Recovering from the shock of the wraith-woman’s attack,* Culleen examined the bow she knocked away from her attacker. It was well-crafted, attuned to the archer. The gut string was new, but grip well-worn. Though not an archer, she appreciated the deadliness of the art, and the skill required.

She pulled the embedded arrow from the ground. The flight was of unfamiliar feathers, in shades of brown and grey, the tip not of argon. The first weapon she held not forged from the special light metal. She felt the weightiness of the light coloured wood and dark metallic tip.

Kuth flew back into the copse and was clacking at her. She sighed, “I wish I could understand you as my people do.”

“Well then, if you would simply listen.” Startled, Culleen almost dropped her prize. “Am I understanding your clatter, Kuth? How can that be?”

“Well then, the arrow must hold some residual magic – easterlies magic.”

“Then there is magic beyond our home in the north,” she cried. “Magic I can hold in my hand – magic that I may yet make mine own.”

Her quest to find personal magic, to become like her people, not such a fey journey. In this arrow, she found a charm. Overcome, Culleen felt the prick of tears – being humanish all her life, the coming of the least bit of magic so powerful to her spirit and soul.