Archery Lessons
Location: Suncliff, Caras Galadhon, Arkandia
Date: 20 Stirring, 116 of the Fourth Age
“So,” Andarien began, glancing at his companion as they made their way through the town, “where are we going to do this?”
Syradelle, more commonly known as Sy, grinned at the young man, her green eyes sparkling. “Well, we can’t very well practice near the town,” she teased him. “If you’re as bad a shot as you claim to be, I will not be held responsible for you shooting anyone. What would people say?” She feigned a shudder. “I’d never hold a teaching job again!”
Andarien chuckled, fully recognizing the humour in her statement. “Are you Alaric’s teacher?”
He expected an amused denial or perhaps a sheepish admission, but he was surprised when, instead of either of those, she sighed and curled her lip, showing distaste.
“If I were,” she said, clearly trying to hold back her disdain, “your friend would not have been shot. Alaric’s father should not be trying to teach him the longbow; he himself knows nothing but a hunting bow, which is quite different.”
“Ah,” Andarien murmured. He offered her a slight smile as apology for bringing up the subject. “Then I can suppose that I’m in good hands. When it comes to weapons, I’m hopeless.”
“You?” Sy blinked at him incredulously. “No way! I mean, look at you!” She gripped him by the elbow and raised his arm so that she could put her other hand on his bicep. “You’re so strong! Just look at these muscles!”
Andarien blushed and gently removed his arm from her grasp. “Well, I spent a year apprenticed to a gearsmith in Caras Galadhon,” he muttered in explanation. “Worked the forges and stuff.” He found he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes. “Doesn’t mean I can use weapons.”
Sy hummed and looked at him. Young though she was, she’d seen people like him before. After a moment’s consideration, she grinned to herself. Lack of confidence, she’d stake her life on it.
“Well, we’ll see about getting you using a bow,” she told him, completely at ease.
It was a while before they reached a spot that Sy agreed was a good place for shooting. Andarien was already wearing his gear, and though he’d had lessons before, Sy took the time to show him each and every part of the bow and the arrows, explaining what each part played in the overall scheme of things. Then she showed him how to stand and how to hold the bow. Before letting him take a single shot, she explained the physics behind it all – and as she’d explained the day before, the knowing and understanding of how it worked helped Andarien to remember all of it.
At first, Sy had him just shooting in general, focusing on the physical aspect of it, using his judo arrows: arrows with tips that had rounded hooks on them to catch the grass and ground so that the arrows couldn’t bury themselves into the ground and be lost forever. But after about two hours, she put up a target for him, a coil of braided rope, and had him change to field tips so that he could start practicing with his aim.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” Sy commented, looking behind Andarien after he had done a few rounds of target shooting.
Andarien lowered his bow and looked around. Coming up on them were Ponydash, Eon and Zeus. He smiled at his Pokémon. “Hey, guys,” he greeted them. “What’s up?”
Ponydash and Zeus stopped a safe distance away, but Eon, always the most parental of them all, strode up to Andarien and started yipping at him.
Andarien winced, and Sy giggled. “You understand him?” she asked curiously.
Andarien nodded. “Yeah … I hadn’t realized it was lunch time already, though.” He knelt down and patted Eon on the head to calm him. “Don’t worry, Eon,” he murmured, smiling. “I’ll eat.”
Eon sat back on his haunches and looked up at his master, his red eyes filled with suspicion. Andarien chuckled and reached for his bag, which he had set aside for the lesson. He opened it and pulled out a bundle wrapped in cloth. He held it up to show the protective Umbreon. “See?”
Eon nodded his head and trotted back to join Ponydash and Zeus. The three of them stayed there together.
“Oh, they’re just adorable,” Sy giggled, sitting next to Andarien. Once he had opened the bundle, she reached over and grabbed one of the sandwiches inside. “You’ve had them long? You all seem to understand each other so well.”
Andarien chuckled. “Yeah … well, Eon has been around since … well, I think I was maybe a year old or so. Ponydash came soon after. Zeus, on the other hand … he’s only a few months old.” He paused to take a bite of his own sandwich and made sure he had swallowed before continuing. “Eon is Zeus’s father, Miyuki’s Espeon, Ai, is Zeus’s mother. And he’s got a brother, Yasu.”
Sy was impressed. “Very nice. And what do they do? I mean, are they pets? Or …”
“Friends and protectors,” Andarien said proudly. “They each have their own abilities. Nana and Ada bought them for us – well, Ponydash and Eon and Ai – to protect us since we were little when we started traveling, and since even then we knew that Mi and I aren’t much good with weapons.”
He paused, then added, “Me especially.”
Sy punched his shoulder – none too softly, at that. “Let me tell you a secret,” she told him, unusually serious. She glanced at the Pokémon. “And this is something the three of you can remind him of, too.”
Eon squeaked his agreement, and all three Pokémon listened intently. Sy turned back to Andarien. “No matter what it is you’re doing in life,” she told him, “the only things you can’t do – the absolute
only things you can’t do – are the things you
tell yourself that you can’t do. And nothing shows it better than archery.”
She stuffed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth and jumped nimbly to her feet, brushing her hands on the back of her pants. Then she picked up his bow and nocked an arrow.
“In archery,” she told him as soon as her mouth was empty, “the physical part – how you stand, how you hold the bow, how you draw, all of that – is only ten per cent of shooting.”
She drew the string back to her chin, touching the nock of the arrow to her lips as she took aim.
“See that flagpole back at the town?” she asked Andarien, pointing at it with the arrow.
Andarien pushed himself to his feet and moved to stand behind her, wiping his own hands on his pants as he did so. He had to squint to see it, but eventually he saw the flag waving in the distance above the city.
“Yes,” he murmured, nodding slowly.
Sy smiled, keeping the bow up and ready to shoot. “The other ninety per cent of archery is mental,” she told him softly. “You have to believe that you’re going to make the shot. Visualize it. Feel it. Know that you can do it. If any part of you doubts, even just a little, you will not hit your target.”
She lowered the bow slowly and turned to look at Andarien. “How far away do you think that flagpole is?” she asked him.
He thought about it for a moment. He was no cartographer, but over time he had learned to judge at least some distances, and now he took a guess.
“Half a mile?” he suggested.
Sy smiled. “Close. Just a bit more. Think I can hit it?”
Andarien was doubtful. “Can my bow even shoot that far?”
Sy just grinned and turned back to face the town. In a single fluid movement, she eyed her target, raised the bow, drew back, and released the string. The arrow arced above the trees and was very quickly lost to sight.
Andarien was shocked. “Are you mad?” he choked out. “What if you missed? You could have killed someone!”
Sy laughed again, but she didn’t answer him. Instead, she handed him his bow and started packing up their things. Once she had everything in hand, she turned back to Andarien and grinned. “Shall we go see?”
Andarien was too anxious to make conversation on the way back to town, but Sy was at ease and chattered away incessantly. The first thing they did when they returned was head to the town square, where the flagpole was located, and looked up at the tip of the pole.
As promised, Andarien’s arrow was sticking out of the spherical knob on the top.
“See?” Sy grinned triumphantly at him. “It’s all about what you tell yourself you can or can’t do.”
Andarien glared up at the arrow. “And how do we get it down?” he asked sourly. “Unless you can fly …”
Sy waved away his worry. “I’ll give you another arrow, free of charge,” she promised him. “Come on, let’s go back to the shop and get it right away.” She looked at the Pokémon, who were still following them. “You might need to ask your friends to wait somewhere else for us, they won’t be allowed inside …”
Andarien turned to the Pokémon. “They can come with us,” he decided. “I’ll let them rest when we go inside.”
He could tell that Sy didn’t understand, but he was feeling vengeful and didn’t bother explaining about the Pokéballs. She had lost him an arrow, after all – and it smarted that she seemed to be making fun of him for being such a poor shot.
As they were walking down the street, another girl, about Sy’s age but appearing to be Light Elven instead of a mixture, called out to Sy in another language. Andarien understood it of course, though he didn’t know what language it was.
“
Morning, Sy!” the girl called in greeting. “
New friend?”
“
New student!” Sy called back in the same language, laughing. “
Isn’t he handsome?”
Andarien felt it better to pretend not to have understood, and he let his brow furrow slightly as if he was confused. The girls waved to each other and he and Sy continued down the street while the other girl headed in another direction.
“Friend of yours?” he asked when they reached the bowyers’ shop. He took out his Pokéballs and recalled the Pokémon before returning the balls to his belt, and he felt a smug satisfaction when he saw the astonished look on Sy’s face.
Sy blinked and shook her head as if to clear it. “Um, yes,” she replied, finding her voice back. “Yes, her family arrived here about five years ago and we’ve been good friends since.” She cleared her throat and opened the door for him. “Come on.”
Instead of simply writing down his information and letting her brothers take care of the arrow, Sy picked out the necessary materials and invited Andarien into the back room to watch as she prepared it herself.
“Are you sure you don’t have magic helping you to shoot that well?” he asked as he watched her. “I mean, I’ve only ever seen one person shoot like that before, and it’s a magical gift for her.”
Sy looked at Andarien thoughtfully before shaking her head. “Of course it’s not magic,” she replied as if the answer were obvious. “I have mixed blood, I have no magic.” She looked up at him again. “What about you? I mean, you obviously don’t look a thing like either of your parents, but you must be of mixed blood, too. Your father’s a Dark Elf, and your mother …”
She hesitated. “Well, I don’t know what she is, to be honest,” she admitted.
Andarien smiled. “She’s an angel, and before you ask, it’s a race that doesn’t exist in this world, just like Miyuki is a kitsune and there are no kitsunes in this world.” Then he shook his head. “But no, I’m not sure you’d say I’m of mixed blood. I mean, yes, they’re my parents, but … I’m adopted.”
He had learned that keeping the explanation that simple was really the best way for people to understand. They never understood when he said he was born from a mechanical musical egg.
Sy blinked. “Oh!” she exclaimed, breaking into a smile. “Then you must have some magic!”
“Well …” Andarien hesitated. “Sort of … but … it’s not helpful. The only magic I have – if you can call it that – is the ability to see magic. But it’s blinding, which is why I need these.” He tapped his goggles. “They block it out – filter it, really. Without them, it’s painful to look around sometimes. The more powerful the magic, the brighter it is.”
“But hardly anyone here has magic,” Sy pointed out, “and if they do they usually don’t use it and rub it in. We’re mostly mixed-bloods here.”
She pursed her lips and set the arrow on the counter she was working at, then turned to face Andarien squarely. “I wonder …”
Andarien blinked. “Wonder what?” he asked, curious to know what she meant.
Sy’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at him, and she tilted her head thoughtfully. Without speaking, she stepped towards him. She reached up and carefully took hold of his goggles, one lens in each hand. Gently, slowly, she lifted them up and pulled them over the top of his head.
Andarien blinked as the cool air of the shop reached his formerly protected eyes, and when they stopped watering, he found that Sy was looking quite pleased with herself.
“What is it?” he asked hesitantly.
Sy grinned and twirled the goggles around one finger. “I was right,” she just about purred. “Much better without.”
With that, she returned to working on Andarien’s new arrow, leaving him to puzzle out what she had meant.
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