Of Lions, Wolves, and Dragons (Jon Snow)

15. Training

Her arms were shaking terribly.  Joellyn was grateful that Bronn had agreed to help her learn ways to defend herself, but he had not let up at all since they began training.  The first day he came to her chambers, he led her to a place that he assured he was private and no one would find them.  It was really a beautiful view.  It was very close to the sea at the bottom of a rock facing, far enough away from everything that no one would hear them by chance.  The view quickly was not enough to make up for the work that Bronn was forcing her to put in.  She had never really done anything like this before, so Bronn told her that her arms would be weak and they would need to work up her strength in them.  He also assumed, and was right, that she was probably slow and would need to speed up her reflexes.  So, he made a plan to alternate between what they would practice.

On the first day, he told her that he had picked the easiest bow he could find, but it was still difficult for her to pull it back and hold it in place.  She wanted very much to let it go, but Bronn had told her to continue hold it while it was drawn.  That would help her build up strength so that she would be able to move up to stronger bows in the future.  After what felt like an eternity of holding a drawn bow in place, they moved on to seeing how her aim was.  The first arrow she fired hit the target Bronn had placed far away from them, but just barely.  He at least seemed pleased that her aim was decent since she was lacking in almost everything else.

The next day, because he insisted that practicing every day would help her grow stronger and faster quickly, and because they did not feel it would be long until Stannis attacked the city, Bronn worked with her speed in using a dagger.  He taught her a few tricks on how to dodge an attacker and the places she should aim on the body to inflict the most damage with a dagger.  She was not quick enough, though.  Bronn had years of experience fighting.  Every time she tried to dodge his hits or him trying to grab her, she was not quick enough to avoid him.  That day, she ended up on the ground or in his grasp every single time.  It was discouraging for Joellyn, but Bronn acted as if he had expected as much.

Now here they were, several weeks later, with Joellyn holding a drawn bow again.  She had progressed to a stronger bow and she felt herself growing leaner and stronger, but her muscles still ached.  Her body had not adjusted to so much physical exersion.  So, she was very relieved when she heard Bronn say, "Release the bow slowly.  We'll move on to having you shoot a bow now."

As she released the tension, she felt her muscles fighting her.  Her muscles wanted her to just let it go, but she knew Bronn would make her start over again if she let the tension go too quickly.  She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when all the tension was gone and she heard Bronn say, "Good.  You've gotten stronger."

"But not much faster," Joellyn countered.

Bronn shrugged, "You've gotten better than you think, my lady."

In spite of their time together, she and Bronn could not get comfortable with calling each other by their names.  He either called her "my lady" or "lady Joellyn", and Joellyn called him "Ser".  It was probably better that way.  Both Tyrion and Joellyn were paying Bronn for their services, so it was important to Joellyn to not get too familiar with him.  He seemed loyal to Tyrion and was nice enough to her, but he was a sellsword nonetheless.  She still needed more proof that he was loyal to them.  No one's loyalty could be taken for granted.

Joellyn was satisfied with how her aim was improving.  She hit her target most of the time this day, but Bronn kept reminding her, "You don't have your nerves going right now.  You're not in danger and this target is not moving.  In the heat of the moment, you have to have your aim perfected so that nerves do not affect your aim."

So he began making noise to distract her, and it worked.  She hit the target substantially less, and when she did hit the target is was on the outside and would not be a fatal hit if it were a real enemy.  She was going to have to learn ways to distract herself from what was happening around her if she ever expected to be able to use a bow to really defend herself.  The longer they practiced, the better she got at tuning at the noise he was making in the background, but it still was not where she wanted to be.  Joellyn was discouraged by how slow her progress was, but Bronn assured her that she was doing well considering she had never done anything like this before and she was now a woman grown.