Outside

[common_sellsword]

 Bronn has taken to spending time outside the Bar. Being inside makes him feel cooped up, specially every time he looks at the spot on the wall where his door should be. He's still surprised about the Bar fulfilling his request for a longbow and arrows, but he isn't going to complain. His archery had started to get a bit rusty and when he saw the targets outside he thought of at least getting some use out of being stuck in this... Place.

So he's been outside shooting arrow after arrow at the targets, getting back into his aim, a jug of water and approximately half a bottle of Arbor Gold he has left resting nearby. Maybe he'll head into the woods later, see if he can down some game. Perhaps the Bar will take it as payment. He looks concentrated, maybe a tad glum, but he's totally botherable.

Comments

[petraarkanian]

Petra has brought her cat out of bar to play, and is wondering how she is going to waste her time till Kit gets tired of chasing grass blades and looking for mice. She isn't quite sure if there are mice here, but probably- anyway, the cat always found things to play with and didn't always come back when Petra wanted to go back inside.

She stops behind the man with the arrows, and watches him shoot.

"I know it's a bow, but what type is it?" Her tone is friendly-conversational like.

[common_sellsword]

Bronn stops shooting and looks down at the bow, turning it this way and that slowly. "Looks like a regular longbow to me." Then he turns to see the young woman that posed the question.

"Ash, probably." He smirks. "The Bar won't give one of the fancy yew ones to the likes of me."

[petraarkanian]

"The likes of you?" Petra tilts her head just slightly and rasies an eyebrow. "Always figured if you weren't going to make someone dead, and you could pay for it, the bar was pretty acomodating."

[common_sellsword]

He looks down at his worn black clothes and his pointedly unadorned sword, then back up at Petra. "Well, maybe I should have asked for a fancy longbow, then." He shrugs, doesn't seem he minds all that much.

[petraarkanian]

His comment elicits a laugh from her, and she puts her hands in her pockets.

"If it fits, it fits. Have firearms been invented in your 'verse yet?"

[common_sellsword]

He assumes 'verse must be another word for 'world', from what he has heard around this place.

"There's a Red Priest that goes around waving a flaming sword. And then there's Wildfire, of course, though no one has used it since the days of the Mad King." He wonders what does this have to do with bows.

[petraarkanian]

Petra takes that as a 'no'.

"Probably not the same principal." She thinks for a second, "Think cannon, but hand held, much smaller, and able to shoot dozens of balls within seconds. Of course, your bow probably takes a bit more skill, which it looks like you have."

[common_sellsword]

He shakes his head. "Not sure I know what you're talking about, lady." Nothing wrong with a little preemptive politeness. "But the bow is a tricky weapon, you're right there."

[petraarkanian]

Petra doesn't seem to mind. "Not a lady," she says quickly. "You mind if I watch for a bit? I always admired bowman-ship, but never had a chance where I grew up to learn."

[will_scarlett]

Today the forest changes around Will and he walks out from the range with a sigh as he pushes back his hood.

This was not where he meant to be but he does need to get in some practice and here is safer than home.

He doesn't recognize Bronn, so nods to him as he finds a free target and strings his longbow.

[common_sellsword]

Bronn nods back between shots, eyeing the younger man briefly. He moves stealthily, and seems to know how to handle a bow. Two facts worth remembering. Then he turns back to the targets. Will would probably notice that he's not a bad shot at all. In no way a rival to the better archers of the Men of Sherwood, and he seems a bit out of practice, but still pretty deadly.

[will_scarlett]

Bronn is good and Will is soon firing a steady stream of quite good shots, he's not Robin but was trained by him.

There aren't many men that look of his time here and Bronn looks to be a soldier of some sort.

[common_sellsword]

At the very least he looks like someone who lives by his sword. After a while, he stops and watches Will shoot. The man is good. You don't get that kind of good shooting game. And you don't get those eyes, either.

[will_scarlett]

Once he reaches the end of his quiver, Will heads towards the target as he says, "Good day to ye. 'ope I'm na disturbin' ye."

[common_sellsword]

Bronn grabs the jar of water he had nearby and waits for Will to return from plucking his arrows back. "Nah, it's always good to watch someone that good at work."

[will_scarlett]

"Thank ye, my lord's a better archer but I do me best. Dinna think I've seen ye 'ere 'fore,"

After getting his arrows, he moves to sit near Bronn.

[common_sellsword]

Bronn takes a swig from the jar and offers it to Will as he sits down. "Haven't been around for long. And your lord must be a frightful thing to watch, if he's better than you."

[hecu_marine]

He's run Jan ten Boom and Floyd Mason and Maripyaipok all the way into the ground today. He's been working with the dogs so long it's starting to be weird to look at creatures with only two eyes. Shephard could use a damn break already, somewhere the eggheads aren't gonna find him.

Which is how a man of about twenty-three, dressed in mottled grey-black-white-greenish clothes and boots, wanders out of the Bar with a respectable-weight hunting longbow slung over his back and a fair number of arrows in his quiver, heading for the target range; it's that, or go looking for demon rabbits.

[common_sellsword]

The clothes are weird, but not the weirdest he's seen in Milliways. They kinda remind him of the cloaks some Wildlings wear when they go raiding. Bronn nods to the newcomer between shots.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard nods back and locates a target two lanes over from Bronn; no sense stepping all over the man's toes. This batch of arrows hasn't been used much yet, and he wants to make sure they're all properly balanced and none of the fletching's likely to come loose before he takes it with him after bullsquid.

He's no combat archer; he never claimed to be Mad Jack Churchill. On the other hand, he's been hunting with a bow since he was strong enough to draw a little kid's bow under his uncle's supervision (it was BB guns or nothing before that), so he at least knows what he's doing, and he's got good grouping. The tight black glove he's got on his right hand goes all the way up to his elbow, and covers everything rather than just the bowstring fingers, as a modern hunter's archery glove might do.

[common_sellsword]

Bronn is far from satisfied with his skill right now. He hasn't had a longbow for almost a year now, and his aim has suffered. He could probably fare okay in a mass battle still, but against few, scattered targets he can't be sure of dropping them in one shot.

It takes a keen eye to notice that frustration through his serious, neutral facade, though.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard had range etiquette drilled into him pretty strongly by Uncle Tim way back when. You don't shoot too many arrows at a time unless you're alone, because sooner or later someone else on the range is going to need to retrieve, and it's rude as fuck to force them to wait for you to finish your flight. After his fifth or sixth arrow he lowers the bow and watches the other man thoughtfully for a while.

Christ, his right trapezius muscle's going all stiff in sympathy just looking at him.

[common_sellsword]

Bronn stops after a few more shots, himself, and slowly circles his right arm to try and ease the growing stiffness on his shoulder. He turns and nods again to Shephard. "Good shooting." The bow and arrows look a bit like the kind the mountain clans use.

[hecu_marine]

Mountain clan is.... actually, pretty much exactly right, given where Shephard comes from. Just not the same mountains.

"Thanks," Shephard says. "Been huntin' from tree stands lately, mostly. Reckoned I needed some practice from ground level. You're doin' all right yourself, so far."

More or less, anyway, and besides, no picking on another man's shooting until he's criticized himself first.

[common_sellsword]

"Nah, I'm pretty shit. Been too long since I owned a longbow." Damn King's Peace making work for the likes of him scarce. "I'm slow and my aim is awful." He shakes his head.