“CUPID’S TARGET” by Sorina Williams

He tried to target her, but she persisted to not be seen. When he sought her in the woodlands through which she walked, she balked and ducked behind the tree trunks, twining her arms and legs around them until she all but sprouted leaves. When he tracked her through the meadowland, she collapsed among the tall gold grasses until the cries of the whip poor wills masked the sound of her breathing. When he followed her up the mountain ranges, she tossed stones at him and laughed as he dodged, favoring his right wing more than his left.

“I will catch you someday,” he vowed, calling down to her as she fled. “You cannot escape me forever.”

“Catch me—if you—can,” she cried, and fled behind the curtains of the waterfalls.

One day a young hunter entered the forest, not knowing it was haunted by nymphs. That day the nymph stepped out on her daily rounds, not knowing a hunter was in her neck of the woods. He saw something and shot—she saw something and hid—and little Eros took advantage of her rare immobility to shoot an arrow all his own, catching her in the small of her back just as her head rose to greet her predator.

“I promised I’d catch you,” she heard the god cackle as he bounded away through the clouds. His voice echoed through her mind; from the youth’s red cheeks she could tell he heard it too.

“And you can’t say I didn’t land you a lovely catch indeed!”

~Angreek87