Arrowblossom MARLEY LAMMERS '22
Long ago, in a faraway place, there stood a magnificent kingdom, tucked away into the valley of a grand forest. In this kingdom, there lived a majestic king and his charming queen. All was well and everyone was living a prosperous and happy life until one day, the world fell apart. The arrowmen from across the sea came bearing bows and arrows which they used to invade the royal palace in search of gold. While gold is a harmless object, it was clear, they would not let anything stand in their way. The queen was gardening near the edge of the forest when she heard the horn blast alerting the invasion. Though she knew she was nearest to the invasion, refused to budge until she had finished taking full care of her rose garden. Just as she was tidying up the last petal on the last rose in the last row of her garden, an arrowman snuck up behind her and as she peered up at the terrifying figure before, he reeled his bow back and prepared for his strike. The queen drew her last breath as the arrow slit through her throat and sent her barreling to the ground, blood splattering everywhere into her favorite patch of roses, a single drop of thick, crimson blood landed in the very center petal of a little white rose, the one which the queen had taken such care of over the years and had favored far above the rest. Once the arrowman left, the most miraculous thing happened. Under the watch of the queen’s stone cold face, the flower began to transform and out of the singular drop of her mother’s blood, a petite princess was born. In the aftermath of the invasion by the arrowmen, not a soul could be found in the fear-struck kingdom except for the small child, abandoned by all and cursed with this gift of life. However, this story is not as tragic as one may think. The small child lay on her back, staring out at the silenced world, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Suddenly out of the dark shadows of the forbidden forest, there appeared a miniature beast with wide, golden eyes, which shared the same glare of loneliness which the abandoned infant knew so well, as she was born that way. In the distance she could make out similar figures crawling about the forest floor. The kindly creature grabbed her by his mouth and carried her away into the deep woods where nothing could ever be seen or touched by the shy human eye. Almost sixteen years passed by and not a word had ever been spoken about our beloved princess. For no one even knew of her existence. The king had always wished for a daughter, so when his queen died, he not only weeped for the loss of his wife, but of his daughter too. With the loss of almost half the citizens in his kingdom, all were suffering. And so, this began the era of great sorrow and loss of prosperity. The dark ages had befallen the great palaces of the kingdom in the forest. Meanwhile, the princess lived a much enriched and exciting life in her gloomy forest. Arrowblossom spent her days swinging about the trees and hunting for her meals with her family. Yes, Arrowblossom did not grow up alone, for she would have survived but one night. On that dreadful night long ago, a family of pack wolves had come to the edge of the forest to see what terrible thing had happened to cover the kingdom in a blanket of silence. They came upon a silent, bloody infant on the edge of the forest. They had never come so close to a human in their life, though they saw that the child had been abandoned by her dead mother and anyone else who may have once cared for her. So, they decided to bring her back to their cave in the forest and to raise her as one of their own. They provided her with shelter and all the food a small, ecstatic child could dream of. When
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she was ready to stand, they taught her how to walk properly on her hind legs, as humans do. Though she so desired and tried to walk as the rest of the pack so willfully did on all fours, they thought it best that she learn the ways of her own kind. However, they were still wolves and she a human, so there were some things, like the human tongue, for which she had no means of learning. However, in the end, the wolf pack family raised their beautiful daughter to be a resilient traveller, a fierce hunter, and to have a kind soul. On a normal, sunny day in the inky forest, Arrowblossom could be found hunting for dinner for her pack. She had always been naturally drawn to her spear. She had the best arm of any of the wolves and certainly could be of the best among humans. She especially loved the sensation of piercing her prey with her arrow and hearing the sound of shrill terror turn to silence as they died in her arms. As a young cub, she lacked enough experience to hunt, but always anxiously awaited the return of her family on hunting days. Now, as a grown woman, Arrowblossom much prefered to hunt for herself and others rather than waiting hours on end for the return of her pack. They did not always bring back a meal, too. However, that was never a problem for Arrowblossom as she would never return home without a meal, even if it meant hunting through the night and returning back to the cave eaarly the next morning in time for breakfast. One early evening, while Arrowblossom was out on her hunt, she had chased an elk to the edge of the forbidden kingdom. She was not supposed to travel this far from the cave on her own, especially while it was still light out. However, she only cared about slaying the beast before her. Her hunger fueled her rage as she pushed forth and snuck closer to the forbidden land ahead of her. The elk, grazing on a patch of crimson roses, had just peered out at the terrifying scene in the distance before Arrowblossom launched her spear thirty feet in front of her and struck the monstrous being. He drew his last breath as the arrow slit through his heart and sent him barelling through the air. In a split second, the forest went from silent, to a hurricane of shrills circling through the air, to the calm silence after the great beast tumbled to the ground with a great ‘thud.’ Exhausted from the hunt, Arrowblossom trudged over to where the elk lay to pluck her arrow out of the beast’s meaty heart. Just before she reached the animal, she was stopped in her tracks by the glow a shimmering flower, which she picked out of the corner of her eye. She reached down to it, though she found not a shimmering flower, but instead a shiny, dead worm with a flower penetrating its side in the center of its body. She was astounded at the sight and marveling at how hard, yet gorgeous the worm had become in its death. She was so mesmorized by its beauty that she could have wandered and lost track of her surroundings. All of a sudden, a small group of humans from the kingdom approached her. The few of them were gaping at what she had done. For them, it was a disgrace to kill an elk because they worshiped and praised the animal in all its glory. One said, “What horrid thing have you done?” Another came up and pointed out the necklace which she carried loosely in her hand. Some whispered to each other “Is that her majesty’s lost necklace?” As more citizens approached the scene and the crowd’s whisper grew, another asked, “Child, would you happen to be the daughter of her late majesty, our queen?” One peculiar old woman crept forward and said “The queen never bore any children. My dear Child, where did you get that necklace?
