His mind rushed, imagining the wooden walls as trees, the ground below him as grass and dirt rather than polished wood. The children training rooms for children truly may not have been much, but he took advantage of whatever he had. No one became a good archer by doing nothing.
He shot again, missing the target by a mile. His teacher smiled down at him and patted his shoulder, but Legolas shook him off. He went over and retrieved his arrows; they were too precious to be put to waste. Just as he ducked to grab it, another arrow flew across the sky. From the corner of his eyes, he saw it hit the target perfectly in the center.
"Yes!" the voice called. Legolas looked up. The elf in question was a girl in his class, a Silvan elf with red hair. She ran up and grabbed the arrow. Words of congratulations ran through the air. A wave of jealousy ran through the prince. Whatever skill she had, he wanted it for himself.
She reached a hand out to him, but he pulled himself up himself. Both moved to the side as another arrow shot through the air, this one fired by a dark haired Silvan boy.
"Why are you glaring at me?"
Legolas looked away from her.
"Are you really that angry that you missed?"
"Do not speak so loudly."
She smirked. The two went to the back of the training room by the door. She held her bow up and aimed it, though she had no arrow out to fire. "Aim like this."
"I do aim like that!"
"Aim like this and then fire at the target, in this case that old target over there." She let go of her string, making it twang. Legolas was sure that if an arrow had been shot that she would have hit the center once more. "I could show you a few techniques."
"What does it matter? You can never miss your target if you shoot first. If you hit something, just call that your target." It was a poor excuse, but he had spoken it a few times before.
Surprisingly, she laughed. "I never thought of it that way." She took out an arrow, aimed, and then shot. She hit the old target straight through the middle. Every eye in the room, both of their teacher and peers, were directly on them.
For a moment, neither spoke.
"That was our target." Tauriel said. "For practice."
Their teacher frowned, but said nothing. "Everyone, we need to get back to work. We cannot stand around here all day."
For a moment neither spoke. Finally, Tauriel drew her bow again and showed him how to position it.