Logs:The Three Rs
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| RL Date: 11 June, 2012 |
| Who: Azaylia |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Hraedhyth's weyrling gets tested on her knowledge of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. As well as... History? |
| Where: Classroom, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 11, Month 13, Turn 28 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions, Tiriana/Mentions |
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| Azaylia was grateful that she wasn't being graded on posture, though the particularly stuffy Instructor may have been tempted. She was hunched in a desk that was a touch too frail for her hearty frame. Long legs stuck out awkwardly, enough that the Harper cleared his throat as he pointedly stepped over one, and the other. She always reigned them in quickly, murmuring her apology, until the questions demaned all of her concentration once more. So, that's how Hraedhyth's weyrling spent most of her exams. Elbow on the desk, one hand on her forehead as the other made unsure marks on the hide... and legs sticking straight out from under the desk.
Brown eyes drifted over the neatly printed words, most familiar and some not. Those that Azaylia didn't know, she could sound out. It was a slow process, and she knew that this was a timed test with questions at the end. But that was why it was so important to understand every word, wasn't it? It wasn't meant to be a terribly difficult tale to get through, with a few advanced words scattered throughout. Only a few pages long, though, with some hidden lesson or metaphor she was supposed to decipher from it. And then the questions, testing how well she recalled it all and if she did, in fact understand.
Azaylia bit her bottom lip, penmanship alone suffering from how hard she was trembling. The essay, like the other tests, were merely meant to assess her basic skills. She had written letters to her family (thought not recently) and she sometimes liked to write down her thoughts on scraps of paper. This was something else entirely. One essay, at least two pages, about anything she wanted to discuss. They were letting her pick? That made no sense. What if she wrote about taking care of runners and they got so bored they failed her? Or worse, what if the subject she chose proved just how... uncultured she was? That she didn't deserve to be a dragonrider- a weyrwoman? What if they tried to take Hraedhyth away from her? « No. » Near to hyperventilating, she placed the reedtip to the hide and slowly wrote the one thing she could think about. H...r...a...e...d... Hraedhyth chose me, out of so many other girls on the sands. I do not know why, but I am happy that she did. She is different than the other gold dragons, and I love her. This is some of the things she thinks and does...
She had to be doing it wrong. So far each exam was a struggle, one that had Azaylia either near tears or numb with defeat. But this? If Joceph had three herdbeasts and he sold two? So straight forward, it had to be a trick question. She couldn't think of why, or how they'd want to trick her, so she dipped her reed and made the appropriate marks. The deeper she delved into the test, however, the more Azaylia was taken by surprise. Some problems had letters in them. There were only a few, but enough to make her feel bad about leaving them unanswered. Otherwise, Azaylia was fairly confident. That unsettled her, naturally. So much of it was like being back home, helping her father keep track of the heads of cattle and how much he sold them for. Business calculations, he called them. From the dusty scraps of paper and hide he kept in a locked box, to the much cleaner test in front of her, it was all too familiar.
Azaylia stared at the page in front of her, doing her best to bite back tears. She couldn't let this upset her. Upset Hraedhyth, who was only half-asleep back in the barracks. So much mental stimulation didn't make for a peaceful slumber. Inhaling sharply, she tried not to wince at the sniffle that was carried by her breath. She didn't know anything. Each question got a thorough reading, and she could feel her heart sink at the unfamiliar names. Unfamiliar places. There were a few tossed in to ease the mind, she was sure. When did Threadfall end? When will it return? Who was the last acting Weyrleader? And Weyrwoman? Who was recently transferred out of High Reaches Weyr? That doesn't seem very appropriate. Azaylia thought, perhaps a little angry on... who's behalf? K'del's? Or Tiriana's? Iovniath's? Perhaps she was just frustrated with it all and looking for something to be angry about. Frustrated or not, those were still her saving grace. She wrote with sure strokes for only a scarce number of them, and guessed at many when there were choices available. It wasn't as if she had much time to read on her own, back home. There were house chores, dinner, and sewing. Then there was all that time she snuck out and worked her fingers to the bone in the stables with her father's reluctant approval. Sometimes, she didn't even have that. Excuses. Maybe Azaylia should have worried less about the animals, and more about reading books in her spare time. She could have been learning about what went on around their little house in Keroon. What kind of weyrwoman didn't know her peoples' history?
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