[openish]

[bowarmed]

Characters: Connor Hawke + Various + OPEN
Date: 21/04
Location: Around town. Turtle. This thing.
Situation: Connor's coming back to Keeliai after a while of being on the outskirts. Thread-starters within!
Warnings/Rating: None I can think of; will change if necessary

Comments

[wilsooon]

[He examines the hand on his shoulder with bemusement.] I'll help.

[How is it that he's gone from teacher to pupil again? Learning at every turn that he's outclassed, and not finished learning. Here, though, it isn't life or death. It isn't at the risk of bodily harm, or with the lingering expectation of betrayal.

I want to share that experience with you.

He shifts to a proper stance, brings the bow up with the arrow on its string. Sights on nothing. Oliver shifts minutely, uncomfortable. He feels the wind. Adjusts for it in spite of the lack of target. He visualizes one in the space - Count Vertigo - and his focus narrows to the vital points. Target chosen.

Release.

Connor's arrow streaks across the emptiness and through the center of Oliver's imagined enemy.]

[bowarmed]

[He smiles at the offer and lets Oliver go to do this.

Then well, no one's perfect. Rome wasn't built in a day, and you don't become good or even understand it until you reach a point of enlightenment. Oliver isn't seeing the point of it; he's still seeing a target. Oliver is being the arrow that strived to reach a target, not the bow that released a burden. And it's okay.

Connor shifts and stands his bow. They watch the arrow travel into the distance and land before he speaks, not looking at Oliver yet. He's still trying to see if he can salvage that arrow.]

When you take the arrow between your fingers and feel the feathers, what do you think of?

[wilsooon]

[The target. Survival. His enemy's weak points. Whether he's aiming to intimidate or debilitate or kill.

Oliver reaches back to touch the feathers of his own arrows, eyes on the plain with a predator's focus.

Is he fast enough. Is he strong enough. Will he live through this or will he die, and will it be then that Thea and his mother discover who he became while he was gone. How many times he'll make them suffer through losing him or seeing him hurt. How to do what he does and keep his loved ones safe. Not just Thea and his Mother - Laurel, Tommy, even McKenna.

He slides one of his arrows out of the quiver and rests nock against bowstring.] My family.

[bowarmed]

[Connor silently watches the expression on Oliver's face. Family doesn't bring a smile to his face, this is a man who thinks about family and worries.

He can't say anything against that, he does the same thing. How long has it been since he's seen his mom? He's spent so much time with Ollie in Star City and not enough with her. But when he thinks about who needs him more, it's the people in Star City, the woman with incredible faith in her resilient husband and that cheeky girl who finally stopped hitting on him.

But, he doesn't think about family when he has a bow in his hand and an arrow in another. Not when it's like this anyway.]

Oliver. We're not on patrol, and there's no one here but us. Don't think too much. Don't think, at all.

[wilsooon]

[Don't think. Shado said basically the same thing - don't think, just do it. He exhales, drawing the bow full back and feeling the brush of his fingertips past his chin.

Don't think. Feel, and do.

He remembers meeting Shado's eyes while Fyers held a gun to her head, that calm, that confidence. His first one-on-one murder.

Oliver lets the string go slack without releasing the arrow.]

I'm not doing this right.