Trying to give Iomedae long explanations of things is very well meaning but it doesn't actually work because she gets confused a sentence in. Jenny keeps smiling. "It sounds like we can go to archery, and then walk around and see what else you want to try, and then come back here at 1 to volunteer."

"Yes, ma'am."

...she doesn't understand why she can't have swords, does she? She just thinks she's being excluded because she's weird or because she talked about religion too much or she isn't good enough. His heart breaks a little bit.

He will try to sit down with her later and explain to her - no, better, he'll tell Lucy to sit down and talk to her about how frustrated Lucy was when she was fifteen and desperately wanted to be hitting adults with sticks. None of his own kids were anywhere near that desperate to fight. 

But Jenny is hovering, and he still wants to figure out a way to help this kid, which means not antagonising Jenny. 

"...that sounds fine. We want you to enjoy yourself, okay, Iomedae? We all want you to have a really good day. So just ask, if you need help."

" - I need help, sir, but I think not help you do."

There is a part of him that very much wants to be his ordinary self, who would do something like... wink, and conspiratorially stage-whisper that he is able to help with many things, such as providing chocolate from his secret stash behind the counter.

There is a part of him, mostly the dad part, which just wants to hug her and ask who he has to stab to make everything okay.

And there is one very small part of him that still has to track the possibility that she's possessed or inhuman or under the effect of some kind of strange magic. And has to track whether they're going to need to edit Jenny's memory when all is sad and done. He really can't put a foot wrong here.

Damn it, Nicole would be better at this than him. Where's his squire when he needs her?

He sighs. He has no idea what to say. Maybe... "You see this?" and he picks up the dangling end of his white belt and shows Iomedae the colour. "Anyone you see in a white belt, we're all knights. You can ask any of us for help because we all made a promise to help anyone who needs it. Okay?" 

"I am a foster child, sir." Just in case he missed that; it might make him less likely to want to help her or he might see it as a situation that someone would want help with.

"Well, I can't say I know anything about how hard that has to be. I've never been a foster child. I probably can't help with most of it, but I want this to be a safe place for you, and I want you to let us know if there's anything we can do to make your day better, kay?" 

"- day better if can fight with sword, sir."

"Iomedae, he already said that's against the rules."

"You know that's not because of anything you did wrong, right, Iomedae? You have to wait until you're sixteen, but that won't be forever. If you spend some time watching the tournament today, I bet you'll learn a lot from watching great fighters and you'll be even more ready for when you can enter." 

She does not know what sixteen is or how to 'wait' and thereby bring it about, but Jenny is right that she is being rude. "Yes, sir."

Raoulin has a few secondhand knives in nice leather sheaths available for sale. He kind of wants to give her a knife. ...He is absolutely not going to give her a knife, that is a bad idea which just feels like a good idea because it was always a good idea to give knives to people like Lucy and Nicole.

"Go have fun at the archery range. We'll be here all day." Once Nicole shows up he can update her about the whole Iomedae-cannot-read situation.

"Yes, sir." She needs to figure out some way to orient to people offering to help but not with the being enslaved where she can appreciate what they are offering however devoid of effects on the world it has instead of resenting them for not solving her problem. And right now she needs to go shoot things. She does not have the knack for archery she has for swordfighting but she is by the standards of her homeland adequate.

....which is to say, those targets are very large and very close!!

There's a young woman named Joy who is an archery Marshal In Training, being closely supervised by an elderly man in an outfit very reminiscent of Robin Hood who gives his name as Rembrandt. 

"You have to straddle this line to shoot. You must not step over the line when fire at will is called," Joy explains to Iomedae with frequent glances back at Rembrandt to check that she's explaining everything correctly. "...and the range isn't open until ten," because people are still dragging targets out onto the field and arranging them and measuring distances and those people don't really want to be shot, "but we can walk you through the basics of how to use a bow now, just I can't give you arrows yet, and please don't dry fire a bow because you'll break it." 

"I no English, can you show?"

Joy is now abruptly very nervous, but Rembrandt is giving her reassuring nods and thumbs-up from a distance so she keeps going.

"Okay so you see this line?" she says, pointing to the line of weighted rope laid out on the ground. "You must be behind it when people are shooting, and you must not shoot unless everyone is behind it. With me?" 

"No shoot when people there, they die." This is a perfectly sensible safety rule and you do not need much America context to interpret it.

"Yes, exactly. And sometimes you might not see everyone who is there, if they're behind a target looking for arrows. So you must wait until a marshal says the range is clear, and they - I mean I, well, I or Rembrandt will say 'fire at will' - then you can shoot, but only if you have one foot on each side of the line. Like this." Joy takes a position straddling the rope line, holding up her bow to point it in the right direction without firing it. "You understand no shooting until you hear fire at will?" 

Another rule that makes so much sense she can fill in the missing words. "No shoot. Even if other people shoot, no shoot. You say, fire at will, shoot."

"Yes! Exactly. And if anyone says hold, it means stop shooting and put the bow down. Anyone can say hold. You don't have to be a marshal. If you see something dangerous, like a child or a dog running in front of the arrows, or a bow breaking, or someone pointing an arrow the wrong direction, you shout HOLD. If you are wrong, a marshal will just call to fire again, and you won't be in trouble for having called it. That part is very important so I want to know you understand it - what do you do if you hear 'hold'?"

Joy is being very very thorough because she is pretty sure that she will fail her Marshal In Training authorization if the non-English-speaker kills a child or shoots the Baron or something, and she doesn't know anyone who has actually failed, so it would be terribly embarrassing. 

"Like in swording. Hold, no move, no shoot."

"Yes. But in fencing or heavy you can usually keep hold of your sword. At the range, we want you to take the arrow off the string and put the bow down." This rule is often not followed by experienced people being casual at practice but Joy has decided that on her watch it will be followed to the damn letter by the newbie stranger who does not speak English. 

Joy nocks an arrow and hands Iomedae the bow. "Show me what you do if you hear hold called." 

"Take the arrow off the string and put the bow down," Iomedae repeats with pretty good pronunciation, though actually figuring out what that means takes a bit more work. She wouldn't hold the bow drawn because that's stupid and will just get your arm tired. Put the bow...on the ground? What if someone steps on it. Unstring the bow? That seems like it's kind of making holds into a big hassle. Crouch holding the bow on your knees?

Joy takes the bow back from Iomedae. 

"String," she says, pointing to the arrow string. She gestures with the arrow. "Arrow."

She turns the bow sideways to nock the arrow with an exaggerated motion, showing Iomedae how the feathers lie flat against the bow if she aligns the arrow correctly. "Nock the arrow on the string."

Once the arrow is nocked, Joy is very careful to point the bow at the ground and not at the people still setting up targets downrange. "If anyone says hold, I take the arrow off the string and put the bow down."

She removes the arrow from the bow, separates them with an exaggerated motion, then puts the bow on the ground to her right and the arrow on the ground to her left. "So everyone can see it is safe. You understand?"

Kalomeros keeps a stock of modern plastic bows that are fairly indestructible, so newbies can throw them on the ground without damaging the kit. Joy intends to loan Iomedae some cheap plastic arrows and doesn't expect to upgrade her to nice wooden ones today. 

"String. Arrow. Bow." She points to each. "Hold, arrow off the string, put the bow down." She demonstrates. She does not throw the bow, even if it is in an unfamiliar American material; she sets it down gently. "This is arrow off the string put the bow down?"