Day 215

[wayofvoice]

Who: Paarthurnax and you
Open: Open
When: Day 215, morning and afternoon
Where: Across the river from Dragonfield
What: Dragon lessons are best held in groups, don't you know? Plus, a survey.
Format: Any
Notes: The two separate situations, for sake of ease, will be in two different top threads. Consider the dovahzul group a sort of mingle! Get to know your fellow students better.


In the time between morning and noon, Paarthurnax settles down by the river of Dragonfield where the usual stone tablet depicting all the letters of dovahzul is. It's a recognizable landmark, after all... Although he won't turn away new faces.

During the afternoon, anyone venturing nearby will be called to by the old dragon. Investigate?

Comments

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko can be... a demanding student, of herself and of her teachers. What she isn't used to is having fellow students. And certainly in the Royal Fire Academy, they weren't encouraged to work together so much as to compete against each other for the highest marks--which Zuko never got.

She's trying to be patient about this. Paarthurnax is never demanding, letting everyone go their own speed. But she's pretty stubborn about it herself. Surely if she stares at these words hard enough, they'll reveal themselves to her.

She glances over at Rin.]

I think that's what he said. Okaaz. And this might be some kind of person... [She taps at the last word.]

[hellpyre]

[Rin did (much to Yukio's surprise) ask her brother how she could get better, but so far the only thing she recalls of his advice is "note taking".

Which means she has a lot of papers with her with a whole lot of really messily scrawled handwriting.

It's... a start.]

I knew it was... water-somethin' but I think I got...

[pausing to flip through her messy notes]

L... ake? That's not right. I think yours is closer. Ugh...

[Amazingly you still have more patience than Rin, Zuko.]

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko has decent handwriting, which might give what notes she has a neater appearance, but they really aren't very well organized. She may be a diligent student, but she tends to learn through sheer brute effort, doing things over and over again until she gets them. Not by picking up tricks that might make the whole process easier.]

It's definitely water. But there are a lot of things water doesn't make.

[She makes a frustrated noise.]

It doesn't sound like any sayings I know either.

[hellpyre]

[Clearly Yukio needs to teach them how to be better students.]

What does it sound like to you though?

[daughterofursa]

I don't know.

You'd think after two years at sea, I would've picked up something from my uncle.

[He had to have cryptic sayings about that, too, didn't he? She probably hadn't listened.]

[hellpyre]

You probably weren't listenin' then.

[Rin knows how that is. Shiro had plenty of good advice to give and plenty of stories to tell, but after a certain age Rin had just tuned them out.]

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko glances over at Rin echoing her thoughts.]

...probably not. I wonder if I'd have acted any less stupid if I had.

[hellpyre]

[That gets a laugh from her.]

Probably not!

[daughterofursa]

Thanks.

[Her tone is dry, but she's not insulted because she's in complete agreement.]

[hellpyre]

[Rin figures as much, because really she's in the same boat. Listening to Shiro wouldn't have stopped her from being who and what she was.]

Still, you're already way better at this than I am.

[daughterofursa]

Not really. I bet you've picked up some words I haven't.

[hellpyre]

I doubt that.

[Rin even hands over her messily scrawled "notes" to Zuko.]

[daughterofursa]

[Well, now she's just going to prove Rin wrong. She skims over the first page of notes and then prods at one unfamiliar word that looks like it has a translation by it in Rin's language.]

Here. What's this one?

[hellpyre]

[Rin leans back over and stares down at her own scribbled handwriting. There's a few things scratched out above the one written there, but there was at least some sort of progression to that word.]

Uhm... sera? Sailor?

[She's just... not going to mention she only knows that word because of anime.]

[daughterofursa]

There. The ocean doesn't make... sailors.

[She pauses. Those other two words must be important because that doesn't quite make sense, but at least it sounds like a complete sentence now.]

[hellpyre]

... there's somethin' missin' in that.

[They're getting somewhere!]

[daughterofursa]

Well... Even serving on a ship, you wouldn't know much about sailing unless you worked at it, or at least paid attention to the rest of the crew.

[They may figure out what this thing means yet!]

[hellpyre]

It's just like anythin' else right? You gotta have some kinda talent in it to be good. Like cookin' or bein' a doctor or whatever.

[daughterofursa]

No, you don't. Talent just means you don't have to work as hard at it.

[She looks down at her paper and underlines the word in front of "sailor."] But maybe that's what this is. "Talented." Or "skilled"?

[hellpyre]

That's what my brother has then...

[Because even if he started at 7 it's clear he shot up the ranks on more than just skill alone.

Oh.

Wait.]

Skilled?

[daughterofursa]

[And Zuko is in the same boat with her sister but she doesn't feel like bringing Azula into the conversation right now so she just nods.]

Yeah. That makes sense, doesn't it?

[hellpyre]

[Yukio has his share of problems but he only ever tried to kill Rin once and in his defense he was sort of acting orders anyway.

Yukio > Azula all day every day.]

... yeah. Yeah, it does!

[daughterofursa]

We're still missing one word.

[Zuko frowns down at it for a moment before deciding that... maybe that's not so important.]

...but I think we've got the idea.

[hellpyre]

[That's a victory for Rin, and her tail is even wagging at the thought of it.]

That's better than I've ever done before!

[daughterofursa]

I guess it's not bad for beginners.