After that little altercation with Damocles and the Megaris captain, Mihail had to admit that his time on the boat had begun moderately more enjoyable. It was not so massive a change that he had entirely forgotten the troubles of the sea, nor had he suddenly grown more fond of the deep, endless expanse of water, but he was, at least, not spending all his time hiding under the deck and hoping the nightmare would end. Instead, he was enjoying the slightly superior accommodation he had been provided through his copious complaints and toxophilitic prowess (not that anywhere on that boat was all that comfortable anyhow). He had even managed to get his hands on a supply of wine (praise be to that troublemaking group of soldiers he had stumbled across a few nights ago) reasonable enough that when things got too awful in the dead of night, he could ignore the horrendous and constant rocking of the ship. His current situation was growing manageable.

All his skill at evading situations aside, however, there were certain activities out of which Mihail could not talk himself, and one of them was the daily training many of the soldiers underwent. Whether it was formal or not - given that they were on a boat, and most of the units could not correctly practice their particular skills - it was inexplicably obligatory, and the youngest Thanasi was subjected to far too much humiliation at the hands of men and women who were much more militarily inclined than he. If they had been able to train in archery (which, while possible, was a rare occurrence, given the need to preserve arrows), that would have been a different matter, for he would have easily shown them all how skilled he was, and the rest of the soldiers would have been in awe at his abilities. But, instead, the majority of fighting exercise were either pathetic spars with blunt-edged swords that could not cause significant injury, or miniature and carefully supervised boxing matches, and the rest of the work-outs were resistance-based.

Today, Mihail had managed to dodge the wrestling, arriving late enough - it took a long while to get changed into the uncomfortable linen worn by soldiers when they were training - that all the pairs had been assigned, and the remaining individuals on the deck were resorting to building upper-body endurance. Pulling at heavy ropes and lifting unnecessary weights were not in the man's list of favourite activities and, with a quick glance over the options available, it was entirely apparent to him that none of this would suit, and he stumbled over to the captain overseeing the practices, still not quite able to walk properly as the boat swayed in the waves. It was not the first time he had felt the need to complain about the training, for, by now, almost every soldier on the ship had been subject to some whined complaint or another leaving his lips as he struggled to comprehend why exactly why he was made to suffer this fate.

"I am an archer," he informed the man, as if this was not obvious by the bow he had petulantly brought out onto the deck with him and how often he had told others during their voyage thus far. "I have never gone a day without practising, and I cannot be expected to excel if I cannot do the same here. I need to shoot."

As did every man and woman on this boat, the captain had looked at him with no genuine interest, a corner of his mouth twisted upwards as if the words were nothing short of humorous to him. He was far taller than the dark-haired lord, and built more than a little ridiculously, in just the way that the younger man might have liked if he did not already hold him in disdain. "I cannot cater to the wants of a single soldier who is not even in my own unit. Colchians are built for war, and it is our responsibility to be trained outside of our single interests, so that if we fall, we might rise again with no pain, and I do not think a man who struggles to stand alone on a boat can claim that he already encompasses everything one of our men should be." Nonetheless, his eyes flickered past Mihail and towards a group of soldiers who were finishing their matches, clearing a generous space on the deck. The boat had hit a smooth patch of water, ceasing its unrhythmic rocking and now sailing without much trouble from the waves, and the wind had dulled somewhat. For a sailor, it would have been a nuisance, but for a soldier craving practice, it was precisely what was required. "Perhaps you are in luck, however. The archers have not had so much opportunity to train lately, and it is imperative that all our forces are in ideal condition. Help set up, and then you might practise."

"I am-"

"Help set up, or do not practise."

He stepped away to mediate some argument that had broken out between a group of the weightlifters, and Mihail dragged himself with some resistance towards where the rest of those busybody archers had already begun to set up space for their practice. Aside from counting the distance from the targets when he was ready to shoot because he could not entirely trust the servants when they readied the Thanasi gardens, he was not used to being involved in the preparation of his shooting area. If it was the only way to ensure he could practise as he wished, he would help, but it was half-heartedly that he aided another in steadying a figure made of bundled hay and securing it to the deck with sturdy ropes, as if the action pulled the very spirit out of him. He was not built for heavy lifting of any sort, nor had he ever experienced it before now, and it was not quite a skill he wished to develop, if this was what it took.

Finally, however, the first set of archers had aligned themselves with their bows, arrows collected from a series of buckets which littered the floor in case any should be lost over the edge of the ship. Mihail lingered to one side, watching them with some degree of disdain, wishing he could train alone and not surrounded by idiots who cared for nothing more than their perceived prowess in the war. When it came to his turn, he ignored the command to shoot, unwilling to play by another's rules and focussing himself so that when he did finally released the arrow, it landed squarely in the centre of the mock mannequin's straw face, a reassuring shot. It had not been difficult, and he turned to the rest of the archers, lowering his bow and dropping a hand to his hip. "Can we not practise from a little further away? This is far too easy and, while I know that some struggle and others cannot possibly share my skill, I cannot practise in these conditions. I need to be alone, and not bothered by unreasonable commands, else I cannot concentrate. I am a Lord of Colchis, not some petty soldier with no sense of my own."