ADARA

Grasslands swept through a window open to the caldera of the mountain which grew a marble rose out of its peaks. On the stand beside her bed, a book bred with wings stretched with gemstone words, which grew into teeth along a silver trimming. Dragon Knight; the single tale of a lone survivor's adversity and hope in flight. Its pages left close, carrying her old pain in the etched love someone else left upon it. Too difficult to open the tale without pricking her finger on the thorn of a rose, bleeding crimson torment, with nothing strong enough to repair the threads. On the other side of the room, a desk with a lamp swelling with warmth to give her light through the dark, chilly nights within the caldera. Dreams unbroken, she stared at the book and her shaky promises of happiness. For better or for worse, Yuven dropped heavier tomes than his monolith straight onto her desk before absconding once more without a word. Her back still screamed from carrying the last one.

Internal instinct. External focus. Do not stifle the flame. Adara sat cross-legged on her bedspread and counted each breath filled with the fires of her power. Let it ignite on a single point. Focus. In front of her, a glyph which spiraled into twilight flames bloomed on the petals of lilies as it carved a pocket of gaseous mist. Her first lesson. A magelight without an anchorpoint save for the air. Embers sparkled inside the tiny pocket of an inferno. Focus... Her gaze drew to her window at movement outside on the training grounds, what with her room on the main floor. The braziers in the claws of the wyverns remained lit for the past couple days, though when she pressed Fenrer for an explanation, he avoided the topic and switched to her training. Her magelight spluttered with a rippling rasp when Fenrer appeared from the distant walkway, shadowed by Yuven whose armored leggings wrapped with riding straps, with a heavy shoulder bag heaved around his arm. Unable to hear the words they spoke, Fenrer nodded to something Yuven said, before vaulting over one of the training fences of the archery range, taking out his bow as Yuven raised his hands into a shrug before heading to the distant stables with his thickly wrapped package.

Hm. Adara jolted when her magelight sputtered and wilted in a winter's breeze. Wait—Oh... Gods damn it. Out of bed, she ran into the corridor, a mosaic of stories and no direction. Into the open field, she ran to catch up to her two friends, though Yuven long disappeared when she reached the archery range, with Fenrer shifting with a couple arrows, nudging the small quiver at his feet out of the way before he gazed at the targets, and appeared not to notice her.

I know he's been tired recently...

As she came closer, the rose dragged its thorn through her heart when he set his feet and tugged back the nock with the arrow at the ready, pointed at the target in the distance. It whistled through the air when he loosed it, and it thunked into the heart of the target. Adara took another step closer when he angled himself against the wind. A small green glyph shone along the line.

"Good to know you've gotten better," Adara piped up. He sent a glance her way as he released the next arrow, and it whizzed past the intended target to hit the clawed feet of the one behind it. "Sorry," she said when he relaxed his stance. "I just saw you and Yuven walking past and I thought I'd see what you two were up to."

He smiled. "Oh, he went to go check on his hippogryph. I was also trying to ward him off making you run the Gauntlet, though I'm afraid I don't think that worked so well." Fenrer rolled his lean shoulders and drew his gaze along the rest of the targets, before pulling an arrow through his magick and straight into his hands as she leaned on the fence to observe.

"Do I even want to know what the Gauntlet is?"

"It's a course Storm Warden Trainees run through every so often," Fenrer explained as he got back into his stance. "It's... quite rough even if you know what to expect." He drew the nock straight to his cheek, pressing his fingers into it. Adara held her silence for his concentration as his lips pursed and he shifted his aim to the wind. Another burst of magick rippled through the arrow, and he set the next flying forward. It slammed into his original target's throat. Ruthless accuracy, but Fenrer relaxed once more with a nod at her. "If you're curious, you could try, Yuven and I will run it with you."

"How rough? Rougher than walking through a blizzard?"

Fenrer rolled his neck with a soft laugh. "Maybe not that rough — well, that depends on the Trainer." He grabbed another arrow, testing the bend. "Have you been working with Yuven on your swordplay?"

"He won't even let me hold a wooden sword until I stop 'tripping on my own shadow'. His words," Adara said with a scoff, then gazed at him when he tugged back the string once more, the subtle strength in his arms tensing against the pressure of the bow. "Most I've held is a dagger and that didn't turn out too well." It remained unused on her hip, but it was Garren's gift to her, a wondrous blade folded over seastone and melted in the heat of a forge, the metal spiraling with a wavy curvature, though he never told her where he got it. Fenrer released the next arrow, where it struck inches below where the last hit.

"You want to try?" Fenrer tilted the bow in indication.

"Archery?" Adara came closer when he went to the small rack of other bows, tugging another one off the stand to hand to her. "I've never done it before." Its wooden curve sat on the bridges of her fingers, and she tugged at the string. It counteracted her attempt with sudden pressure when the wings molded with her movement. "How do I do it?"

"Let's start with how to keep balance before you start, then once you get used to it I'll teach you a couple other tricks," he piped with a new sense of energy. "You don't want to face the target head-on." He demonstrated by swinging himself into a proper, strong archery stance when he tugged the string back straight to his cheek, elbow high, but he retracted it. "You need to position yourself in line with where you're aiming." He sent a glyph at her feet, where it stretched and folded the grass at the tip of her toe. Adara tried to copy his previous demonstration, sinking underneath his gaze when he nodded. "Almost. Keep your front foot forward — your bow arm."

He's so much more patient than Yuven, it's incredible... "Okay." Adara followed his simple instructions, and Fenrer shouldered his own bow, his attention full on her which rippled through her heart.

"Now, try and pull the bow back into a full draw."

Adara tried, and her own body complained at the attempt she made. It burned her fingers when the string dug into them. Air caught in her throat, and she held herself strong against the pressure. In her peripheral vision, Fenrer nodded his encouragement. "Relax. Remember to breathe. You'd be surprised how many forget to do that." His gaze flicked to the paddock, but it swept back to her when she released the string when it pushed deeper into her skin.

"It's definitely harder than it looks," she said with a soft laugh, rubbing her fingers. "How long have you been doing it?"

"I first learned how to draw a bow when I was six." He hesitated, then smiled. "It was a much smaller bow." He dug his hand into the arrow bin, then held one out to her, which she took with her own smile. "Let's give this a try. Don't worry too much about hitting the target. We'll get there. Just go into your stance, nock it against the center point—"

"How am I supposed to know where I'm aiming?" Adara questioned, and cursed herself for interrupting his instructions.

"Some use their glyphs as measurements... others sometimes let instinct guide their aim," Fenrer answered. "Glyphs require some practice. Even I struggled when I was younger to keep a glyph up to follow where I was aiming." He nodded over the distant field. "Try and aim at that one." He pointed at the closest target, unlike the one so far away where he hit it in the throat with expert, ruthless accuracy.

Adara readied herself in the stance Fenrer showed her, and slipped the divot of the arrow against the string. Though it proved a more onerous task to keep her own tense body relaxed, she counted her breaths and pulled the string back to her cheek. Wind weaved through the grass and sent a wave of disorientation through her shaking arm. Blood pounded through her ears when she tried to guide herself through the breeze. Hesitation flowed through her fingers when Fenrer rounded around her with a quiet word. "Try and make sure your elbow doesn't drop," he guided.

"Like this?" Adara grinned and almost elbowed him in the shoulder blade.

"Good to see Yuven's rubbing off on you." Fenrer nudged her elbow away from his body with a soft chuckle. "Almost. Keep yourself grounded — connected to the flow. Also the fundamentals of magick."

"Internal instinct. External focus," she recalled the first lesson both Yuven and Fenrer gave her.

He nodded. "Breathe."

"Am I still doing it right?" Adara tilted her head in his direction, the shameless longing of something lost tugging her closer to him. "Can you make sure?"

"You don't have to be perfect." Fenrer kept a respectable, but unwanted distance. He broke the distance after a second of silence between them. One gentle hand wrapped around her forearm and nudged it into place. "Remember to always be aware of your surroundings, not just the target you're aiming for." His thumb drifted against her wrist when he hinted at a placement of aim before nodding his head with a smile. "There." He let go, and spring's warmth disappeared. "Whenever you're ready. Just breathe."

Adara breathed in time with the bells.

It twanged off the string and she flinched at the hard thunk when the arrow slammed not into her target, but the post beside it.

"You hit something." Fenrer nodded with a wide smile.

Adara threw her fist into his chest, and genuineness crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Not what I meant to hit, thank you. And you say I'm almost as bad as Yuven." Her fingers hooked on his shirt, but she let him go when he tipped his head at her with a knowing, cautious glance. "Sorry. Thank you for teaching me some basics, at least. Maybe next time... I'll actually hit the target." She put the bow back on the rack, and returned to his side before sweeping him to demonstrate. "Show me how it's done, Ser Fenrer."

"Back to that again, my lady?" Fenrer rolled out his shoulders and grabbed a quiver before hooking it on his back.. "I'll show you something Yuven can't do." He shuffled out an arrow, then dug his heel into the grass. Glyphs, steady and strong, rippled with the wind to activate the runes on the targets on a set path. Adara swayed along their routes when Fenrer breathed deep, certain, and confident before pulling the first arrow back. It flew through the air to crack against one of the stationary ones, and Adara gaped when he walked along, slowing into his own stance as a target caught up to him. Another breath. Another thunk of a stricken target. One raised higher, and he snapped his direction towards it and without a hint of hesitation, but a single breath, the arrow slammed into its chest.

He came to a stop and smiled back at her.

"It helps to have played around with bows since you were a boy, Molvisaliz!"

Adara almost didn't recognize the energy in the melodic voice.

Yuven leaned against the largest post, where the same beautiful, white hippogryph nipped at the meat swung across his shoulder. "Nex, Tix'snuv." He tapped his fingers against its beak and pushed it out of the way, where it let out a huff of indignation and a quick stomp of its front claws. "I'm going for a romp. You want to join, Fenrer?" He gazed at her. "I guess Adara can come."

"Thanks for the invitation. I'll have you know I accept."

Yuven raised an eyebrow, and his smile turned devious. "Perfect." He trilled something through his teeth, and bounded along, with Tix'snuv trotting after him.

"I'm going to regret that, aren't I?" Adara whispered.

Fenrer chuckled and patted her back. "Are you afraid of heights?"

"No?"

Fenrer smiled, and nodded at where Yuven departed around the citadel. "Go catch up with him. I'll be right with you both."

Adara nodded and swung herself over the fence, leaving Fenrer in the middle of the archery range with the same heartfelt warmth which bespoke both the dawn and a newfound sense of spring after a cold, terrible winter.