Target Practice(Open)

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

11th of Winter, 510AV

In a field cleared of high grass there was set up a few targets in a line, directly beside the fletcher's tents called the Feather's Run. The targets themselves weren't even painted, just bundles of lashed together grass stalks to stop arrows before they went too far. For Jarhal, these targets only got any use when he was forced to go to the fletchers for business. It was a bit of an involved process to properly straighten wooden arrows, and if you did it wrong then you could expect to get an arm full of splinters the next time you shot them. Thankfully Feather's Run rarely did anything wrong.

Jarhal was still dressed in his normal attire, a heavy green winter's cloak with brown elk fur about the fringes and a brown leather vest with green pants. Nearby a brown mutt with a jagged facial scar laid on the ground curled up, clearly not an animal that thrived in the cold. Few did, to be fair. The hunter himself wished it would hurry up and be gone, spare him a few weeks of being frozen in his open portable tent.

Even though his fingers were simultaneously frozen and on fire, the act of target shooting never failed to relax him. When it came to shooting in the wild, there was but one shot here and then gone in a split-second. You could not appreciate it very well, you were too busy thinking of everything else. Here, alone on an empty field, the art of archery could be felt. The magical feeling of looking at a point and putting the arrow on that point... and the immense frustration when you couldn't put the arrow on the point.

Everything in life was about the highs and the lows, when you thought about it. The good times and the bad. The hits and the misses. What sort of person you are depended on which you looked at most, if you dwelled on the bad or basked in the good. How history was made depended on failures and accomplishments. Whether the future of the Treeshadow pavilion ended or continued depended on a single failure or success.

Jarhal's arrow missed the mark and he found his quiver empty.

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

His green-feathered arrows made an altogether poor grouping on the target. It showed the lack of concentration more than anything, a product of a wandering mind. Practicing alone was always sad to him now, bringing up memories of competing with his brothers while his father watched sternly. His father did everything sternly back then, it had seemed like. One of them would hit just outside the red-dusted circle of the bullseye and boast, then the next of them would hit closer and the next even closer than that. They had always sharpened one another that way, pushed each other to get better or be picked on for eternity. He would give anything for those days again. Anything at all.

With his head down, he walked to pull his arrows out of the grass mat. Getting misty-eyed about days long gone helped nobody, right? Now was a time for growing up himself, and quick. Everyday that ticked by seemed to be a waste somehow, so little accomplished of what remained to be done. And the worst thing of all was that he didn't really know just what it was that remained to be done. Being a hunter was all he had wanted, but now killing the occasional deer or elk or rodent seemed inadequate. What had those animals done to him, really? Was it really Caiyha's will for him to take them, or was he just a pitiable poacher?

Taking his stance, he drew out an arrow from his quiver and laid it on the wood of the bow, resting lightly on the side of his knuckle. His left hand held the wooden shaft of his composite bow while his right kept hold of the string, nocking the arrow ever so gently. It was important to practice as you really acted, to practice being as silent as you needed to be in the wild. Holding his bow slanting away from him, in order to keep the arrow nestled snuggly on the plateau his hand made, he hefted it up carefully and pulled the string back slowly. Rushing to the crucial moment was a main ingredient in the recipe for failure.

One of his gloved fingers gripped the string above his arrow, and then two others gripped below. Pinched in the middle of them, the arrow waited it's time to shine. To Jarhal, the rest of the world seemed to get just a little quieter, just a little dimmer, when he was lining up a shot. All that he could see was his target, instincts making minute adjustments to his aim without thought. Thinking too much was also in the recipe for failure. The only thing now was the decision to release, to allow the string to slip through his fingertips.

All the energy of the bow's clever design sped the arrow forward, the only sound a muted twang. It stuck and shuddered, like a skinny man shaking off a little bit of rain, and then came to a halt half-buried in the rough center of the grass cylinder. Jarhal the Hunter let a relieved breath mist from his mouth, and looked back to Chural. The dog lifted his head and stared back, then curled itself back into a brown-furred ball. One of these days, the dog was going to congratulate him on a nice shot. One of these days, he was sure of it.

[Raylin Sunsetfeather]

The bitter winter had already started and it seemed to be amplified in the sea. Raylin was glad that her mother had been able to make her a katinu the winter before. She wore it now, the long coat going down to about her knees, along with a pair of winter boots her aunt had made. The scarf that would normaly be around her waist, now resided around the lower portion of her face.

With her long bow in her hand and a qwiver of arrows on her back, Raylin made her way toward Feather's Run. It had been awhile since she had practiced and she didn't want to get too rusty. She became happy as she began to recognize a person at the range. She watched as Jarhal concentrated and then finally let his arrow fly at the target. A relived sigh floated from his mouth in the form of a cloud as he looked over to his dog.

"Nice shot Jarhal." Raylin said as she stopped about a meter or two away from him, moving the scarf away from her mouth so that her words wouldn't be muffled.

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

Surprised for a second, thinking his dog had indeed finally congratulated him, he turned to find the red-haired amethyst he had met once before. Almost entirely ignoring the girl, his eyes immediately found and studied her longbow. Had she had that when he met her before? Surely not, he would have seen it. A fellow archer was always an interesting find, but eventually he stopped being rude and gave Raylin a bow of his head respectfully.

"Hello Miss Raylin, and thank you." He planted his composite bow into the ground, placing both his hands on the top of the upper limb. "I didn't know you shot a longbow. I'm impressed, that takes a bit of muscle."

He moved a bit to the side to clear a place for her to shoot at his own target, his green-feathered arrow still looking lonely stuck into it, and then raised his voice at Chural.

"Don't be rude! Come say hello to the lady, Chural!" He then narrowed his eyes at the dog, until Chural indeed got up sluggishly and came over to stand in front of Raylin. The hound looked bored, but Jarhal nodded in satisfaction. No dog of his was going to be rude, after all. If he had to mind his manners, then so did his animals.

"Come for a bit of target practice, Miss Raylin?"

[Raylin Sunsetfeather]

Raylin smiled when the other drykas turned around, and noticed when he started to examine her bow. She couldn't blame him, it truly was a nice bow. It was simple. There was no decorations or trinkets on it, it was simply a bow, and thats what made it beautiful.

"My father taught me when I was 10." Raylin said as she looked at her bow. "It's from Wind Reach, the town me and my mother are from. My father bought it for me before we left to come here."

She looked back up to Jarhal, a smile playing on her face. "Well when it comes to muscle it seems I have a enough that I can pull the string back and get a fairly good shot." she said with a laugh. When the drykas comanded for his dog to come see her, Raylin bent down so that she could give the dog a good stritch behind the ears. "Your a good boy Chural." she said before walking toward the space that Jarhal had made for her.

"Yes actually." she said as she started to get into her stance. "I haven't practiced in awhile and decided I shouldn't put it off for too long or else all my hard work would go away. Plus my father threatened to marry me off to some random person he finds on the street if I didn't practice. And though im sure his threat is hollow, I don't want to disobey my father when it comes to something like that. One talk to my uncle and bam, suitors will be on my doorstep in no time."

Raylin got out one of her arrows from her quiver and placed it on the notch in her bow. She took a few breaths before pulling her bow string back. Her eyes locked on her target, what would be a ring away from the center that Jarhal had marked with is arrow. She began to breath slower to help her focus and relax. A few moments later she let the string go. A purple feathered arrow flew and hit the target. It hit about two rings lower then the original target.

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

Jarhal watched her form as she drew back the shot, watched her fingers release the string, and took mental notes of it all as best he could. It was highly doubtful he'd comment on any of it to her directly, that seemed too prying for his taste, but it was fun to see how others shot. The way of shooting a bow was more varied than one might think, differences in where people put their fingers on the string or how they aimed. Most of these things were too small for someone not intimate with archery to really see, or care about seeing for that matter. So long the arrow got to the target, what did it really matter anyway?

"Good." He murmured as he looked downrange to see where the arrow landed. He made no move to step forward or take another shot, rather wishing she'd continue and give his fingers a break. "That's an interesting threat though. I'd think your tent would be ringed by boys already, Miss Raylin. If it's one thing Drykas men love, it's exotic beauty."

That was a bit too much said aloud, but he couldn't take it back now. Girls and marriage had never been precisely head of his list of concerns, it seemed a thing to pursue much later in life when he was ready to be leashed and staked to one spot. Urges were urges though, it was only natural to want a kiss here or there... he tried to just push on to a different topic.

"I don't know of Wind Reach, besides the fact they apparently make a nice longbow. Do you remember much?" He asked, and not idly at that. He enjoyed hearing of foreign ways, if only to scoff at them for being silly.

[Raylin Sunsetfeather]

Raylin looked at her arrow from where she stood. It wouldn't kill a animal but it would probably injure it. "Thank you." she said as she looked over at Jarhal.

"It's not that I don't want to get married one day, it's that I don't want to get married to the wrong person." she started to explain. "My parents waited for 10 years to see each other again. In that time niether of them courted anyone else or got married. It's that trust that keeps thier bond so strong. And though my uncle wants me to get married as soon as possible, he dosen't push me because he understands that."

"Are you saying that you like exotic beauty Jarhal?" she said as she got an arrow out of her quiver and put it in the notch of her bow. "And please, just call me Raylin." she added as she turned to the target.

On her second atempt the only thing she changed was that she aimed alittle higher then her original target. This time when she let go of the string and the arrow shot toward the target, it hit closer to her mark. With a smile and a nod she made a mental note to aim higher.

"I remember Wind Reach quite well actually." Raylin said as she continued staring the target. "It's on the other side of the continent on Mt. Skyinarta. Everyone lives in caves that are in the mountain. Outside there is lots of snow and in some times of the year no one can get in or out because of it. Much like our bond with horses, they have bonds with giant eagles named Wind Eagles. And much like our pavi they have nari. People are sectioned off into differnt social statuses, the lowest being the Dek who live on the street and the highest being the Wind Riders who have been chosen by a Wind Eagle. Everyone has red hair and either blue, green, yellow or gold eyes. I have brown eyes with a ring of gold. The brown is the only way anyone could tell that im a mixed blood. People like me are usually thrown into the Dek cast instantly. If a Dek has a child that child grows up it whats called a nursary. They live with many other children and are taken care of by the people who work there." she finally finished.

"Sorry if i talked too much." Raylin said after a few moments.

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

Chural had slinked off a short ways out of the way to curl back up into a ball and trying not to be cold. Jarhal briefly considered getting a tailor to make him some sort of little dog-coat or something... but what sort of dog wore a coat? No hunting dog with any self-respect, that's for sure. What sort of friend would he be if he did that to the poor mutt?

He could only shrug to whether he preferred exotic women or not, since he honestly didn't know. And even if he did he surely wasn't about to say so. The Drykas were a passionate people, but Jarhal's passions were solely focused on the natural world. Everything else was a bit too foreign to him, and uncomfortable to talk about. Though whenever he visited his mother, she never let him get away without talking about grandchildren and everything else she could to make him blush. He didn't visit very often.

Wind Reach, however, was more interesting talk altogether. The idea of social classes was not unheard of, his family had never been well-off compared to some Drykas, but a place that seemed to demand them was still foreign. And it did not sound enjoyable, either. Everyone had their places in the circle of how all of them lived, from the hunters to the skinners to the tanners to the weavers and on down the line again. Some lived better, had bigger tents, and became the Ankals, but the differences would not make a very deep chasm.

"You don't talk enough," He smiled reassuringly, "You said your parents were separated for ten years, did you spend these ten years in Wind Reach as a Dek? That sounds like it would be a hard life." He tried to observe her face tentatively(but not very stealthily), for signs of a shift in mood. Bringing up unhappy memories was not his intention. "I don't mean to interrogate you, I'm just interested. I'll answer some personal questions in return, if you want to ask them."

[Raylin Sunsetfeather]

Raylin smiled in return when the drykas boy had said she didn't talk enough. Normaly people would tell a girl her age to be quiet, so she found it interesting that he would tell her something like that. At his next question though, the young woman's smile faded.

"Thankfully my mother was able to keep me in with the commoners. My uncle also helped alot. Him being an artisan ment that he could take me in as an apperntice before I had to go with the youth, though really my mother taught me instead of him. He just wanted to make sure I was with her. Though even then, some of the other childern treated me as if I was a dek, and it lead to me being threatened with a knife once because of it." she replied as she stared at the ground. After that Raylin never did go outside much. And even once she had come to Endrykas she didn't go outside unless needed until about two years later.

"It's ok. I like to answer peoples questions." she said as a smile resurfaced on her face. "What about your family? Whats it like?" she asked as she looked back at Jarhal.

[Jarhal Treeshadow]

Still frowning at the thought of the younger version of the girl in front of him being threatened with a knife, he took a moment before he answered any questions. She probably had little red pigtails and big freckles too. Sure, picking on girls was a thing every young boy did, but that was usually just smearing their dress with dirt or something and then running off. Certainly no knives involved. Well, except that one time, but the girl's ponytail had grown back just fine!

"My family..." He scratched at the fuzz growing on his cheek, "My parents are both Emerald clan Drykas, living out in their big tent in the Grasslands protected by the Web. I visit them whenever Endrykas migrates over their way, but they never need anything. My sister married a Sapphire a year ago, and I haven't really kept in touch since then."

It was a somewhat utilitarian listing off, not a whole lot of emotion really entered into it one way or another. He had drifted away from all of them a little lately, but he wasn't necessarily sad about it. To become a man you needed to drift away a little. It was the only way to make a life of your own. His grey eyes then studied Raylin for a few moments, consideringly, before coming to a conclusion.

"My two brothers were both separately killed in the grasslands, years ago now. We found one of their bodies, though." It was all said slowly, with more dull anger than sadness. It seemed best to not elaborate anymore on the specifics. "Chural was actually my brother Acha's dog, and he somehow made it back to our tent."

He gave a shrug then, and tried to smile to change the mood. "But these sorts of things happen in the Sea of Grass, I'm not the first to lose kin." He moved on swiftly from there, "The past is done, lets talk of something more important; the future. Do you ever want to go back to Wind Reach? I've always thought about traveling a bit, myself."