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200 word drabble: Split the Sky
Feb. 8th, 2011 04:16 pmWritten for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avatar_500 prompt #21, Crack.
Summary: Even when they're alone, none of them talk about it, but it's nice to be around people who know.
Split the Sky
In the other nations, there were good archers, talented archers, who could feel the wind, and know just where to aim to hit what they needed hit, so long as the wind didn’t change. And there were archers in other nations who seemed to know how the wind would move once the arrows left their bows.
But people swore the Yu Yan arrows turned corners and followed their prey, swore they couldn’t miss, or swore that their archers could call their name, and the arrows would come back. People swore they had seen it.
Ty Shin let loose her bowstring and felt the hiss of the feathers dragging between her fingers as the feather flew. She could feel the wind springing away from the arrow tip. The air rolled around it, and Ty Shin felt like she was rolling with it, like she was flying, like she was a kid again, and jumping off, knowing she wouldn’t touch the ground until she wanted to. Lieng Ai patted her shoulder, and smiled at his oldest and best cousin. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Everybody else feels it too.”
It felt like touching their cage walls when the arrows flew, but they couldn’t stop, because it was the closest to freedom they ever got. They couldn’t stop, even if it felt like betrayal, even when it was betrayal.
Archers in the other nations said the Yu Yans had magic, that their arrows would do anything for them but the magic would leave if the arrows ever killed. But the arrows were just wood, feather, and stone, at the mercy of the wind. They weren’t special. Ty Shin loosed another.
avatar_500 prompt #21, Crack.Summary: Even when they're alone, none of them talk about it, but it's nice to be around people who know.
Split the Sky
In the other nations, there were good archers, talented archers, who could feel the wind, and know just where to aim to hit what they needed hit, so long as the wind didn’t change. And there were archers in other nations who seemed to know how the wind would move once the arrows left their bows.
But people swore the Yu Yan arrows turned corners and followed their prey, swore they couldn’t miss, or swore that their archers could call their name, and the arrows would come back. People swore they had seen it.
Ty Shin let loose her bowstring and felt the hiss of the feathers dragging between her fingers as the feather flew. She could feel the wind springing away from the arrow tip. The air rolled around it, and Ty Shin felt like she was rolling with it, like she was flying, like she was a kid again, and jumping off, knowing she wouldn’t touch the ground until she wanted to. Lieng Ai patted her shoulder, and smiled at his oldest and best cousin. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Everybody else feels it too.”
It felt like touching their cage walls when the arrows flew, but they couldn’t stop, because it was the closest to freedom they ever got. They couldn’t stop, even if it felt like betrayal, even when it was betrayal.
Archers in the other nations said the Yu Yans had magic, that their arrows would do anything for them but the magic would leave if the arrows ever killed. But the arrows were just wood, feather, and stone, at the mercy of the wind. They weren’t special. Ty Shin loosed another.
