Practice Makes Perfect...Hopefully

It was almost a year since the last (and, conveniently, first) time Ryan had used a bow (sure, he still had a few months to go before the 365 day mark, but it was long enough ago that he could say it had "almost" been a year). He did a bit of practice after he came back from the U.P., but by winter, Ryan gave up archery indefinitely...or so he thought. Foolish for him to not know that his absent father was actually the war god Ares of those ancient Greek myths and that he would eventually make it to a camp on Long Island where he was supposed to be able act as one of the many guardians of the very roots and ensure the survival of western society, because that's a TOTALLY NORMAL thing to have happen, right? Right?

Regardless, here he was, walking into the archery range with his "mortal"-spec bow and a quiver loaded with a few celestial bronze arrows to work with. Although his personal record for (barely) hitting a target was 155 meters, Ryan decided to start off slow and work his way up until he could match said record. He found himself a target that was about 75 meters out, put the quiver down, tuned his MP3 to "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws, got an arrow ready, and sent it down range.

"Way, way off" Ryan muttered to himself, setting up another arrow in light of the missed shot. As he let off this next shot, the songs intro gave way to the first verse, with In a place you only dream of/where your soul is always free being piped directly to his eardrums via the matte black earbuds suspended by his ears. The shot wasn't much better, but it landed within the outer circle of the target, so at least Ryan got the sense that he was improving.

Now if I let you see this place
Where stories all ring true
Will you let me past your face
To see what's really you...

Another arrow set, another arrow fired, another ring in. Ryan's assault on the 75 meter range was becoming more sucsessful by the arrow.

Green grass and high tides forever
Castles of stone, souls and glory
Lost faces say we adore you
As kings and queens bow and play for you

Lilitu padded softly into the archery range, watching as the boy aimed and fired, aimed and fired, tip-toeing around the back of him. She didn't want to be noticed, so she crept around, grabbing a small bow and a few normal arrows. standing to Ryan's back right, turning an analysing eye to the Ares camper. She noticed his poise, and the precision in his movements, watching for a few more moments to visualise herself in his position.

After a few more minutes of hitting the target, Ryan got the sense that he was being watched. He set his bow down and began to look around, noticing a girl (who he thought looked familiar) next to him, albeit slightly behind him. Curious as to why she was here, he took out an earbud and asked "What are you doing here?"

(OOC: Are you an Avicii fan? I was lurking and noticed that a few of your threads had titles that were lines from "The Nights". Could be a coincidence though.)

(OOC: Nope, no coincidence! I love Avicii's songs, they're just amazing)

Lilitu hadn't realised that she had been avidly staring at the guy, until he set his bow down and Lilitu instantly focused her attention elsewhere, namely her shoes and the sky, hand flinging themselves behind her back. She saw out of the corner of her eye the boy pulling out his earbud and speaking.
"Oh, uh, well, I thought I could, uh, well, practice some archery. If that's okay, I could l-leave if you need need me to?" she stuttered, already backing away from the large-framed guy, placing her bow slowly on the ground, as if retreating from a wild animal.

(OOC: Nice. I'm a fan as well. I'm actually quite fond of many genres.)

'Why on earth is she acting that way?', thought Ryan And then it hit him: his dad. 'Riiight...'
Mentally and physically facepalming, Ryan let out "No, no, you're fine. You can stay. I'm not mad or anything. Just...like, why were you staring at me?"

(OOC: I mostly like pop, but really anything that I like goes, old, new, whatever.)

Lilitu winced as the guy face-palmed, that must have hurt. Why he did that, she didn't know, maybe her behavior. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Nobody wants to have people afraid of them, she'd just have to suck it up and try not to run away. She picked up her bow with slightly shaking hands and moved forward, level with the boy.
"Thanks and sorry about that, just overly nervous and stuff. Well, I've never really... done archery before. That sounds stupid, doesn't it? Sorry." she said, loading her bow with extreme caution and mimicking the stance Ryan had, drawing the string back and releasing, the arrow taking a small bit of the target with it as it narrowly scraped the top.
"Darn." she muttered, reloading her bow slowly.

Noticing the girl's multiple errors with her stance, bow handling, and hearing that she never really tried archery before, Ryan got an idea. With a smile, Ryan said "No, not stupid. So, since you're new to this, would you like to teach you? I've never taught archery, or anything really, but I could try."

Lilitu turned at the sound of his voice, and nodded slowly as he spoke. She fiddled with the draw-string and the arms of the bow until he had finished.
"Yeah! That would be great. Thank you. I'm Lilitu by the way, daughter of Euphrosyne, one of the Charites." she introduced herself, getting into what she thought was the correct stance.
"How's this?"

"Lilitu, eh? I feel like I've heard that name before. Anyway, introductions! I'm Ryan Michaels, son of Ares, but you can call me Ryan." As Ryan observed Lilitu's stance, he thought of a way to actually be of use to her. "Your stance? It's...ok; shows you have an idea of how to stand...Just, like, try firing. But hold on first." Ryan had thought that showing Lilitu her stance compared to his and comparing the results would be a good start, so he pulled out the mp3 player and found a video recording application. Ryan opened it and hit record, pointing it at Lilitu. "Alright then. Fire when you're ready!"

Lilitu nodded at his name, turning the bow sideways and knocking an arrow, using the color as an indication as to which side up it should go. She readied the bow and pulled the drawstring back, enough to lodge it into the target but not too much that she couldn't aim. She took aim, squinting one eye then the other, and released, the string scraping her inner arm a little, but the arrow flying steadily, hitting the edge of the target, lodged in a good ten centimetres. She winced at the inside of her left arm, but shook it off, turning to face Ryan.
"Was that okay?" she asked, putting the bow in both her hands, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

After saving the video, Ryan took a look at Lilitu's target, noticing the arrow stuck in the upper corner of the target. "Well, it hit. Isn't perfect, but it hit. But you're new to this, so we'll keep at it." As soon as he finished saying this, Ryan picked up his bow, knocked in an arrow, aimed downrange. "Alright now, look here." After waiting a few seconds, Ryan let the arrow go, landing only a few inches* away from the canter of the target. "Notice anything different in my stance?"

(OOC: You don't have to list anything specific, or even use dialogue to show what Lilitu notices between her stance and Ryan's. When Ryan gets into actually explaining things, it won't be in the form of dialogue because I have no idea on what to say for that.)

*(OOC: let's say 3, 3.5 inches on that one.)

She looked down at her target, silently having a small party. She hit it! Yay! She was still marveling at her feat when Ryan snapped her attention back to him, watching him knock the arrow and his stance, taking in the distance of his legs, the slope, the way in which he drew back. She nodded, taking her normal stance, then looking back and adjusting her's to match his, putting her feet wider and facing the target, knocking an arrow and pausing to look over her shoulder at the son of Ares.

Ryan nodded, taking approval to Lilitu's improved stance. "Alright. Fire when you're ready."

OOC: Sorry for the two sentence reply, but there wasn't much I could say here. Not that I see it as a problem, but I just thought you might want a reason as to why.

She fired again, ready for the rebound this time, body taking the shock much better. The arrow soared, landing about halfway between the edge and the center. She jumped up and down happily, clapping her hands. She had got it actually near the bull's-eye! She stopped jumping and coughed, trying to act professional, but it was hard. She drew her final arrow from the quiver, knocked it, took stance, aimed, and fired, the arrow once more flying and landing about two centimetres from the center.

"... Wha... How... But..."

That was all Ryan could say. Either he was the greatest archery coach of all time or this girl was some kind of natural. She was less than an inch off from the bull's-eye after, like, 3, 4 tries. Obviously she had hustled him or something, the was no way you can go from not even hitting the target to being a hair away from the center. NO. FREAKING WAY.  

Getting his composure back together, Ryan decided to play down his surprise by saying "And you said you have never done this before."

"... I don't know. I guess it all just sort of clicked." she said, putting the bow down. The truth was, she had seen the target as her fears, and the arrow, if hit, vanquishing it all. That was her motivation, ridding herself of her irratinal, uncontrollable fears.
"Betcha it was a fluke. Had to be." she muttered, before hearing Ryan speak once more.
"Haven't touched a bow before this day. Had to have been a fluke, actually, I'm sure I slipped, yeah, yeah, I remember now, it would've narrowly missed not hitting it, except my arm got sore at the last minute and it dropped and..." she rambled, cheeks growing redder with each passing second. She hated being special, she hated being the centre of attention.

"A fluke it may be, but still impressive." He wasn't lying, he was still trying to wrap his head around how the girl did it. Sure, his first time firing an arrow landed him a 4 point buck, but that was after being talked through the entire process and once they let him try without any guidance, he wound up spending the better part of 3 days trying to pry arrows from trees. Sure, he improved over time, but not over 3 shots.
So, in a way to see whether or not this was a fluke, he wanted to have the girl try again. "But since we're still practicing here, why not give it a few more shots. See if it was a fluke or if archery is some talent you never knew you had."

"T-thanks." she stuttered, blushing even more as she went to retrieve her four arrows, three in the target, one behind, and returned, knocking one of them and putting the rest on the floor. She aimed, trying to gather the same determination and single-mindedness she had before, and released. Seconds later, the arrow was in the target, three quarters from the bullseye and the edge, nearing the edge. She muttered a phrase and tried again, landing halfway this time. She shot twice more, getting millimetres closer, but no massive improvement like her lucky shot before.
"Told ya!" she jested, nudging him with her bony elbow, brain halted on the nervousness front.

Ryan smirked at her nudge, taking an interest in the girl's odd excitement. "You know, you are the only person I've heard of who seems to be excited for NOT hitting the center of the target." Feeling like he taught the girl enough for her to improve on her own, Ryan decided to ask "So, think we're good or do you still need my help at this?"

"Well, I didn't miss. Stay positive, right? And yeah, thanks for your help. I'm good now." she gave him a smile and turned back to her shooting, repetitively knocking, aiming and shooting. Knock, aim, shoot. Knock, aim, shoot. Knock, aim, shoot. Knock, aim, shoot. Collect arrows and repeat. Celebrate getting withing 20 centimetres of the center.

Feeling satisfied that the girl also thought she could handle archery on her own, Ryan said "Alright then. Hope you hit that bulls-eye.", picked up his bow, collected his arrows, and left the range.

She smiled and waved, continuing her archery

(OOC: Lock?)

(OOC: Maybe. IDK how I could, but if any admins are on, this storyline is finished.)