Hitting the target would prompt Joy to hand over the other three arrows under normal circumstances, but Iomedae firing without really looking first has Joy convinced that that was beginner's luck, and she's still concerned about what Iomedae said earlier. She will hand over one more arrow with a cheery grin and a, "Nice shot!" 

Center of the star, then? ...off-center. She is not going to complain about the arrows, that'd be poor sportsmanship, but she is starting to suspect the arrows. What if she fires approximately the exact same shot again?

Joy hands over the fifth arrow so that Iomedae can attempt that. The arrows might wriggle enough to put her shot off-centre, but if she shoots with good form she'll still hit somewhere near the middle of the target. 

There's a few other archers stepping up to the line, but they're all taking much more time about their shots than Iomedae. Some are clearly warming up and stretching lazily between each shot. 

Warming up is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but once you're warmed up you want to practice the way you'll fight, which in Menador is 'shoot at a charging beast until it's close'. Good archers can draw a real men's bow to the arrow's full length and fire in as long as it takes to say 'dragon!'

 She shoots the fifth arrow with the same motion and hits a hand's breadth off her fourth.

"Last arrow!" Joy warns as she hands the sixth one to Iomedae. "Deep breath, make sure it counts!" She's still suspicious that Iomedae's lack of English proficiency is responsible for her thinking that she needs to fire off the arrows as soon as she's handed them. 

Oh. A tiny taste with a child's bow of being a real person again and then - she should have clarified whether she could get more arrows somehow. She should have argued more about the baby targets and the baby bow -

- no. They are being generous. The proper comparison here is what she thought she was doing all day, which was serving at the armor table, and she should be grateful that someone took the time to purchase a bow for babies and some plastic arrows so that people who cannot afford a real bow or real arrows can still know the joy of doing real things, and she should not be desperately conniving to get more when people are already generous. They told her what they want from her; they want her to have a nice time. Let them have their act of charity and generosity, don't demand more from it. 

"Thank you!" she says to Joy, and takes the last arrow, and aims for one of the distant targets since they did say any target was allowed. She still doesn't hold for more than a fraction of a second at draw; she does angle the bow upwards, this target being distant enough it matters.

The wind catches the arrow a little more on the longer flight, and the arrow's flex takes it a little more off-target, but Iomedae still manages to put the arrow cleanly through the ear of the painted foam gargoyle some forty yards away - just about the maximum range that the low-draw-weight bow would be able to send an arrow at all. It's hardly a killing shot, but it's impressive to hit it at all. 

Joy cranes her neck to peer down the range, uncertain where the arrow went. Maybe Iomedae saw it? Probably off into the long grass? "Okay, that's your six! Now we wait until everyone else is done before you can retrieve the arrows."

They will be waiting a while, because while everyone else is also limiting themselves to six or eight arrows, everyone else is taking much longer about shooting them. 

(Rembrandt wants to talk to Iomedae. He just can't, because his job right now is to watch the entire line.)

Iomedae saw the shot, and it hit, but it's fair for Joy not to be very impressed by nocking a target on the ear at forty paces. "He says light," she says cheerfully, of the quality of the hit on the gargoyle, and then she'll patiently wait for everyone else.

Once Joy manages to spot the bright pink fletching hanging out of the gargoyle's ear, she lets out a very delayed snort of laughter at that line. "So he does." 

Eventually Rembrandt calls loudly, "Last arrow!" and then, after a few more archers loose, "Bows down! Hold! Retrieve arrows!" 

Joy will walk with Iomedae to collect the arrows from the sheep, and show her how to retrieve them properly. "You hold it near the arrowhead, like this. If you hold it out near the fletching, you might snap it." She puts her boot against the sheep to yank out the arrow and hands it back to Iomedae. "See if you can find all six. Yours have the pink and green feathers." She points carefully to the two relevant colours as she says 'pink' and 'green'. 

Then she'll run off to consult with Rembrandt, who is supposed to be supervising her and who she wants to ask about the protocol for newbies who don't seem to want to aim at all before they send lethal objects flying through the air. 

Iomedae can absolutely find all six of her pink and green plastic arrows, saving the one that hit the gargoyle for last. The plastic arrows are actually more durable than she expected; you break a lot of arrows at the range. Where Iomedae grew up there was a travelling man with a bit of magic who fixed them.

The plastic arrows are used because they're cheap, but it also helps that they're a little sturdier than the wooden ones. 

When Iomedae returns to the line, Joy is standing in Rembrandt's place, having been instructed that she should take a turn at making all the calls while he supervises. Rembrandt is digging around in an entire box stuffed with quivers, each containing twelve to twenty arrows - hundreds of arrows total. He approaches Iomedae with six in hand, smooth grey ash shafts with crow-feather fletching. 

"You've shot before." It isn't a question. 

God is GOOD and Iomedae is FULL OF JOY and she wishes she could say this but it is not allowed. "Yes sir. I can shoot a man's bow."

"...okay. Give me those." Rembrandt holds out a hand for the plastic arrows. "Let's see how you do with a longbow." 

He retrieves his own from a long leather case behind the box. He wouldn't normally lend that out to a newcomer, but Iomedae's form was clearly longbow form - pushing the wood outwards from her chest rather than just pulling the string back, not holding the draw for a moment longer than needed because she is used to a much heavier draw weight, a sideways stance that could incorporate a bow as tall as she is - and he's mildly irritated at Joy for bothering him with questions like what if she accidentally shoots herself in the face or something because she's not aiming. 

"Joy says you don't have good English. You understand borrowing? This is my longbow, you can borrow it and borrow these six arrows?" 

(In the background, Joy is hesitating because there's still one person searching for a lost arrow in the long grass. "Might be time to give up on that one, Josh," she calls downrange. "You can find it later!")

God is good and America is good and everything is beautiful. "Borrowing is, your bow you buyed, you are good and generous, I care very good and give you say give?"

(Atlantia is the nation being good here. They may be on American soil, but handing out medieval weaponry is Atlantian hospitality.)

"...yes. My bow I made. You give it back after shooting it." Rembrandt is a stern-looking elderly man and fairly brusque even when he's trying to be nice, but he can't help being mildly charmed by Iomedae immediately calling him good and generous and promising very good care of his bow.

"Don't worry if you break the arrows. They're consumables - disposable - ah, darn it, long words. They break easy."

And he'll step back to keep an eye on Joy and Iomedae at the same time. 

"Thank you, sir," she says very seriously. She is glowing.

An she will take the bow and straddle the line and wait for Joy to give them all permission to fire.

Joy waits until Josh has given up on his lost arrow and moved back behind the line before shouting, "Is the range clear?"

The range is clear. 

She isn't as naturally loud as Rembrandt and doesn't quite have his ability to project, so she has to shout a little, but she's perfectly understandable. "Range clear! Archers, straddle the line! You may fire at will!" 

Iomedae nocks an arrow and draws the good bow and fires. It's not a child's bow at all. It's also not a grown man's bow - well, it's an elderly man's bow - but it would be outright ungrateful to complain of that. You could probably fight a monster, with this. 

The first shot isn't very good, but four of the next five hit their targets. She does not pause when the bow's drawn at all, and doesn't wait very long between shots either. She's once again the first done.

(Iomedae when she arrived with her mother was quiet and jumpy and simultaneously deferential and combative. Iomedae holding a longbow is uncomplicatedly happy and whole and content. She's not even particularly good with a bow, compared to her father, but she knows how to use it and she knows what it's for and she gets better at it by doing it and she is as good as a young man' good enough no one'd doubt you'd want her if there was trouble, and that's enough -)

"Hmm." Rembrandt gazes thoughtfully at the arrows in the targets and abruptly turns around and goes to Jenny.

"You're her mother, right? She clearly knows what she's doing." 

"I'm her foster mother! She really likes these SCA events, it's so nice of you all to put them together."

"I'm glad she likes it." Okay, so Jenny probably doesn't know where Iomedae learned to shoot. He won't bother asking and will skip directly to his point. "Are you okay with her entering the competition? She'd need your permission but I think she can shoot a royal round." 

"I don't know what that is but I bet she'd be really excited to!"

"It's the standard competition format. She shoots several rounds for accuracy and a timed round. We have to have your permission if she's shooting in the adult category. She just shot quite passably with a bow that a fifteen-year-old girl shouldn't even be able to draw comfortably, and I think she's going to take a few overconfident young men down several pegs." 

"Well, it's not like anyone's shooting at her, right? They're just scored against each other?"

"Just scored against each other. I don't think there's any combat archery scenarios planned today. We only shoot people with blunt arrows once they're authorised for melees."