The Orion's Daughter : To Lands Beyond

Learning Levels

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Chapter Five | Learning Levels

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The sun was blazing down in the sky. There were only a few clouds hovering off in the distance, teasing us by shading parts of the ocean beyond our reach. The fields stretched in every direction, making a sea of green leaves. Every part of me wanted to curl up and hide in the shade of the nearby trees, but now was not the time.

Instead, I stayed perched on the edge of Steele's shoulder as he worked. It was unnerving to say the least. My legs dangled off of the edge of his shoulder as he remained hunched over his working area. Every time I glanced over to watch him work, my head started to spin and my knees got weak. Feeling his muscles moving and contracting under me was equally as unnerving.

Still, I watched as Steele worked, tilling up the ground with his fingers, scratching at the surface of the dirt, examining it, and then pushing it back into place while I recited different lessons to Steele that I had learned from Mehlein. It was some sort of odd exercise Steele came up with. I was supposed to describe different letters and how to draw and write them and the different sounds they could make. Only having the one lesson, I taught him about the first two letters of the common alphabet as well as these things called "vowels."

"Now, the vowels are what again?" asked Steele. He had done this a few times at this point, and I knew what he was doing - quizzing me as well as himself.

"A. E. I. O. U. Sometimes Y, depending on the word," I stated. I dared to glance over the edge again. Just the sight of how far below the ground was made my insides feel like they were about to drop. The tethers kept me in place, but I could slip about a meter if I wanted to, but I didn't want that in the slightest.

I watched as Steele dug his left finger deep into the ground, pulled it out, and examined the end, rubbing his thumb against his index finger before moving onto the next section.

"How do you draw a... eh... koonyardo vi... big case A?" asked Steele as he smoothed out the ground in front of him.

"Oh... um... it's called... rats... what is it called.... Upper case! It's called an upper case 'A'. Um... to draw it, you need one slanted line up, one slanted line down, and one across," I said. This was the fifth time he asked me this, but I watched as, this time, he used his index finger and dragged it into the ground, tracing the letter Mehlein showed me earlier.

"Like this?" he asked. I was completely awed. He managed it on the first try.

Was this what he was trying to do in his mind when he asked me to describe it? He was trying to visualize it for himself?

"Yes," I replied. "Just like that."

"Good. You are a good teacher. Now, what about the next?" Steele asked as he scraped the dirt smooth with the edge of his hand, the dark soil exposed underneath.

"Ummm.... Right. The next letter is 'B,' which is one straight line down and then two loops that look like sideways mountains. It connects at the top and goes to the bottom," I explained. Steele, once again, used his index finger to draw the single line down, but the sideways mountains had him confused. It took a couple tries, but he eventually got it with some aid in my descriptions.

"That looks great," I encouraged, surprising myself at the enthusiasm in my voice. In my own mind, I held up a finger and pretended to draw in the dirt Steele had just cleared. For a moment, sitting on his shoulder, I felt tall like him. What was it really like? Being big enough to use the earth to write?

"Good. Now, the next," said Steele. We went through the letters and vowels I knew, explaining the different sounds they made and that upper case and lower case were two different things. When Steele asked why, I didn't have an answer.