[font=Georgia]A day's worth of dirty work sat in an overgrown and abandoned wheat farm. A horse course set up with borrowed strength and discarded fencing. Several weathered scarecrows sat along the edges of the course replete with cask header shields and rusted hand tools for weapons. An auspicious crate sat at the edge of the field. Slender at the base and fluted toward the top, a brutal and deeply simple contraption laid within. If you had to learn to kill in a hurry none other than the crossbow could be considered. Capable of turning keen eyed farmers into a fighting force in a weeks training, if you could afford it at least. But Caro didn't have a field of farmers to train. They had long since abandoned the borders of the March, their crops burned to prevent marauders feeding off the land. He had one battle shy chirurgeon turned bomber.[/font]
[font=Georgia]He turned back to his cart and produced a string of thick twine and a dull tipped steel hook. Horseback archery was a strange sort of art. Most armies had a number of them, but few fired from horseback, and fewer still in motion. Common convention stated that horse archery served the purpose better, able to fire more carefully and swiftly than the crossbow, but still they showed up on most battlefields. Even if a bow was more suited most of the time, sometimes you didn't have the ten plus years to master the art. Sometimes the fields burned and the drums sounded and you had to make due. And it wasn't all bad, Crossbows had their own advantages that an alchemical mind could take more advantage of than a bow. [/font]
[font=Georgia]He watched Esme approach on horse, in theory everything was sound. She had been gifted a set of short blades earlier but this seemed a better option. This entire event was both a deeply condescending choice on a personal level and a deeply needed one on a professional level. On one hand it had all the class of explaining a job poorly to a professional and the other hand held all of their lives. The Salamanders needed a proper man at arms, and quartermaster for that matter, but until then, all duties fell to him. He took a heavy breath and started forward in a half jog. He gave a quick wave with his hand and scooped the crate up in his off hand. “Hey, I got it right here” he reached out with his over full hands and passed the crate across the neck of her horse and into her hands. “When you get that going, you'll have to fix this hook to your saddlehorn facing away from you. You put the cocking stirrup on it.” Seconds into the day and he was already explaining things out of order. Good start[/font].
This was one of those situations where you couldn’t reasonably say no. Caro Byrne was relatively patient, Esmé thought. He’d let her drag her feet for a while yet if she made the right sort of excuses. Her own shame was the greater motivator. They were just too few for the luxury of carting around a non combatant. If Ceren got hurt worrying about her …
Well. Esmé wouldn’t be able to pay that back, not on top of her other debts. So here she was, guiding Domino with her knees through a barren field. The pinto slowed every dozen or so steps to snuffle curiously at the wet ash and spiny grass. She watched the mage run up with an expression of muffled dread. Oh, she was going to hurt at the end of the day.
Caro passed the weapon up and she followed his instructions, insisting he repeat that bit about the cocking stirrup once or twice because it was funny. She took the little quiver of stout bolts with goose feather fletching and loaded one.
“You’ll help me pick all these back up, right?” She quipped at the top of Caro’s head and started Domino on the course. It had looked quite simple at first – just aim and shoot. In reality, she soon felt the strain in her shoulders and belly from the unfamiliar motion. Fatigue in her forearms from arming the string. When she ran out of bolts she returned to the start and climbed gingerly down. Stopped to feed her mount a lump of sugar – and wiped the traces of horse slobber on her saddle blanket.
Her first try seemed hardly worth remarking upon. Perhaps two of five shots grazed the targets and reloading was painfully slow. Esmé wrinkled her nose and shrugged at Caro, starting off on the long walk to retrieve the bolts.
“So how’d you learn to do all this and magic at the same time?”
“Short answer is I didn't” He spoke calmly back at her as he strode toward the scarecrows, long nosed pliers in hand. Slowly he began prying at the bolts lodged in the aged scrapwood. “I don't know how much you know about,” he turned back to her and wiggled his free hand as to finish his sentence. “but whenever that sky thing happened all us natural mages got visitors. Mine came filled to the brim with martial knowledge” he grimaced as his Victor changed nonsense to knowledge, editing on the fly. “I got my rather incomplete knowledge supplemented in a rather uncomfortable couple of days.” he dropped the weathered bolt into a small hinged top pine box. They would warp and decay over the day of long work, but for training they'd be fine.
He stared up at he remaining bolts left in the targets, a few centre of mass, but the rest along the 'weapon' hand of the 'crow. She had been firing late. He jogged through her morning practice in his mind and thought for a moment. He had been dragging her shots late. Riding past the point her brain was telling her to aim. Mind to hand to release lever too far a jump for tight timing. A correction to be made. “Alright next round I got something for you to try.” he smiled and continued yanking bolts out of over dry wood.
The sun was high in the sky and angrily disapproving of their afternoon activities so it was clearly time for a break. He made a lifting gesture with his hand and a stone slab rose from the earth, soil, roots, insects flowing like water over the sides until it was clean. He rest in on the ground between them and sat on it. Grabbing a small tied cloth from the wagon he unfurled it on the center of the stone, revealing hearty black bread and thick dried sausage as well as some dried figs and an apple sided orb of cheese sealed in wax. He drew his long knife from his belt and started to carve into the bread, and gestured for her to sit across from him as he did. “I think for the next round instead of aiming and shooting on the fly, aim ahead of where you are going and keep it steady and the horse will take you into the path of your shot.” He sliced a oblong circle of sausage and placed on a rough disc of bread and shrugged. “Maybe that'll do something.”
“Oh. I don’t, not at all. There’s no mages in my family.” At least as far as she knew – which was not very far at all. Esmé was an only child and neither of her parents ever spoke of the people they’d come from. “That must have taken some adjusting to, though.” She found it difficult to imagine. Not the spirit part itself – though that had to be weird too – but the shared knowledge. Something like every book she’d ever read suddenly dumped at the borders of her mind.
She watched, bemused, as Caro set a picnic. He looked as if he were settling in for some time. Surely they weren’t done yet? …
He motioned for her to sit and Esmé did so with a reluctant glance back at her horse. Domino seemed content. She stole a chunk of Caro’s bread and chewed on a bite-sized piece. Stale. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, seeing as how she hadn’t seen an oven in days. At least there were no critters in it. She listened along to his advice.
“Holding steady is part of the problem.” She spent most of every day watching Ceren. Her friend had a strong bond with her animals, riding with skill and confidence that Esmé lacked. And while aiming her bow, Ceren nearly stood in her stirrups, upper body still and controlled despite the horse’s bouncing gait.
Esmé would get better at riding with time. Holding herself up in the saddle, she wasn’t as certain about that. She stretched her false leg out in front of her and fixed Caro with an inquiring look. He’d made the thing, though at a time when neither of them might have anticipated her needing to shoot from horseback.
[font=Georgia]“Well alright then lets take a look at it then.” He rolled from a half propped prone over toward her. He frowned a second, staring at her trying to remember which leg spoke true and which only lied. After a short moment the breeze playing against the pant fabric revealed the imposter and he smiled slightly and looked up at Esme slightly aghast at the impertinence of the question implicit between them. He made a gesture downward toward her leg as to say Ma'am can I hike up your pant leg and clumsily grope your leg? I mean similar, better worded requests have gone along those lines since time eternal but usually the context was different. This was, for lack of a better term, a professional groping between two consenting adults, one of which could not derive any enjoyment other than perhaps that which is derived from watching someone deeply uncomfortable and another who was a poor doctor and worse engineer. Still needs must. [/font]
[font=Georgia]“Ma'am if I may be so bold, Can you perhaps lift your pant leg for a moment?” After a short moment he stared at the leg as if he expected anything but lyrium scrawled on utilitarian steel. Stability could be fixed with a better boot for riding but the real thing was using the saddle horn to cock a crossbow would also destabilize you, shifting you forward, driving something into your stomach and threatening to unseat you if done to hastily. He muttered under his breath, drawing himself out into the ground, probing deeper until he found what he needed resting in the rocks below. Gentle coaxing was enough to draw forth a single tempered iron pin from the soil and into his hand. He placed it on the side of his knife and breathed heavily through his teeth, each breath causing the pin to turn red hot and draw out in length. He took his wineskin and quenched the metal before picking it back into his hand and rolling it. It proved round enough for him. He turned back to Esme and spoke “Alright, that was the easy part. Try and be still a moment.”[/font]
[font=Georgia]He ran his finger along the metal calve, just below the knee. Slowly, gently the metal peeled away in a thin uniform strip eventually ending at right angle away from leg. He ran his thumb and forefinger along the cold steel slowly until he reached the point he wanted watched it curve down toward the foot, finally settling in a sharp L. Slowly the metal bulged at the turn, forming two capped hoops that Caro fed the pin into. He pushed the strip at the hinge back into the body of the leg a few times, making sure that it didn't squeak or grind. When it was to his satisfaction he spoke up, still staring at the hair thin outline of his addition, “So what do you want the activation word to be? I'd make sure you can remember it when stressed.”[/font]
“Don’t ma’am at me, Byrne. Sounds like you’re talking to my mother.” Esme rolled her eyes and mimed gagging. Then, she obligingly hauled up her right pant leg as far as it would go. Riding pants were tight, so it was a rather long process that threatened to get stuck at any point on the skeletal bands of steel.
“You’d think that you didn’t help me make the thing.” She’d drawn up the schematics, sewn the leather pieces. Had needed Caro for the steel shaping and enchantments. Still, the original fitment process had not been very conducive to one’s modesty, considering she’d needed nearly a full limb replacement. But then, he’d been pretty bloody embarrassed about that too. Strange man – but not, perhaps, a bad one. He could hardly make her uncomfortable when he was nervous and blushing like a much younger man.
Esme stopped teasing to appreciate the magic. It was always fun to see it up close, even if, at first, this wasn’t a particularly wild example of the art. Any smith could bend a nail. The rest … Well, maybe. But it’d take more than a few light touches while kneeling in the dirt. Strange, though, watching her prosthetic peel and reshape. She almost expected to feel it, as something more than light pressure against her stump.
“Scaramouche.” A villainous masked stock character in Antivan theater. It seemed likely that they’d continue to take work opposed to Antiva, considering Caro was a native Marcher. Masks — she’d primarily need this new addition while riding Domino.
“Thank you, ser – ain’t that terrible?” Esme hopped up, careful not to bump into Caro. She started to shake out her pant leg, then stopped. “I’ll need to do something about my clothes, I guess. Tie one leg up or slit the side to the knee. That’ll start a new fashion, I’m sure.”
She didn’t exactly like the idea of other people seeing her prosthetic, but she didn’t have enough spare clothes to rip them every time she practiced with the crossbow. From a practical standpoint, it was useful as a surprise. Big chunk of steel like that could take or give a blow beyond what an opponent might normally expect. Less practical but still on her mind: some species of vanity.
Overt formality seemed to be the only choice on offer when opperating so close to the gusset, but the Ser still stung slightly. He sat a moment, and opened his mouth before closing it again, unsure what to add. Surely nothing good can come from terrible jokes or defensiveness, He wiped his hands on shirt and sat with legs crossed in front of him. “Yeah, you're right, Ser isn't quite right I suppose.” he smiled ruefully. “I'll go with Esme next time.” a simple correction.
He stared at the side of her pants for a moment. This moment was strange, over familiar and unwarranted for the most part. A second almost intimate and deeply unearned. It felt like a cool shadow had pasted over the sun, and then it was gone. It left behind what Caro perhaps handled best, simple solutions to small problems. “Probably a slit down each leg with toggles down the length, big enough to undue in a hurry.” In his head it looked like tassels on a dancers outfit to him, and it seemed fitting enough. A couple coppers worth of twine and an afternoon with a whittling knife, easy work.
The sun shown heavy above. He could have chosen shade to break in but he would instead pay the weight of his misdeed soon enough. They had probably learned what there was to learn tonight, but there was something to be said for repetition. Thought and practice turned rote over time. “Alright let's hit it again for another hour, then we'll hit town and see if we can rustle up some work.” Every thing they had started to build took time, and it could be built on the move if they were careful
“Ooh, toggles. Can you make those too? I guess I’ll be sewing all day, if anyone needs anything mended.” Esme wasn’t quite sure which would be worse, to be fair. Bumps on the road or inadequate light in camp. Both awful for sewing flesh. Trousers, eh … Well, no one would die over it, at least.
“You got it.” She reached down to help Caro up without really thinking of it and was slightly surprised when he accepted. His hands were more calloused than you might expect for a mage. Then again, most mages didn’t conjure platemail and a big fuck off sword for battle. If her skin felt tingly for a moment, it had to be from manhandling that crossbow all morning. Esme nodded vaguely and went to collect her horse.
The second circuit went a little better, once she got the hang of using the hook. It’d be awhile before anyone could call her a marksman, though.
