Individual Archery

shoot out all the lights
hold your ground
we'll hit the sky
it's time we aim
our arrows high

The sweltering sunshine of the Fourth District sears into Kiera's skin with an intensity that she isn't used to, the humidity contrasting with One's arid heat that she's grown accustomed to making the air soupy and sending sweat collecting in a thin sheen over the pale canvas of her flesh. Perspiration slickens the white-knuckled grip she has on her bow, but Kiera can't tell if it's from nerves or just the heat as she steps up to the firing line, thousands of eyes upon her.

She's grown accustomed to being watched, a performer at heart and soul with a calling to the music of salvation, but the stakes have never been this high. This isn't singing plaintive strains into the metallic cage of a microphone for a few extra bucks to put dinner on the table. This is what she's been waiting for her whole life; a chance at glory, a chance at victory, a chance to finally make Kaelen proud.

She imagines him perched in front of a television screen wherever he is now (there are whispered rumors of life beyond the Districts and Kiera knows that if anybody could ever find it, it would be him), calculating eyes watching her televised form over thin, steepled fingers. The thought makes her grin as she slots her first arrow into position and fires in a single fluid movement.

[dice=10]

The arrow sinks with a sharp thump! just inside the border of the blue circle on the target, and Kiera curses under her breath, fumbling for her next arrow and slipping it onto the bowstring. She can do better. She's been trained to do better. Her vision tunnels inward and amber-brown eyes fix intently on the brightly colored circles of the target even as her mind wanders back to a different hot summer day in a different place and time.

Cicadas buzz in the branches overhead as she blinks the sunshine from her eyes, the bow feeling heavy and unwieldy in her inexperienced grip as skeletal, spidery hands guide her body into position, straightening the angle of her arm and squaring her shoulders, a foot carefully nudging her ankle and shifting her legs to a wider stance. "Use your arm to aim, not the arrow. Think of your body as an extension of the bow. Now, pull the bowstring back all the way to your cheekbone and hold it there, don't release."

She groans slightly from the effort, her skinny, malnourished fifteen-year-old arms struggling with the tension in the string as her face contorts from the exertion of holding it in place for five seconds, then ten, then fifteen.

"Kae, my arm's about to fall off!"

"That's because you're carrying the tension in your release arm, which is bad form," his voice murmurs next to her ear, the same unflappably calm tenor as always as he moves to adjust her grip again, pushing the arm holding the bow into a straighter position that immediately alleviates most of the pressure straining at her muscles. "Now, you're going to focus entirely on the target, and pull your release arm back even more. It should feel like the bowstring is slipping from your grasp, not like you've let it go. Start pulling... now."

[dice=10]

Thump! The second arrow slips from Kiera's grasp and imbeds itself almost directly onto the bullseye, the shaft quivering from the leftover momentum. A satisfied, feral grin stretches across her face, gratification humming through her veins in a victorious thrill. She laughs and it comes out tinted with just a hint of disbelief, that she's come from shooting empty beer cans off of the Dempsey's back fence all the way to performing a deadly art on national television. The cheers from the crowd rise up in a tumultuous roar that floods her ears, reminds her of the powerful snarl of the ocean the first time she ever heard it, listened to all that water singing the songs of purity and righteousness, and Kiera feels like her heart might burst as she fits her final arrow into place and draws the string back, effortlessly now after years of practice and gradual strength-building, to her cheek with an inaudible whisper of "This one's for you, cousin."

[dice=10]

Somewhere across the compound, a starter's pistol for one of the track races backfires, causing Kiera to jerk to the side in surprise. The bowstring slips from her grasp and snaps violently against the skin of her forearm, prompting something between a cry of pain and a scream of fury as she watches the arrow veer off course and barely clip the edge of the target. A sinking feeling drops into Kiera's gut like a stone as she watches her own face appear on the giant screen overhead, a large "15" spiraling into place next to it. Not even enough to medal. Suddenly she is all to aware of the cameras swooping in to capture the look on her face as victory is snatched so cruelly from between her fingers, but instead of giving the soulless lenses the defiant stare that she might under any other circumstance, she can only look down at the rapidly bruising skin of her injured arm, think of long afternoons and countless mantras of Try again, Ki, you've almost got it, and let the softest of murmurs pass over her lips.

"I'm sorry. I let you down."