Spring, 501 AV - Nyka Coast (flashback)
Shadekas was extremely excited the first day he had his new longbow. He’d saved up the money from small earnings in the Quarry and had purchased it a season before his trial Selection Trial to join the Xannos Monks. But until that time, he had to get his skills up to snuff, especially if he planned on augmenting his food with hunting, which he desperately wanted to do. Fresh meat would be welcome, both at the Quarry and later if Lynk did finally decide he was good enough to take as a student at the jewelry studio. Lynk desperately wanted that for himself. It was like a dream come true – a home, a job, a family, people who needed him and people he needed. And it wasn’t as if Lynk already didn’t treat him like family. He did. Even now, he had Karver dragging Shade out to the beach to practice longbow and see if they couldn’t do some hunting.
Shade repositioned the bow and quiver full of arrows over his shoulder. He stopped daydreaming and followed Karver down the worn path that lead past the rock jetty Nyka perched on and down to the more proper sand below. He’d said little up until this point, not really knowing Karver that well and uncertain whether this was some sort of punishment duty for the other youth or if Karver had been willing to take Shadekas out.
“So, how did you get roped into doing this?” Shade asked, tentatively testing the waters. Karver grinned, glanced over his shoulder, as if to see if anyone was following, and laughed.
“It was this or running messages all day. With a the festival coming and the dance that’s sure to be held along with it, lots of jewelry orders are flying in. I don’t know why Da specializes in women’s sparklies. I’d much rather run orders and errands for officals who want bigger things done. Who can tell what all the fuss will be about in regards to a simple pearl necklace or a stupid worthless pendant? Ladies… all the do is fuss. Teaching you longbow is a lot more fun, especially now that you have that big bow. Da says you’re going to suck at it until you grow into it. It’s meant for a man with a lot more arm than a boy, he says.” Karver helpfully informed Shade.
Shade nodded.
“I know. I got this one so I can grow into it and won’t need to replace it later. I’ll work no my arm. It can’t hurt to be lifting weights and doing a lot of pushups and curlups at this point.” Shade added.
“So what kinds of things are you going to teach me?” Shade asked, looking at Karver expectantly. He knew the other boy was fairly good at the longbow, but he didn’t know where Karver had picked up his skill. Odds are Lynk had paid for another monk to teach his son. Karver had seemed to want for nothing, after all. It was a fact Shadekas was still a bit jealous about. Karver had it all, or so the orphan thought, but never seemed to appreciate that he had it all. Shadekas, on the other hand, had to scramble for every scrap. He knew the value of things and was heavily appreciative of something when it came along.
Karver was one of those things despite Shadekas’ jealousy.
They had a tentative friendship, one that was just blossoming. Karver had discovered that Shade loved all the things Lynk wanted Karver too while Karver loved all the things Lynk disapproved of. Lynk put a lot of pressure on Karver until Shadekas had shown up in their lives and taken some of the heat off the jeweler’s natural born son. So in that fashion Shade acted as a buffer between Karver and Lynk, which worked well for Shade since Shade ended up receiving all the unwanted attention Karver dodged.
Hence, Karver got out of what he didn’t want to be doing today in favor of spending the day at the beach with Shadekas shooting arrows.
“Well, I thought I’d officially teach you the ten steps to shooting. You probably think you just knotch an arrow, draw, and fire, but there’s a lot more to it than that. We’ll need to talk about all those exotic arrows you have in your quiver, and fire a few. You’ll need to learn to properly care for your bow and how to clean it. We’ll talk about bowstrings and all sorts of other things. Well, anything we’d like to really.” Karver said, grinning.
It was going to be fun.
The boys hiked down to the beach, set up near a large soft piece of driftwood that was a man’s height and started the lesson. Karver initiated things by asking for Shadekas’ longbow then whistling at the deeply stained dark blue wood and the lightening bolts carefully painted on it. “It’s called Striker.” Shadekas supplied, and Karver nodded.
“Well made. Composite wood and horn, about six foot maybe a little longer. You can hunt with this easy enough, Shadekas. And it will be great for defense from things that cursed Aperture spawns.” The youth nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with Karver.
“I saved a long time for that, ordered it custom. The bower did a good job. I’ll find no finer for a long while.” He said, happy with its workmanship.
Both boys were sitting together, near a natural bowl in a arch of two pieces of driftwood, an old campfire nestled in the sand giving credit to the fact both boys had been here before. Karver pulled out his longbow which he called Kelly after a sweet butcher’s daughter. Shadekas’ striker was on his lap as well. It was the perfect setup for both boys to talk bows, structure, and what was the purpose of each part on each weapon.
Karver decided to go over the anatomy of their longbows first and foremost. It would be the subject of his very first lesson with Shade.
