Old Stories (Junk Drawer?)

The Zodiac Kingdoms

A Hero's Journey story that I wrote in 8th grade.  It's just about a Sagittarius named Archer who travels to the different Zodiac "clans."  I copied and pasted this by the way from my original draft and I did not edit any of it (well except for certain parts that I couldn't resist fixing just a little bit).  

Thunk! Arrow after arrow bit the bullseye painted on a tree in Glenwood Forests. Archer Lee of the Braven Family, blonde, lanky, and blue-eyed, often found that practicing with his long bow in the forests of the Sagittarius zodiac clans territories helped him to think. Some days he came up with new jokes to tell his family, other days it was fairy tales and fantasies to tell the children at the nursery down the road. Today, Archer was thinking about his father.

Archer angled himself from the target and crouched, releasing the arrow on his bowstring. He muttered darkly under his breath when it flew wide and into the bushes nearby. Archer stood up and walked back in front of the target, shooting it again. Archer's father's health had slowly began to decline, at the start of the Capricorn (January) zodiac month. Month after month, his health grew worse and worse. His father no longer came with him to archery practice every morning. It was bad enough being in the forests alone, by himself. Archer hated being by himself, but sometimes he just needed some space.

Archer was hitting more bullseyes when a loud craack interrupted the peaceful silence. "Hello?" Heart pumping with adrenaline and fear, he whipped around with an arrow nocked.

"Come out of the bushes, where I can see you." It'd be ridiculous if he was just talking to an animal, but luckily it was just his younger sister Anne, with her long blonde hair, like his, braided into two dutch braids. Normally Archer wouldn't be happy to see her on these days, but Anne was crying, and holding the broken pieces of his arrow.  

"Sorry about your arrow," she said meekly, handing it over. Archer took it wordlessly. He knew something else was wrong. Surely, she wasn't just crying over breaking one of his arrows. Archer could always make new ones, seeing as he broke several a day just from practicing.

"It's dad, Archer. I-I think he's dying." Anne answered, reading his expression. Thoughts racing, Archer shoved past Anne and ran off, down the slope and to their little shack that they called home, ignoring his sister's cries of "wait!"

He burst into the room to find two things: his mom, holding his father's hands, and his eyes were closed. All the color drained from his face as he crossed the room in two swift steps to his father. Anne entered the room, panting and her face red, but wordlessly sat down next to their father.

"Dad? Dad!" Archer asked, frantically shaking his father's shoulders. His mother shushed him and put her finger to her lips, but his dad opened his eyes.

"Archer, m'boy. I...have something to tell you." He sighed deeply, and Archer and his mom gripped his father's hands. Archer was normally always prepared, whether it was making sure his quiver was full for the morning or preparing for the barrage of hugs from the children at the nursery after storytime. But nothing prepared him for what his father said next.

"My son,  before I married your mother, I was the future king of the Saggitarius clan.  Which makes you the prince of the Saggitarians. You are to be the next true king of the Saggitarius clan.  You must unite the other clans under your rule.

Suddenly, everything tipped over in Archer's brain, and Archer swayed on the spot. Him, King? Archer couldn't imagine himself sitting on a throne, supposedly gold, and ordering people around. That was simply not like Archer's personality.

Archer's mouth hung open, and he laughed. "Dad, is this a joke?"

"I wish it was, Archer. But it isn't." Archer's dad winced and leaned back on his pillow. At this point, things were just going in one ear and out the other for Archer. This wasn't a joke?