Context: The following is a story often told amongst aliens who don’t like the peldaks, and took place during the Founding War, in the year 29
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Sara Maliśka, leader of Warband Snaggletooth, was widely considered to be the greatest living archer amongst the peldaks. The victor of 16 near-consecutive state championships -she took a decade off after getting pregnant with her third daughter-, and 3 consecutive Peldor-wide championships. She held the millennium record in drawstring weight, accuracy, and multi-target firing.
Standing over 7’3, strong enough to wield a great bow, possessing long, flowing, light brown hair, with expressive, foot-long ears, and the mother of 13 children. Sara was undoubtedly the peak of peldak femininity.
When war was declared to end slavery on the world Relgan, Sara gathered her old war buddies and shipped out. 30 men and women, each pair a couple that had been married for centuries, they had all achieved hundreds of victories over the course of their long friendship.
During their adventures in the war, they came across a hidden village of firryans, deep in the jungles.
With skin that changed pigmentation based on their surroundings, and a stunning beauty that no alien could dispute, the firryans had been enslaved by the relgi for at least 3,000 years. This hidden village was full of the lucky or clever ones who managed to escape. But how long would it be before the relgi found them?
“Listen up!” Sara’s voice boomed through the village and made a few of the firryans in attendance jolt upright. “This here is a bow. It’s a tool of war. It’s used at long range and doesn’t require your frail bodies to approach the enemy.”
Sara took an arrow from her quiver, thick as a firryan’s wrist but no difficulty for someone of her strength, and placed the feather side against the string. After taking a deep breath, she extended her left arm, then pulled the string and arrow back with her right, flexing her muscles and achieving perfect form.
“You hold the string back and aim with the arrowhead. And then?” She opened her right hand. With a sharp fwing, the bent wood snapped back into position, yanking the string taut, and letting the arrow lose as it flew forward and ripped into the bark of a tree. With so much force, the arrow penetrated deep, and the metal head poked out the back of the trunk.
“Ooooh!” The firryans sat there, wide eyed and in awe of the power on display.
“Cool, right? Now, you there,” she pointed to a man, “come here and try.”
The firryan man jumped and ran over. Standing more than a foot shorter than Sara, she gave him a more appropriately sized bow.
“This is the training one I used as a kid. It’s older than your country, so don’t break it.”
The man grabbed the wooden furniture, then practiced pulling the string back. It required over a hundred pounds of force to pull, and his arms wobbled as he did. Nevertheless, he managed to pull it all the way back, prompting cheers and claps from his people.
“Good! But don’t release yet. The string is tight and will slice open your wrist.” Sara helped him slowly release tension on the string, then handed him a smooth, child-sized leather pad to tie on his forearm. The brown leather was worn and scratched from thousands of practice shots.
With that, she passed the man a normal-sized arrow, and directed his hand into place.
“Each arrow had a notch carved into the back of the wood, that’s where the string slots in.” She stepped back, “now guide the arrowhead and let it fly.”
The man’s forward arm shook from the weight, and he finally released the string. The bow snapped back into place, the string yanked taut and scraped against the bracer with a shhrip. The arrow was launched forward and missed the tree by a meter. Nevertheless, the audience clapped to encourage their friend.
“Tch,” the man clicked, “you made it look easy.”
“Well, I’ve practiced for millennia! Don’t worry, that was a good shot.” Sara took back the bow and wrist guard. “Who wants to try next?” All the firryans raised their hands, “you,” she pointed to a young woman in the front, Bevvka, who eagerly hopped forward.
Sara helped her put the wrist guard on, then gave her the bow. Bevvka tried a few test pulls, then exhaled all the air from her lungs while pulling the string back. She didn’t get far before loosening her muscles and relaxing the string.
“It’s… really heavy.”
“You just need to develop the right muscles for it. Which reminds me! Unless you all want one arm noticeably bigger than the other, you’re going to want to train with both sides. As my husband over there can tell you, lopsided is not an attractive look.” That got a laugh from the firryans and peldaks present.
When Bevvka finished recovering, Sara put the string in the notch on the back of an arrow, then helped the girl pull it all the way back.
“You won’t be able to aim too well without the right muscle, so just let it fly for now.”
Bevvka released her rear hand, and the string snaped taut with a tearing fw-rrrrip! The arrow flew wildly off course and sunk deep into the dirt a few meters away. The firryan woman suddenly dropped Sara’s bow, “a-aGH!” She fell to her knees, her hands clutching her chest.
“Girl?” Sara crouched to one knee, and saw Bevvka on the verge of tears, her lips pursed tight to keep a scream from escaping. Her hands were pressed tight against the inside of her left breast, her shirt torn from the string snapping taut.
“Wh-what the hell..!?” Bevvka’s shrill voice whimpered. “A-a woman can’t use this! O-ow…”
The firryan women looked to Bevvka with eyes full of empathy. The peldak women were stone-faced. The men of both stayed silent.
“Captain?” Sara said, referring to her husband.
“Y-yeah?”
Sara whipped her head around to face him, pouting, sniffling, and on the verge of tears. “I hereby order the execution of everyone in this village! And cut off their stupid udders too!”
A few women eagerly drew their blades, but their husbands quickly shoved them back into their scabbards.
The captain moved in to console his wife, and prematurely ended archery training for the day.
Thus began a long -and mostly one sided- rivalry between the peldaks and the firryans.