Flashback Right and Wrong

[Yvan]

2 Summer 497 AV

The boy was dreaming of home and the too-small bed he used to share with his little brother Marcus. Before the cock crowed, Yvan's eyes cracked open to look around the darkened room of the dormitories, he missed waking up at a reasonable hour to the soft tones of his mother's voice and a bowl of oats and goat’s milk ready and sitting on the dining room table for him. Here in the dorms, a squire had to earn his breakfast, and shaky to his feet, Yvan crept from his bed to dress in silence before sneaking outside.

The first fingers of sunlight rose up on the horizon and a rooster slowly strut out from his keep to climb as high as he could before crowing to the heavens. Yvan ran across the courtyard, one of the first up this morning it seemed, to fetch a fresh bucket of water to wash his hands and face in. After filling the bucket a second time, the boy struggled to carry it over to the stables, losing about a third of its contents on the way.

He set the bucket down in front of Marlin, an old black stallion he had been charged with taking care of for the duration of his stay, and watched the horse drink from the bucket for a chime before getting to work in the stable, shovelling up piles of the horse's dung, some of it still warm.
"How much mess can one bloody horse make," he complained and heard a stray pair of boots stir against the cobblestone.
"Morning," Ramsey, his patron knight had snuck up in him, "fancy a ride?"
"No not really," Yvan told him. There had been a time in the not so distant past where he would have done anything to go for a ride, but after all the lessons in mounted combat Yvan had seen in spring, riding had lost its lustre.
"Climbing it is then," Ramsey told him and the two left the stable to head over to the gate keeper’s house where just beyond, the stairs leading up onto the wall were situated.

By the time Yvan was climbing the last few steps, he felt breathless and had to bend down with hands on knees to catch his breath. "Take this," Ramsey ordered, handing Yvan his crossbow.

The two paced to the edge of the wall and Yvan was given a moment to load his bow before his patron pointed out the target he intended Yvan to shoot for. The boy aimed, set the bolt, looked down the narrow stock and released a bolt, sending it in the direction of the target.

[Yvan]

"You missed," Ramsey noted, "try again."

Yvan studied the target, had he really missed? It was a long range shot, one the squire didn't feel ready to make with his experience, but Ramsey never seemed to set him up to fail. Taking another bolt, Yvan pushed it tail first into the stock and used both hands to pull back the string in order to set it behind the small, bronze nut that would keep it in place. He lifted the weapon to his shoulder then and tipped his head to look down the sights in the direction of the round, red target Ramsey had set up that morning beyond the wall.

In the dim light, Yvan took aim, making sure the feathered end of the bolt lined up with the sharpened point before his finger moved to rest on the trigger. He took his time, concentrated, focused on his breathing, and when he was ready, fired.

The bolt sprung forth from the crossbow and flew towards the target, catching it on the far, left side and causing it to spin on the end of the rope it hung from, just below a high branch of one of the nearby trees. The squire smiled, but Ramsey, less impressed, smacked the back of his head in jest, "you can do better, come on, we've been training all spring; I want to see a bull's eye."

[Yvan]

Yvan sighed; he was never going to get a bull's eye, especially if Ramsey kept slapping the back of his head every time he did something wrong in the knight's eyes. Yvan accepted another crossbow bolt and loaded it into the chamber of his weapon. With bow raised, he went for a new approach, resting the crossbow against the stone wall he shot from instead of tucking it against his shoulder.
"Stay low," Ramsey encouraged, "if you're firing a bow from up here it's because someone is shooting back, the last thing you want is an arrow in the eye."

The squire tucked his body against the side of the wall and peeked down the weapon's sights at the target. He kept low, closed one eye and squinted the other in order to fight the light of the rising sun, which currently worked against him. Yvan took steady aim; pulled his finger back against the trigger and released a third shoot.

This time he missed again but Ramsey's words were encouraging, explaining that the boy was on the right track when it came to using the stone wall for support, "the stone isn't going to move," he smiled, "it's been here for over two hundred years, and it will stand for two hundred more without issue."
"Two hundred years?" Yvan looked up at the man.
"That's right, Syliras is a young city in terms of human years, but one day it will be as old as the trees in the Bronze Woods."
At that Yvan smiled.

[Yvan]

"Lift your left elbow," Ramsey coached as Yvan lined up another shot, "we'll do this all day if we have to."
"Don't you have bad guys to track down?" Yvan countered and Ramsey took the boy's bow, lowering it in order to get his squire to turn and face him.
"Yvan Blythe, there is no such thing as good and evil, there is only the law."
Yvan was quiet for a long time, trying to work out exactly what the man meant by that, "but my mother is good," he offered.
"Yvan, even good people break the law, we cannot let our judgement cloud our minds. Think of the law as a line in the sand, sooner or later, someone is going to cross it no matter how much we warn them against such an action."
"My mother would never break the law," the young squire shook his head, fixated on the idea of good and evil still.
"Has your mother ever taken an apple from a tree that didn't belong to her, or claimed ownership of the land she works?"
"Yes, Ser but--"
"There are no buts," Ramsey told him, "just wrong and right; the law is always right, therefore even the good can be wrong."
"But is the farm not hers?"
"For this lifetime perhaps she is permitted to work it, but the knights of Syliras own everything within the region, every house, every acre, every tree."

Again Yvan was quiet, he was starting to understand. Ramsey handed him the crossbow and without another word the boy made sure the weapon was loaded and took aim. Again he set the crossbow down on the stone wall, still marvelling at the many years of life the stone structure had on him. With the target in sight, Yvan pulled back the trigger and watched the bolt fly. Another miss for what seemed to be a very unlucky morning.

[Yvan]

There is no good and evil, only right and wrong, the phrase echoed in his mind. Yvan closed his eyes, relaxed for a moment, breathing in and out slowly before opening them again. He remained close to the wall, reaching back to accept another bolt from Ramsey before slipping it into the stock. He pulled back the taut string, his fingers sore with the repeated action, and locked the trigger in place.

When he stared down the sights at the target, Yvan imagined the large red circle was an apple, plucked from the tree it was strung up to without permission. His eyes followed it, even as it swayed in the light breeze, and adjusting the line of his shot, the squire kept low, tipped his head, and pulled the trigger.

His shot caused the target to spin on contact and he felt Ramsey lean forwards subconsciously in order to get a better look. When the round board finally stopped spinning, it hosted the best shot Yvan had made to date, closer to the bull's eye than he had ever been, only a hand's width from the single, white mark.
"By the light of Syna," Ramsey stood with his mouth open.
"You'll catch flies," Yvan teased, just as his mother always did.
Ramsey laughed, "Good shot!"
Yvan nodded, "my best so far I think."
"By a mile," his patron agreed.
“One day I’d like to be able to shoot and apple from a man’s hand,” he admitted with boyish innocence.
“One day, you will.”

[Konrad Venger]

Nice job! Your work has pleased The Sloth! Yvan XP: Crossbow - 3 Endurance - 1 Observation - 2 Philosophy - 1 Lore: Squire Dormitories: A Place of Action, not Dreams Ser Ramsey: Signature Head Smack Crossbow: Shooting Low from Cover Syliras: Centuries-Old Defenses The Syliran Knights: No Good or Evil, Just the Law Additional: +4 Shield Points for training with your patron Click Me! : And lo, the boy is improving! I especially liked Ramsey's hard, pragmatic approach the morality. Very in tune with the black-and-white Lore of the Knights. Oh, and please make sure you go back and edit your post in the Request Thread to reflect the fact this one is now done and dusted. PM me with any questions and later 'tater!