The next morning Rolf woke up with mussed sheets, tangled hair, a hard-on and the lingering, ghostly sensation of someone else's lips on his. He shook his head, deciding that a cold shower would fix his physical problem faster than his hand, and pushed the remnants of last night's dream out of his mind. He didn't have any right to think of his student that way, and the distraction would be nothing but a hindrance to the lesson.

It wasn't as though he was trying to hide it– he'd known for a while that he liked other men, and after Oscar explained his relationship with Kieran he had stopped thinking of himself as a freak– but ultimately it would be weird for him to have a relationship with a student. It would be distracting, ill-timed, unethical and one sided. The young man lived in the village near the mercenaries' base, and Rolf had seen him on several occasions with women, laughing and flirting and giving them looks that could have convinced an angel to have a wild night.

When he got to the miniature waterfall nearby, he wasted no time stripping down and jumping into the water. It was waist deep and cold as hell. He ducked his head under the stream falling from above, shocking himself awake. The cold took care of his hard on immediately, and he started washing his hair and torso in the water. After getting used to the temperature, he found himself enjoying the time alone and letting his mind wander back to his dream...

"This is what you invited me over for?"

Rolf whipped around to see his student leaning against a tree, arms crossed and lips pulled into a distinct smirk. "If I'd known we were going to be skinny dipping, I'd have stayed home. That water looks freezing."

Lost for words, Rolf prayed that the water wasn't clear enough to see anything below his waist– not that anything was happening down there, but it would be embarrassing for him to have been exposed to a student. He quickly regained his composure, however, and simply shot back, "If you're not man enough for a little cold water, go wait over by the targets."

For a second Rolf thought he might have an impromptu bathing partner; after a moment-long staring contest, however, the young man walked off in the direction of the target field.

He quickly climbed out of the water, drying himself with the towel he'd brought and throwing on his change of clothes. He didn't bother trying to dry his hair; it was a hopeless case, too thick to do anything but wait for it to air dry. On his way to the field, it occurred to him that the only way for him to be caught out there was if he was being watched or someone from the mercenaries told the student where he was. Even if they had told him, they'd have certainly told him that he was bathing. So why would he show up like that?

The dark haired young man was waiting for him in the field, bow ready and quiver full. He had brought his own set today: sleek and light, fletched with what looked like falcon feathers, and the bow had enough length and tension to be a longbow from the look of it. He'd take a closer look later; right now, he wanted to see how the boy could shoot. For real this time.

"Well, you were here earlier than I thought. Since you're so eager to start, how about we get right to it?" Rolf nodded at the farthest target, a fair distance down the field. "Hit as many bullseyes as you can in the least amount of time."

Immediately, the youth brought his bow up and his hand reached back for an arrow. He sighted his target quickly, loosing his arrow. It missed the target, but the next one was almost a bullseye. And the next. And the next. His shooting was steady, quicker than most people but not nearly as fast as Rolf. The last three arrows were clustered right around the centre of the target, so close that from a distance Rolf couldn't see any space between them.

"Not bad."

He heard a curse and turned to see his student toeing the ground and death-gripping his bow. He looked up, meeting Rolf's gaze.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not. You shot that first arrow as a tester, to see how much the wind today is going to affect your shot. It's a bad habit that I'm hoping to beat out of you one way or another."

"That's not what I'm sorry for." The youth hung his head again, shifting his grip on the bow without loosening it. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I only shot the way I did because I thought it would get your attention. You only take one true student at a time, and I was hoping that pulling a stunt would interest you enough for a one-on-one meeting."

Rolf was surprised, but didn't let it show on his face. It was no secret that he didn't do group lessons for anything more than basics– it was the opposite of a secret, actually– but for someone to want his tutelage so badly that they would risk being discarded for not having enough raw talent to benefit was new. If he wasn't as nit-picky as he was (due to many years of Shinon's particularly nasty brand of precision training) he might have missed the deliberate placement of the shots. It was risky, especially with the attitude and air he'd given off.

"Well it worked. Here you are. Do us both a favour: when you go into town today, put up a couple of posters I'm about to give you. That way nobody shows up for the next session."

The youth bowed his head; a small twitch in his jaw let Rolf know that he was gritting his teeth.

"What's your name?"

"Theodore."

"Theodore…"

"Yeah," the youth– Theodore– snapped, "What do you care?"

Rolf bit the inside of his cheek. Being taught by Shinon wasn't so bad, but teaching someone with that temper? It was suicide. There was a reason Shinon was mostly self-taught, and it actually had little to do with his running away from home and not having any money.

"Because I meant what I said about beating that habit out of you, and if I'm going to be spending any time on you, I need your name and for the rest of the candidates not to show up in the middle of a private lesson." The look on Oliver's face when he met Rolf's gaze was hope bordering on hurt, as if he was almost certain this was a joke. Rolf just smiled– not a smirk, his smiles never quirked like that– and went inside the fort to grab some notices for the lesson cancellation. "I want you to come here every other day, but not quite as early as you were today, for your instruction. Does that sound fair to you?"

Immediately, Theodore was beside his teacher, keeping stride and biting the inside of his cheek to from grinning, but his grey-and-green eyes were already doing the job his mouth should have… the mouth that had been so heavenly in Rolf's dream last night.

If nothing else, teaching him would be interesting.