Snippet #3452

Ariella Moonbow

Not only have the outsiders upset and unsettled the forest, she is unsettled and upset herself, and one is not wise to continue forward while inwardly off balance and unfocused. Whoever it is that waits so quietly within the limbs above her will have to continue waiting. But before she leaves, a token of her acknowledgment. Reaching into the quiver that opens over her left shoulder, she withdraws a single arrow. The head is made of hardened steel and has been patiently sharpened to the extent that even a casual brushing of the finger against it is likely to draw blood. The shaft is hand formed and has been worked to a degree of smoothness that causes it to gleam slightly under the light of the moon. More striking still, however, is the bolt's fletching - three feathers of nearly perfect whiteness and form are fixed into the wood and render the finished work a quality that makes it as much a thing of beauty as an instrument of violence. She stoops, placing one of her knees on the rocky soil of the forest floor, and thrusts the arrow, head first, into the ground. A token such as this is no doubt an ambiguous thing, but she has come to learn that there is much to gleaned from noting how such ambiguities are perceived. Rising, she steps away from the arrow and moves slowly forward in the direction along which the deer had just run.