Eona squirmed a little as she drew a pail of water from the stream nearby the Ranger's cottage. It still felt weird being called Eon instead of her real name, but she stomached the feeling and told herself that she was going to become a Ranger! So many years of learning how to act male and speak like a male finally paid off in this wonderful chance to become what she'd always wanted to become.
To be honest, she'd been a bit nervous when she'd first been accepted by her mentor. The Ranger's were an observant bunch, and at that time she had anticipated being found out and being thrown out. But who knows what miracle kept her from being discovered. Eona allowed herself a small smile as she began to carry the pail back to the cottage.
With that last pail, the thing holding water was finally full, and Eona allowed herself a breathy huff before putting the pail where it was supposed to be and headed back into the cottage, carefully opening and closing the door not to make any sound.
"Aragon?" She called, forcing her voice to be deeper than her natural voice. "Are there any other chores I should do, or am I finally free?"
--
Breathe in, breathe out.
Through narrowed eyes, Black watched his four targets, hanging from the wind, swinging from the trees. His longbow was drawn back to the full arc, and he slowly closed his eyes, envisioning the targets and their pattern of movement. The wind had no specific pattern, but enemies on a battlefield would not have a predictable pattern either, so this practice would serve it's purpose well enough.
Eyes closed, he unleashed a volley of arrows with much grace and speed, each one nocked perfectly into the bowstring, a movement so long practiced he could do it blind. Which was what he was doing now. But shooting blindly at moving targets still needed practice.
As a Ranger, Black had seen many things and fought off many enemies, but he seldom saw anyone shoot perfectly with their eyes closed. He was doing this now in case it was needed later, he told himself as he heard the satisfying four thwoks indicating he'd at least hit his targets. He lowered the bow and opened his eyes, looking down the hundred or so meters to the targets.
Not bad, he thought as he gave himself a satisfactory nod. Three of his arrows had hit within the area of the bull's eye and the fourth had found it's way to the ring outside the bull's eye. More practice would do it - after all, that's how anyone ever learns anything.
MistressNyx
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Posted: 10/1/2018 at 7:40 PM
Post #2
"Aragon? Is there any other chores I should do, or am I finally free?"
Aragon looked up from the pile of reports he was reading through as Eon called out to him. He studied the boy's work around the cabin. He had done a good job, Aragon thought, but, laughing to himself, a Ranger's apprentice never was able to be free. Standing, he stretched and shook his head.
"Come with me," he called to Eon, and stepped lightly down the steps of the verandah. Without waiting to be sure Eon was following, he retrieved a long package wrapped in canvas and knelt on the grass, placing the package before him.
"These," Aragon told Eon, "are a Ranger's primary weapons." He quickly undid the knot keeping the package together and began to unwrap the canvas. "The first of these," he continued, pulling an item from the package, "Are a Ranger's knives. The double scabbard -" he held it out for Eon to take, "- is a design specific to the Ranger Corps. You won't see it elsewhere."
He tapped the larger of the two knives, the one in the front. The blade was long - almost a short sword. the heavy pommel was made of bronze, with a grip of leather disks. The blade itself was polished and razor-sharp, but the pommel and hilt were dull, as to not make unnecessary flashes and alert an enemy to their position. "It's called a saxe knife," Aragon explained. It's similar to the ones used by the Skandians. That's where the name comes from - originally sea axe. Mind you," he said after a pause, "The steel in ours is far superior to the Skandian's."
Then he gestured to the smaller knife. Like the saxe, it had a heavy, balanced pommel and a grip of leather disks. However, it was shorter, with a leaf-shaped blade, rather like a stretched diamond. "The shape of it helps when you throw it. Coincidentally, it's a throwing knife."
Then Aragon gestured for him to put aside the knives and removed the bow and quiver from the package. The canvas fluttered in the breeze without the weight to hold it down anymore. "And there you have it. The Ranger Corps best and most well-known weapon."
-------------
Oh, he's gonna kill me for being so late! thought Evan as he dashed through the narrow village street. As he swerved around a corner, he nearly crashed into a man, the innkeeper in his village. The man let out a yelp of shock. "Sorry!" cried Evan, pinwheeling his arms to keep his balance.
"Where are you off to so fast, Evan?" the man asked.
"New apprenticeship - the Ranger - gotta go!" he called over his shoulder, for he had already taken off running again, his few belongings clutched in his arms.
Finally he reached the little cabin in the woods, where the Ranger had told him to be at 11 - of course, it was now several minuets after then. As he ran up, he heard the distinctive thunk of arrows slamming into a target from a powerful bow. He dashed around back of the cabin in time to see the Ranger release four arrows in quick succession, each sinking into the bulls-eye of a target. Evan peered closer and dropped his things in shock as he saw the Ranger's eyes were closed.
Evan was assailed by a sudden moment of doubt as he saw the Ranger's skill. How could I ever hope to do something like that? he wondered. Then the moment passed and he breathed,
"My god, how do you do that?!"
Aphelion
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Posted: 10/1/2018 at 9:33 PM
Post #3
Eona listened patiently through the entire explanation of the knives while running her fingers over the well forged steel. The knives weren't shiny, but they did have some sort of muted beauty, and Eona liked it. After all, she'd learnt to love simple things, not overly complicated luxurious things, which was good, because being a Ranger would mean more simple things than flashy things.
These knives though... Eona wasn't sure what to expect of them. They were small, but surely they held power. She just wasn't sure what she'd do with them, as strength wasn't exactly her strong suit. She could probably do just fine with long range attacks like with a bow or the throwing knife, but if an enemy started barreling down on her, waving their sword... she didn't know if she'd be able to do close quarters combat.
She swallowed the self doubt and sternly told herself that she was going to be a Ranger now; there was no room for hesitation. From what she knew, Ranger's had nerves and wills of steel, so she was here now, and there was no going back.
Eona snuck a glance at her very focused mentor. He was very young compared to the other Rangers, maybe just a few years older than herself. The knowledge both made her slightly uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time, uncomfortable because she realised she was living with a male so close to her age and comfortable because if he could become a Ranger at that young, she probably could as well. Hopefully she'd become a Ranger without anybody discovering who she truly was.
But what was she thinking?! She shook her head as her mouth automatically dropped in awe at the bow Aragon had just revealed to her. She should be paying more attention!
"Wow..." She kept on looking at the elegantly curved weapon, hand slightly twitching, unsure what to do. "Can I... like, touch it?"
--
Black heard his apprentice coming from far off.
His horse, Epsilon, called out a warning that someone was coming, but that was unnecessary. The amount of crashing around and the thudding footsteps was enough to tell the Ranger that someone, albeit a bit clumsily, was heading towards him.
It made him twitch in annoyance.
"My god, how do you do that?!"
The sound disturbed the already shattered silence even more, and Black sighed, opening his eyes to turn towards his apprentice. A careful eye scrutinised the boy, and he nodded to himself. The boy was fit to be a Ranger. But his actions... they needed to work on his actions.
"Greetings." He nodded a hello to the boy as he lowered his bow and made his way over gracefully and without much of a sound or disturbance to the surroundings. "You will learn." He paused briefly before Evan, as if contemplating something, then moved past him towards the cabin. "Come along. I suppose this is unnecessary to say, but you are late."
He led the boy into the small cabin, pushing open the door to reveal a clean living room with a kitchen occupying the far corner, a small fireplace on one of the walls, and a few plushy chairs around the fireplace. A table was pushed up against the wall next to the kitchen with two stools underneath it. To the right of the living room was a small, short hallway that led to two rooms.
Soundlessly, Black pointed at one of the rooms and with a gesture of his head, indicated that that was where Evan would be staying. He'd already spoken a lot, and he didn't like to speak too much. People said his silence was intimidating, but he just liked the silence, where he could observe so much more without a constant jabber in the background.
Edited By Aphelion on 10/1/2018 at 9:33 PM.
MistressNyx
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Posted: 10/3/2018 at 9:13 PM
Post #4
Aragon noted the way he held the knives and the way he examined them. It was clear that Eon had hardly ever held weapons before, let alone used them. Of course, a Ranger's knives were no ordinary weapons. The blades were forged by master swordsmiths, using a combination of Arridi and Nihon-jan techniques. The secrets of these blades was a carefully guarded secret, but they involved twisting several rods of steel together to form a hard, hard blade that could put deep notches in a sword and leave the knife unscathed.
He was fingering the hilts of his own knives when he heard the boy's question.
"Wow... Can I, like, touch it?" Eon asked in a tone that obviously showed awe, and a bit of regret, oddly. Aragon guessed that he had not been paying attention to his words.
He raised an eyebrow, an expression he had learned from his mentor, Gilan, who had, though Aragon didn't know it, learned it from his mentor, Halt. "I certainly do hope so," he said dryly. "For future reference, Eon, you would use may in that sentence instead of can."
But he handed the elegant recurve bow over, then removed the quiver of brown-fletched arrows. Both the bow and the arrows were made by Aragon, and he was very proud of the skill. In fact, he was one of the best bow-makers in the Corps, and while all Rangers preferred to make their own weapons, many often sought him out for help or advice.
Aragon offered the arrows to him. "No sense in having a bow if you don't have anything to shoot with it."
-------------
Evan knew he had gotten that wrong. Really wrong. Now, he figured, he had probably just messed up on his one - and only - first chance to impress his mentor.
Even as he thought it, the doubt was back. He had made an awful racket, hadn't he? And the Ranger had probably known he was coming for a long time, didn't he? Evan sighed. Again, he though of how he had made a train wreck out of his first impression on the Ranger.
Following the Ranger into the small cabin, he noticed how neat it was. The oak table was well scrubbed, and the bronze pots hanging in the kitchen burnished until they shone. There was a fireplace against one wall, with several comfy-looking chairs around it. There were two small rooms across him, doorless but curtained off. One was open, the other was closed.
He glanced at the Ranger. He seemed to be completely ignoring him, but Evan was willing to bet he was anything but. Wordlessly, he crossed the living room and entered his. There was a single window, open at the moment to allow the warm afternoon sun in. A small bed with a table next to it stood against one wall, and a tiny closet sat opposite the bed. There was also a chair by the window.
Evan put all his things on the bed and looked through them. There really wasn't much - a few books, since he liked to read, an oddity among boys his age, some spare clothes in simple, homespun brown cotton, a dried flower given to him by his only friend in the village, a girl his age named Lavinia, and a notebook with a charcoal pencil. He stacked the books on the bedside table and crossed to the closet with his clothes, only a few steps in the small room. It was empty, of course, so he folded his clothes and rested them inside. His drawing notebook he put on the chair, and was about to leave when something caught his eye.
A small vase full of bright wildflowers sat on the windowsill. He quickly walked over to them ant fingered one of the delicate blooms. Evan smiled faintly and laid Lavinia's rose on the sill before the vase. It would seem, Evan thought, The Ranger doesn't dislike me as much as he lets on.
Returning to the main room, he strode up to the Ranger and stood before him, silent, for several minutes. Black, as far as he could tell, was not going to make any sort of move to address him any time soon. So he took matters into his own hands.
"I'm sorry I was late," he said, his voice quiet but firm and steady. He did not give any excuses, knowing the Ranger would not want them, and Evan refused to seem weak or intimidated. Black's silence, unlike most, did not scare him. In fact, it just made him curious. Most of the time, he knew, people seemed gruff and cold like the Ranger because they were hurting inside. Of course, people like the Ranger enjoyed their silence, but Evan sensed there was more to it than that.
"It won't happen a second time. I will not be late again. Ever." And though he didn't know it, he would always remember his words, spoken on that bright summer day. I will not be late.
((And yes, I am planning something about that in the future))
Aphelion
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Posted: 10/4/2018 at 1:16 AM
Post #5
When Aragon commented on her word usage, Eona simply just smiled inwardly. Was the remark supposed to make her feel guilty? She didn't feel guilty, in that case. She felt amused. He reminded her of a specific friend she had back in her younger years. Now that she thought about it, she felt a little wistful for the past- she hoped her dear Kara was all well now.
"Maybe I can't touch it, who knows?" She smirked as she accepted the arrows offered to her by the Ranger and picked up the bow with gentle fingers, almost as if she was scared of it breaking if she used too much force or if she dropped it. With a careful eye, she examined the smooth curved weapon in her hand. It looked very pristinely made with skill, and even though she wasn't a professional bow appraiser, she could tell it was good.
She looked up from the bow and at the Ranger inquisitively. So... she was going to learn how to shoot now. Excellent. Past the Ranger on the small grassy lawn, targets were set up at a distance. They were simple targets made of straw, tied together with rope, with circles of red and white painted onto the surface of thin board fixated to the front of the bunch of straw.
When she stood up from her crouch to try out the bow, she hesitated, not trying out the bow at once. She thought, first. Would it be safe to dry-fire a bow? She tugged on the bowstring a bit, testing its elasticity, and upon finding it was rather elastic and could backlash, she glanced back at the Ranger. "Do you guys just fire this thing without any protection?"
Once she asked the question, she instantly felt stupid for asking. Of course the Rangers would have something, they were not idiots. Holding the bow, she smacked herself in the head, hand moving almost subconsciously. She looked at her teacher. He was wearing a brace, she noticed, on his arm, but she wasn't sure if that was for the bow.
Thus she stood awkwardly holding the bow to her head after a smack, waiting for her mentor to say something, comment on her idiocy or something.
--
"Relax." Black says, not unkindly, as he watched his apprentice hustle around with his things. Evan reminded him of himself in the past... before that happened. The Ranger was so lost in thoughts to actually pay attention to what Evan was doing, something unusual for someone like him, and was startled when the apprentice started speaking to him.
"Hmm?" He looked at the boy apologising for his tardiness. "Don't say sorry. Simply don't do it next time." He narrowed his eyes. "Assuming there is a next time." He relaxed his gaze and looked at the items the boy had brought. Interesting, that among those items there would be a delicate flower, a rose, to be exact. The Ranger kept a straight face but he noted down the fact that the boy may or may not have had someone very important to them back in his village. A red rose was a sign of love- Black did not know if the boy knew it or not or whether the person giving him the rose was deliberate in the type of flower or not. Evan really was similar to himself in a way.
He caught himself just in time not to drift off into his thoughts. "Well, come along, boy." Without even waiting for the boy, Black strode gracefully from the hut out into the clearing outside, picking up a long pack of things leaning against the wall on the way. "Should you have questions, ask." He did not look up to speak but instead focused on the pack before him, unwrapping it on a tree stump and taking out the things inside: A double scabbard holding two knives, and a long, smooth recurve bow.
"Saxe knife, throwing knife, bow." Black named the items one by one, gesturing at each one when the boy was beside him. "Obviously we use the bow more, but the knives are something nice to have as well." He picked up the saxe knife, running a finger along the razor sharp blade. "Beautiful, strong, sharp. A sword can shatter on this and no nick would be made on this blade." He set it down and picked up the throwing knife. "Well balanced, aerodynamically perfect for throwing."
With a swift motion of his hand and not even looking towards where he was throwing, Black released the knife, hearing a satisfying thock seconds later from where the knife was buried deep in the trunk of a tree. Hmm, maybe he'd used more force than necessary.
He turned again back to the weapons atop the canvas on the trunk. "The bow. Self-explanatory of what it can do."
Edited By Aphelion on 10/4/2018 at 1:16 AM.
Aphelion
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Joined: 5/14/2016
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Posted: 10/10/2018 at 8:06 AM
Post #6
Yoohoo?
Aphelion
Level 75
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Joined: 5/14/2016
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Posted: 10/22/2018 at 8:25 AM
Post #7
You still up for this?
MistressNyx
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Posted: 10/22/2018 at 5:22 PM
Post #8
Eon smirked. "Maybe I can't touch it who knows?" he asked in a slightly sarcastic tone. Aragon hissed mentally, but kept his face neutral. However, a bit of anger slipped into his stormy grey eyes.
"I do not," he said coldly, "Take cheek from anyone. Especially not my own apprentice." He held Eon's gaze until the silence became uncomfortable.
Then he stood and shook back his sleeve from his left arm. There was a hardened leather bracer on his forearm, but instead of lacing on the underside, like most bracers, this one laced on the top, completly protecting the softer underside of his arm. There was an oakleaf pattern engraved on the leather, but it was worn and indistinguishable from the rest in places, faded from use. "This is an archery armguard. If you hold the bow properly, with your arm rotated away, you shouldn't get slapped by the bowstring when you release, but there is always a small chance you will be.
"That's why we use these. Along the same lines, we Rangers use this." Aragon said, handing Eon an interesting-looking glove-like thing. It had no back, but covers for three fingers, a pice that covered the palm, and a wide strap that tied around the wrist. "It protects your fingers from the string when you draw back. Otherwise, the string will cut into them after more than a shot or two."
He pulled identical, though smaller, versions of the items from a pocket and handed them to Eon.
-------------
Evan nodded in appreciation of the older Ranger's skill, thinking it wiser not to talk at the moment. Instead, he let his mind wander into imagining the days when he would have such skills, able to shoot a bow and throw a knife with a Ranger's uncanny abilities.
"The bow. Self-explanatory of what it can do," said Black, snapping Evan back to reality. He nodded. Self-explanatory indeed. Everyone can shoot a bow - but no one can shoot like a Ranger.
"May I try?" he asked, trying not to sound arrogant, like he could already do it, but not timid either. "And... uh, do you have one of those arm-guard things? Like that keep the bow from..." he searched for the right words. "Smacking... you?"
((Sorry for the short, and very belated reply. Totally unrelated, I'm so excided for the Lupe revamp!!! Are you?))
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