Walking Along the Grey

[Peridan]

"Blessed be Selune, who guides my aim with my hands and eyes.
Blessed be Eldath, who brings stillness to my soul and breath.
Blessed be Tyr, who gives my arrow purpose and makes it fly."
- Greywalker Motto

The mighty Will Greywalker, known as 'Deadeye', was stalking his prey through the Mossdale. The orc had no idea he was there, dumb beast that it was. Look at it, its tusks a yellowish green, hair coming from all the wrong places. It sorted like a pig, with drool dripping from its hideous countenance. Getting rid of this monstrosity would be the greatest feat of the great archer, Will Greywalker. They'd put his name up with his fathers, above it even, on the plaque that named him a Champion of Westgate.

A cruel smile crossed his face, and he drew his finely tuned bow. The weapon had served him well over numerous campaigns, had killed hundreds of orcs. He couldn't count the number of times the bow had saved his life, flinging out small bolts of death like so many spells from an archmage's fingertips. When he aimed, he reigned over his foe like some dark god, unknowable and unpredictable in temperament. He truly held life and death on his arrow string.

Which brought him back to the gibbering monster in front of him. He took a deep breath, silently, slowly. And he pulled back the string on his mighty bow.

"Blessered is Selune, who guides my aim with my hands an' eyes." He said quietly as to not attract attention, his muscled arms pulled back the bow to its full draw.

"Blessered is Alderan, who--"

"Will!"

Will started, and stumbled out of the bushes, his toy bow tumbling from his fingers. The skinny, dark skinned child looked up and swallowed heavily as the shadow of the neighboring farmer's daughter stared down at him with a narrowed icy blue gaze.

"You were going to shoot me, weren't you?" She said, her lips pursed into a tight frown.

"Nu'uh! I were hunting!" Will protested, scooting back as best as he could given the circumstances. The girl pushed up her sleeves. "Boy, I'm gonna give you a whoopin' that none of you Greywalker boys are ever gonna forget!"

William 'Deadeye' Greywalker took one more look at the scrawny girl with her sleeves rolled up, and did what any legendary archer hero would. He ran away.

"Mother!"

"Get back here, you! I ain't even started!"

The sun slowly set on the two children scampering across the fields, bathed in a golden glow of a summer evening.

[Peridan]

Her name turned out to be Gwen, and she certainly didn't hit like a girl.

The bruises faded after a few days, much to the barely hidden laughter of Will's two older brothers. Their jokes ran along the lines of 'Did she throw her doll at you to make those?' and 'I think I hear the Sunite temple needs a pillow fluffer' and caused Will's cheeks to flare up in the process. A few scuffles later with the older, bigger siblings, and Will decided to try and find the girl.

He crawled under the wooden fence that separated the neighbor's fields from their own, his knees and elbows getting a healthy dose of dirt. This, along with the grass stains on his tunic, was the impression Gwen's mother received as the scraggly boy with dark tousled hair wiped his nose after she opened the door to the small house. She raised a blonde eyebrow, cleaning her hands on a cloth towel.

"You're the boy Gwen told us she conquered the other day."

Will frowned. Only heroes 'conquered' anything. Dragons, orcs, demons, and the skunk that he had driven out from under his porch last week included.

"No ma'am." He drew himself up. "I decided ona tackeral retreat." That's what he had heard from his father in derisive tones concerning a Legion battle a few weeks back with a group of Veritas. It sounded about right.

"Did you, now." Gwen's mother said with a wry smile. "Probably for --"

"You!" A higher pitched voice said from behind. Will slowly turned, his eyes widening. His foe, come back to slay him once and for all. Gods be good, he would face his death with--

The blonde horror smiled with a missing tooth. "I had fun the other day! You want to go check out this tree I found? It has a dyrad living in it, my papa says. It also got a family of badgers living below it."

Will blinked, his eternal enemy standing before him. But that tree did sound..."Uh, sure."

A bright peal of laughter erupted from the girl. "Well, come on! My name's Gwen." She grinned and dashed off towards the wood. Will looked at her, then back to her mother. Gwen's mother just smiled. Will turned back and darted after her. "My name's Will!" He called ahead.

"You should be called slowpoke instead!", was the only response from the blonde girl running through the field with the dark boy chasing.