His Hybrid Archer

2 - Snow's Shy Demeanor

Snow 

    After I perfected my ability to use fire to my advantage, I spent all of my free time silently walking through the forest and hunting down rogues.  My parents weren't exactly thrilled with the idea, but I didn't give them a choice in the matter.

    I had my mind set on trying to make the area safer, so my parents could venture out more.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any friends to take along with me, so it was almost always solo missions, unless my parents decided to join.  At first, they went with me all the time, but once they felt confident that I could handle the rogues on my own, they started letting me go by myself.

    Sometimes, not having friends made me really sad, but I understood why I wasn't able to go to school and make friends like normal kids.  Considering the fact that there wasn't a school on the free territory, and even if there was one, it would have been raided by rogues everyday.  That being said, it just wasn't an option for me.

    However, my parents did a great job teaching me everything I needed to know.  My mom taught me how to do math when we concocting special brews or casting spells.  They always required specific amounts of certain ingredients, so I had to learn math to be able to do those things.  It was the same case when it came to cooking or baking.

    Not only did I need to know how to do math, I also had to be taught how to read.  Without that skill, I wouldn't have been able to read what the ingredients and directions were for the recipes and spells.  Both of my parents teamed up to teach me the skill of reading, and they both made it a fun process.

    Whenever my dad would visit a different town, he would bring new books home for me to read, and it became one of my favorite things to do for the longest time when I was younger.  However, once I mastered my witch abilities and battle techniques, I spent so much time hunting rogues, I didn't get to do much reading anymore.

    I killed hundreds of rogues over the last few years, but it seemed like no matter how many I killed, there were five more to replace each one. I found that to be highly frustrating, and that drove my desire to spend more time hunting them.

    For my fourteenth birthday, my parents gave me a new, badass bow.  It had an arm guard and finger tab, not to mention it came with a new quiver full of homemade arrows that my dad made for me.  The quiver and the handle of the bow were decorated with a camo look, and I was confident it would be relatively easy for me to go unnoticed with it.

    We weren't exactly sure what day my birthday actually fell on, so we celebrated the day my parents found me.  I was only a few days old when they found me, so it was close enough, as far as I was concerned.

    I took my new bow and arrows with me everywhere I went, and I never walked away from an opportunity to use them against those disgusting rogues.  I had only two goals at that point in my life.  Take out as many rogues as possible and search for answers pertaining to my biological parent's whereabouts.

    Deep in my heart, I knew I would never find my biological parents, but I tried to hold onto the hope of at least learning who they were, and whether or not I had more family out there.  It wasn't something I put too much thought into when I was younger, but as I got older, I found myself thinking about it more with each passing year.

    I also found myself longing to talk to other people in the world.  Sometimes, I would find a tree with low branches that I could sit on, then I would watch the werecat cubs on the other side of the border hangout and have fun with each other.  

    I yearned to be a part of their packs and experience that type of life.  A life where I didn't have to constantly watch my back, because of nasty rogues.  A life where I had friends to laugh and play with.  A life where me and my parents could live more carefree.  

    For some odd reason, I often found my eyes gravitating to one specific werecat.  I don't know what it was about him, but my heart rate would always speed up, and I would feel a blush rise to my cheeks.  I didn't understand why my body reacted that way, and it wasn't something I was comfortable talking to my parents about.

    Even as a cub, he was the cutest werecat I had ever laid eyes on.  He had the most unique eyes in the world with three different colors.  Sapphire, a dark ocean blue, and a light ice blue.  

    I knew if I ever got close to enough to actually gaze into those captivating eyes of his, I would become mesmerized with their beauty.  He also had midnight black hair that blew in the breeze and made me want to touch it just so I could see if it felt as soft as it looked.

    Unfortunately, I didn't possess the social skills to just start talking to random werecat cubs across the border.  I was entirely way too self-conscious and shy for that, but it didn't stop me from dreaming about talking to the cute werecat.

    I didn't fully understand the whole mate thing with shapeshifters.  All I knew was that they were destined to be with a specific person, and when they found that person, they knew it right away.

    However, witches didn't necessarily have a mate, unless they were specifically mated to a shapeshifter, like a werecat or werewolf.  Usually, witches found a nice wizard who complicated their skill set, and that is how they chose their lifelong partner.

    I was so ridiculously shy and scared to talk to others that I honestly believed I would end up living by myself in the cabin where I grew up after my parents passed away.  It was a disheartening thought, but I didn't think any shapeshifters would actually be mated to me.  Because I lived so far away from witch covens, the chances of me meeting a nice wizard were also slim to none.

    All of these things weighed heavy on my mind, as I went through my teenage years, and I often found myself feeling angry and depressed about it.  I didn't understand why I was having those feelings, but my mom explained to me that it had something to do with my hormones changing, because of my age.

    When I started spending more time hunting the rogues, I started spending less time by the border, and before I knew it, that cute werecat slowly drifted out of my thoughts and dreams.  On the rare occasion that I did dream about him, the dreams weren't the same.  I went from having dreams of talking to him and touching his hair, to having dreams of him kissing me and holding my hand.

    Of course, that only confused me even more, but I couldn't deny the fact that he had the fullest, most kissable lips I had ever seen, or that I found him extremely attractive.  However, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, considering how shy I was.

    It was getting closer to my fifteenth birthday, when I started talking to the rogues after I killed them, in an attempt to get over my shyness.  Unfortunately, that only made me feel like I was crazy, so I only did that for about a month before I stopped.

    When that didn't work, I started summoning different animals from the forest, then I would sit on the ground next to them and carry on a one-sided conversation.  I would pretend they were responding to what I was saying, and that's how I was able to carry on conversations with them.

    I don't know if it actually helped or not, but I found it was easy to talk to the animals.  I guess you could say, those animals became my best friends, and it showed whenever I walked through the dense forest.  The forest animals would follow close to me, and they even started making warning sounds for me if they spotted or smelled the scent of a rogue.

    Obviously, none of the forest animals were able to actually exchange real words with me, but there was no denying the fact that I had somehow bonded with them.  I found some comfort in knowing that, and I loved how they would look out for me when I was hunting the rogues by myself.

Lance Kyle 

    It had been almost three years since I shifted into my werecat form that first time, but it was a moment I would never forget.  I could still remember the intense pride that shone in my parents eyes, as they gazed at my stunning jaguar.

    Since then, I have continued to make them proud by sticking up for the smaller cubs in the pack whenever the older and bigger cubs started picking on them.  I also worked hard during my battle training sessions, and I quickly learned the many techniques that could be used during a fight.

    I was lucky to be born into the royal family, because I had my own bodyguard who was one of the most skilled fighters in the Jungle Pack.  His name was Alfonso Marietta, and he was a huge were-tiger.  In his human form, Alfonso had light brown hair and bright yellow eyes.

    He taught me a lot of cool tricks when it came to climbing and jumping from tree to tree.  He also taught me how to army crawl across the forest floor in my human form, and I thought that was an awesome skill to acquire.

    Me and Alfonso became good friends right away, and I fully trusted him with my life.  In fact, there had been a few occasions where I might have been killed by a rogue, if it hadn't been for Alfonso always having my back and looking out for my best interests.

    I made it a point to never talk down to him, just because I was the future King.  It was something I had always been adamant about, and it was something my mum admired.  She would always say that was going to be my best asset as a King.

    My parents had always been fair to our species and never talked down to others, either.  I looked up to both of them for being the great King and Queen they were, and I made it a point to start following them around more as the year went by.  I wanted to learn everything there was to know about ruling over our species, and I knew they would teach me the right way.