"Yes!" Joy says. "Great. That means you're safe. It's harder to accidentally shoot without realising you're still in a hold."

She takes a similar level of care to explain to Iomedae about being behind the line when not shooting, and straddling the line when shooting, and not dry firing a bow, and not retrieving arrows or stepping over the line at all until 'retrieve arrows' is called, and not trying to pick up anything she drops over the line until 'retrieve arrows' is called, and not pointing a nocked bow at anyone, and leaving her bow behind the shooting line when retrieving her arrows, and not standing within ten feet of the shooting line if she is not doing archery, and then she will emphasise again that Iomedae really must not point a nocked arrow at anyone at any point.

"Only if they killing people, need to stop them, can't stop them any other way. But this many people, can stop them with hands."

Joy is now really quite confident she is out of her depth but Rembrandt (who watched her going through the first half of that checklist before deciding he was satisfied she was doing a great job) has wandered off and started talking some junior archers through the Royal Round rules.

"Um."

She thinks about this for a long several seconds. That really sounded concerningly like Iomedae might actually shoot someone - well, no, it didn't, it's just that nobody has ever tried to argue for an exception to the no shooting people rule before, and it doesn't really seem like the sort of thing someone would bring up if there wasn't something wrong. 

"Nobody is going to kill anyone today, and even if someone did, it is someone else's responsibility to stop them and not yours. Lots of people are going to hit each other with swords and stuff, and it's completely okay and they aren't hurting each other and we have lots of people making sure everything is safe, okay? So - no shooting people, under any circumstances."

Maybe Jenny will rescue her. She looks at Jenny. "I can only let her use the range if I know she's safe and, um, she has your permission...?"

"Iomedae, you're safe now. You don't have to be ready to attack anybody, and you shouldn't attack anybody, no matter what. If there's a problem the grownups will handle it."

"There is knights here, only the knights can hurt people real not pretend, if a bad person come sword us I should no fight?"

"No bad person is going to hurt anyone."

"But if they hurt anyone, I do something or no."

Joy does not want to get into the ethics of shooting entirely theoretical attackers who are not going to materialise in the middle of a fete. She makes up her mind not to. "You cannot shoot anyone with my bow and my arrows that I am lending you at my archery range, no exceptions, I don't care if they are the devil himself. I am not in charge of what sort of self-defence you might learn elsewhere, but nobody is allowed to be shot with any arrows at my range today. Are we clear on that?" 

"Yes ma'am." Iomedae is perfectly fine with and in fact part of her heart sings for the beauty of 'you may not shoot a devil with my arrows'. She just wants to be clear on what to do instead of just assuming that no bad things will happen or would need planning for.

By the time they're done with explaining the rules it is almost time for the range to open.

"Do you want to shoot too?" Joy asks Jenny. "I can find arm guards and finger guards and loaner arrows for both of you, if you like. If you don't want to shoot I need you to stand ten feet away from the line with the other spectators." 

"I think I'll pass, thank you!" She will go stand with the spectators.

Finger guards are for whiny children who will never learn to really - oh right the priests here don't have healing.

Joy has a whole box of finger guards and arm guards! She finds some that she thinks will fit Iomedae.

"This straps to your arm, like this," she says, and gestures to her own left arm. Her own arm guard is a gorgeous red-stained leather bracer with a depiction of various phases of the moon in white along its length. The one she offers Iomedae is a plain black plastic with some nylon-web straps. "So the string won't hit you." 

"The finger guard protects these fingers so you don't get nerve damage." She shows Iomedae the much smaller fingerguard which slides onto the first three fingers of her right hand. 

Iomedae doesn't know what nerve damage is but it is obvious why, if you can't have a priest channel at the end of the day to help the skin regrow when you've fired several hundred arrows and your whole hand is bloody, you'd want these objects. She will put them on. 

"Here! This is a loaner bow. It's about eighteen pounds of draw weight. I'll go get you arrows."

Joy finds Rembrandt and confirms that she can give Iomedae arrows, which prompts him to open the range. He waves over a voice herald, who faces the rest of the event and bellows in a voice like a trumpet: "OYEZ, OYEZ, GOOD GENTLES! THE ARCHERY RANGE IS OPENING NOW!"

Rembrandt steps up to a position at the end of the line where he can supervise everyone, and Joy trots back to Iomedae holding six black plastic arrows with neon yellow and pink fletching.

"Alright, Iomedae, I'll give you one arrow at a time for now if you're ready?" Joy asks, because she's still a little nervous about the non-English-speaker who objected to the rule about not shooting people. 

Iomedae is examining her bow. It looks very odd and bends oddly, which makes sense because Americans are good at producing things. She probably can't assess whether it's a good bow without actually firing it. 

"One arrow at a time," she agrees. "Ready."

With a little bit of trepidation, Joy hands Iomedae one arrow and gestures at the range. "Pick whatever target you like," she says. "The sheep and the big star are both good for beginners." 

It's a new bow; her aim isn't going to be very good on the first shot even if it's a good bow, which she's really feeling rather unsure of. It definitely doesn't seem like you could kill a real sheep with it.

Drawing the bow makes it apparent it is a child's bow, the kind you'd start a five year old on. She tries not to feel insulted. When she has demonstrated that she is competent on the baby targets they will perhaps allow her to shoot at the more distant targets and then maybe she can tell them that she can use a man's weapon. 

She nocks the arrow and draws the bow and fires it, mostly all in one motion. The shot is wide of the sheep's eye where she was aiming. (She shoots like someone trained to fire a longbow, using her whole back; it's not good form for modern target shooting but it's very recognizable.)

"Good job, sweetie!"

"It's okay if you want to take a second to aim before you fire!" Joy says encouragingly while handing her the second arrow. She is quite focused on passing her Marshal In Training requirements and not noticing anything about Iomedae's form; she was mostly watching to make sure that her feet were either side of the required line and she did not point the arrow in any banned directions. 

With the toy bow and stationary targets, sure, but it's a bad habit. "That a rule, ma'am?"

"...no, not a rule so long as you're not being careless. I will make it a rule if I think you are not in control enough to be safe." 

"Not a rule, you will tell me if a rule," she says, so she can be corrected if she misunderstood. Rules are a serious matter.

She nocks the next arrow and draws and fires again. The second shot's better than the first but still not good; she is unselfconscious about this. Even her father, who is a good archer, needs a few shots on a new bow to learn its inclinations. 

It probably doesn't help Iomedae that the cheap plastic newbie-loaner arrows tend to warp and wriggle as they fly! 

Joy hands her a third arrow. 

Rembrandt, who is standing at the end of the line without many archers to watch yet, has a slightly quizzical frown on his face. He crosses his arms. 

It would be very frustrating if she cannot prove herself competent to use a men's weapon because the women's arrows literally do not fly straight but Iomedae'll have to fire a few more arrows before she concludes it's not just a skill issue.  

The third shot's only a little off the sheep's eye. It'd probably kill the sheep if it was a real sheep, but her brother would make fun of her for her poor hand. And for hunting sheep in the first place.