Joar
The perfect shot...
A single drop of water, slipping from the end of faucet, suspended mid-fall...
The first hint of a beautiful woman's laughter on a late autumn day...
A dog's bark. A leaf tugged from a branch, browns and oranges swirling in air. The smell of the ocean.
The entirety of the world, compressed into the span of a single heartbeat. The perfect shot. Nock. Trigger. Toss. Arrow. Gun. Blade. None of it mattered. The device mattered little. It was all the same. Little changed, little mattered - not the what, the where, or the who or the how.
All that mattered was that one, important 'When'.
The perfect shot.
I was six years old the first time I out shot my father. My father, who had been a sniper in the war, when he was younger that I am now. I coudn't use the massive rifle he preferred. That fifty caliber beast that, as far as I know, still hangs on the wall of his office. Hell, that gun was bigger than I was.
No, I out shot my father with a twenty-two, bolt action replica of a weapon my father told me our ancestors used. Something the ignorant might even refer to as a 'toy', compared to the modern firearms they see today.
Ten shots out of ten, I out shot my father, as he explained to me the Perfect Shot. Not the deed, but the moment, when a marksman knows. They might be few and far between. They might fall, rapid-fire, like the steady stuccato of an assault rifle.
The perfect shot.
He taught me it has less to do with the weapon than it did the man. It could be used in politics or women, in a boardroom, on the battlefield, or when driving a car. It was that knowing how to react, when to react, why to react. That perfect moment, that perfect 'when'.
It is not the only thing my father and I have in common, recognizing those moments. We had our taste in drink, in women, in living life. A love of money and freedom. I lacked my elder brother's ruthless business skill, something my father's keen eye looked for. I possessed the social graces, but not the desire and drive. At fifteen, he was acting with as my father's voice in business matters.
I never developed the sense of seduction and intrigue my elder sisters, twins born just two years before me, seemed to have held since the cradle. They both possessed a foxlike cunning, the beauty of the gods, and a merciless ability to seduce and entice anyone who would help them get ahead in life.
I am certainly not the political, and literal, whore my mother is.
No - I am my father's son. I hold his charm and good looks, his skill with people and money. What I lack in desire and drive for business I make up for in other areas. For example, of all the things my father and I share, all our similarities and likenesses, I possess one trait he never truly developed.
Loyalty.
Something I was unaware I could even possess, until those years at Vangarde.