I had been given five arrows when I was born. Beautiful pieces, with fletchings of feather, and wound with gold along polished wood.

The seer demanded it.

Other children had been given tools, clothing, talismans of protection, jewelry, slivers of glass mounted on a wire frame that allowed you to alter your vision- but I had arrows. My father proudly named me Zeus.

I grew up with them slung on my back in a tube my father crafted for me- of leather and metal. In his workshop, he made me my first bow, and when I grew older, he made me a second. With him, I practiced everyday- but never with those arrows. Those I had been told never to fire.

Life was peaceful in the village, and as I grew older, I watched as the items of my peers came to relevance. Peter's eyes began to falter, but the glass and wire frame seemed to help when he wore it. A girl received help when she was lost in the woods, by using a small mirror. Another proposed to a loved one with a ring that matched the other's identically.

There was one boy who had been given a sword, who went off to war.

He never came back.

Our village was one of many, but we were not always safe. There would be strife, and danger near the borders of our forests. It was not constant, but it was often. I tried my best not to think of those, to live my life.

I grew older, married, had children, who in turn had children of their own. I watched them grow up, and watched myself grow old.

I practiced with my bow every day, but never with those five arrows. Always with the simple ones I made myself. As I practiced, I found peace, and unity, and all my problems, my fears, simply slipped way into the distance.

When the bandits came for our village, my children, and their children, ran to the Seer, to refuge behind the great walls in the center of our small town. They could run, with the strength and vitality only blessed on youth, but I was not young. I did not run.

As I stood in the street, with my father's bow, I let my mind go. An old man, with five arrows.

They came through the forest riding horses, but there were not many. Armor, and shields, of the type one would expect from a battlefield. Things stained in blood, metal that had drowning in death and lost it's way long ago.

The clatter of arrows reached my ears as I pulled the first shaft, and pulled back as far as my arms could allow, to release it straight into the air.

The other four flew from my hands and string like bolts of lightning, their golden tips sailing into my foes, toppling them from their steeds with grace; swords and spears, shields and armor clattering to the ground with a sound of release. Of those that would threaten our homes and family there was only one, but one was enough.

The spear took me, as I fell to the ground, my bow trampled under hooves as the man rode past. Blood flew from my wound, as life grew dim, and the colors dulled, but still I watched the sky from where I lay. I watched as the golden tipped wood fell from the heavens, like divine justice wrought by mortal hands.

A scream of pain, and the clatter of armor on soil brought a final smile to my lips.