Location: ???, ???-No idea
Queen's Heir #1.05: Falling Arrow
"There is and can be no other way to mysticism than the way of personal experience and suffering."
"You just have to breathe, Connor. It's all as simple as breathing."
I breathe out and let the arrow fly. For the very first time, I score a perfect bullseye! I can't see him without looking away and breaking form, but beside me I can feel Master's smile.
I love it here at the monastery. Everything's peaceful. The air is warm and soft on sunny days like this, barely any breeze. The shooting range where we practice archery is so cheery, all green and sweet smelling from cut grass. There are always bugs humming around us, but it's still nice because it helps with boring meditation practice.
I turn and grin up at Master Jansen, victorious. He's always what I imagine a grandpa would look like. He's bald without shaving his head like I do and way taller than me still. Plus his face is tanned all brown and covered in lines, from smiling and laughing at the world, he says.
"Yes! Just you wait, Master! From now on, I'm gonna hit it every time!"
His hand is on my shoulder now, and his smile turns to a frown, like the sun going behind clouds.
"Hitting your target isn't the goal, Connor. A Master can miss every shot, and still be a Master. A novice can place every arrow perfectly and still know nothing of the Art."
My face scrunches and I stare at him confused. With the other monks I'd hold my questions in but not with him. I know he likes my questions.
"Then why do we even practice archery, if we don't care about getting good at it and hitting stuff?"
My dad is an archer, the greatest archer in the world! He's a hero and he uses archery to help people! Master told me so.
"Archery is just a means to finding inner peace. Tell me, when you let go and hit the bullseye just now, what were you thinking about?"
I think hard. I try to remember but I can't remember much. "Not a lot, I guess. You telling me to breathe? Breathing?"
He nods, I can feel his grip on my shoulder tighten. "It's like that, Connor. We train in archery like we train in martial arts. To discipline ourselves, quiet our minds. The bow is something that was used for wars, and sport. But here, we use it to find peace."
The grip of his fingers grows tighter. Suddenly they're cutting into me like knives, or the talons of some vicious animal. I don't need to look up to see him eye-to-eye now, the little old man has nothing but cold disappointment on his face.
"You never truly understood this, did you? Now look at you, using my teachings for violence, maybe even murder! No wonder there's so much pain and suffering in you, when you're so quick to inflict it upon others!"
I remember these words, but last time I heard them they were directed at my brother, not at me. Master drags me out of the monastery, like I saw him drag Ricardo. My bow is gone. My fists are bruised and covered in blood, there's more blood on my face, hot and clingy with its metallic stink. I don't know if it's mine or someone else's. I try to struggle but my muscles won't respond. My limbs are weak and limp as noodles from the way his fingers dig into the pressure point at my shoulder. The tears in my eyes are only partly from pain. Suddenly I know what this memory is, how it ends.
More than that, I know what it means.
"Master, please-"
"You've chosen your path! You no longer belong here, and you're no student of mine! Remember, you bring all of your suffering upon yourself!"
He throws me bodily through the gates, surprisingly strong. They slam shut behind me as I sail through the air and now I'm falling...
...falling...
Freezing water splashed Connor in the face and he woke up gasping for air and looking around, still dazed. His throat was in pain so intense that only the icy cold shock was keeping him breathing. There were bright lights burning in his eyes no matter which way he turned, and when he tried to move he felt himself tugging against rough restraints, chafing his wrists and ankles.
Another wave of cold water hit him, but this time clarity came with it.
Okay. He was tied to a chair. His throat felt crushed because Brick had almost crushed it. He couldn't see because of the lights, but somebody had to be there with him, because he was still getting freaking buckets of ice water thrown in his face to wake him up.
He tried to talk, through chattering teeth and coughing up water. "Whoever's...there...you really don't need to do this!"
The buckets stopped pouring in, like whoever was soaking him noticed he was really awake for the first time, not just thrashing around. Connor heard a chair scraping across pavement in front of him, and a shadow fell across his face and blocked some of the lights as someone sat down.
Maybe they could talk this out after all.
"Oh, but I do need to do this Baby Arrow. I really do."
Craaaaap, well, this was getting worse for Connor by the second.
"You see, you have no idea what it's like to be a mutant in this city, in this country! No idea what I had to do starting out as a nobody in the Glades, a two bit thug everyone assumed was just dumb muscle. Now I'm the king around here, and I didn't get that way from stone skin and a little extra in gains. Nah, there's people in this world who make all of that look like nothing! I clawed my way to the top by being smarter and more ruthless than anyone who even thought about coming at me! I did hundreds of things that would horrify a lesser man and I did them all gladly because that's the price of power!"
He paused, like he wanted Connor to appreciate the weight of his words.
"Now that I have power, I have rules, because I can afford to be generous. Even now, with Green Arrow gone I leave everything north of Midtown alone, and I look after my own in the Triangle, my territory. When the real Green Arrow took me down well, I could respect that and so could my men. He was another man who understood power, and we had a disagreement over what was best for this city. So, he took his shot at the king and he knocked me down."
He clapped a stony hand down on the back of Connor's waterlogged head, tugged and tilted Connor's chair in close, leaning down until Connor could feel the heat of his breath.
"But when a little bitch in a homemade costume starts hitting my operations, making my men look incompetent that undermines my power. So now I throw the rules out," He jerked Connor's head from one side to the other and now he noticed that far beyond the glaring white lights, there were little blinking red ones. little mounted cameras, recording. "and that means you're gonna die on my terms, completely defeated, while the whole world watches from every angle. But first, a little payback."
Brick dropped Connor's chair back down and stood up from his, moving out of Connor's field of view and leaving him blinking away glare again. This was bad. This was really bad. But he could find some way out. The ropes were swollen a little from the water, and tensed too tight. Maybe he could snap them, escape. Or maybe-
The lights dimmed and for the first time Connor could see his surroundings. Not much to see except for the lights and all the cameras, in a bit more detail. Dingy concrete flooring, no windows in sight and just one metallic door off in a corner. Once his eyes started to adjust, Connor could see that every surface around him had a slight sheen, like they were all covered in plastic tarps...
Oh. This was some kind of kill room. This...really was serious.
Connor's half-memory half-dream from before flashed through his mind, too vivid.
Maybe it's what I deserve, after all...
As soon as Connor thought the words, Brick returned and once again filled his field of view as if summoned. This time he was holding something in a big rocky fist, something long and silvery and for some reason sparking-
A cattle prod.
Brick was holding a modified electric cattle prod, and the water from earlier wasn't just to wake him up.
Connor's mind started racing, all thoughts of guilt and self-pity obliterated. He was seeing the world ooze by in slow motion like it was filtered through syrup, his world shrinking down to a pinprick as he tried not to cry, tried not to panic. He tried to focus instead, to brace himself for the pain. To meditate and seek detachment, like Master Jansen had taught him.
I accept this pain. May this suffering serve to awaken compassion in me.
I accept this pain. May this suffering serve to awaken compassion in me.
I accept this pain-
"Remember. Speak up for the recordings."
To his credit, it was almost two minutes before Connor started screaming.