Ch 13- Don't Bring Back Any Squids!- Part 1
The cool summer wind blew through the clearing in the Winterfell Godswood and Robb narrowed his eyes while slowly raising his bow. Nocking the arrow, Robb took aim at his brother before pulling the string in a quick motion.
*Shoot*
The arrow flew through the air toward his brother at a moderate speed, Robb looked at the arrow hopefully but alas... Jon leaned a little to the left and dodged the arrow easily.
"Are you sure you learned how to shoot?" Jon taunted Robb, with an infuriating smirk, "Maybe you should come even closer, or should I tie a cloth around my eyes to give you some more chance..."
"Shut up," Robb yelled, the color of his face matching his hair in embarrassment, "I'll get you sooner or later,"
"Sure you will and I would even believe you if you hadn't said that about 10 times already—" Jon jumped mid-sentence, hopping over the arrow Robb had shot while he was talking, "—And see you missed another one,"
If there had been an adult there they would have been horrified to see one brother shooting arrows at the other. But fortunately, it wasn't something as scandalous as a brother's feud, what they were actually doing was surprisingly! —Training.
About a month ago, Robb had begun to learn the bow from Ser Rodrik and since Jon was learning from Old Mark and was already almost half as good as his mentor, he was exempted from having to attend the lessons. So Robb had started bragging to Jon that before long he would become as good as him, which was of course, absurd.
But for some time Jon had been trying to find some way to learn the art of dodging flying arrows. Considering that he was an archer, Jon knew that arrows were one of the most dangerous weapons in this medieval fantasy world, so not having any insurance against them would be stupid.
So seeing an opportunity to teach his brother some manners and train in the art of dodging arrows at the same time Jon devised the little game they were playing.
The game went somewhat like this, Jon would stand in a small circle drawn using a stick, which was the range in which he could dodge, and about 15 meters away Robb would stand behind a line and shoot arrows at him, and of course, the arrows were without arrowheads. They were young, not stupid.
They both took turns being the shooter and the target, and so far luck hadn't been on Robb's side at all. Both of them got to shoot 10 arrows before they had to switch and this time it was Robb's turn to shoot.
In the beginning, Robb had been able to hit Jon about 5 out of 10 times while Jon had a 10/10 hit rate. But as he slowly got better at dodging, Robb started to hit Jon less and less while Jon managed to hit Robb every time no matter how he dodged.
"Stay still!" Robb groaned while furiously shooting another arrow.
"I don't think that's—" Jon dodged to the left, "—the point of—" Jon ducked,"—this exercise. And it's time to switch,"
Robb grimaced but still approached Jon to switch with him as the target, which he didn't like at all. As he was going to the circle along with Jon's bow, Robb's eyes suddenly widened when he noticed something behind Jon in the distance, "She is back, Jon,"
"I know," Jon hissed back without moving his head, he had been able to feel her approach them for a while, "Don't look in her direction or you'll spook her,"
"OH! I won't," Robb whispered with a conspiratory wink while handing Jon his bow. Both of them stood close and started causally speaking with each other in loud voices about mundane things so as not to let the observer know that she had been spotted already.
"She's close enough now. We'll shoot at the same time on my signal," Jon said in a low voice and Robb nodded eagerly while grabbing his bow tightly, "3...2...1...NOW!" Jon shouted and turned back with a spin while raising his bow and shooting the arrow.
*SQUAWK*
Frost made a surprised squeak when Jon's arrow almost managed to catch but fortunately, she was still able to dodge herself at the last moment. Robb's arrow followed after but unlike Jon's it went wide enough that she didn't have to flap her wings.
"Aww she dodged again," Robb whined when their ambush went down badly, but Jon wasn't giving up yet, "Don't stop Robb, come we'll get her if both of us try it together,"
But Jon was wrong about that, now that she knew they were aiming for her it was almost impossible for them to even come close to hitting her no matter how fast they shot.
The reason for this hunt was somewhat similar to the previous one, as they say, "Every predator is someone else's prey,". Just like how Jon taunted Robb about his abysmal archery, Jon's companion Frost also took great pleasure in showing him that no matter how good he got, he would never be able to shoot her.
So Jon had taken the challenge issued by his icy bird very seriously, and every chance he got he would find ways to shoot her, and Robb obviously joined him because it felt good to be the attacker than the target.
But alas no matter how much Jon improved his arrow's speed, how far he thought ahead while shooting, or how many arrows he shot in a second, Jon wasn't able even to come close to touching his friend's feather.
As she grew with time, Frost's supremacy in the air started to become even more apparent. And while her size also increased by a lot, (she was now almost equal to the largest eagle from Jon's previous life,) making her a bigger target, her speed, and maneuverability in the air also increased along with it, which more than made up for it.
"What are you doing!" Sudden girlish yells interrupted the two boys who were happily shooting dull arrows at Frost.
When he turned around, a very weird view appeared in front of Jon, Emily and Sansa were standing in a similar posture, with their hands on their waist while indignantly staring at them. And just behind them, were Becca and Arya, who were clapping at the fun game in front of them.
Frost took that opportunity to fly straight to his rescuers (even though he never needed one,) and immediately hid behind Sansa and Emily.
"Where they being mean, Frost," Emily said while rubbing Frost's feather expertly, she had her own bird, the small snow eagle, nestled in her front pocket.
"Don't worry. We'll protect you," Sansa said throwing a nasty glance at her brothers while imitating the way Emily moved her hand, and Frost soaked up all the praises and rubs, acting as if she had been wronged.
"Hey, don't blame me, it was all Jon's idea," Robb said while pointing toward his brother, "And besides we never even managed to touch a single feather on her," Robb tried to explain but the girls ignored him.
It was a very common thing to see all four of them together nowadays and the reason for that is very complicated.
It all began with Lord Stark wanting to create some more units of archers in addition to the one supplied by his Lords because he thought they would be very useful against the squids who were almost always on a boat or a ship so most of them had only leathers for protection.
So of course, the first person he thought of was Old Mark, and Jon was sure that had to do with Eddard being impressed with how good of an archer he became under his tutelage. So he called him and asked him to train a new unit of archers and if that wasn't enough he even offered him a job here in Winterfell after they were done with the rebellion.
And while Old Mark hesitated in the beginning, he eventually realized that he was too old to still live on his income from his weekly hunts and that it was finally time to settle down and take a stable job, so he accepted the offer.
And of course with Old mark came his granddaughter, Emily, and not far behind her was Becca, and while Becca didn't live here in Winterfell as Emily did, she still spent most of her day in the castle playing with Emily so it wasn't much different.
And a few days after that they ran into the lady of the castle, and surprisingly (or maybe not) Lady Stark had taken an instant liking to Emy, she seemed to like that Emily was so well-mannered and well-spoken, and the cherry on the top was when she found out that Emy knew the Seven-Pointed Star book inside out,( of course, Jon was behind that).
Lady stark wasn't much of a fan of Becca as she didn't like her mischievousness and her constant rough-housing, but on the opposite end, she seemed to have found an admirer in Jon's littlest sister, Arya, who would follow her everywhere and wouldn't leave her alone without a mighty tantrum.
And since Lady stark was pregnant with the newest stark as well as had to handle all the work involved with the sudden outpouring of guests (which Eddard had repeatedly told her not to) due to the rebellion she couldn't handle her rowdy daughters on top of that, so she finally delegated her daughter's.
And that was how both of Jon's students become his little sister's babysitters, Emily taking care of Sansa and Becca of Arya, of course, there was a maid that followed them around to make sure everything was alright but most of the time they were left alone inside the castle.
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