all.

"We are patrolling the borders, there have been some troops coming onto our land lately and from what little I've heard, they are very dangerous, we don’t know who they are but people claim they are taking slaves"
 
I stopped walking, causing him to do the same, I turned around and looked him in his honey colored eyes, my face hard with a tinge of desperation that he'd listen to me.

"You be careful out there okay? You don’t get taken, if the odds are against you, you run, you don’t dare try fight if you know no victory will come of it" I say in my stern voice.

"I will never run from a fight, you know better than to even ask me" he retorted.

"Then its a good thing I was not asking you" I responded, turning back around to walk away.

And although I saw him roll his eyes, I know he heard me,
"father wouldn’t survive" I whisper and to that he nods slowly, looking up to the sky and I know we are both thinking of our mother.
 
I should have raised hell over this, I knew he wouldn't do as I told him. But I suppose I didn't really expect him to, he may be my brother but he is a warrior first and he would never run. He would rather die by his brothers for his people.
A mentality like that was honorable  but it was backwards in my opinion, if they all faught then died because they were up against an enemy they knew very well they couldn't defeat, then we'd have less warriors to fight when the enemies returned. Because the enemy would always return.

In truth it was just testosterone talking - a fools drug. Even for that I couldn't blame him, the tribe would shun him, quick to call him a coward for saving his own life rather than dying because a warriors death is so honorable.

Its still death. That's the part that everyone around here overlooks. Its still a life lost for nothing, for courage that wasn't needed because it did nobody any good.
Sometimes I feel I'm far ahead of the tribes thinking, this leads to problems.

People already feel I am too "free" and "unconventional" ... Whatever that means.

There is no such thing as too much freedom or that we can all think the same, not to me anyway.

When we get back he kisses my forehead and walks to the huntsman dwelling while I walk back home.