Alright. 

Lilian picks up the weapon, maintaining trigger and barrel discipline. She takes the safety off, chambers a round, press-checks the weapon and finds the round in the chamber, then puts the safety on again and puts it down. A look of concentration comes across her face as she performs each action in sequence. 

"A round is chambered, safety is on," she reports.

"Excellent. Take a look here and here." She points out the simple metal sights of the rifle. "When firing, you want these to be lined up and pointed at your target. That's soon though. Next, I want you to pick the weapon up, check and disable the safety, eject the mag, clear the chamber, then enable the safety and put the weapon back down."

"Alright."

She picks up the weapon, once again careful of her backstop, checks the safety, turns off the safety as a separate step, ejects the mag, and clears the chamber. After seeing Ruby walk through it three times in slow-mo for her it's relatively simple. 

She performs a press-check, confirming that there's no round in the chamber, then puts the safety back on and puts down the weapon.

"The chamber is clear, the safety is on," she reports.

She smiles. "Good job! You're picking this up pretty quick."

She attaches a target sheet to the clips, then taps the control to send it out ten meters.

"Pick up the weapon, check safety, disable safety, press-check, insert mag, chamber round, sight the target, and then pause there."

She picks up the weapon. She checks the safety. She disables the safety. She does a press-check, confirming again that there's no round in the chamber. She inserts the mag and chambers a round. She settles the rifle's stock firmly against her shoulder, sights, and stops.

"Alright," she says.

She walks around, checks to make sure Lilian hasn't put her finger inside the trigger-guard yet, examines her posture, and nods. "Good. Uncle Qrow always says everyone should feel their first few recoils raw, so don't shield your shoulder with your Aura yet. Sight at the center of the target, slip your finger inside the guard, and squeeze the trigger once in the space between exhale and inhale. Don't pull, squeeze. Be ready for more of a kick than you expect."

She sights. 

She breathes, in, out...

She slips her finger inside the trigger guard and carefully rests it on the trigger. 

In, out... 

She squeezes lightly. 

The gun kicks back against her shoulder sharply, and she winces, but keeps the weapon pointed firmly downrange. 

She puts her finger firmly out of the trigger guard, and puts the safety on. 

"Ow," she observes, still sighting downrange.

"Yeah, it's like that. Put the weapon down for a moment, channel a bit of Aura to soothe your shoulder while I call back your target to take a look at it."

She checks the safety, makes sure it's on, and only then puts the weapon down. 

"Safety is on, weapon is down, round is in the chamber."

"Good. Now to soothe your shoulder, call a little Aura there and let it sink in cozily."

She calls back the target and looks at it. Not bad. A little high and to the left, but not bad. That's what practice is for.

She shifts some of her aura into her shoulder, and the ache lessens a little. Like a hot compress...

"That's quite an experience," she says. "I think I like it." She doesn't quite smile. 

"I'm glad. You're a decent shot, for a beginner."

She marks the hole she's already looked at with a marker, then sends the target sheet back.

"Reinforce your arms and shoulders, then empty the mag, one shot at a time, into the target. When you're done, check that the weapon's clear, safe it, and put it down and tell me how you feel."

"Alright."

She picks up the gun, careful of her barrel and trigger discipline. She checks the safety (on). 

She pours molten armor around her arm and shoulder, shielding and reinforcing it. 

She turns off the safety. She does a press-check. She sights, breathes slow. 

Her finger slips inside the trigger guard, and she squeezes gently in time with the emptiness of her lungs. 

The gun kicks, a little less this time with her arms reinforced. It hurts, but more distantly. 

She takes her finger off the trigger. She breathes, resights. 

She fires again. Another shock against her shoulder. It's a little easier to ignore now. 

It feels like her whole world is narrowing to the proper handling of the weapon. It's intense. Kind of meditative. High stakes, and not in a fake way. 

She breathes and fires and resights and breathes and fires again until the mag is gone. It's tempting to let her trigger discipline slip a little but she holds to the familiar pattern of sighting without her finger on the trigger. 

Finally it's time to put the gun down again.

She takes another slow breath, pausing. It has been a hot minute since she last interacted with the safety. 

It is here, where it has always been. 

But she needs to clear the chamber first. 

She does a press-check, and lo and behold there's a bullet. She must have miscounted while focusing on firing? 

She puts on the safety. She removes the mag entirely. She takes the safety off again. She clears the chamber. She does a press-check again. Now there is no bullet. 

She puts the safety on again and puts the weapon down. 

"That is fucking intense."

Ruby grins at her proudly. "Isn't it!? It's so great! And you did so well, too! You didn't slip on your checks or your discipline once the whole time."

She calls back the target sheet.

"Keeping in mind that December and Violet are probably going to be getting into melee a bunch, what sort of role do you want your ranged weapon to have? And how do you feel with that much of a kick? I picked something sort of low-middle caliber for Huntress-grade rifles, so there's room in either direction."

"That felt good, overall. I don't have complicated thoughts, honestly, I'm still coming down from operating the thing. It's shockingly technical and high-stakes. Kind of meditative when you're into it. It's a whole experience keeping oriented to the weapon."

Lilian actually manages a slight smile. "I almost fucked up after I spent the mag downrange, there was a moment where I'd forgotten where the safety was again. So I paused, waited, let it come to me. And then I realized I needed to clear the chamber first. My instinct had been wrong."

She nods. "The instinct will come in time. The fact that your response when you ran into an issue was to pause, breathe, and figure it out means a lot. Sable and I are the only other possible shooters here, and that means you're not going to cause a problem as easily. You'll learn to do this too, in time, but Huntresses keep our Auras up at all times on a live range, so the worst you could do to either Sable or I in an accident is spend some Aura. You could still injure yourself if you were careless enough, but you're still learning and I could catch it if something was about to happen, and Sable could put you back together from most issues. And the point is that you paused and checked and figured it out. Take a minute to stretch and settle down, get a hug if you need one, let yourself come down."

"Yeah. This is really real, in a way that a lot of this hasn't felt like. I would love a hug from Sable."

Sable's response to that is to gather Lilian into her arms and squeeze her very snugly, floofy violet tail wrapping around her as well. "Proud of you three," she murmurs.

Lillian squeezes firmly and tightly.

"... Really glad to have met you," she murmurs in Sable's ear.

How about she strokes Lilian's back, too? "Likewise."

Also, up this close, it's very easy to notice that unlike Blake, Sable does not actually have a separate pair of human ears. The fox ears just sort of stretch down the side of her head, a little fold that terminates where a human ear would be.

For some damn reason that's kind of cute.

She leans in heavily for a moment, letting a bit more of her weight go onto Sable. Then she lets go, and steps back. 

"... Okay," she says. "I think I'm very done for now. Let's put the weapon away. We need something to cool down after that."

Ruby nods cheerfully and packs everything up very efficiently and quickly. "Feel free to grab either of us for more range time anytime you want."

Sable smiles warmly. "What would you like to do now?"