The Fourth Piper: Extras

An Archery Lesson

Enjoy Rowan and Mason as children! Excuse me while I die of feels

"I thought you said your father was going to teach us archery today!" 

Rowan sulked, blowing a stray lock of hair from his face with a huff. "I don't know where he is, Mason."

Little Mason Locklear hopped onto the log and walked a few steps, hands out as he balanced himself. Sitting next to Rowan, he gazed at the little bows on the forest floor and the poorly-made feather arrows they'd been playing swords with earlier while they waited. His face brightened. "Well . . . it doesn't look so hard."

"Abá told us to wait," Rowan protested. 

Leaping up and snatching a bow from the ground anyway, Mason plucked one of the strings thoughtfully and glanced back at an unmoving Rowan, scratching his head of white-blond hair. He picked up an arrow, pushing it awkwardly against the string and letting it go. The arrow fell to the ground.

"Ha! See? It's easy!" Mason did it again. "Come on!"

"You're doing it all wrong." Though he was hesitant to disobey his father directly, he couldn't help but dutifully correct his friend—and show his wrongness. But mostly correct him. Yes. Rowan stood up, marching to him and picking up a bow and an arrow. Twisting the bow sideways, he notched an arrow in and pulled back as hard as he could. As he let go, the arrow only landed a few feet away, but his frown broke out into a triumphant grin. "See how far it goes!" 

Mason's eyes widened at the distance his friend had gotten and instantly held his bow sideways. He let another arrow fly, but it fell short of Rowan's. "How'd you do that?" 

Both eager to prove themselves to the other, they began to shoot arrows. 

The sun rose high into the air as hours passed, casting the forest in a honeyed glow. While mastering the bow, the two boys set up a tournament that consisted of the simple task of hitting a tree. Rowan won. After that, Mason took it upon himself to begin constructing targets—for what was a true archery tournament without targets? That last one clearly could not count, which meant both boys were set on proving themselves once more. Then, as soon as they became bored of shooting at targets, they started to play war. 

After bickering about who had to be the Cetadorian, Rowan reluctantly hid in the woods while Mason the mighty Eracellian hunted him down. 

"Show yourself, you scum! I'll wipe you off your face! I'll bleed you and run through you! I'll skin your ears alive and take my hostage—I'll—" Unable to piece together the snippets of insults Little Locklear knew from the few soldiers he'd ever heard in his life, his gallant war cry quickly became, "I'll shoot you, Cetadorian!"

Rowan was crouching behind his family's wood pile near the path that led back to their small cabin, a slab of bark as his shield, an arrow his Cetadorian sword (which couldn't be better than a flimsy arrow anyway, they'd concluded), and the wood pile his fortress. Spitting as some of the mud Mason had insisted serve as warpaint dribbled into his mouth, he peered over his bark shield, wide-eyed as a doe and mouth hanging open like a fish. Mason had started to swing his bow and arrows at the foliage in boredom, the war cries becoming increasingly sparse. He moped around the log they'd been sitting at before, far from the wood pile.

"Rowan," he finally whined. "Rowan, you're not even playing."

"But you didn't find me." Groaning at the waste of a good hiding spot, Rowan stood up, but then his eyes lit up with the glory of victory in battle. "I win!" 

"No, you don't! You only win when you get the other person!"

"Can't you win if you don't let the other person get you?"