[[The Memory Challenge: "Easy as Breathing"- Lt. Cdr. Gallia Norris]]

Posted on Mon Jan 13th, 2020 @ 2:14am by Lieutenant JG Gallia Norris

Mission: Challenge Missions
Location: Scotland-Ancestral Home of Clan Fraser
Timeline: 2378
468 words - 0.9 OF Standard Post Measure

A young girl, five, six at most, her red hair in long pigtails down her back, stood twenty feet from a bail of hay, a bow in her hand and frustration on her face, "Ah cannae do this, Lana." She protested, embarrassed that she hadn't been able to hit the targets like her brother and older sister, near tears.

"Aye, ye can, Gallia." Her sister, an Andorian girl adopted before Gallia's birth, encouraged her, "Yer gettin' there. Jus' be patient. Get another arrow, we'll try again."

Gallia nodded and loaded another .arrow into her bow, waiting for Dolana to give her next instruction, her frustration building.

"Right, now bring it up and point at the target." Dolana said, "Once ye get it in ye sights, take a deep breath."

Bringing the bow to point, she pointed towards the target again, the same one she'd missed fifteen times before, and began to take the deep breath Dolana called for.

"Now, as ye take yer breath in, pull the string back." Dolana directed, "An' hold it a second."

Pulling the bow string back wasn't easy, especially while holding her breath, she wasn't as strong as Dolana, but Gallia did as her sister said.

"Now, I want ye te release that breath, an' ye let go a that bow string when ye do." Dolana instructed, "Do it.... now."

Releasing her breath and that bow string was the easy part, she'd been worried she was going to faint holding her breath for so long. What happened next, that was the exciting part...

As she opened her eyes the little girl saw something she'd never expected to see, her arrow flying into the target, burying itself in the paper and the hay behind just slightly to the left of the bullseye, "Lana...."

"Aye, ye did it." Dolana smiled, kissing her little sister atop her head, "An' a bonnie shot it was, wee one."

"Charles Norris, are ye watchin' yer sisters?" Their mother called from the kitchen window, something of a worrier that she was.

"Aye, mum." Charles, adopted Vulcan older brother to both, replied, "Lana's teachin' Gallia how to shoot a bow."

"She's doin' great, mum." Dolana boasted, "She jus' hit the target far the first time."

"Tha's wonderful, love." Their mother replied, "Supper's on in half an hour. Charles, ye keep an eye on yer sisters 'til then."

"Aye, mum." He replied, he knew his responsibilities well and took them seriously, those two girls would get into so much trouble left to their own devices, "Alright, ye heard mum, means we got about another twenty minutes before we got te get ready, so le's see if we cannae get a bullseye outta the wee one befar supper, hey?"

"Right." Dolana agreed, "Come on, Gallia, is jus' as easy as breathing."