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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:11:33 GMT -6
Briar wanted nothing more than to shrink into his cloak, and disappear to somewhere else entirely. If that was something that mages could do, then maybe becoming one wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after all. bbComing here had been a mistake. He should have just left, and tried his luck another day.
The woman drew up alongside him, and braced her hands on her hips. “Alright, I thought you were green but I didn’t know you were this green. Kid, word of advice. You don’t shoot a bow without an arrow. Not unless you want to be paying for this when you break it.”
Briar looked down at the bow in his hands. She was right; he hadn’t known that. That must have been what she meant when she said ‘fire it dry’. He reached for one of the arrows, then tried to nock it against the string.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:12:31 GMT -6
To his own embarrassment, it took him several tries before he managed to fit the notch onto the string. He tried to draw it back, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could do it.
“Proper posture first. Stand with your feet apart, one foot slightly forward, like this.” The woman demonstrated, and Briar did his best to mirror her movements. She nodded approvingly. “Good. Now… Hold on a minute.” She went back to the archery station and picked out a bow of her own, much larger than the one she had picked for Briar. But then, he supposed that made sense; she had a lot of height on him, and she seemed like she had done enough of this to know what she was talking about. It was only natural that the bow she used would be different from one that a child-sized beginner would start with.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:12:56 GMT -6
Once she came back, with the bow in hand, she assumed the stance. “You’ll want to hold your bow with… Hey, are you left or right handed?”
Briar hesitated, then lifted up his right hand.
“You’ll want to hold it in your left, then. Stick out your index finger, you’ll want your arm and wrist and finger all to line up straight, like this.” As she spoke, she stretched out the arm holding her bow, so he could better see what she meant. Briar wasn’t certain he understood, but again he tried his best to copy what he saw her doing.
This time it wasn’t so easy. He knew as he held out his arm that he didn’t have it right, though he wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong about it. He tried to shift the angle of his wrist, and then his arm, but nothing felt right.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:14:02 GMT -6
The woman watched him struggle with this for a couple of minutes, then stepped in and reached for his arm.
Briar was jerking away before he even realized what he was doing.
“Whoa, easy there buddy,” said the woman, holding up both hands in a placating gesture as Briar stared up at her, eyes wide. She misinterpreted his surprise. “I wasn’t going to hurt you. Just thought it’d be easier if I corrected your arm a bit.”
Briar looked away, fixing his gaze on the floor. He hadn’t meant… It hadn’t been his intent to react like that either. It had just happened. He didn’t know the exact conclusions that she must have been coming to about him, but none of it would be good, he was sure. And something like that made you memorable, which was exactly the sort of thing he wanted to avoid.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:14:22 GMT -6
Hells, maybe the other people present were staring at them again, though he didn’t dare lift his eyes enough to check whether that was the case.
Suddenly, he was aware of movement at the periphery of his vision. To his horror, the woman was kneeling in front of him now, peering up at him as she rested one elbow on her knee. “Look, kid, I’m sorry. I should’a asked. It’s alright if you don’t like people in your space. You can just keep trying to copy what I do, or I can back off if that’s what you want.”
Briar shook his head, quickly. She was trying to be kind, but what he wanted most was to move on, to pretend as though this hadn’t happened. He held out his arm, and motioned for her to grab him; he wasn’t some delicate creature who couldn’t bear to be touched.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:16:24 GMT -6
It had just caught him off guard, that was all. Unconsciously he had probably been expecting a blow. Maybe she had guessed that. He hoped that if she was assuming something, it was that, actually; it seemed like the lesser evil, at this point. But Briar wasn’t so lost to terror and bad memories that he couldn’t tell the difference between someone moving in to hurt him, and someone who meant well.
She didn’t immediately take him up on his offer, so for a moment he wondered if she was the one who was put off by his reaction. But then she reached out, slowly, and guided his arm into position. She adjusted his wrist, and when he stuck out his index finger this time, it all lined up. The position itself was rather awkward, and something must have shown on his face. The woman chuckled, though a little weakly.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:16:45 GMT -6
“It feels a bit funny at first, but you get used to it. Be careful about your form until your body starts to remember for you. That’s what archery’s all about, really. You practice til your body remembers, and then you don’t have to think about it anymore. You just shoot.” As if to prove her point, she picked out an arrow, nocked it, drew back the string on her bow and loosed it -- all in one smooth motion, barely even taking aim at the target. The arrow landed home, not directly on the bulls-eye but close to it. Much closer than Briar would have thought, given how quickly she had done it.
The woman caught his eye, and winked at him again. “Looks like I’ve still got it, eh?” she said.
He offered her a tenuous smile in return, though not much of it was visible over his scarf.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:17:00 GMT -6
Still, the atmosphere had lightened again, and Briar hoped that they would be able to put his little incident behind them. He hadn’t wanted to train with anyone when he had chosen to come here, but now that someone was offering… He was also realizing just how out of his depth he would have been without any guidance, which was a bitter pill to swallow, but if he learned enough from her, he was hoping he could just practice on his own. He couldn’t imagine that she would want to renew the acquaintance, even if she was taking the pains to be kind to him now.
Briar gripped the bow the way that the woman had shown him -- or at least he hoped he did. It was a little tricky to remember exactly how everything was supposed to lie. The woman studied his posture, and corrected him again, though only a little.
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:17:11 GMT -6
Now that he knew that it was coming, he didn’t jerk away again, though it took some conscious effort to keep himself from tensing up. If she noticed this, she didn’t comment on it. Maybe he had managed to hide it, or maybe she had picked up somehow on his desire not to have it noticed or commented on. Either way, it was a relief.
With his bow held in the correct grip, Briar drew an arrow and tried to nock it. It still took more effort than he would have liked to guide the groove onto the string. “You get used to that too,” the woman said. “But more importantly, look on your string. See that little knot right there? That’s your nocking point, and when you’re starting out, you want to make sure your arrow’s always right below it. Mhm, just like that.”
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Post by Briar on Jul 26, 2022 23:17:26 GMT -6
Briar re-nocked his arrow as she spoke, and once he had gotten it in the correct position, the woman nodded her approval.
“You’ll want to grip it like this when you draw. See how my fingers are?” Instead of holding the arrow between the pads of her hoof-tipped fingers, she held it between two of her knuckles instead. Briar copied her grip, then watched as she raised the bow in front of her and drew her arrow back, stopping when her hand drew parallel with her cheek. “This here’s a good reference point for beginners. Next to your eye, almost, though not too close. Wouldn’t want to lose one in an accident.”
Her tone suggested that she was joking, but all the same, Briar felt a little ill at ease following her instruction this time. Still, he had to do it to learn, and she did seem like she knew what she was doing.
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