Dragon Tamer - Book 1

Chapter 21

After a few days of little to no excitement, Marcie was bored.

She constantly felt the pull of the forest and longed to see Dara, and yet she was stuck till everyone stopped looking at her as if she would disappear and never come back.

She felt and acted fine, but nobody was convinced. She went into the village often to show her face and it kept them from checking up on her at her home.

Something she was extremely grateful for.

A little after she fully regained her health she was practising with her bow. Her second bow, as her favourite had been left in the cave. This one was the first she had ever made and was not wholly perfect. But it was better than nothing.

She started slowly, pulling the string back gently and taking her time to aim before releasing. All the arrows flew true so she started putting more effort in. Drawing faster and faster, pulling the sting back further and further, waiting for that ache in her arms that signalled she should stop.

However it did not come. She continued, pulled back the string for one final draw and the Hardwood bow, made carefully over the course of two days with Hunter Breen when she was just fourteen summers old, from the hardest wood in the forest, snapped like old dry kindling in her hands.

Her arm jerked back with the force of the sudden lack of any resistance and she cried out.

She stared at the remains of the bow in her hands as her whole left shoulder and arm right to the tips of her fingers spasmed. Her prize possession before her father gave her mother's ring, which she now wore on a thong around her neck, lay in two pieces before her.

She sent a feeling of shock and bewilderment to Dara who simple replied with a feeling of confusion. Marcie tried to remember that he was a Dragon, and, while as intelligent as a human, he was not human and had a very different way of looking at the world. He probably saw nothing wrong or strange about the fact that she had just broken solid Hardwood with her bare hands.

After a moment she picked up the pieces and stared at them, running her finger tips over the worn notches and marks that adorned the wood. She dropped it and stared at her hand, clenching her fists.

She looked at the old willow tree with its target painted upon the pitted bark. She walked up to it, pulled her arm back and slammed her fist into the middle of the target with all her strength. The bark splintered under her knuckles, the shock travelling up her arm but with none of the pain that usually accompanied such a hit. Her skin split and immediately began to bleed, now she felt pain.

Dara sent a wave of laughter her way. He found it amusing.

Marcie stared at the her fist and without meaning too her eyes filled with tears. She rarely cried but as was usual with women, she sometimes did, without knowing the reason why.

She didn't feel particularly sad, what she mostly felt was disbelief. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, testing to see if she was in a strange dream, a dream where she now possessed impossible strength.

She had always been strong, simple because she did physically demanding work that built up her muscles, but this was something different.

Dara registered her confusion but did not understand the reason behind it.

Marcie sat down on the ground, her back against the tree, tears silently trickled down her cheeks and dripped from her chin.

She reasoned that maybe the reason she was crying was that, while she had always been a freak (Not marrying, living away from the village and of course having green 'outsider' eyes), but now she really was a freak.