A bolt of my crossbow can be shooted as far as 200 nebe steps.
At least, that's in ideal conditions. Without wind, in a straight line, and without rain.
...do you see where the joke is coming?
In usual conditions my bolts reach 70 nebe steps.
Now, I'm two years old, and my steps are smaller than normal adults. So....
Do you see the joke coming, again?
Under the constant rain of my world, a bolt doesn't go THAT far, well, pretty far, but not that far. From my INTENSE and AMAZING maths I calculated that any normal human could turn around and reach me in a five second sprint if I miss my shot.
Thankfully, I don't miss my shots.
The bolt goes straight through the eagle that was chilling on a decaying and broken tree, it impales it, the bolt passes through it as it falls limp and dead like a puppet with it's strings cut.
It was there, on the tree, before that it was on the boulder that's deeper down the ravine on my left.
It hopped. Like a little hawk, eagle, whatever it is, sometimes opening it's big dark and yellow wingspan to flap around, wings fluttering slowly before chilling back down on a perch when it didn't notice any prey or predator.
It looked at me. We had eye contact, when I was laying in the mud and grass, when the rain fell on me, we had eye contact.
But my flow was there, sticking to the ground around me, slithering toward the bird and sticking to it just after.
My flow was there and it confirmed it's supremacy once again, now over animals.
It was there, and now it's dying. Actually, it's dead, it's not moving, it's just there, one moment it was there, the next it wasn't, it was there, I saw it, I waited for twenty minutes to line up my shoot perfectly.
And when it was lined up.
I shot it.
Thirty five nebe steps I'd say.
Pretty far. Under the rain, belly down on the ground.
And just like that.
Without being able to see me.
It's dead.
No warning. No hard fights, no adrenaline pumping through it's veins and giving him the opportunity to escape or the time to even see it's killer in the eyes and curse him forever and ever, in this life, or the next.
I can't practice on trees forever.
The escalation was natural.
And now the eagle is dead. Did it reincarnate? Will I reincarnate too? Again?
Pushing myself up, the mud sticks to me, it sticks to every single inch of my cloak, even on my face, there's rocks imbeded on my face. Moving would have broke the flow. The flow didn't want to move, so I didn't. When the rocks started to dig inside my cheek. I didn't. and now it's stuck there. With a bit of brushing, it's gone, but there's a groove now, a groove in my skin that will take some minutes before going back to normal.
I'm normal.
I am normal.
That's all there is, normality.
Looking over my shoulders I see nothing. Looking at my left I see nothing. Looking at my right I see nothing. Looking up I see nothing.
I'll reframe.
Nothing I'm interested in.
A step for-! Focus focus focus. A slide forward, my body advances toward the dead eagle again.
Eagles are weak.
Eagles are weak and fleshy.
When they're not flying, when they're resting, when they think they're safe they're harmless. When they think they're safe, when they can't even imagine a human sneaking up on them they're weak. That's how one becomes weak.
Training on trees is how one becomes weak.
And the eagle is a proof of weakness.
It was there. Enjoying it's life. And it's life snapped out of it's body in a single second.
A single mistake
A single fucking mistake.
Should I figure out water magic?
Is that my mistake? Or is that a mistake?
Should I train my weapons more? Should I keep going farther and farther from the village, the plain getting smaller and smaller as more and more people try to get some wood for themselves, for the walls.
Should I go find a rabbit? Another eagle? An insect? A goat? A dog maybe? A dog, even when they walk, is pretty fast, it could imitate a human gait speed pretty well. Is there a dog around though? Maybe a wolf.
There's wolves around no?
Would they smell me first? Would they kill me first?
My left hand digs inside my pocket to play with my kunai.
Wolves are dangerous.
My slide stops when my gaze finds the bird again. In front of me now, it's pretty big.
Never knew eagles were that big. Never saw one before.
It's a beautiful thing.
A beautiful eagle. With brown and yellow feathers, but that's not all, during the dozen of minutes I've been stalking it, I had the time to observe everything about this eagle. It's feathers are brown and yellow yes, but they have an edge of dark on the tips of it's wings, around it's neck, and under it's belly, now stained in a darker color as it's blood pool out and stain it's beautiful feathers, beautiful, feathers, all reddening and darkening as his essence drips down on the wood under it's talons, it didn't fall on the ground because it's a fleshy bird. A weak fleshy bird. It has weak and hollow bones that help it fly, they weren't good enough to stop my bolt, it passed right through them, rammed through it's guts and it's chest just to burst through the opposite side of it's torso -it's back- and embedded itself on the wood, so now it's there. Dangling. One talon still on the wood, the other leaving the edge. Did the force of the bolt pushed it off? No. It was too fast. The reason it wasn't resting on it's right talon was because it was injured, saw that more than once as I stalked him. Breathing. Slowly. With pure relaxation in each of my limbs, my crossbow trailing through the air at each of my micro adjustment. It was injured. I knew it and the second it gave me the opportunity to impale it I did. And now it's dead. It's dead and beautiful. It's eyes are empty, those sharp eyes that looked through everything -but me- are now empty without any soul to direct them, they're just staring at the void, following gravity and each swing of it's limp neck. It's wings are close against it's body, not even tried to take flight, not like it knew. Otherwise it may have did something. Something to escape me, but that's not acceptable. No it's not. So it died now. It died and there's nothing it can do to change that, nothing, at, all. You can close your eyes for a second, and end up death the next before even seeing it. You can go to sleep and never wake up again. You can talk to someone and bleed out before your conscious mind can even understand that you're about to die. The eagle only use was to train my shooting skill, and now that it's dead. It's only use is to stay still while I rip my bolt out of it's slack chest. That's what happens when you're weak, people take from you just like my father did to my mother yesterday. That's what happens when you're a dead man, your opinions doesn't matter anymore, nothing matters since you're dead. This is my first kill. Ever. And to be honest, to be totally honest. My only thought right now is simple.
Don't be like the eagle nebe