Archer

Chapter 1: My Beginning

There is a wild sort of freedom that comes when one has been raised in the mountains...and a kind of wisdom, as well. It comes from not really having anyone tell you where your limits are, but you're having to discover them yourself. You don't have to chop your own wood; it's your  own choice to freeze your butt off once that December snow piles itself outside your door. You don't have to wax your bowstring every evening after the day's hunt - who can you blame, really, except for yourself when the thing snaps right before your best shot and you end up with no dinner?

I've met a lot of people from all sorts of walks of life, and I've heard so many philosophies that they'd gleaned from their own experiences. "You can't trust anyone" is a phrase I've heard repeated too many times to count. I think life's a bit trickier than that...somehow it seems too easy to blame everyone around you for the shit you brought on yourself...at least partially. I know one thing the mountains taught me, though: "Take a hard look at yourself before you point the finger". And that's a philosophy that's guided me through Heaven and Hell.

My childhood was pretty sweet, although I don't think I appreciated it back then. Mom and Pops were good people, both raised in neighboring villages on opposite sides of Green Slope Mountain, the westernmost slope of a range we called "Blue Smoky" because of how the evaporation fog rolled over the cluster of summits every morning. It struck me as rather odd how long the fog stayed such a cold, grey-blue color even when the morning sun's rays pierced through it. Common belief was that fairies lived in the stuff, spreading the drops of water that made morning dew. I knew better as to the origins of dew because Mama, unlike a great deal of girls in the village, had actually been to a university in a city down in the valley, but I liked the idea of there being fairies near my house. To a child, a stretch of the imagination can never be far-fetched.

My parents were kind folk who decided that the piece of land they'd cleared for themselves on the slope after getting married , at least several hours away from the nearest village, was too good to keep all to themselves, and so shared it with any orphans or strangers in need of shelter from the surrounding villages. There was plenty of good water in the clear mountain streams and springs, and Mom had a great garden that stretched all along the side of the mountain just outside our house, as well as an orchard on the other side. Pops worked hard to keep up the house, and took long trips further up the mountain range to hunt and trap for meat and furs that he'd sell in the surrounding villages. It was hard and dangerous work, but Mom and Pops loved the freedom and responsibility that sort of life gave them...and that desire for freedom was one of the many things they passed on to me.

Remembering those days is difficult for me, because there's a mixed bag of emotions that I have to deal with. On the one hand I learned so much from Mom and Pops - Pops gave me my first bow ever...a small, compound recurve made of light ash wood with a draw weight of 35 pounds that he'd traded a fine wolf skin for with a passing foreign merchant and taught me to tend to it and use it. He'd taught me to be patient and wait for the killer shot to bring down a wild boar, and the hen-call that attracted wild turkeys. He taught me to be straightforward and honest, never hem and haw around a question, but be quick-to-the-point and pragmatic in my problem-solving. He was strict and almost harsh at times, and I didn't see much of him, because many of his trips were so dangerous, but the time I did spend with him was time that I treasured.

Mom also played a large part in my life. I think the kind streak that I have in me was placed there by her. She was soft-spoken and gentle, but quick and keen all the same. Sometimes the way she managed to get the truth out of me when I'd rather have kept it to myself irked me, but, then, again, that's what moms are for, anyway. She taught me to cook and clean and look after the kids staying at our home, to be hospitable and mannerly while also keeping quiet when dealing with strangers. As kind as she was, she was a Mama Lioness and wouldn't have any funny business around when it came to defending the children she'd taken in, and so acted and taught me act in a form of kindness-cloaked wariness when serving or speaking to travellers we didn't know. She did her best to manage the place and keep everyone's mouths fed and bodies clothed, and I respect her for that...to this day.

It would be easy to blame them for the things that happened to me that led to my desire to leave this little Paradise...but looking back now, I can see that it's so much more complex than that. They loved me, sheltered me, and gave me the best that they could. They gave me so much. I don't blame them, or myself. The only people you can blame in such situations are the people who made the decisions to act the way they do. They are the real schemers, evil-doers, monsters. They are the ones who choose to ignore the consequences their desires or fears may have on an innocent creature. I wish I'd had the courage to speak up about what happened at the time it actually happened, or cry for help when I needed it. But I was a child...and all too often, when we're children, we just don't know better...