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Description

art commissioned from fee-lien
fic by BrowncoatWhit
Featuring December + Ulysses / A7260 Remuda's December
word count 904
Vault-503

The sun was setting red and gold over the Three Sisters mountains, throwings deepening shadows across the meadow alongside the winding bottomland at the river’s edge. The field’s grasshoppers had settled with the sun, but they woke again at the vibration of December's hooves as Ulysses urged his peafowl overo into a canter. The spotted grey mare ran easily, surefooted and confident on ground she had grazed upon since she was a filly.
Ulysses had known this meadow since childhood, too -- and he had chased the grasshoppers here every summer evening since he had been a boy with his first bow in hand, when putting arrows through small rolling hoops had grown too easy for his tastes. Grasshoppers, his grandfather promised him, were a far more difficult target -- so as a boy, he had walked this meadow, waiting for the grasshoppers to take flight from the tall sunburned fescue and wheatgrass when he stepped too close. A flying grasshopper was no larger than a boy's smallest finger, and would buzz about erratically -- and so fast! At first, as a boy, Ulysses had been unable to even set an arrow to the string before the insect was gone again, plummeting back into cover in the golden meadow grass. The challenge had been almost too much for a boy. Yet young Ulysses had decided that he would master this prey, even when it meant long afternoons and evenings of failure. Other children had teased him, but even humiliation in the eyes of his peers had not swayed the determined child. It had taken young Ulysses a full moon before he'd developed the reflexes to even get an arrow off in the right direction as his tiny prey. And then it was two months before the boy could come close to hitting an insect. But the constant practice paid off, and by that summer's end, a sober young boy's reflexes and shooting eye were deadly keen, and he could hit a grasshopper in flight more often than not. The next summer, he had his first horse. Turtle had been the blue roan’s name. And Ulysses had taken up the practice again, first from Turtle’s back as the gelding stood and grazed in the grass. Then he had become to practice making those shots from Turtle’s back while the roan made his bone-jarring trot in lazy circles around the meadow. Somewhere early in his third summer of practice, Ulysses had been able to make those shots from a canter. And finally -- toward the end of his third summer, Ulysses finally shot a grasshopper dead while riding at Turtle’s eye-watering gallop, moving so fast across the meadow that it was difficult to even spot the grasshoppers when they took flight.

Nearly two decades had passed since those days now, and Ulysses’s childhood determination had made him into one of the village’s sharpest marksmen. And he had never stopped training in this meadow, in the afternoons of summer and autumn when the grasshoppers were there in great numbers.
Today, Ulysses rode bareback, at one with his mare’s easy stride. The bow he carried was light and small, shorter than the bows the village’s best bowyers made to protect the village walls. Ulysses had crafted it himself as his grandfather had taught him. He had cut down a juniper tree in winter, when its sap was down, then stripped it of its bark and trimmed into one of several slender staves, each no wider than his hand. Then he had hung it over a fire in smokehouse, turning it at intervals so that it uniformly dried. The fire hardened the wood and strengthened it, curing it to a rich buttery yellow. Once the stave was ready, Ulysses cut it down to size, trimming it down to a width about two of his fingers in the middle and tapering at each end to about the size of his pinky. He rubbed the wood with radstag antler until it was smooth and shining, closing the grains to further strengthen the fire-cured wood. Then he backed it with carved bighorner horn, at the middle-grip where the arrow would be drawn, and at the tips, to protect the sinew string. Only after it was finished did Ulysses paint it, evoking Turtle’s memory in shades of blue and charcoal.
As grasshoppers began to fly up out of the grass to either side of his loping mare, Ulysses began to shoot. He wore his quiver across the small of his back, and carried three arrows at a time in his left hand, first along with the bow. Three arrows at a time took wing with a heartbeat between them as he blind-nocked and shot, relying on instinct and touch. The small, deceptively powerful horsebow was like an extension of his arm, so light in Ulysses’s grip that it was easy to turn and aim in any direction. Three heartbeats, three arrows; two heartbeats to draw three more arrows; three more heartbeats and three more arrows aloft, hissing in flight as they cut down their prey.

December closed the distance across the meadow as her rider’s quiver went empty. She turned without guidance, knowing their routine, and trotted into the middle of the meadow where she went still, waiting for her rider to dismount and gather up his the spent arrows -- and to count the number of grasshoppers pierced on the sharp-thornhead practice tips of those magpie-feathered shafts.

Vault-503 -- a Fallout HaRPG Group

Description

art commissioned from fee-lien
fic by BrowncoatWhit
Featuring December + Ulysses / A7260 Remuda's December
word count 904
Vault-503

The sun was setting red and gold over the Three Sisters mountains, throwings deepening shadows across the meadow alongside the winding bottomland at the river’s edge. The field’s grasshoppers had settled with the sun, but they woke again at the vibration of December's hooves as Ulysses urged his peafowl overo into a canter. The spotted grey mare ran easily, surefooted and confident on ground she had grazed upon since she was a filly.
Ulysses had known this meadow since childhood, too -- and he had chased the grasshoppers here every summer evening since he had been a boy with his first bow in hand, when putting arrows through small rolling hoops had grown too easy for his tastes. Grasshoppers, his grandfather promised him, were a far more difficult target -- so as a boy, he had walked this meadow, waiting for the grasshoppers to take flight from the tall sunburned fescue and wheatgrass when he stepped too close. A flying grasshopper was no larger than a boy's smallest finger, and would buzz about erratically -- and so fast! At first, as a boy, Ulysses had been unable to even set an arrow to the string before the insect was gone again, plummeting back into cover in the golden meadow grass. The challenge had been almost too much for a boy. Yet young Ulysses had decided that he would master this prey, even when it meant long afternoons and evenings of failure. Other children had teased him, but even humiliation in the eyes of his peers had not swayed the determined child. It had taken young Ulysses a full moon before he'd developed the reflexes to even get an arrow off in the right direction as his tiny prey. And then it was two months before the boy could come close to hitting an insect. But the constant practice paid off, and by that summer's end, a sober young boy's reflexes and shooting eye were deadly keen, and he could hit a grasshopper in flight more often than not. The next summer, he had his first horse. Turtle had been the blue roan’s name. And Ulysses had taken up the practice again, first from Turtle’s back as the gelding stood and grazed in the grass. Then he had become to practice making those shots from Turtle’s back while the roan made his bone-jarring trot in lazy circles around the meadow. Somewhere early in his third summer of practice, Ulysses had been able to make those shots from a canter. And finally -- toward the end of his third summer, Ulysses finally shot a grasshopper dead while riding at Turtle’s eye-watering gallop, moving so fast across the meadow that it was difficult to even spot the grasshoppers when they took flight.

Nearly two decades had passed since those days now, and Ulysses’s childhood determination had made him into one of the village’s sharpest marksmen. And he had never stopped training in this meadow, in the afternoons of summer and autumn when the grasshoppers were there in great numbers.
Today, Ulysses rode bareback, at one with his mare’s easy stride. The bow he carried was light and small, shorter than the bows the village’s best bowyers made to protect the village walls. Ulysses had crafted it himself as his grandfather had taught him. He had cut down a juniper tree in winter, when its sap was down, then stripped it of its bark and trimmed into one of several slender staves, each no wider than his hand. Then he had hung it over a fire in smokehouse, turning it at intervals so that it uniformly dried. The fire hardened the wood and strengthened it, curing it to a rich buttery yellow. Once the stave was ready, Ulysses cut it down to size, trimming it down to a width about two of his fingers in the middle and tapering at each end to about the size of his pinky. He rubbed the wood with radstag antler until it was smooth and shining, closing the grains to further strengthen the fire-cured wood. Then he backed it with carved bighorner horn, at the middle-grip where the arrow would be drawn, and at the tips, to protect the sinew string. Only after it was finished did Ulysses paint it, evoking Turtle’s memory in shades of blue and charcoal.
As grasshoppers began to fly up out of the grass to either side of his loping mare, Ulysses began to shoot. He wore his quiver across the small of his back, and carried three arrows at a time in his left hand, first along with the bow. Three arrows at a time took wing with a heartbeat between them as he blind-nocked and shot, relying on instinct and touch. The small, deceptively powerful horsebow was like an extension of his arm, so light in Ulysses’s grip that it was easy to turn and aim in any direction. Three heartbeats, three arrows; two heartbeats to draw three more arrows; three more heartbeats and three more arrows aloft, hissing in flight as they cut down their prey.

December closed the distance across the meadow as her rider’s quiver went empty. She turned without guidance, knowing their routine, and trotted into the middle of the meadow where she went still, waiting for her rider to dismount and gather up his the spent arrows -- and to count the number of grasshoppers pierced on the sharp-thornhead practice tips of those magpie-feathered shafts.

Vault-503 -- a Fallout HaRPG Group