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“As I said. You would have been far more effective from a distance when we came over the hill and spotted the gnolls.” Lae'zel shoved the bow in Shadowheart’s hands. It was of goblin make, one of the many looted off the corpses in the village.
“And you, vampire. We’re not skulking in the dark after all our enemies anymore. I understand you to be efficient in close quarters but I am not always going to be there to keep our foes from tearing your limb off.” Another bow abruptly thrust into pale hands. Astarion gave a small scoff and held the bow like it was coated in slime.
“Like it or not,” and from the squeeze of her narrow mouth, she was definitely in the “not” category, “we will be fighting as a team from now on. Effective combat is not just about how hard you can swing a crude hunk of metal.” Lae’zel eyed the mace slung at Shadowheart’s hip, and without thinking she fluttered her hand over it protectively. It had served her well so far, but it didn’t take genius acolyte to guess how Lae’zel felt about anything that couldn’t be sharpened to a lethal edge.
“It is simply wise strategy to have a secondary ranged weapon. Even better strategy would be to have you able to hit things with it.”
“What about the others?” Shadowheart asked, not liking the undercurrent of whine in her voice.
“Chk!” Lae'zel spat on the ground to underscore her scorn. “Mages, wizards and adepts need not the military training you do. And I have nothing to teach Karlach that her years in the hells haven’t already taught her. You two, however, are a different story.”
It had been a poor showing that day with the gnolls. A messy, scrappy fight that they’d been lucky to win, even though they’d spotted the creatures on the road well in advance. If it hadn’t been for Lae’zel, stunningly fast, divinely vicious, it may have been that none of them would need to worry about turning into mindflayers after all.
Horses couldn’t drag it out of her, but Lae’zel had been stunning to watch. An absolute maelstrom.
So when Lae’zel dragged Shadowheart and Astarion to a clearing near the camp, training dummies set and waiting, Shadowheart ignored the churn of shame and went.
“Fire upon the dummies. I am unable to train you if I do not first understand what you are capable of.”
Astarion twanged the string of the goblin bow, dubious.
“You first, istik.” Lae'zel jerked her chin at Shadowheart.
Shadowheart set her feet. There was a surge of pride, desire to prove herself to this arrogant gith, but the emotion immediately crashed upon the shore of knowledge. She’d never been a particularly gifted archer. The bow didn’t feel entirely unnatural to her, so she had to suppose she had been trained in the art to some extent, but it didn’t slot into her hands with the same unerring coherence that she felt with mace and shield.
She drew, and fired off the first arrow. It glanced off the side of the dummy, and her face burned. A second shot. This one hit, but the arrow drooped in the straw, having barely found purchase.
She glanced up at Lae’zel, braced for the scathing criticism, but she was merely watching the performance with an electric intensity, as though they were already in battle.
Shadowheart took a breath to steady herself, looking back to the dummy, feeling Lae’zel eyes boring through the back of her head. The shot went wide by at least a foot.
Lae’zel made another of those clicking sounds in her throat, and before Shadowheart could muster a mote of defence for her performance, there was a sinewy grip squeezing her waist. It was like the gith didn’t know how to approach touch with anything but force.
“Like this.” Lae'zel tugged her with implacable hands. “More side-on to your target. I know you are used to hiding behind your shield but think a little first.” The hands moved to her shoulders, and Shadowheart flinched at the feeling of those hands on her bare skin.
“Again.” The arrow landed more surely this time, penetrating at least an inch into the straw. She felt a silly little surge of pride. Since when do you care what this monster thinks of you, girl? A voice sounded inside her mind, the harsh cadence reminding her of Mother.
This time Lae'zel approached from the front, brusquely moving Shadowheart’s hands on the bow. She closed her fingers firmly over Shadowheart’s in the new position, and when those firm hands withdrew, Shadowheart felt hot all over. From shame? From- from being touched?
When last had she been touched? She couldn’t remember. Lae'zel withdrew and took position at Shadowheart’s back, standing so close that her breathing was loud in Shadowheart’s ears
“Again.” Shadowheart listened to that breathing. She closed her hands firmly on the bow, holding the feeling of Lae’zel hands over her own in the sense-memory of her body, and drew.
The arrow missed the target by at least two feet.
The noise that came out of Lae’zel could have punched a hole through Shadowheart’s gut. She crowded in again, yanking hands, twisting Shadowheart’s hips like a doll, then taking a knee and shoving her thighs slightly wider.
Where had all the wind in her lungs gone?
“This is even more disappointing than I was prepared for. You are supposed to be a warrior of some merit-” she stood as she spoke and glanced at Shadowheart’s face.
“What is wrong?” she asked sharply. “Are you unwell? There is a colour to your skin I have not seen before.”
Shadowheart fired off a quick prayer to Lady Shar to wrench the life out of her there and then.
Lae’zel didn’t wait for a reply, merely yanked the bow from her hands. “Go rest a moment.” Shadowheart obeyed. If Lady Shar wasn’t going to kill her, she could at least be out from under those hawk eyes.
“Elf. Take your turn and maybe this afternoon’s work will not have been a complete waste.”
Astarion made a show of stepping up, moving his hands uncertainly up and down the bow, almost fumbling as he nocked. Then, with a sly tightening of his shoulders, he turned to the target, and fired off three quick shots, thwap thwap thwap, neatly clustered on the dummy’s pockmarked face. He turned back to Lae’zel with a swagger.
Instead of the praise that he so clearly angled for, she sighed. “Why did you come out here if you were not in need of my instruction? Why not simply tell me you already knew how to shoot?”
“Oh, you know. I just wanted to see a little more of,” holding a spare arrow, he gestured, pointing first at Lae’zel and then to Shadowheart, where she had taken refuge on a rock, “whatever this is.” He finished with a smirk, drawing the arrow head in a circle encompassing the space between them.
Lae’zel merely frowned as he flourished. When he turned knowing eyes to Shadowheart, she stood up, too fast, and with a quick, “whatwasthatIthinkIheardTavcallingme,” she turned and fled the clearing.