Flashback Volunteering at the Medical Library

[Okara]

Winter 6, 491 Cold rain pelted down upon the beautiful Isle and dissuaded many residents from leaving their dwellings. One of the few who did venture out was a young Konti girl, sprinting towards the Opal Temple and trying to block the rain vainly with slender arms held above her head. She was thankful that the iron gates in front of the Temple had been thrown open for the daylight hours and she did not have to stop to pass through them. Turning to the side of the Temple she followed a neatly laid side path to the Northern Tower housing the Medical Library. Passing through the entrance, Okara shut the Library door behind her with a grateful sigh. Her white dress was soaked and clung to her tiny, shivering body. Surely Makutsi and Zulrav had conspired to create the chill storm that whipped around the beautiful city outside. The Konti girl was almost regretful of letting her mother talk her into volunteering at the library instead of spending the rainy day indoors in the comfortable Silver Lake waters. The idea seemed so great at the time. It was a chance to work on her written skills, do something positive for her community, and maybe learn some interesting things in the process. Though now she just felt like it was an excuse for her mother to get her out of the home while she cleaned. However, she was already here at the Library and turning around now seemed ridiculous. Feeling more resolute, Okara wrung out the hem of her dress and strode towards the front desk, cold water dripping down her neck from the white-blonde braids twined around her crown. She placed her hands on the desk, which came up to her chin, and looked at the woman behind it. She recognized the older Konti as Alissa Nova, just the woman she was looking for. “Umm… I wanted to help with some copying. Where should I start?” The woman behind the desk smiled at the young girl and beckoned her to follow her toward a stack of books and papers. Sliding back a chair for Okara, she placed several sheets of paper, an ink pot, and a quill in front of her. “Thank you for volunteering, we always appreciate our younger community members showing an interest in aiding the library. With that said, we only allow our more experienced volunteers to copy our more rare tomes and journals. However we have some popular books that we can always use more copies of. Let’s start you with one of those. Just do your best!” The woman set a book in front of Okara with a smile and returned to her place at the front desk. Okara looked down at the book as she sat and grimaced at the title, Introduction to Plant Life. Well that hardly seemed interesting. She knew she wouldn’t be able to touch the journals of the great Konti in the Grandmother’s Circle but she had hoped for at least the diary of a healer with some rousing desert adventures.

[Okara]

Okara said she would help out and so she determined to do just that, regardless of the subject matter of the book she was handed. Besides, learning about plants when living on a lush island certainly seemed useful if not very entertaining. With the impatience of youth she flipped past the title page and index to go straight to the first page of content. Who needed those anyways? It was obvious what the book was and you had to read it from beginning to end to get all the information. The first question a curious botanist must ask is, where do plants come from? Plants come from seeds through a process called germination. Seeds contain an embryo and a food source which the embryo uses in its first phase of growth. Seeds will not germinate if they do not have the correct amount of sunlight, warmth, and soil conditions appropriate for their species. If they do not germinate, they are considered dormant seeds. Different plant species require different variables in order to germinate and begin growth. If the appropriate conditions are met, the embryo inside of the seed will begin to grow and feed off the food reserves stored within it. These food reserves are necessary to assist growth until the plant specimen is able to achieve photosynthesis (explored later). The specimen will push roots into the ground to begin absorption of water and minerals while also pushing a stem and budding leaves towards the light source. Germination is considered complete when the stem has emerged from the soil. Two paragraphs seemed like plenty of work to the young Konti. She studied the words intently and picked up the quill before her. Then she promptly set it down as something caught her eye. There weren’t just words on the page, there were also spaces! She had to remind herself that she wasn’t just making a copy for her own purposes, but rather attempting to make a copy that others would find useful. Useful copies contained not only the same content, but also the same spacing and page layout. Okara’s light ashen brows knit together, this project may be more complicated than she initially anticipated. While she had come to simply pass the time during an early winter rainstorm, she also desired to do a good job. Sloppy work was disrespectful to the rest of the Konti community and wasted the Library’s supplies. Okara had always been taught to respect the Opal Temple and everything within its grounds as sacred. Okara used her fingers to measure the space from the top of the book’s page to the first line of writing. Then she moved her fingers to her own page with as much accuracy as a determined ten year old can muster. Dipping her quill into the ink pot, Okara made a tiny mark where her lower finger was to mark where the first line of writing should begin. To her own eye she had done well though a more experienced gaze would likely disagree with the use of such rough measuring implements as fingers.

[Okara]

Okara repeated her finger measuring from the top of the page to the end of the first line and made a small ink mark there as well. There, now she had her starting and stopping point for the first line of text. She bit her lip with some worry, whomever had written or copied the volume she was working with had a much neater writing hand then Okara. She had no choice but to press on and dipped her quill in the pot before she tapped the excess ink against the side. Slowly she began to copy the words, taking a moment between each word to study the next before she attempted to write it. She was dismayed to find that she had left too much space between words and her first line contained several less than the original she was working from. The letters were well formed from her careful and steady hand though they did not have the beautiful and easy flow of the previous writer. It was by no means an exact copy of the original but was certainly legible so Okara deemed it unworthy of being trashed. Continuing on she began the second line and tried to shrink the space used between each word to catch up her word placement. At the completion of the second line she was pleased to find that she had ended on the same word as the book she was copying but now her words were somewhat squished together and it was difficult to see where some words ended and another began. The page had an overall very uneven appearance now that the first line and the second had such wildly different spacing between words. Okara pressed her lips together tightly and began to work on the third line of the first paragraph. At the end of the line she noticed she had again given too much spacing between the words but they were more easily legible then her second. She continued on with a careful hand. At the end of the first paragraph she was much further down the page then the original work but her spacing was beginning to be a little more even between words and letters. The second paragraph went a little more smoothly than the first but was still not as elegant and lovely as the original. Okara felt a little disheartened that her work was not as precise even though she had done her best. Ink stained fingers rubbed at suddenly tired eyes. How long had she been sitting there? Stretching her arms up she noticed some soreness in her lower back. More time had passed then she had realized. She was not ready to call it quits yet though and thought she could perhaps do a little more before she ended her task. She had seen experienced copyists work and after her attempts of the day she felt more respect for how quickly and precisely they could work.

[Okara]

Turning her gaze back to the page she worked on, she studied the next paragraphs to take in the content before attempting to copy them. Once the seed has germinated, the specimen is known as a seedling and begins to grow into a mature plant. The plant will produce leaves of varying size and quantity that is typical of its species. These leaves take in light as food through a process called photosynthesis. Once the plant has matured it will produce a flower containing the male and female parts necessary to create a seed and begin a new life cycle. Only plants that flower follow this kind of life cycle. There are other plant varieties that complete their life cycles in other manners, such as moss using spores to reproduce. Okara began the first line of this paragraph with her same amount of care despite how tired she was beginning to feel. Tiredness was no excuse to become sloppy. She knew her page would likely never be seen by another viewer but she wanted to try hard all the same. Her fingers moved the quill slowly across the page, doing her best to keep the lines and curves of her letters just as clear and legible as the original work. Completing the paragraph, she surveyed her work carefully. Those three paragraphs had only taken up three quarters of the original page but took up almost three fourths of hers. Dejection began to set in and moments later the empathic hands of a Konti were on her shoulders. Okara looked up into Alissa Nova’s face smiling down at her. “How did it go?” the woman inquired. “Not very well, I’m afraid. I don’t think I’m very good at this. I’m sorry to have wasted the library’s paper and ink.” Okara said, her voice beginning to tremble with emotion. She despised feeling like she had failed. She desired to succeed in order to impress both her elders and herself. “We all must start somewhere. And while your work could use improvement you did well for your first time. Most importantly, the original is still in good condition and can be reused. Keep practicing and I’m sure you will be creating many new copies for future patrons of the library to use. Don’t let yourself be discouraged over this.” The Konti’s kind words brought some cheer back to Okara though she was not completely mollified. “Thank you for the opportunity. I do hope to come back and practice more. I want to help and be useful to the community.” Okara explained, hoping Alissa would see her good intentions and not ban her from ever entering again once she had left. The older Konti nodded and Okara slipped from her chair. She helped to straighten the papers on the table and seal the inkwell so it would not dry out. Placing the book back where Alissa instructed, Okara waved goodbye to the older Konti and began her walk home, hopeful that the rain had ended.

[Maro]

Okara Skills +Writing: +3 +Copying: +3 +Botany: +1 Lores -Alissa Nova: Head of Restoration at the Medical Library -The Medical Library: A Place to Volunteer -Book: Introduction to Plant Life -How Seeds Germinate -Fingers: Rough Measuring Implements -Using Proper Spacing when Copying a Work -A Sore Back and Hand: Repayment for a Good Deed -Alissa Nova: An Encouraging Mentor Notes : Fantastic job! Please make sure to edit your request to 'graded' in the queue. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns about your grade.