Solo [Bronze Woods] Shortbow Basics

[Oriah]

Summer, Day 2, 514AV

Oriah shivered and sniffled, nose chilled at the tip as she readied herself for Sera Mora's instructions. It was a bit cold this painfully early morning despite the season. Both squire and patron had only just arrived, the former having finished setting up her straw target no less than a chime ago, the latter still staring at empty space some few feet away.

No, staring isn't the right word. The Benshira flexed and unflexed her grip around the smooth grain of her shortbow. More like listening. Listening to the whispers of her precious plants.

Even for a desert nomad raised under endless streams of superstitions, Oriah found it hard to understand just what exactly Mora's blessing entailed. The woman could talk to plants. This much she knew. But just how exactly did a person communicate with grass? Or flowers? It wasn't as though they had voices.

The squire stifled a yawn and shrugged at her own, unspoken question. It wasn't for her to know, at least not just yet. Not to mention anything related to magic was horribly beyond her abilities right now. Besides, Oriah was rather content in her ignorance, for once, having enough issues concerning her path toward knighthood alone to occupy her for seasons to come.

Before her, Sera Mora let loose a quiet breath and turned to face the sleepy-eyed squire once more.

"Feeling tired already?" she asked in her usual, cryptic tones.

Oriah tried her best to keep her expression neutral. She never could figure out if her patron was being judgmental, probing, or genuine in her concern. Maybe all three. Maybe none.

"No, Sera. Still just a little unused to the cold weather, is all."

The Chaktawe neither smiled nor frowned, her face as unreadable as ever. "It will take time. You might never learn to call it home, but it shall grow to feel normal and familiar eventually. For now we distract the mind with some much needed training. Do you have everything ready?"

Oriah nodded, glancing once back at her straw target and adjusting the quiver on her back. "I do, Sera."

"Let's begin with proper footwork, then."

For about half a bell, they worked on stance and posture alone. Fortunately, as a former dancer, Oriah had little trouble with things like balance and adjusting herself until she felt centered. Once that was achieved, with her left side facing toward the target and feet pointing outward, legs parted slightly more than shoulder width apart, they moved onto everything waist up.

"My methods are different from those used most commonly by my fellows," Sera Mora explained, her inflection suggesting neither disappointment nor pride. "The way my people are taught deals more with pushing and pulling."

She drew out her own bow to demonstrate arrowless. "Watch how I push my bow arm with the bow slightly elevated and pull with the shooting arm to my desired draw." With what seemed to be no effort at all, Sera Mora drew her weapon perfectly level to her chest. "This is so we can use both arms to draw instead of one. See here, how the bow is leaning a little to the side and the string is drawn to my chest, not to my cheek."

The knight relaxed her grip to lower her weapon, then drew it up once more with identical grace. "Push and pull, draw to chest, slant a little to the side. Got that?"

Oriah nodded sheepishly. "Yes, Sera."

"Then it is your turn to try."

Sighing at the knowledge of her inevitable failure, the squire exhaled slowly and ran the steps through her head again. She rubbed her heels more comfortably into the dirt, readied her muscles, then began to draw her bow. Push and pull, push and pull...

It was harder than it seemed. Much, much harder. Oriah's muscles had been made for occasional endurance and minute, subtle gestures. They weren't used to brute force and the shortbow was no walk in the park, even with its size. After a few attempts she was beginning to huff and puff, but at least she was somewhat understanding what her patron meant by push and pull.

Push with one arm, pull with the other...Having gotten that far she then drew her right arm closer to her chest, consciously stopping herself from bringing it to her cheek, and checked to see if the bow was tilted a little sideways.

"Getting there. Repeat these steps ten more times."

Oriah fought against the urge to groan and did as she was told.

[Oriah]

"Keep your elbow at a slight bend," Sera Mora corrected as she walked semi circles around her squire, judging both form and posture until everything was as close to her standards as possible. "Outward, not in. Focus on your bow arm. Ah, ah, but do not forget everything else."

Oriah struggled furiously to keep all the steps and angles and requirements in tact at the same time while devoting more focus to her right elbow. It took almost an entire chime just to bend it slightly outward as Mora had suggested.

"Acceptable. Now we'll talk about anchors. No, keep your weapon drawn. This is not the time to relax."

The squire grit her teeth and obeyed, albeit with wave after wave of resentment. It wasn't a personal kind of resentment, given that no one had said the path toward knighthood would be easy, but she couldn't quite help herself when her body was quivering with fatigue and all she could think about was lying in a real bed for the first time in a fortnight.

"Now, I find that a good anchor lies in the wrist," the Chaktawe continued, raising her own bow once more to demonstrate. "Watch how I place the inside of my wrist--here, at the base of my thumb--into my chest right under my left arm."

Oriah's head swam a little at all the extra body parts she had to be aware of now, but she did her best to imitate her teacher. The squire's efforts were clumsy as ever in the beginning. Eventually, Sera Mora allowed her to take a break from the prolonged draw and make a renewed attempt at finding her anchor.

As she struggled, her patron explained further. "You want to touch the same spot every time you draw. Hence the word anchor. It will help you maintain consistency between each shot."

It felt incredibly awkward at first, trying to look down the arrow shaft as it stuck out from her body instead of at eye level, like she was used to. Oriah was decent with her Hebrean sling and the child's sheep herding tool was all the practice she had with ranged weapons. It was like fighting instinct, learning this new way of Mora's. But it had to be done and even she could see the clear advantage to such methods.

"Well, it has been decent progress in form. Now I think it's time to finally begin using arrows," Mora announced after another half a bell of grueling labor.

Not sure whether to be relieved or worried, Oriah plucked an arrow from her quiver--slowly, as her muscles had already begun to ache with fiery vengeance--and awaited further instruction.

"A small piece of advice before you begin," Sera Mora interjected right before her squire drew. "Practice focusing on your target, not your arrow. Your body will naturally work to help you with your accuracy. Just think about the target and do not worry about the rest."

This was the most comforting advice Oriah had received all day. She accept it gladly and, with a smidgen of renewed hope for her success with this dreaded weapon, raised both arrow and bow to her chest.

[Oriah]

Oriah took a calming breath. Then another. When she could stall no more, the squire finally drew her bow full length, up against her chest as Mora had instructed, and released.

The arrow flew wildly into the air and veered into some shrubs no where near her straw man.

Groaning, the Benshira moved to retrieve the arrow, but her patron stopped her. "Retrieve them at the end, squire. You'll just be wasting time this way."

Chagrined, Oriah halted mid-step and returned to her shooting spot. She reached back for another arrow from her quiver, thinking it prudent to get right to business instead of waiting for Sera Mora to initiate things, only to have the Chaktawe stop her again.

"And you'd do best to not rely on your body that much, Azari. Take a few ticks to aim. You want at least some idea of where you mean for your arrow to strike. Again, then. With more thought into where you're aiming."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Oriah tried her best to follow her patron's advice. She had to admit her first attempt had been rather sloppy. All that patient preparation in posture and stance had gotten her itching to actually start shooting, making her first shot hasty and thoughtless. So, this time, the squire took only one breath, saving the next couple of ticks to lock her gaze on the straw target. Only when she felt sure of where she wanted the arrow to land did she release.

The shaft leaped from her fingers and zipped into the air. For a spirit lifting moment, Oriah thought she might have had a chance this time of hitting her target. But then the arrow wobbled at the very last second and toppled uselessly to the ground some few feet in front of the straw man.

"Better, but not strong enough," Sera Mora commented, mostly to herself. Then she turned to face her squire and continued, "There's no use in pushing your muscles too much today, though we will be working on building your basic strength in the days to come. For now you can take a step closer and focus only on aim."

Relieved she wasn't about to endure yet another one of her patron's taxing exercises, Oriah accepted this bit of mercy whole-heartedly and took a step forward.

"For this third arrow, add more strength, even with this shortened distance. You want the tip to sink, not merely graze. Again."

Oriah nodded and readied her bow once more, trying her best to ignore the protests of her tiring body.

[Oriah]

When she released, Oriah's third arrow went whizzing through the air with much more gusto than its predecessor. She watched its progress with rising hope. This time, surely, it would hit the target!

And it did, to an extent. But much to the squire's disappointment it merely sank itself into the lower corner of the target, just shy of missing it entirely. At least it hit something this time, she thought to herself, instead of nothing at all. Small comforts but she took what she could with these knightly skills she possessed no prior training for.

Sera Mora stared at the result of her squire's poor aim for a moment before turning to comment. "Remember, little one," she intoned, "accuracy above all else. You could have the best bow and arrows in the world and they would be turned to useless props in your hands without accuracy."

The Chaktawe brought out her shortbow to demonstrate again. But instead of a normal arrow, she drew a half-finished one. It was a sorry looking thing with only a few feathers for fletching and the smallest nib for a tip.

"You can kill anything with anything, so long as you can hit it in the right place," the knight continued as she drew up her weapon and squinted. Two tick's worth of concentration, then the halfing arrow went flying into the air to land solidly within the center of Oriah's straw man. The squire stared wide eyed for a while, not quite knowing how the thing even remained embedded in clumps of straw.

Mora herself barely seemed pleased. "It is always a give and take relationship we have with our bows. Longer bows are better for accuracy and distance and require less strength. They are, however, also quite slow and heavy. Our shortbows, while being much lighter and faster, actually require more effort to draw and make it harder to shoot accurately."

"But," the Chaktawe added with a faint smile to her squire, "if you master it, it will make for a life-saving tool in difficult situations. Everything has its use. Now, try again. Except this time do not rush. Make accuracy your top priority."

Oriah nodded, absorbing as much as she could of her patron's teaching. This time, when she raised the arrow to her chest, resisting all the way the habitual urge to hold the bow up to her face so she could squint down the arrow's shaft, the Benshira analyzed. She thought of where her previous shots had been lacking or over-compensating. Of whether there was a gust of wind the last times she had shot, or if she had an inclination to aim too high or too low.

When she felt ready, the squire finally drew back the bow string and aimed. Oriah tried to keep things slow and steady, to take her time, instead of loosing the arrow haphazardly.

Then she let it go zipping through the air. A tickle of a breeze had drifted around the tendrils of her hair but Oriah had ignored it, thinking it no big deal. Her heart and breath seemed to go with her arrow as it flew, willing the little sliver of wood to find its proper destination.

Unfortunately, the breeze picked up to a gust of wind strong enough to knock her arrow off course, forcing it to land on the dummy's arm.

"So close..." she muttered to herself, disheartened.

[Oriah]

"Do not lose hope, squire," Mora encouraged, a knowing and amused smile peeking through her otherwise stoic features. "It takes time. As does everything in life. For now, we focus on basics. They are many and grueling, but eventually you will know them by heart, and when that point is reached we will focus on more listening and less thinking."

Oriah wasn't altogether too sure what that meant. Though, if she related bowmanship to her dancing, she supposed there was some sense to be made. In the beginning, she'd stumbled about as a young girl of no more than a dozen or so seasons. It was a triumph just to be able to get her limbs to move in the right direction. After that she'd spent bell after bell practicing just one gesture at a time, until enough had been mastered that the young Benshira could perform worrying only about the passion of the moment.

Instinct, she had heard it called once. Knowing something so well that one reacts without thinking. Oriah supposed her patron had more or less meant the same thing, only with bows. The squire couldn't imagine the day where she'd be proficient enough that using this awkward, difficult weapon would become effortless, but she borrowed some hope from her mentor's words.

Sera Mora seemed to sense her conclusions and nodded once more towards the straw dummy. "Keep trying, and do your best to remember all that I've told you. It will not be easy. But it will not be hard forever, either."

Face set in grim determination, Oriah stood there in silence, running through all that Mora had taught her that day. She checked her stance, posture, even did a few quick stretches to loosen her muscles, which were going to undoubtedly be sore the next day. When, and only when, she felt certain enough of her center, did the Benshira draw an arrow.

It carved through the Summer air before landing somewhere along the dummy's left leg. Taking this as a sign of progress, she loosed eight more in steady succession before her arm finally felt like it was going to give out. "Keep going," was all her patron said. Oriah obeyed.

By her fourteenth attempt, the squire was ready to call it a day. Her arms tingled with fatigue and her arrows growing no where nearer to either the heart or head of her target.

"Good enough for today, Little One," Mora crooned at last. Oriah felt like she could kiss the woman from sheer relief, if only she had any strength left in her arms.

"Tomorrow," the Chaktawe finished with one last statement, "we begin anew."

[Ball]

And the grades come rolling in.

 

Overall Comments

Enjoyable read, please make sure you edit your grading thread post to reflect it has been graded.

As always, please PM me you feel I have graded you unfairly or incorrectly.

 

Oriah

Experience Points.

Shortbow	+3
Endurance	+2
Concentration	+2
Shield Points	+3

Lores.

• Shortbow: Maybe Small, Still Requires Lots of Strength To Use
• Shooting from the body, not eye level

Template Credit: Edric Wingard