Solo From One Generation to the Next

[Asha]

Fall 8, 512 Asha clutched her scrollcase nervously as she drew nearer to Bright Minds Child Care and swallowed hard. The night before she had listened to a Jamoura woman brag to all the males around about what an excellent teacher she was for the children and what an expert mother she will be someday and how wonderful it was that she was able to teach the children who had nobody else to turn to. It had irritated Asha exceedingly to hear the woman go on and on with so little humility. It nagged at her mind however about what she was doing to help the next generation improve themselves and become well adjusted and intelligent Jamoura. Perhaps even a modicum more humble then the irritating woman had been. So Asha had strode off after the encounter and run into Jisei, whom she immediately asked if she could be allowed to come to Bright Minds and assist in teaching a class. Jisei had allowed it and made plans to see Asha the next day. Well the next day had come and Asha felt far less prepared then she had hoped to be. She had decided she would help the children improve their writing and brought along all the supplies she would need in her scroll case. Now that she was slowly making her way towards the gnarled tree structure she was beginning to wish she had kept her mouth shut and simply stayed home. But it was too late now, she had said she would do it and she did not want to go back on her word. They were expecting her and she wouldn’t let them down. With a deep inhale to steady herself Asha continued forward and entered Bright Minds. “Hello Asha! Go right on up to the classrooms. There are a couple different instructors here today. Just tell one of them that you are here to do some teaching in writing and they will get you sorted out quickly.” Jisei waved to Asha as she walked in and spoke enthusiastically enough. She appeared to genuinely care about all the children under her protection. She held a young male Jamoura in her arms even now and rocked him gently, the babes eyes fighting the fluttering eyelids that longed to close. Asha waved back and nodded in acknowledgement of her instructions. She turned to the winding stairs that led up towards the rooms lodged in the gnarled branches of the twisted tree that held Bright Minds. The first room she came to held a few adults with children clustered around them giving Asha the assumption that this was perhaps the classroom Jisei had spoken of. Asha leaned in the doorway and knocked gently on the door frame to get the attention of one of the adults. A human woman stood and approached Asha with a smile. “Can I help you with something?” the woman asked cordially. Asha smiled in return, feeling a little calmer and more at ease now that she was finally here and not just biting her claws in anticipation. “Yes, my name’s Asha. I spoke to Jisei about helping teach some kids writing and she instructed me to just come up here.” “Oh yes, Asha. Jisei spoke to me about you coming, we are glad to have you. The kids always love when someone new comes in to teach them. Gives them a break from dealing with us every single day.” The woman giggled gently and motioned for Asha to come further into the room. Asha stepped further in and many small eyes turned up to look at the Jamoura that had entered the room. Asha waved hesitantly, her sense of ease quickly being erased and replaced with anxiety again. She had never spent much time with children beyond her siblings and felt a little out of her league. Perhaps the task she had taken on was a little bigger then she had initially imagined.

[Asha]

The woman Asha spoke to herded two small children over to Asha. She judged them to be roughly seventy or eighty years old, the perfect age to be perfecting their writing skills. New people were coming into the Spires everyday who relied on writing more than the Jamoura did, who kept an oral tradition. But Asha felt it was important to stay on top of things, to be just as good at the skills that foreigners were. “Let’s just start you out with these two. Why don’t you go over there where it is a bit quieter and get started.” The woman said with a kind smile and gestured towards an empty corner of the room. Asha nodded and smiled at the two children who stared solemnly up at her. She walked towards the corner in question and the two little Jamoura followed her quietly. ”Well. Lets get started, shall we? How much do you know about writing?” Asha asked and tried to give the kids a friendly smile. She gently lowered her heavy body to the floor and opened her scroll case. She withdrew a vial of ink, a quill, and a sheet of parchment. “We can say the Common alphabet but never written before. The Elders tell us writing is for foreigners, we have enough room in our heads to fit everything.” One of the children said with a glum tone. Asha could tell this was not going to be an easy lesson. Many Jamoura in the Spires did not bother learning how to write since their memories could hold so much. But Asha had to bite back the words that dead Jamoura remembered nothing and shared their knowledge with no one. After the destruction of the Spring storm, she thought about dead Jamoura more than ever. It was possible these children lived here at Bright Minds because of the storms destruction. ”Well then I guess you have room to fit this knowledge in your heads as well. Let’s start with the basics.” Asha forced her tone to be cheerful and plastered a smile on her thin lips. She uncapped the ink vial and dipped her quill in delicately. Despite their reluctance to write the children were captivated by learning something new and their eyes were glued to the quill in her hand. She put it down to the parchment and drew a large ‘A’ with two long, firm lines and one short one. Her writing was not as beautiful as some of the books she had seen but it was legible enough for the children to read. ”This is the letter A. Now lets draw B and C.” Asha put her quill down to the parchment again and drew a B. The bubbles on her B were not as straight as she would have liked but no matter. The curve of her C was much stronger and she smiled at the letters scratched onto the parchment surface. She handed the quill to first one child then the other to replicate her letters which they did with shaky but admirable results.

[Asha]

”Excellent! Now let’s keep going.” Asha said excitedly, eager to keep the children interested in the lesson. It brought a certain flutter to her chest to think that she had taught these two how to write a few letters. It reminded her of when she had first learned to write, shyly looking over a human scholars knee as he demonstrated how the quill and ink worked. Using that memory as the backbone of her own lesson, she had the children repeat the three letters again and again. She knew that they would need the repetition to remember the feel of the letters, how the C curved so delicately and the strong lines of the A. ”Okay, this is looking really good! Lets move on to the next three letters.” Asha said happily. The children’s letters were looking well, perhaps even better than Asha’s if she was being truthful. But no matter. As long as they were learning. She demonstrated how to write a D and the children expressed their delight with what they called “the circle cut in half”. The E was another letter they enjoyed. One of the children said it was like a ladder missing one of its sides. Asha was quite frankly impressed by the connections they drew and she encouraged their playfulness. She was only barely an adult herself and still enjoyed making a game of everything. ”What does this letter remind you of?” Ash asked and drew an F. The children had to sit and think for a minute before one announced it looked like a disease tree. Asha had to quickly turn a bark of laugh into a pretend cough as the adults in the room glared at the disruption her loud noise had caused. She waved her hand in apology and set the children to drawing and redrawing D, E and F. Two bells had passed by the time the children had a solid grip on D, E, and F. Asha felt that six letters in one day was a lot and she didn’t want to teach them so many that they started to confuse which shape belonged to which letter. ”Well kids, I think that is enough. Why don’t you go and join one of the other adults now?” Asha said and the children nodded. She was surprised when one jumped up to wrap his arms around her neck in a tight hug. Asha smiled softly and gently wrapped her long, powerful arms around his tiny body to hug him back. The child unwrapped himself and joined his companion in hurrying over to another adult. Asha quickly cleaned up the parchment, ink, and quill. She placed her scroll case under her arm and said a polite goodbye to the woman overseeing the classroom. She received a nod in return and took her leave of the room. Teaching the children a few letters had motivated her to progress her own writing skills further so that she could continue to teach the children all that she knew.

[Capricious]

Asha

Award

Skill	XP Earned	Lore Earned
Writing	1	• Taking on the Task of Teaching Writing
Teaching	1	• Dead Jamoura Tell No Tales
Child Husbandry	1	• 'D' The Circle Cut in Half

This was a short solo that brought a smile to my face. I really enjoyed seeing Asha interact with those younger than her and even with how surprised she was with their minds. One note I did have is that this did not have a lot to reward for skillwise. Perhaps in the future take a more active role in the actual teaching instead of summarizing and you'll earn more.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.