Father Daughter Bonding

[Kena]

2 , Summer, 503 A gentle breeze seeped into the room as the door creaked ever so slightly, sending the hard odor of smoke around. Pleasant scents of the young forest filled the room. The aroma was different several times as different people preferred different woods. Today, the smell was ash, and oak. Well roasted chips of trees fed into the warmth that stings the nose snapped out in protest of being fed to the flames. Closer to the entryway where the smell of the city floated about, carried by the heat of Mount Skyinarta. When paying close attention, the scent of iron floats, disguised by the fragrances of wood and smoke. Each scent that danced upon the air was a reminded, and would follow the young woman throughout the entirety of her life. These smells and aromas would become as much a part of her as the feel of a bow in her hands. Snapping and biting at the trees being fed to it, the fire crackles and rumbles a low growl as a beast might. The winds from the doorway whisper to the small ears engulfed in flame, as her skin pads on the cool floor stones. The winds above the building sip at the smoke through the gap in the ceiling and roof. Fibers pop apart, saying their final goodbyes to the rest of its wooden family, while an iron blade slices and scrapes between them. The shavings fly into the burning coals, and are provided a hymn of departure by the man whose leather hands court the base of the tool, and comfort the curve of the wood. His voice, low and rumbling, carries throughout the small room easily, drawing a smile to the face of the young woman he has yet to discover. Kena tiptoed up to the fire, trying to sneak a glance at the project that Edic, her father, was crafting. A typical practice, the girl wanted to learn without interrupting. Every day she had a lesson, she would refuse to announce her entrance, and selected instead to advance into the crafting chamber as a shadow. At least, as well as she could manage. She watched carefully at the shape of the former tree being sculpted into a tool for the hunt. Beside the man, whose red hair was attempting to poke out from the smooth skin of his shaved scalp, lay a stack of long, thin branches with bark stripped from the middle. On a small bench were the rest of the tools he required. They were lined up neatly, placed precisely in grooves formed by years of habit and technique. Each piece lay interlocked between the curves of its bretheren, tightly packing together what would become a case of twenty lives. "I hear you, little candle," teased Edic, as he continued the scrape fragments of the piece of wood into the fire place. "Curious about the bows? Maybe someday you will make your own bows and arrows. Or maybe you'll just light someone's library with that head of yours." The father took a moment from scraping the wood to rustle the girl's fiery hair. She glared at him grumpily, huffing and folded her arms. "I'm not that short, papa," retorted Kena, who then allowed the sour mood melt away in the heat of the fire. The girl's father responded to her reaction, "No, but you are bright like one. And your smiles always brighten the room. But, enough about that, you're not here today to listen to me about you..." digressed the bower, wiping. "You're here to learn! So, grab one of those ash branches." He, too, grabbed what would become the shaft of an arrow. The very feel of the wood’s grain would become an embedded memory to Kena’s skin, as she would repeat her fletching practices, of course. For now, however, it was still a distant feeling. While there certainly was a familiarity to the specific wood, it blended and merged in her memory to the various other types of lumber that had traveled in and out of her father’s shop. "The wood, normally just bends back to its original state," instructed the father, raising the branch up, and giving it a few short bends to exemplify how resilient the young wood was. "Just don't bend it too much. This isn't as flexible as the wood for bows. However, if you heat up the wood just a bit..." He explained, holding the future arrow shaft over the fire for few moments, then worked the piece closer to a straightened rod. Kenai nodded, and mimicked the action, working with extreme attention to every little curve that remained on the arrow piece. She repeated the process, again and again. Keen eyes scour the surface of the soon-to-be arrow for curves and bumps in the surface. Soon after, her father showed her how to shave down the diameter of the arrow shaft. Kenai adapted to that lesson as well. The night was well spent, and she practiced forming the ashen arrows several times. The whole pile had been reduced to a fine stack of shafts ready to be formatted into the proper tool. The arrowheads were contained in a wooden box in the corner of the room. Her father had always purchased as many as he could muster, and insisted that his friends collect any off of broken arrows on their hunts. Kena was given a small knife, and watched her father carve out the knock of the arrows. The arrows for the fletches would be gather the next morning, of course. The fire-haired huntress held that memory tightly. Her heart ached for home, but she knew she could not go back. She could not return without achieving what she had set out to do. The image pulled from her passed blurred in her mind as present concerns resurfaced. Her eyes stopped staring at memories dancing in the darkness of the night sky, and the world returned to her. The wind was wet and cold, and she had a long way to go.

[Memento]

GRADES
Kena

Skill	XP
Fetching/Bowing	1
Observation	1
Stealth	1

Lore:

• Ash wood: Not very flexible
• Fletching: Straightening the wood with fire

Notes: I like your writing style a lot! Just try to pay attention on the verb tense. You switch between past and present a lot. It's best to keep everything in the past. Other than that, your thread is too short, so I can't give you many lore or XP.

Also, if you plan to use your dad in flashbacks to teach you stuff, please apply for an NPC on the Help Desk.


If you have any questions about your grade, or think I've missed something, please PM me.