Destiny of Fire: The Normality (WotP)

Chapter 27: Abigale Newton

"We can't all share this for breakfast," I remarked as I started to poke the meat with my fork, finding it hard to actually stick the fork in it.

"We can, and we must," my father replied back simply. He dragged a large fork and a large knife and started to slice through the hedgehog meat. Once he was finished cutting, I got the smallest slice and my father got the largest.

We all ate this dull-tasting meat of a dumb animal for breakfast. Normally we would have pomegranates and peaches and plums, but my mother said we were all in need of a quote-on-quote "treat".

While my parents finished up, I started to talk my mouth off, asking so many questions about hunting. "Mom, what meat do you want?" I questioned.

"Anything would be fine with me, dear," my mom replied before taking another beat into the horrid, stupid hedgehog.

"So you'd be fine if I hunted you a beetle, or a spider?" My mother put her hedgehog down as I continued to relentlessly annoy her, and I could almost already see the annoyance fuming from her eyes.

"Well, no, hun... Listen, there are some animals that you just don't hunt unless you are not a human, and beetles and spiders are some of them."

"That makes no sense... All I understood from that was that you do want specific meats and not just dumb plain 'anything'?"

"No, I want-"

"One beetle and spider stew coming up then!"

    "Fine, I'll have bear meat. Just remember though that I'm also fine with-"

"Don't you dare say 'anything' again."

"My goodness. Just get me food and be done with it."

"I'll kill a bear for you, I swear," I told her, my eyes sparkling with mischief and yet at the same time, a small bit of happiness.

"Great, thanks my sweet," my mother calmly replied, picking up her hedgehog meat again. But when I looked into her eyes I could see just how annoyed she was.

My mother has good taste in meat, I guess I never knew that, I thought to myself, slowly nodding my head before turning to annoy my father. "Father, when are we-"

My father gave me the stink eye, a glare of death, and said, "don't you dare even try to annoy me, little bear cub."

My mother then finished her hedgehog meat and stared at me confusedly. "So, when are you going to marry, Abigale?"

My father put his nearly finished slice of hedgehog meat down quickly, turning towards me. Darn it, I forgot I hadn't come out to my mother yet. I wonder why I hadn't yet. Of course my mother would understand, what was I waiting for? Then I realized it was because of just me and my stupid fears.

"Soon," was all that I replied with.

Once we were finished, I ran outside as fast as a lightning bolt. I was actually going to go hunting! I was actually going to do what I had been working for my entire life! I was ecstatic, and my father had to continuously try to calm me down. He did calm me down somewhat, but I still wore a goofy smile on my face no matter how many times he tried to calm me.

"Lets go catch this bear!" I yelled, and he just laughed, which caused me to laugh too at his highly contagious giggles.

I walked slowly into the forest, the smile still plastered as strong as steel on my face. I wondered what my mother was doing at home right now. Maybe she was cleaning the house for the second time already in one day? Maybe she was cooking up the peacock leftovers for herself. Maybe she was secretly reading one of dad's journals, where he wrote a fictional story that I wasn't allowed to read. My head filled up with so many 'maybes' that I didn't see my dad stop until a hand went right out in front of me.

I let out a little gasp and at him I yelled, "hey!"

"Bear!" He whispered back, eyes not coming off of whatever was in front of us.

"Yeah?" I replied, thinking he was talking about me, and making my nickname of 'little bear cub' even shorter into just 'bear'.

"Bear!" He repeated himself, this time turning towards me. I could see excitement glittering in his eyes.

"Yeah, what do you need me for?" I asked, starting to get annoyed.

"No, not you, silly!" My father half-whispered, half-laughed, "look in front of you! It's the largest bear I've ever seen in the entire world!"

I finally turned around and saw what my father was looking at. Indeed, it was a great brown bear. Either it was so large because it was so fat, or all of that large body was made of muscle, flesh, blood, and bone.

I gasped, and then lowered the volume of my voice to say, "that has got to be the king bear."

I just saw my father look at me, and he looked like he was hungry, hungry for blood. He wanted to kill the king bear.

We nodded at each other, and I started to shuffle my way through the bushes, away from where my dad started to crouch and slowly advance to the great beast. I watched calmly as he then aimed an arrow, and as it shot directly into the bear's chest. I heard a low but weak growl come from the bear, and then another arrow was suddenly shot into the bear's eye, and blood went flying. As the bear fell over onto the ground in pain and misery, my dad then walked out of his hiding spot, aiming another arrow at the king bear. "That's how you kill, little bear cub. Welcome to the forest," my father said as I walked out of the bushes too, turning to me. Then he shot his arrow into the bear, and the beast's rising chest rose once more, and then fell. The king bear has entered his long and great slumber, I thought.

"So, what's next?" I asked, longing to be just like my father, and kill something as great as the king bear.

"I thought I saw a squirrel over there, it would be a perfect first kill for someone like you, little Abigale," he explained to me, pointing to where he had seen this supposed squirrel.

"Great!" I exclaimed, not taking my gaze off the bushes, stalking my prey like a great wolf on top of the greatest mountain.

I shot an arrow into the brush, and watched as a small orange figure started to dash across the small field a little bit beyond where I usually did archery practice with my dad.

I shot another arrow, and watched as it sank into the flesh of the squirrel, and both my dad and I started to either carry or drag the animal corpses back to the home (of course, I had to help my father carry the king bear's carcass back, which we had chopped into two bits so that we would have to make two runs back and forth so that we could actually carry it).

We walked in silence for the first few minutes back to the house. We didn't start stalking any prey on our way back, as our hands were full.
Plus, this time, it wasn't us that was aiming their strike to kill...

(1990 words)