Dana had been the first among the welps to pick up the bow.
It wasn't an oddity among the Krags some hunters favored the weapon, though most preferred the brutal simplicity of axes, cleavers, and the crushing weight of close combat. But Dana had always been different. Smaller, quicker, her mind attuned to angles and trajectories rather than raw force. While the other young Krags wrestled in the dirt, she studied the flight of birds, the way the wind bent the grass, the way a branch flexed before it snapped.
The others mocked her for it. "Soft hands," they jeered. "No bite in her." If not for her brother, Ova, who had bloodied more than a few noses defending her, she would have had a far harder time in the village.
Varga remembered the day she'd found Dana at the edge of the village, carving notches into a bent sapling with a crude knife. The air had been thick with the scent of pine and damp earth, the distant sounds of sparring and laughter carrying from the training grounds.
"What are you doing?" Varga had asked, looming over her, her shadow swallowing the smaller girl.
Dana hadn't flinched. "Making a bow."
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired of being told I'm too weak to fight."
Varga had scoffed, crossing her arms. "A bow won't make you strong."
Dana tested the sapling's flex, her fingers tracing the tension. "No," she said, her voice quiet but firm. "But I'm sure it'll make me deadly."
And with that, she had dedicated herself to getting better.
Varga was confused. She wasn't like Dana. She had been born strong, unnaturally so. Some elders whispered that she carried the Gift, the bloodline of a warrior from another clan, a legacy left by a father she had never known. Her mother had spoken little of him, only that he had been a storm given flesh, a Krag who fought like a beast and left as swiftly as he came.
But Varga hadn't cared. Strength was strength. And with it, she excelled, hunting, fighting, surviving the White Wilds where others faltered.
Yet, despite herself, she had watched Dana.
At first, it had been with disdain. The girl was wasting her time. Arrows were for hunting rabbits, and other prey, not for war. But Dana didn't stop. Not when her first shots clattered uselessly against trees. Not when the older warriors cuffed her for "playing instead of training." Not even when Ova, ever protective, snarled at anyone who looked at her wrong.
She kept going.
Drawing, aiming, adjusting and releasing. Again and again every day, giving her all to the arts of the bow.
Without realizing it, Varga had begun to admire her resolve. The way she gritted her teeth through fatigue, the way her eyes never wavered from the target. Her dedication was a quiet rebellion. Every sunrise found her in the training yard, arms trembling but stance stable. She wasn't just learning the bow; she was carving a place for herself in a world that had tried to erase her.
As Varga watched, she spotted Ova lurking near the longhouse again, he was always watching, always judging.His arms were crossed tight over his chest, as if he could physically hold himself together. Fresh scars peeked out from beneath his sleeves, still angry and red.
Ova, Dana's brother, was fiercely protective of his sister, always getting into trouble because of her, always seeming to be seeking attention. Varga had even heard about yesterday's hunt, how he'd dragged himself back from the woods with nothing but two scrawny hares and a gash along his ribs. A fool. That's what her mother would call him, too proud to ask for help, too stubborn to quit.
At fourteen winters, he carried himself like a battle-scarred veteran. But Varga knew the truth. His hardness wasn't from strength. It was just another kind of fear. The Clan Wars had taken their parents, and now they moved through the world like cornered wolves, all bared teeth and narrowed eyes. In their village, where the law was survival of the strongest, the options for the weak were simple. You bled, or you begged.
Ova would sooner bleed out than kneel
She'd seen the others their age, still soft, still trailing after their mothers or playing at the training field. But Ova? He vanished into the woods at dawn and returned at twilight, his shirt torn and stained, his kills meager but clutched like trophies. As if anyone cared about a few rabbits.
Yet she understood. That stubborn pride was the only thing keeping him and his sister from being cast out. Pity had twisted in her chest, but she smothered it.Pity wouldn't feed them. Only strength would.
He did all this to prove he could be useful while shielding his sister from cruel eyes. He didn't really like anyone, except his sister and was always frowning at everyone. This led to constant confrontations with Varga over almost nothing, as he believed she was going after his sister.
All while his sister continued to get better at the bow.
Her arrows found their mark. First the bark, then the knots in the wood, then the eyes of carved targets. The other whelps stopped laughing, began to grow wary of her, skill.
Then one day, it came .
It had been a lean, scarred thing, ribs pressing against its mangy fur, driven mad by hunger or sickness. That day the village had been nearly empty, the hunters and young warriors had gone out for a large hunt in preparation for the the Trials. Leaving the village with some holes in their defense. The beast had lunged for a child, its jaws wide...
It was too far for anyone to reach in time but, then an arrow whistling in the air took it through the eye before anyone else could move.The beast had closped with out, much struggle
Silence.
That arrow fired was Dana's arrow. The weak Krag had brought down a wolf.
That day she earned some respect from the other krags and Varga had approached her afterward. "Teach me."
Dana had smirked. "Thought bows wouldn't make one strong."
"Yes, but it can make one deadlier."
They'd trained together after that, Dana's precision tempering Varga's raw strength. For a time, they were inseparable. Sisters in arms, if not in blood, even Ova, ever the shadow at Dana's side, had watched with grudging approval.
"Then came the attack on the village, where they took Dana, forcing both Ova and her to go to the rescue, which they did. This brought them all closer to one another, even if they didn't always agree on the same things, they had each other's backs.
Well, that was...
Until Ova's.....
---
Present Time
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The memory faded, leaving only the present's brittle silence.
Dana's ice-blue eyes flicked to Femi, then back to Varga. "Heard you've been busy," she said, her voice carefully neutral.
Varga's jaw tightened. "If you call surviving 'busy,' then yes."
"With him?" A nod toward Femi.
"Yes, he's been useful to me."
Dana's remained neutral. "Funny, is that why his here and not Ova ."
Femi's tail stilled. Oh, this is bad.
Varga's hand twitched, the weight of Ova's axe on her back was heavy. "Say what you came to say, Dana."
The air was thick with tension as Dana exhaled, her breath misting in the cold, her next words dripping with a mix of admiration and accusation. "I not a fool," she began, her voice low, her gaze locked to Vaga's own eyes. "Fighting and killing an Eri comes with a losses. Usually, It would take a gifted one, a shaman and a team of at least ten elite hunters to bring one down."
Her gaze piercing as she looked at Vaga. "But you were able to do it with a ragged band of unprepared Krags and a rat? Impressive."
Her tone shifted, her voice taking on a sharper edge.
"But you're here and he isn't and what truly cuts deepest is that you didn't even bother to tell me to my face." Dana's words hung in the air, the silence between them palpable.
Vaga stood there, unflinching, as Dana gazed into her eyes. "There wasn't time," she said finally, her voice calm.
"You.." Dana's response was cut off, her words dying on her lips but, the tension between them was too much, and she couldn't finish her sentence.
The silence that followed was oppressive, the weight of unspoken words and unresolved conflicts hanging heavy in the air.
The tension was so thick Femi was sure he could use it to make pepper soup.
For a long moment, Dana just studied her. Then she reached into her belt and tossed something at Varga's feet.
A single arrow, fletched in red.
"You gave me this after you and Ova saved me. We made a promise together."
With that, she turned around "Seems we won't be keeping it after all" she began to walk towards the camp.
Varga reached to her back and grasped Ova's axe, calling out to her. "It's his," varga said, her voice loud. "You know he always loved this axe. The moment it was given to him by the chief as a gift, for his courage. I think he would want you to have it."
Dana stopped and turned back, her face cool and composed. Her eyes met Varga's, and she responded, her voice firm.
"I don't need an axe. You both knew I was always better with a bow...."
"Keep it."
Dana's words hung in the air, her conviction clear. "He would have wanted you to have his axe."
Dana's expression didn't waver. She turned around and walked back, disappearing into the depths of the camp, leaving varga and the Femi behind. The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken emotions, the weight of their shared past and the loss they had endured hanging in the air.
Femi exhaled. "So… that went well?"
Varga snatched up the arrow, her grip tight on the shaft . "We hunt. Now."
"Rabbits?" Femi ventured weakly.
"Dire-Wolves, armor bears...even an Eri" Her voice was strained. "And we don't stop until something's dead."
Femi sighed, " truly...what a super story"