Inagad Dadavida, Isolationist Amazon
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"DAMN!", thought Ina, as she studied the battered shaft and broken head
of the last of her small supply of spears.  "Damn.  Damn.  DAMN!"

Sighing, she discarded the useless remnants of her favored weapon, and
pulled out her bow.  As she set off to see what she could hunt down for
food, she thought back to her time at the Academy.  Back then, Ina
and her spear-inclined cohorts had looked down on those Amazons who
took the bow as their weapon of choice.  "The pin-cushion brigade",
they called them, scoffing at the feeble effects of an arrow when
compared to the damage wrought by a hard-thrust spear.  But back then,
there had been newly-repaired spears for every training session, and
little thought was given to the advantages of a weapon that wouldn't
snap on the ribcage of a miserable fallen runt.

Ina shot down a small hawk with one well-aimed arrow.  Despite her
preference for the spear, she had not been allowed to neglect the
skills of the bow.  The Academy prided itself in training its
students in all the skills of war.  "Except," Ina thought ruefully,
"the little matter of repair skills."  For a moment she was
tempted to forget her vows and take her broken weapons to the
local blacksmith.  But she remembered too well the stories that
had been drilled into her since childhood, tales of the wars
between the great merchant houses that had all but destroyed the
Amazon nation.  Commerce was evil, she knew, and she would have no
part in it, no matter what.