Solo Let's Try Hitting the Target This Time!

[Koran Frostfawn]

3 Fall, 514 AV

Koran stood there with bow in hand as the warm air caressed his dark almond colored skin. The last of the warm weather was not appreciated on the young Frostfawn. Being from the frost laden northern city of Avanthal he was accustomed to freezing temperatures. This unusual, at least unusual for him, warm weather was to say the very least uncomfortable. To someone born and raised in Lhavit it might have seemed like a relaxing cool day to them it felt more like a day in the rainforest to Koran. He had decided to practice outside the Amaranthine Gates by Hachia's home in order to not hit anyone with arrows flying in random directions. Koran was still a novice in the shortbow so he didn't want to risk a stray arrow hitting anyone, even though he was sure he was skilled enough to at least hit the broad side of an archer's target. He had set up his archer's target roughly fifty feet away. It had several concentric rings around a centralized red dot that was called a bullseye. Around the red dot were two tight black circles. Around those two black circles were two yellow circles, around those two yellow circles were two blue circles and around those two blue circles were two brown circles. The target was made of cotton and straw and stood as an opponent to the focused archer ready to take it down. Koran raised his bow and stared down the hapless target fifty feet away from him. In his left hand he gripped the middle of the wooden bow, carved out in such a way that the archer could grip it comfortably. The quiver on his back rustled as he grabbed an arrow, a motion that was so commonplace to him that he didn't have to look to know where the quiver was...but it took him several tries to grasp an arrow. He held the arrow in his right, gloved hand. The glove consisted of a leather wrist strap with two leather pouches to place his fingers in to grasp the bow string. This was important because the bow string could rip the skin off his fingers from the velocity it fires an arrow if it grazed against his fingertips. The leather glove kept the two fingers closest to his thumb safe from the searing pain that would occur if such a thing happened. He placed the arrow's closest end up to the bow string and the wooden shaft of the arrow onto a small notch carved out into the middle of the bow to steady the arrow called the arrow rest. He pulled the bow string back, which took a surprising amount of strength in his forearms that it caused the blue veins in both his forearms to bulge. He closed one eye as his right hand pulled the string back to the corner of his right eye, not touching it but coming parallel to his eye. This allowed him to focus on the target while placing the arrow squarely in his sight, lining the arrow up with the target. This all took merely several seconds before the arrow flew through the air. Time seemed to slow as he watched the arrow fly through the air with a sort of spiral. It again took only an instant before he heard the satisfying thud of the arrow hit and only a moment before his triumphant smile faded into unbearable disappointment.

The arrow was stuck in the ground...about fifty feet left of the target. If one could see his face one would see pure and utter disappointment. He sighed and breathed deeply, pulling his thoughts together. He calmed himself with a single excuse, the wind must have carried off his arrow and obviously this caused the misdirection of the projectile.He smiled at this realization. That was clearly the only explanation that made sense. He walked to the site and reached down grasping the shaft of the arrow and tried to pull it from the ground only to have it break in half in his hand. He cursed the arrow and the very ground it shot in to until he took a deep breath to calm down. He walked back to his spot fifty feet away from the target, and waited there until the wind had significantly died down, nothing would throw off his arrow this time. He stared down the target and picked out another arrow from his emerald colored quiver. He picked out yet another arrow and placed it on the arrow rest once again.

[Koran Frostfawn]

His objective for the evening was to work on his accuracy. Shooting a bow and arrow meant nothing if you couldn't hit anything. In fact your competency with a bow and arrow is always judged by your ability to hit what you are aiming for. He released the arrow he had held onto, this time it once again soared through the air with the tell tale spiral that always seemed to accompany his arrows when they flew from his white bow. The arrow once again joined it's comrade in the dirt and Koran fought the urge to punch something very hard.

He focused his thoughts and asked himself an obvious questions. The question he asked was what would cause an arrow to veer of it's intended target. His first thought was the wind or the air. If the wind blows doesn't a leaf caught in the wind get carried to some other destination then it would have if it had never blown? It wasn't then impossible to assume that something like that couldn't happen to an arrow launched from a bow. He sat down in the cool morning dew covered grass and closed his eyes, crossing his legs and setting his bow on his lap. He felt the slow breeze of the wind as it ran through his hair and brushed against the hair on his arms. He concentrated first on how hard the wind was blowing. He figured that a soft breeze would be different than a strong gust in terms of moving an arrow off it's expected trajectory. The breeze today was not a particularly strong one but it was definitely strong enough to be noticed and strong enough to take into consideration how it would effect an airborne projectile.

The next thing to take into consideration, he thought, would probably be wind direction. He quietly tried to determine what direction the wind was coming from and feel out the direction as it blew around him. That was until an annoying insect started to buzz in his ear. He opened his eyes in an instant and hit himself in the head harder than he would have liked to in retrospect. He grumbled as his head ached with the sudden blunt force applied to it. He closed his eyes again after missing the annoying insect and again contemplated the direction of the wind. Again his meditative state was rudely interrupted by the insect just as he was about to figure out the direction. He again swatted his own head and the insect escaped. He made a quick and sharp yelp of frustration, his eyes shining a dark purple as he got up, grasping his bow and firing a hastily aimed shot in utter frustration toward the target and to his shock and total dismay it hit the target about three inches left of center, just outside the bullseye. The dismay originated not from him hitting the target but after so much concentration and work trying to focus on just hitting the target how did he eventually accomplish his goal? By sheer dumb luck thats how. He sighed and grinded his teeth ad he set up another arrow, resting it against the arrow rest in the middle of his white bone bow. He closed his left eye as he drew back the bow string, using his anchor-point which was his usual left corner of his mouth he aimed carefully. His forearms strained as he held the bowstring in place while he aimed. Finally satisfied enough that his aim was as good as it was going to he released the carefully aimed arrow and waited for the thwack that the previous arrow made as it hit the canvas. He only had to wait a few seconds before he would know if his arrow landed on the target.

[Koran Frostfawn]

The arrow didn't hit the target. The arrow wasn't around the target. Wherever the arrow was Koran couldn't figure out because it was nowhere near the target. He let out a single solitary yell in frustration that sounded completely animalistic. He yelled out in anger of trying to do something and failing in such a spectacular way. He had not hit a target once since he picked up a bow in which he actually tried to hit that target and he was only fifty feet away from the thing!!! It wasn't that unrealistic to think he could hit a target exactly fifty paces away with a stick that had a bit of pointy stone on it was it??!?

He sighed and decided that he wasn't as skilled as he thought he was...which was a huge deal for Koran. If fifty paces was proving to be far too much for the Frostfawn two things became almost immediately obvious to him. One, he could never hunt a wild animal if he had to get that close to it in order to have a prayer of hitting it. He would have to be almost on top of the animal in order to faithfully strike it with an arrow then hope that he kills it with one arrow because if he didn't the animal will charge him in a matter of seconds. So hunting any big game was out of the question at his skill level. He decided to go to the target and get right beside it. He counted twenty five steps exactly away from the target, half the distance he was previously shooting from. This distance was slightly less than ten yards. It was close enough to see details on the canvas and tears it had from repeated use. His pride was wounded at this change of distance, but his will to succeed and his determination carried him through his wounded pride in order for him to raise his bow.

He paused and felt the wind around him. It was still a decent breeze that would definitely effect the arrow when it left the bow. The wind was definitely coming from the left of him and moving right. He aimed the arrow that was now resting in the arrow rest to the center of the target in a little experiment he had just thought up. He wanted to know how the breeze would effect his arrow so what he would do would to try to center his aim. If the arrow veered he would then know that he would need to make changes to his aim. He fired the arrow to what he considered dead center to the target. In all reality and actuality he was probably not dead center but he heard the glorious thwack of arrow meeting canvas in seconds. The arrow hit the poorly painted target almost a foot to the right and slightly lower than what he thought he had aimed for.

This small revelation and victory stayed with Koran for a moment. One, he had hit the target he was aiming at, not perfectly mind you but he hit it which was a victory in and of itself. Two, he had resolved to account for wind direction. Now it seemed obvious that the wind could carry an arrow away. He repeated his former actions with excitement. He stood and raised his bow, resting the arrow against the arrow rest. He stared down the shaft of the arrow, past the arrow head as he drew the bowstring back. Sweat beaded off his forehead and neck as his forearms struggled to maintain the strength to hold the bowstring in place. His muscles were tired from repeating this process, it took a lot of strength to pull a taught bowstring back. He fired the arrow after careful aiming he decided not to aim for the bullseye but to aim slightly to the left of it as the wind was blowing right the wind would carry the arrow slightly to the right as well. He didn't have to wait long to hear the thwack once more. The arrow now sat next to its brother only a couple inches to the right. He fired several more arrows, five in all. Two missed the target all together. Even with his new revelation he still did not have the skill to hit the target every time. He still couldn't get a bullseye either as the other three arrows landed around the taunting red dot. The smallest of victories was that he could even hit the target now which was previously a rare feat at fifty paces away. At the end of his training he carried his target and his bow under either arm and returned to the city as night started to fall, his shirt drenched in sweat and his heart ready to jump out of his chest at the hard work he had just accomplished.

[Trickster]

Hickory, Dickory, Dock!
Trickster's on the Clock!
The thread has been played,
So here is a grade: It was fun to read and you rock!

 

Treats

XP

• Skills	XP
  Observation	3
  Weapon: Composite Shortbow	3

LORES

• Lhavit Location: The Amaranthine Gate
• Archery Practice: 5 Coloured, Eigth-Ringed Bullseye Target
• Leather Gloves or Ripped Fingers?
• Archery: Requires More Strength Than It Seems
• Archery: The Importance of Accuracy
• Archery: Accuracy Altered by Wind
• Archery Practice: How To Adjust One's Aim

 

Notes

Hi Koran,
Nice training thread!
Here are a few things I noticed- there were a couple of places where you switched tenses or could have used slightly different wording, and some places were a bit choppy. However, those will probably work out with more writing, and overall, it was a nice read.
Looking forward to future threads!

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Mischief Managed,
- Tricks