Possible Archery Club? on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Keme RunningBear

August 21, 2014 10:09 PM

Possible Archery Club? by Keme RunningBear

After allowing himself the time to adjust to the schedule that his CATS exam year would give to him and to his additional duties with the library and other clubs, Keme thought it was time to really start to gather information from his peers and figure out if anyone would be interested in something like this. About two weeks into the new year, Keme had put up a couple of posters regarding the possible Archery Club and for anyone who was interested to sign up below. There seemed to be at least some interest in it and so, he had gone ahead and decided to hold a meeting to gage how many would come and if it was worth making it into an actual club.

Standing in MARS room number two, Keme waited for those interested to arrive. He was nervous. Keme was typically a stoic person, rare to show any emotions. He had a quiet demeanor while at school, preferring to stay out of the way than in the middle of whatever was going on. This would be the first time he would be putting himself out there for others to judge him. This reminded him a bit of when he was a first year and they had the challenges. His group leader had them gather in a circle and tell each other about their strengths and weaknesses. Keme hadn’t really had much to offer and even now, nothing had changed much. His skill level had increased, obviously, but he hadn’t really widened his horizons. Unless one counts joining the dance club as something of a strength.

When he felt that adequate time had lapsed and all those who were in favor of the Archery club had arrived, Keme decided to begin. “Hello everyone.” He greeted, he was finding it hard to manage a smile due to his nerves and hoped his voice didn’t sound as monotone as he felt it did. “My name is Keme RunningBear. I am a Fifth year, Aladren student. This meeting is basically to see how many people would be interested in an Archery club so that I know whether or not it would be worth it to set it up with the staff.” Keme explained to them, not knowing if they cared or not.

“I have been studying archery since I was a small child. My tribe using traditional sports – er, that is, traditional being in our history – as a way for us to connect to our ancestors. Archery is one of those traditional sports. Each summer, we hold a competition that is separated by age groups and the person who earns the most points wins a small trophy.” Keme thought by explaining his history with them, they would understand that he actually knows archery very well. “I have won several trophies. I want you all to feel comfortable with me hosting the club. Archery is to me like Quidditch might be to some of you. It’s what I live for. And to prove that, if you would all stand to the side.”

Keme waited for everyone to move out of the way. The MARS room, which was currently set up much like a Quidditch pitch, had one Target (which was a small flat square) at the half way point of the arena. Keme walked over to the wall and picked up one of his personal bows, this one was his light weight Taiga Recurve – the type of bow everyone is accustomed to seeing, and then positioned himself at one end of the room. Placing an arrow (which was not a typical arrow in that it was sharp, this had a flat tip that was charmed to stick to the surface it touches, for safety measures) securely, Keme raised the bow up, lining himself with the target, Keme stretched the bow back, being sure to line his pointer to his chin, and released the arrow when he felt the shot was good. The thunk against the target was loud. Just looking at it from where he was, Keme knew it wasn’t a perfect shot, but it had been close. “So… are you all interested enough in it to form a club with me?” He asked them.

Subthreads:

Perking our interest. by Emery and Chloe Jareau

6 Keme RunningBear Possible Archery Club? 249 Keme RunningBear 1 5

Emery and Chloe Jareau

September 07, 2014 9:19 AM

Perking our interest. by Emery and Chloe Jareau

Emery followed closely behind Chloe as they made their way to the MARS rooms where the meeting was being held. When the signs for an Archery club were posted, Emery hadn’t thought much of it. They had had a fencing club a couple of years before and that had been cool and all, but Emery was not really athletic or competitive at all, which is why he didn’t join quidditch. However, Chloe had written home about the club (she apparently felt a sudden need to join things) and had asked if it would be okay for her to join. Their parents had written back that she could join only if Emery did too. They didn’t trust that Chloe wouldn’t do something to harm herself or someone else due to her innate ability to trip over air. After some begging by Chloe, Emery had agreed to join. He needed to get himself out more anyway, might as well learn something cool like Archery in the process.

He wasn’t really sure what Chloe’s motives were for joining since she had no interest in this sort of stuff up until this point, but Chloe did things that only made sense to her and he knew better than to question it. “I hope there is a good turn out.” Chloe commented while they walked. They had met up in the Hall to go together. This was their way of making sure the other actually came along and didn’t ditch the other (a method they learned to do as when they were younger they often would say they would do something and then bail out by not showing up).

“Why are you interested in this?” He asked while they walked. He had to say that he preferred having to go to the Archery club with her rather than, say, the Fashion Club. Chloe had no sense of fashion – he was pretty sure her sense was worse than his – so he didn’t think that would be a big issue for him, but that would probably kill him if his parents told him he needed to join that too. He didn’t mind looking at the girls who knew how to dress, but he didn’t want to sit and talk about fashion… or listen to people who did. Thankfully, Chloe hadn’t mentioned any other club for him to be forced to join.

“Because it’s good to have a hobby and I think this would get people interested more than like coloring would.” Chloe answered enthusiastically. Emery internally rolled his eyes. That really made no sense, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it. He was just going to use having to do this club against Chloe in the near future, so he didn’t want to start it off on the wrong foot.

They entered the room and found that there wasn’t as big a turn out as Emery would have imagined. It wasn’t like Fencing was still happening, this was the closest thing to it aside from Quidditch and some people didn’t really want permanent injury in a sport. (He was really grateful the school did not sponsor Quadpot). They took two available seats and waiting for the meeting to begin. Emery knew Keme from the shared common rooms and classes, but he had never really spoken to him, which wasn’t much of a surprise since Emery didn’t really chat up people, but Chloe didn’t really know him either. She only stated that all Aladrens seemed a little bit on the quiet side and lumped them all as ‘smarties’. Chloe really felt that her roommate belonged in that house, but she was glad that Ji-Eun was with her. It would be such a lonely place if she didn’t have her around.

Both Jareaus listened as the Host began and explained what Archery was for him and why it was important. Emery was impressed with the implied multiple trophies, but Chloe was really impressed with his ability to hit the target that was half way across the room and almost hit it exactly in the center. “Whoa, would we all be learning like that? Because, I’m pretty sure my parents would be super impressed if I came home and was able to hit the target like that.” Chloe commented, not really to anyone in particular, which was also, not surprising to Emery.

6 Emery and Chloe Jareau Perking our interest. 0 Emery and Chloe Jareau 0 5

John Umland

September 19, 2014 3:36 PM

Annoying my sister, when she finds out about this. by John Umland

Keep your head down, his sister had advised him before he came to school. First years should not be seen and should not be heard. Second years, too, really. You’ll have plenty of time to be as noisy as you want once you can use a wand without setting your own trousers on fire.

Good advice, John guessed. Especially since, though his trousers were still hanging in there, he had already accidentally set one of his shirts on fire (a fact he planned to take to the grave, as he had fortunately been both alone and not been wearing the shirt in question at the time). Maybe the way to prosperity, too, as Julian had been keeping her head down and her mouth shut her whole life and had not only become a prefect this year, but had come through last year all but unscathed – she didn’t even seem especially traumatized, which Mom had really thought she would be. It wasn’t, though, something he thought he was going to be very good at. Half the time, he didn’t even mean to get into the discussions, arguments, and occasional shouting matches that he did, it just sort of…happened. Half the time, he couldn’t even remember what had made him start asking questions in the first place by the time it was all over, and here, his questions often involved the use of a magic wand. He thought that at least one teacher and two or three classmates deciding that they wanted his head on a platter was inevitable and would probably happen by midterm.

In theory, though, the damage should have been limited to classes. He had protested vociferously about every organization his mom had ever made him participate in, and while he had come to like book club and admit that Scouts had its merits, he still complained sometimes just for the form of the thing. He liked being with people well enough, but not when they made fun of him for doing more thorough research than they did or just looked at him like he’d grown a second head and didn’t explain why. That should have pretty much ruled out any club his sister wasn’t in.

That hadn’t worked out much better than just keeping his head down and his mouth shut in general was going. They just had so much time here. True, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were long, classes until five and Fridays were particularly bad for him because he skipped breakfast (the bacon smelled particularly good when he knew he wasn’t allowed to have it) but he had quickly discovered that they were meant to start their homework during the long lessons, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, his classes ended at 2:30. He had never realized just how much time sharing his room with his brothers took up, and now that they weren’t here and he only really saw Julian for very long in the library and on Sundays, he had all this time on his hands, which people around the school kept offering to fill in new and interesting ways….

He had shunned Dance Club (if they had to specify that guys could come, that meant almost none were going to, and he knew enough about social norms to know that he shouldn’t violate that one, plus there was just the fact that he had no use for dancing lessons), but the idea of the Archery Club appealed more, even though Julian had said clubs especially were by Intermediate and Advanced students, for Intermediate and Advanced students. For one thing, while he wasn’t exactly planning to go live in a tent off the grid or anything, it was the sort of Potentially Someday Useful Skill he associated with Scouts. For another thing, it was also, he thought, the kind of activity, physical and oriented toward a single goal, that he found relaxing. And then there was the thing about who was running it, which was kind of a stupid thing (as far as he could tell, this guy and John’s sister weren’t even particularly close acquaintances, just people who knew each other from being in the same year, and it was really more due to John’s own forms of weirdness that one of their conversations had taken him in a certain direction), but he couldn’t help it. Keme RunningBear had, by pure chance, without meaning to or knowing he had, caused the reading which had led to an awful lot of the stuff in John’s head that would not have otherwise been there being there. Some of the best and worst five-minutes segments of the past few years were this guy’s fault. Even if it became abundantly clear that his age and/or disposition meant he ought to leave, he wanted to observe the fifth year Aladren up-close at least once.

He listened to the speech, biting his tongue on a lot of questions the short address brought to mind and forgetting most of them at the demonstration. All he knew about weapons, he’d learned from his mom, but that was enough to tell that he wasn’t using a crossbow, and part of it had been that crossbows had been such a big deal because it was a lot easier to hit what one was aiming at with one than with a…not-crossbow, which was why archers had been the elite before – it had changed warfare, since pretty much any conscript could be taught to use the thing. Plus it could punch through armor, so there went knights as an elite warrior class, and so on until they got nations and new social classes and revolutions and stuff….

….Which wasn’t the point. The point was that that was the hard kind and he’d hit the target. Which was cool.

He blinked at the girl who said her mom would be impressed if she could do that – he wouldn’t have thought that needed stating – but nodded. Mom would probably be pretty impressed, too, maybe, though how he'd demonstrate at home was another question. He was pretty sure someone from the community association would have something to say about it if she started letting her kids play with medieval weapons on the lawn. Some of them thought she was crazy already, he'd heard. "It is impressive," he said, though he dropped his voice into something like a mumble after the first syllable, remembering about keeping his mouth shut.

16 John Umland Annoying my sister, when she finds out about this. 285 John Umland 0 5

Joella Curtis

October 04, 2014 4:44 PM

Too much enthusiasm? by Joella Curtis

The posters promoting an Archery Club were among many unexpected elements of Sonora that had caught Joella's eye. It was yet another activity that the young Pecari felt keen to add to her list. The MARS room appeared to be full of interesting uses and Joella found archery was amongst this.

Growing up on a farm had allowed her perhaps a little more involvement with crossbows than many. Her father thoroughly enjoyed this traditional method of hunting on his land with his brothers and numerous occasions Joella had accompanied them, perhaps along with her mother, siblings, and other relatives as well. There were days when local friends and extended family would visit for a whole day of hunting. And, of course, picnicking.

Whilst she could hit a decent-sized target with reasonable competence, Joella was far from a good shoot and was even further from a bullseye every time or anything even close. Her father told her she didn't have the patience to practise but the eleven year old never agreed with this. She had a great aim in Quidditch for the most part but for some reason she struggled to apply this skill to archery. Perhaps the amount of time spent on the occupation bore some relation. This being said, Joella wasn't a poor shot with an arrow.

Keme RunningBear, admittedly like most students met so far, fascinated Joella greatly. The little he provided about himself filled Joella with curiosity. He spoke of a tribe with a far more intriguing idea of tradition than those of the Pureblood world whose traditions she felt so oppressed by. Joella had still not forgotten the utter failure of her introduction to her roommates. It was not a criticism to her fellow Pecaris but to the Pureblood society in which she lived that one could be so easily judged on something like omitting a curtsey from an introduction.

When Keme RunningBear referenced Quidditch in his description of his relationship with archery, the first year felt that she understood. The older student's words "It's what I live for" were words that Joella related to. Of course, she was aware that she would probably never say such passionate words about archery herself but with someone so in love with the sport as her teacher she could only hope that some of this enthusiasm would rub off on her. Not that Joella was really lacking in the enthusiasm department.

It was with excitement that Joella watched what she saw as a perfect shot. She refrained from clapping however, well aware that it would appear foolish - Keme RunningBear probably hit the target every time so it was no astonishing accomplishment for him. Joella wondered if she may soon be able to make such a accurate shot - or was she counting her chickens before they'd hatched?

One girl mentioned how such a show would impress her parents and Joella found herself smiling at this as she imagined the look on her father's face if she could perform such accuracy in front of him.

"I'd love for there to be an Archery Club!" the first year's enthusiasm was displayed clearly. She wasn't sure if she were meant to speak individually or whether RunningBear was asking for a general consensus but she wasn't really fussed as she definitely did want there to be an Archery Club. Surely enthusiasm was what the Aladren was looking for anyway?

8 Joella Curtis Too much enthusiasm? 295 Joella Curtis 0 5