Dear Diary,

Apparently when properly motivated, even yours truly can plan things like a mature adult person. Really.

So this morning started pretty normally, although Marie's delivery surprised me by containing The Dress. Apparently she'd secreted it away some time after I wore it for two days straight. I mean, it's silk, and it's not like I'm gonna get overheated with the amount of bare skin I'm showing, but I still worked up a sweat pouring Mana into people to fix what I'd broken. I still swear Marie must have some kind of Laundromancy, because The Dress and its accompanying boots came back looking like they'd never been worn. Then again, I'm pretty sure she normally gets stuff back to me in less than five days, so it might have required some kind of big ritual to get the Laundromancy work or something. Before she got away, I leaned in and said, "Bath tonight?" She smiled, nodded, and went about her day of Marie things.

I dropped Isnomi off with Grandma after she had her breakfast. Isnomi's breakfast, that is, I've got no idea when Grandma eats. Since it seems like she covers both the night shift and the early morning shift in the Infirmary, I expect she's probably got a weird eating schedule too, but I'd never seen any of the Maids or other staff eating. I needed to ask her or maybe Marie about that at some point, but for now I just had a nice little chat with her before heading down and meeting Saffron and the ROTC crew in the Dining Hall.

When we got up to the Practice Yard and in formation, duBois called out, "this morning we'll be practicing your archery. I'll expect each of you to pick a bow based on your experiences last week. Before you do, though, a few notes. The highest quality man portable ballistae hit the hardest of any of the weapons you trained with, but they are both cumbersome to aim, have the slowest rate of fire, and take the longest time to go from fully broken down to fully ready to fire. The long bows are the best combination of rate of fire and damage on impact, and the best weapon for long range, plunging, or indirect fire, but they're the hardest to string and almost as cumbersome to carry as a man portable ballista. Honestly, if you've got the Strength to heft a ballista without worrying about the weight, I personally find long bows more cumbersome, since its possible to break a ballista down into its component parts and pack them, whereas our longbows don't really compress for travel. Shortbows are the least cumbersome, with the highest rate of fire, but have less stopping power than either of the others. Any questions?"

After last week, pretty much everybody had their choice made, although I suspect one or two might have been swayed by duBois' last minute review. Thinking about last week though, I raised my hand. When he nodded to me I asked, "could you help some of us less familiar with bows choose the right size?"

He smiled at me, "not a bad thought, Diaz. Okay, Cadets. Go get your target dummies, choose your bows, and find your ammunition. Bring your choices past me before you set up, and above all, nobody start shooting until I tell you to."

"Sir, yes sir!" we all called out as we ran for the sheds. I took my time. I'd never really been the kind of person to carry a gun. I had nothing against them, but when I wanted to hurt somebody, I wanted to get my hands on them. But since graduation meant using a bow, I needed to make with the shooty. The north shed, the first one I got to, held the ballistae; I called for Bill and Saffron, then headed to the west shed. The ballistae just looked ugly to me, in that 'don't want to put my hands on them' kind of way. The longbows lay there on racks, strings and quivers of ammunition shelved beneath the bows themselves. I walked down the row, trying them out, but none of them felt right. I wandered to the east shed, where I'd seen a couple Cadets coming out with short bows, and walked down the rack there. About two thirds of the way down I found an oddly shaped bow, a little curvier than the others when unstrung. When I picked it up, the weight and balance just felt right. I scooped up the strings, looped all but one on a loop on my pants, then scooped up the quiver and hooked it on the other side. Without thinking about what I was doing, I looped one end of the string around the upper end of the bow, flipped it around and looped the other end through the notches, then flipped it again, stepped one leg through the gap between the bow and string, hooked the strung end around the front of my ankle and pushed the top. It took a little focused effort, but eventually the top end of the string slipped into place.

Bow in hand, I walked to the south shed to pick up my target dummy. As I did I saw Angel running back toward duBois with an unstrung bow in hand. He nodded, then walked her through what I'd done with my little bow. When I said 'little', I kinda meant it; I could hide the whole thing behind my back after I'd strung it. I sauntered up to duBois just as Angel got her bow strung.

"Is this one an okay size for me?" I held it out toward him, and he glanced at me, then at it.

He smiled a little and said, "It's a little smaller than I expected you to take, but that's not always a bad thing. Have you tried to draw it yet?"

"No, sir." I shrugged and added, "it just felt right, sir."

"Well, it's not so small it'd be ridiculous for you to use." He held out one hand, and I handed the bow over. He drew it. I'd say 'drew it easily', but I could see how his shoulders flexed when he pulled it. "Well strung." He released the tension slowly, then unstrung it and handed it back to me.

I chuckled a little, then went through the same routine I'd done in the shed. He nodded at my technique, although with everybody watching it felt harder to string it. In the shed it had just been some focused effort; standing out in the middle of the Yard it felt more like it took everything I had just to get it strung. After struggling a bit, I got it restrung. "Anything else, sir?"

He shook his head and waved me off to the side of the Yard where some target dummies already stood. "Set your target up and get to the line."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Yes sir!" I dashed off to set my dummy up, glancing behind me to see Lancaster being sent back to the longbow shed, but only after duBois very carefully motioned how long the bow should be. I almost felt bad for him after meeting his brother; as I walked back to the firing line, I thought about what it must be like having a big brother who you knew would always be that much bigger than you. I mean, for me it's a little abstract. I might be tall for a woman here and now, but that still put me as shorter than most of the guys except Bill and Larry.

I shook my head as I stepped to my chosen firing spot. Me feeling bad for Larry Lancaster. God only knows what I'd start thinking about next.

Do I detect a budding romance with your rival?

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Guess not then.

While I waited for Larry to get back with his bow I practiced drawing the bowstring; no arrow, just getting a feel for how hard it would be to draw.

It took less to draw than it did to string, but not by a whole fuckin' lot, and I couldn't exactly use my legs to help me draw it.

Okay, maybe I could, but despite all the evidence to the contrary, I have a brain and use it occasionally. Being a natural with a bow was one thing, making stupid trick shots out of action movies was something else. I mean, yeah, I blend, and I Blend, but I didn't want to make it any harder than it had to be for my built in 'somebody else's problem' field to do its thing.

Once I'd tested the bow, I slung it over my shoulder and headed over to help Saffron and Bill get their ballistae set up. Apparently they had a whole gearbox thing to add more torsion to the ropes, and as duBois showed us last week, once you got the string hooked, you could turn that crank to add some more oomph to the shot, with the gears adding a whole lot more mechanical advantage than the goats foot. As I finished helping Bill get his set up, I wondered aloud, "why ballistae instead of crossbows?"

Saffron's head snapped up at that, and Bill said, "Crossbow?"

As noted, I can take a hint when it's delivered to my forehead with a hammer. I shrugged and said, "just something I read about once. Might have been something made up for the story."

I swear, once in a while it gets really weird what they've got here and what they don't.

When Larry finally got a longbow of a reasonable size and was ready to shoot, duBois positioned himself behind us and called out that the range was in use, then told us to start shooting. Unlike last week, when I'd been firing as quick as I could, I took my time, pretending my target had armor on. Every one of my shots landed where I wanted them to, although two of the ones that hit the armpits punched through and hit the wall behind the dummy. The ones in what I thought of as the 'eye slit line' stuck well, although they nearly knocked the dummy over and turned it slightly skew, making my subsequent shots a little harder. The rest I punched into the thighs, right about where armor had to have a gap for leg articulation. I didn't know if those shots would have gone through whatever they armored joints with, but I figured if a guy in a bullet proof jacket can get broken ribs from getting shot, me nailing some guy in the codpiece might at least pucker his asshole a little bit.

We spent the morning like that; take a dozen shots, wait for everyone to be done, jog over to collect our ammunition, jog back. By lunch I'd broken three of mine. When we got back from lunch, somebody'd actually put armor and shields on the dummies. DuBois had us change lanes every cycle after that, because while most of the dummies had leather with metal reinforcement, a couple had armor made out of itty bitty metal rings, and one had what looked like honest to god plate armor. I learned then that my arrows wouldn't punch through that plate, but they would go through armor to about half their length; enough that anybody in that armor would be wanting to have a sit down if I shot them in the thighs or crotch, and would be visiting the God of their choice if I hit them in the head. Especially if I hit them in the eye, which I could do like once every two tries. I mean, I could reliably hit within about two inches of the pupil when I aimed for it, but by the end of the day I realized that some of the arrows weren't quite as straight or well fletched as the others. Some of that might have been me putting them through the dummy and into the wall in the morning.

Of course, on that count, Saffron won the 'get everybody's fucking attention' when she had her turn at the plate armor. She cranked that torsion crank until she couldn't get it to turn a single extra notch, then took a knee, lined up her shot, and straight up knocked the head off the dummy. Snapped its wooden neck clean at the base, sent the helmet flying back into the wall, where it bounced off and slammed into the back of one of the leather armored dummies, knocking it over from behind.

Luckily that happened during the last round of the day, and Saffron spent her remaining bolts ringing the armor's codpiece like a bell. I kept myself from laughing too hard at how every guy in the Yard winced when that distinctive bell sound rang through the yard, but when her final bolt hit just right and crunched into the armor, I couldn't take it any more and almost dropped my bow laughing.

Almost. I liked this one enough to kinda hide it behind the others when we put the equipment away at the end of the day.

When we got to the Dining Hall, I scooped Saffron up onto my shoulders and paraded her around the table, proclaiming her 'slayer of dummy-kun' as I did so. I swear I know nothing about someone who looked remarkably like me shooting a look at the Barbie Brigade table every time the ROTC table shouted 'dummy-kun'. I do, however, take full responsibility for scooping Saffron up as dinner drew to a close. When she squeaked and giggled in a weak protest, I said, "but I must carry you off to your well deserved reward, my hero!" Everybody at the table started laughing, even Raven, who normally refused to do more than tight-lipped smiles. I leaned back and stage whispered to her, "I hope my virtue is a reward worthy of such an act of heroism!" I'd kind of hoped I'd get her to laugh a bit more, but instead she got this really evil look in her eye and pulled out her sketchbook. I retreated, Saffron in my arms, carrying her all the way to our room. When we turned into our central corridor instead of heading to the Infirmary, Saffron looked at me archly and said, "aren't you forgetting someone?"

I leaned in to whisper into her ear, "Grandma Aetos has Isnomi for the night. Isn't that right, Marie?"

Saffron's head whipped around so she could see Marie standing in front of our door, tub on her cart, streamers of steam escaping from the two big kettles inside the tub. She then looked back at me and said, "I'll bet you think you're clever, don't you?"

"I have my moments."

Moments were indeed had. Of course, in the morning I wound up really glad Isnomi had gone with Grandma for the night. I mean, I still think she's too young to form proper memories, but I could be wrong, and even if she can't, I'd have been really embarrassed if I had to tell Raven that Isnomi had nommed the hentai masterpiece she'd managed to shove under our door.