Archery: Take Me Home
Balin al'Brennan, Written by Misty
Posted on Tue, Aug 3, 2010 11:31 am
That was, Balin mused, true of everyone around him. Where his own home village had been a familiar tangle of old scandals and new, the White Tower was a clandestine meeting in the dark – every day. Nobody knew everything about anyone, and those who did seem to know anything – anything at all – didn’t speak. It was maddening, hostile, and unfamiliar, and those, he was assured, were its good points. If it weren’t for Cerawyn and her occasional letters, shoved deep into the Library’s battered copy of The Ramifications of the Pact of Ten Nations, a tome she swore no one would ever, ever need to read (or want to) then he would have given up. It wasn’t a pretty truth to confront, but then, what about the extended martial training he faced was? Up before dawn, aching, but without protest: asleep, if you were lucky, at moonfall. There was neither enough to eat nor time to rest tired muscles – and he was expected to survive. No, he was expected to thrive.
The worst part was, Balin suspected he was doing just that. When, in the past few weeks (he had spent the winter in the Tower, and his first year of training was nearing its end) had he stopped to spare a thought for his Da? He had sent letters, explaining his plight and the intricate way it interlocked with Cerawyn’s future, but there had not yet been a reply. Considering the winter, there was the possibility that the letter had never or would never arrive: when had that stopped bothering him so? Was he, too, becoming a heartless denizen of the White Tower, a keeper of his own secrets rather than the honest and open man he had been upon his arrival? He kept his touseled brown hair short, and so there was little to his toilet. Dark eyes glanced back at himself in the warped mirror of the bathing room. It was necessary to remove the day’s accumulation of sweat – even he couldn’t stand the way he smelled after a day in the Yards! Never before had he smelled so badly that the scent entrenched itself in his bedding: smithing was hard and sweaty work, but it had little on this. Where he had bathed twice a week, weather permitting, in Deven Ride, he now bathed twice daily.
Rushing across the courtyards and the interlocking training arenas, once he had performed his necessary tasks at Breakfast, Balin took his direction from the sun and scoured his memory for the text of the class assignment. On discovery that he could read, a few of his peers had bargained for his services to read such things aloud, and when they could find free moments – rarely – he taught quiet lessons on reading, sketching the letters into the dirt with the tip of a stick. Paper and pencil were rarer than time for lessons, and so when his pupils practiced, they all used the ground – and they were prepared to kick dirt over their efforts at the slightest provocation. Slowly, he had teased out a few details about this woman or this man, but it was a far cry from home. Choosing his path automatically, he exited into a courtyard peopled by a thin throng and a man in silent meditation, the soles of his booted feet touching. Because the rest of the crowd waited in silence, he did the same: it was worth more than your hide to disturb an elder trainee, or worse, a Gaidin. The notice had not hinted at which this man was, and so Balin prepared to make his more formal bows.
One of the first lessons taught at the Tower was respect for those who taught.
After a time, the man rose, fluidly, as if he were a leaf lifted on a gale. His quick gesture was answered by the student body’s, and after that greeting, most, infected by both curiosity and ambition, began to whisper to themselves about the man’s status. A silent moment stretched out as languidly as a cat, and was broken by the requested introduction. Swane, no stranger to training with the second, coveted, badge on his tunic, went first. With a start, Balin realized that the man was at his own elbow, and even as his cheeks colored, he stammered his own introduction. “Balin al’Brennan. Of Andor.” No one knew where Deven Ride was, and he found that he preferred they didn’t. “I’ve used the longbow to hunt since I was a child tall enough to draw one.”
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Should I edit to add that I remember Talaban’s rank perfectly well? *grins* I was merely reacting to the mystique you projected.
In reply to Death from Above: Archery[show]/[hide]
Tal sighed. He ran an eye over the parchment neatly tacked to the front of his door. Three weeks. It had been three weeks since he had returned to the Tower and still, the Master of Arms was “too busy” to see him. Too busy indeed, though apparently not too busy to assign him to teach classes. He almost growled, frustration threatening, momentarily, to boil over. Classes and all were very well, not that he minded teaching. It was just the waiting that rankled. Limbo was never a comfortable state to be in. Talaban read the note again.
Talaban,
Take a class in archery for the trainees. The necessary information has been disseminated. Tomorrow at the south range, an hour after Breakfast.
Caelan Rohan
Archery. The arms man almost sighed again. Part of him wondered if this was deliberate. Tal generally steered clear of bows himself, being far more at ease with a bandolier of throwing blades. Granted, his skill with arrows and such had increased somewhat but Tal was nothing more than a middling hand with a bow. “Guess I know enough to teach a beginner’s lesson,” he muttered silently.
Eyes snapped open, jade green orbs peering up at the shadowy roof. Talaban sat up in the bed. Two hours before dawn. It had taken little for him to slip back into the familiar routine. Even his exile had not changed that. He dressed in the dark, more by instinct then by sight, the wan moonlight showing little more than slivers of faint shadow.
The garments felt cool to the flesh as he pulled them on, black silk sliding smoothly over skin. Pale blond strands were pulled back as his wispy hair was neatly contained within the plain leather hadori. His right hand reached out, grabbing the sword belt from its hook at the end of the bed, the easy weight of a blade on either hip strangely comforting. Feet slid into shoes of soft leather, feeling the cold of the hard stone floor become distant as the arms man slipped from his room.
There was little activity this early in the morning, the majority of the tower residents still fast asleep, safe for the kitchen staff, the guard patrols and perhaps the odd night owl like himself. Talaban ghosted down the corridors, stepping softly through the hallways of the Tower barracks and into the chilly night air of the open yards. Plenty of time for him to run through his morning exercises.
The great bell chimed within the Tower courtyard, signalling the commencement of the Breakfast hour. It sounded distant as Tal found his way into the south range. A sheen of sweat glistened on his skin as the wiry man sank into the lotus position to meditate and wait. He had never particularly liked detaching lessons, although to use the word hate would have been an overstatement. Hopefully, the trainees would be on time.
Tal opened his eyes, just as the bell chimed again distantly. It was a fair sized group that had assembled at the entrance to the range. An even mix of males and females, tall, short, dark and fair, you named it, it was probably present there somewhere in the motley mix of trainees gathered for the lesson. It was one of the Tower’s oddities, turning a motley crew of individuals into some of the finest fighters in the land.
Coming to his feet in a single motion, the arms man motioned them forward and into the range proper. Stopping before the shed which held the lesson stores, Tal turned to address them.
“Good morning. My name is Talaban. I’ve been away from the Tower for a good while, so I expect none of you know anything about me at all. This is a basic archery lesson. For those who know nothing about bows, it’s a good place to start. For those who do know something, well, treat it as a share and tell session mixed with some practice. Feel free to assist any of the others if they seem to be having difficulty,” Tal paused momentarily to take another look at the class.
It really was a good mix of experience. A group of them were looking for the badges on his garments, trying, as it were to size him up with relation to themselves. Hopefully, they did not bother too much about the fact that there were no markings on him. Life would be much easier for everyone if they helped those who needed it rather than waste their time trying to figure out if they were actually ahead of him. Murmurs were starting up as the trainees started to talk among themselves.
“So before we begin, I’d like to know your names, where you’re from and any experience, if any, with the bow. Any sort of bow.”
A burly youth shouldered his way to the front, two badges sewn into either side of his upturned collar. “My name is Swane and I’m from Tear. Fairly good with a short horse bow.”
OOC: Okay, standard drill here. 300 word intro post please. Lesson will continue in about a week’s time and remain open till after part two is posted. Do feel free to email me if you have any queries. Away we go :)
