Until The Arrow Misses [Open]

[Brave]

HE’S A REAL NOWHERE MAN
SITTING IN HIS NOWHERE LAND
MAKING ALL HIS NOWHERE PLANS FOR NOBODY

If there was one thing that could settled the clawing in Cesil Taprose's stomach, it was archery. God, how he missed his bow, missed the way it was worn to the grip of his fingers, missed the swoosh as the bow snapped forward and the arrow let go and met the flesh of it's target. For a long time, his bow had been the only friend he had, his only guidance. Every day it had put food n the table, each time trouble had arisen it had dealt with the threat. Simply, his bow was a part of him,  and he felt different away from it, unprotected and unsafe. While these new capitol bows wouldn't be the same, they could at least be a close fit to all that Cesil use to have. He would feel better, happier, if h could just feel the arch of the bow one more time.

He approached the station without hesitation, this was his element after all, his hand immediately going for a silvery bow, one closest to the size of his bow back home. He touched it expecting to feel whole again, expecting to feel secure and alright. He was disappointed. There was no connection to this cold piece of metal, hard and unyielding. There was no life to it, no potential, and it disappointed Cesil to no ends. He regarded it for a brief moment, foreign, as if some sort of different species, and then grabbed an appropriate quiver with a bit of a sigh and headed off to one of the ranges.

He notched an arrow with practiced ease, again slightly stiff and uncomfortable with it's newness, and then turned sideways, faced the target, and went to pull the string back in one smooth motion. As he did so he froze. It was all wrong. The tension of the string, the way it pulled at different muscles in his back. It was wrong. He relaxed the pose immediately, lowering the bow, defeated. It wasn't right, nothing was ever right.

He caught the attention of a trainer, who headed his way with the same manner as when he had first approached the course, confident and ready. "You're District Nine, right?" They asked. He met their eyes slowly, uncertain, his head nodding, "You one of them kids they let play hunter in the woods?" They had continued. This time Cesil had burned angrily inside at the words that demeaned him, but again he simply clenched his jaw and nodded. This time they smiled at him, stood straighter, "It'll be a little new, using these bows then. It can be a bit deterring for a practiced hunter to have to get use to a different material bow. You'll have to adjust your stance a bit. Stand a bit taller, pull more from your center and lower back then your upper. Go ahead and try one," They had encouraged, and Cesil had turned, hesitant at first, but then without fear as he had stood and pulled firmly from his back and had aimed at the target. He let it fly, and it soared, landing wide on the target, nowhere near where he had originally aimed. The trainer had smiled sympathetically. "It can be hard in the beginning. Just practice some, reacquaint yourself with the bow. Some people like to think of the targets as animals, it can make it easier," They had said, and then had simply left him to it.

He tried again, and failed again, and at this point he was getting frustrated. He didn't miss, never missed, missing would have meant starving long ago, and a different hunger would have killed him before these games had the chance. No, he knew how to hit his target. And he would show them all he could.

He pulled back the string slowly this time, feeling out the bow for it's ticks and adjusting when they showed through. He pulled it large and tight, allowing the tip of the arrow to brush at his ear, the bridge of the wood to pass by his eye and his fingers, the one clenching the arrow to the bow, to brush the corner of his mouth. Then he looked at the target again, not as a yellow ring but as an animal, as a resource, and he fired and there finally it hit, dead on and he pulled back and smiled and across the range the trainer smiled back.

He didn't miss again.

tagging Anyone
words 745
lyrics nowhere man by THE BEATLES
notes hunger games
credits this was made by PARTY POISON