In the middle of the training ground hidden in the shade of trees near Old Mark's house. I stood at the starting position while holding the bow in a form called the relaxed stance.
I just gazed at the target for a whole minute before finally taking a deep breath and without any break, strung the arrow, raised the bow, and shot it in a single motion.
The arrow swiftly flew and hit the target a bit left of the dead center. I took another arrow from the quiver beside me but didn't string it, instead went back to the relaxed position, and closed my eyes.
I replayed my last shot inside my head and tried to find the mistake I made during the execution.
Was my posture wrong? Was it the wind?
Was the arrow a bit crooked? Should I have held the Bow a bit higher?
The one thing Old Mark always insisted I do, is try to find mistakes in every single arrow I shoot during training.
He didn't believe in learning by repetition, as he believes only stupid people should learn using that method. He thinks that there are basically two ways to learn archery.
The easy way is to learn the bow by the process of repetition. If a person shoots thousands of arrows mindlessly until the routine becomes a bodily instinct then they would eventually get good at shooting the target. But those who learn like this are rigid in Old Mark's eyes.
In his words, "Their body learns to shoot, but their mind didn't do the work involved,". So these kinds of people would be good at shooting at a stationary target or the target they are used to but if a new mark appears then their arrows start to go wide.
The hard is, that from the beginning you learn by deliberating every single step associated with shooting the arrow, and by taking into account every single factor. If they do this then while it could take longer and may be more difficult, eventually they would become one of the few truly versatile archers in Westeros, those who can shoot a bullseye in every situation.
After finding the problems with my last try, I opened my eyes and once again went through my routine, and after observing the target for a few moments, I raised the bow and shot the target in a single breath.
Looking at the target a small grin appeared on my face, this time the arrow stuck closer to the target, which meant I diagnosed the issue correctly.
Observe—Shoot—Diagnose—Repeat
I kept on training my archery like that, and when my right arm started to ache, I switched my arms and started shooting with my left hand while holding the bow with my right hand.
A whole different kind of calculation is associated with shooting from the opposite arm, you need to change the posture, place the arrow differently, take the wind direction differently, etc. Basically, you would need to rewire your brain to respond to foreign situations.
I shot arrows for a couple of hours and whenever my arms got tired I alternated them. But no matter how much rest I gave my arms, ultimately they started to get weary, so after my arms started to really ache I decided that I was done for the day.
I put down the bow on a rock and slowly started to collect the scattered arrows, about a fourth of them were not reusable, but the rest of them could be used a few more times.
While I was collecting the arrows from some bushes, I suddenly felt a ping go inside my head, and immediately looked up, and there she was, drifting through the air at an incredible speed toward me.
The color of her feathers was such a perfect camouflage with the blue sky, that if I didn't have a bond with her, I wouldn't have been able to locate her even if I was looking at her directly.
Reaching an appropriate distance from me, Frost braked silently and glided towards me gracefully before landing on the rock in front of me, as she had gotten too huge to be able to sit on my shoulder.
"Hey, Frost," I cheerfully said while patting her feathers gently, "How was your hunt?"
Frost immediately started chirping and screeching, and simultaneously, I started to get some emotions and faded images from her inside my head like an MMS, which immediately made me understand her.
"What! That shitty bird tried to steal from you again," I exclaimed while listening to Frost chirp, and jump around trying to explain the entire situation to me.
Apparently, a Snow Eagle, the discount offshoot species of the Ice Eagles from which Frost originates, had taken to occupying Frost's nest, located at a high cliff in Wolfswood, whenever she was away from it.
And the second she sees Frost coming, the snow eagle runs away, so Frost didn't bother with her at first just considering her an annoyance but lately, she had even started to steal berries that Frost had hidden inside her nest, so Frost finally decide enough was enough and ambushed the intruder today, and after injuring her heavily she scared the snow eagle away.
"Oh, you showed her who's the boss didn't you, Frost," I said to the smug-looking Frost, who basked in her own glory.
I showered her with praises for quite a while before I remembered and asked her, "Hey, Frost did you notice anyone around here?"
Frost tilted her head for a moment, before shaking her relatively tiny head, I immediately understood the point she was trying to convey. She had seen some animals but didn't see any two-legged creatures.
"Alright then, since you are already here, let's complete our warging quota for the day," I said before moving toward a large flat rock nearby and sitting on it cross-legged.
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