A memory flickers at the edge of my mind, amidst the hoots and howls of the forest - breaking the still between knocking my arrow, and loosing it.

I was born with the odds stacked against me. Yea I know that sounds cliche, but lets roll it back and you tell me if it dosen't sound like fighting a losing game.

Our village was dying for a long time, before I was even born. Our people were hardy, and knew how to survive with barely anything, but we were dying slowly by this point,
so much so that my Ma had to be given triple rations just to produce the milk I needed to survive. Da didnt eat most nights, he'd slide it to Ma, "I ate on the trail Jara, I promise,"
and she'd eat it, failing to hold in every tear. Trees ached from some inner pain, rotting at the base - skinny skeletons with no leaves to show, this village spoke of blight
and burnt earth. We are not playing the victim, but we are victimized - boars and raiders striking with impunity and far too often.

I know it sounds tragic, but there was beauty too. We built rope swings in the trees, my brothers and I - dashing through the forest never touching ground.
My brothers taught me to hunt. A whisper of the bowstring, and we ate that night. "Mud can be used to mask your scent," Markus would preach,
every time that I spooked a deer downwind. Markus was the gentle one, but Jaric was a harsher teacher - pushing me from the tree to break my leg.
I limped across the forest floor like a worm, for an entire summer and then I never spooked another animal. Some nights we'd lie in our SkyHammock, swat' I called it,
it was a beautiful thing, strung between five oak trees near the tops over an open clearing, spiderwebbed to give us a lovely resting place while we counted stars and sheep.

I was about 9 when boar goared my Da. We had no medicines, but we knew the ways of the forest well enough at least that we found him some hallucinogenic herbs to ease his passing.
Purple spots and silky stems, took his pain and we buried him beneath the SkyHammock, so that he could watch the stars with us forever.
I was only 13 when my world fell apart, and i will always wonder if it was my fault. If I hadn't fought back. If I hadn't killed that man. Would it have ended differently?
They rolled into our little village like they owned it, demanding food. Demanding women and coin. Markus fell first, his head severed by the mounted raider - killing the diplomacy on his lips.
I felled the rider before my brothers blood could dry on the blade, my aim perfect and my arrow kissing the sky from the back of his skull.
They thought they killed me, leaving me with a blade buried in my side but it just wasn't that deep. A a bit of blood, a bit of pain, and yea I couldnt breath for a while, but I wasnt dead.
I saw when they burned our village, the dead trees flaring like the sun at midday - saw when they slaughtered my mother and took my sister, again and again.
Saw when Jaric fled, like a coward into the forests, couldnt draw my bow to strike him down but my eyes spoke the words my breathless mouth couldnt, as I realized
he wasn't even hurt.

I pulled the blade out, dropping it to the forest floor shaking with hate and pain. My eyes were unfocused, my blood so slick I could barely climb into our ropemaze, but climb I did.
I made my escape, crying out only once as I saw our SkyHammock burning, sagging and then crashing heavily to the forest floor.
From then, I found myself mistrusting people. I spent a long time in the forests after that, moving, always just moving pushing forwards, hunting what I can and stealing what I cant hunt.
Traders were targets, conversation was direction and misdirection, and turning a profit meant selling meat to see how heavy their purse was. How ripe for the cutting.
Word reached me of a group of wanderers, of hunters of a type. Perhaps those of a like mind, and i'm not much for words anyways,
so I let my feet carry me into the city, pulling my cloaks hood tight.