Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tanarah squinted at the board.

There wasn’t anything especially wrong with it: a very average, functional — if highly smudged and scratched — dull green chalkboard. But her ‘desk’, such as it was, sat far from the front, making the teacher difficult to hear and their writing difficult to make out, and to make matters all the more dull and frustrating, every time the woman did voice a question, it seemed so rudimentary that she wondered what the point of sitting still for it all was to begin with. She shifted awkwardly on the bench she shared with four other children—not including her sister.

At the teacher’s insistence, they had been separated onto opposite halves of the room. Purportedly so that they ‘didn’t cause trouble’, but Tanarah suspected the woman couldn’t tell them apart, and wanted some space between them so that she could better remember them based on their location. Tanarah sank forward several inches, elbows edging across her desk and expression scrunching with boredom, and fatigue.

Generally, the heat didn’t bother her. She found it invigorating, even, when she could be out in it. But here, in the stuffy, one-room, public service ‘classroom’ manned by one teacher and some forty-odd students of ages varying from five to seventeen, she felt positively lethargic. Sunlight seeped through the shutterless windows — and through the cracks in the wooden-paneled walls — painting strips and squares of yellow on the dirt floor. Flies (and the teacher) droned on, and Tanarah felt her eyelids drooping.

Down…

…down…

“You, girl!”

Halfway into a very pleasant (thank you very much) daydream involving buried treasure and a fantastic escape plan, Tanarah jerked up from her desk, prompting snickers from several surrounding classmates. She squinted up, curious as to how the teacher had gone from the front of the room to looming needlessly close to her in the span of a half moment.

“Were you paying any attention to a word said?”

Tana rubbed her eyes, and yawned—which, for some reason, seemed reason enough for more distant chuckling and earned a sharp additional command for quiet from the teacher. “Me…?” Tana asked after a moment.

“No, you stupid girl, the other one of you with little pink horns and a sand coat of scales busily sleeping in class—”

“Tala would never sleep in class,” Tana objected. This did not seem to be desired answer.

“Did you even hear the question, child?”

“Sure,” Tana said. “You asked if I was paying any attention to a word you said.”

“Before that—”

“That was the question before th—”

“What is the capital of Serenia?”

“Ashen City,” Tana answered.

“The racial leader?”

“Lady Aevah Avi.”

“And what is the primary export of the people of Ashen City?”

“Birds.”

That earned a choke and then a sputter of indignation. “Orderites.”

“Orderites,” Tana corrected herself.

“Orderites are the citizens,” the teacher quipped. “They are not an export. Do you even know what the word ‘export’ mean—?”

“But they make so many of them there,” Tana insisted. “And surely most all birds here come from Serenia?”

This, for some reason or another, earned great amusement from the older half of the classroom. Tanarah, much to her display, lost privileges for going outside during the lunch break.

As the other students filed out, Tana propped back, slouching in her chair and eyeing the procession, waiting for the appropriate opportunity. Surely, with all the others out and only her in, the teacher would follow after? The moment she moved to do so, Tanarah notched her chin down, turning her head away to hide the immediately self-satisfied look that stretched onto her features. She waited, though, propping her heels on the desk before her and biding her time as she debated which window would be best for slipping out of. Then, just before she made her final choice, a shadow filled the entry way.

Blinking, she glanced to her sister. The comment, though, only brought back her grin, and she shrugged. “It’s more interesting than not if the lessons are all gonna be like that,” she said. “I thought the point of goin’ to school was to learn somethin’? Not a bit o’ that was stuff Daddy couldn’t or hadn’t already taught us…and I don’t think she likes me.” Tana stretched with the comment, folding her arms behind her head and getting comfortable again as she crossed on foot over the other atop the desk. “Seems a bit much effort to pretend to look interested in boring things if someone already doesn’t like you.”

Tana blinked, eyes squinting a fraction at her sister’s comment regarding the other schoolchildren. She ignored her offer for the moment. “What do you mean you don’t think you’d be so good at that? Talking to people is easy. And how are you gonna make friends if you don’t talk to anyone? You should be out there, and…” Tana glanced towards the window, from which the chatter of young voices and the typical menagerie of screeches and playful hollers came.

After a moment, she huffed and stood, climbing atop the desk to get out and then walking to the edge to hop off.

“C’mon,” Tana said, reaching to catch her sister’s hand and tugging encouragingly, “…maybe she won’t notice if we go out for just a bit. We’ll go introduce ourselves together.”

The ‘recess’ area for the schoolhouse consisted of an open, compact clay lot beside the building, and in it, children bustled: chasing each other wildly, talking, or sitting off to the side entertaining themselves and each other with various games. As she and her sister emerged into the sun, Tana shielded her eyes before scouting out the possibilities. Talanah had been right, after all; the point of attending school, in this instance, was largely to allow them to interact with others their age. Up to their tenth birthday, their father had taught them: first their letters and numbers, then the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, a sample coverage of important history relevant to the races, world religions, and gods, and elementary concepts of magic—dovaa in particular.

Upon reaching ten, though, both of their fathers had consented that, with the basics covered, they could progress into sampling public education that they might meet more faces their age on a daily basis. Thus, since the actual ‘education’ part seemed to be a thorough waste of time, Tanarah figured the only remaining point must be to make friends. After a moment more spent studying their options, Tana moved towards a cluster of boys who looked roughly their age, all clustered over some variety of game that involved small stones and a wooden board with two rows of shallow, scooped pockets in it.

“Oi,” she greeted without preamble. “Whatcha playin’?”

This seemed to merit several blank stares followed by a moment of silence before one of them squinted. “What’s a girl care? Go play with the other dragon kids,” he said, earning some muffled sound of amused agreement from those in his company.

Tanarah blinked, and then narrowed her eyes a touch. They were oblivionite, she noted, now that they felt the need to throw race into the equation, but since the full smattering of them was a mixed pot to begin with she hadn’t thought it would matter. If they wanted to play that way, though… “I’m more oblivionite than dovaa, I’ll have you know,” she asserted. “And I bet I can play whatever it is you’re doin’ better’n you. Or are you just scared you’ll lose to a ‘dragon girl’?”

That spurned a moment of muttered exchanges and glances between them. Then, the boy who’d spoken originally eyed her. Or, she felt he did, anyway, since his head at least turned in her direction. “What makes you think you could play it better when you don’t even know what we’re doin’?”

“I only don’t know ‘cause you ‘aven’t told me yet.”

A second boy chimed up. “Are you the girl that slept in class? Talkin’ about birds?”

“Oh, aye,” Tana said, breaking into a grin at that.

“And who’s that?” the third in their company finally spoke up, nodding towards Tala. “Your shadow clone?”

“My sister, Talanah,” Tana said without missing a beat. “And I’m Tanarah.”

“Does she talk?” one asked suspiciously.

“Sometimes,” Tana said. “If she thinks you’re worth talkin’ to.” She ignored the startled half-glower she got in response to that. “And what are all y’all’s names?

They introduced themselves as Jasce, Danaiu, and Evanon — who, despite Tanarah’s initial assumption, was a girl, eight years old. After a brief bit more discussion, they consented to allowing Tana to move in and join their cluster, with her tugging her sister in along beside her as they explained the rules of their game.

Tanarah listened as the game was explained, piecing it out to be a counting game of sorts, with the aim — as with many — being to ‘capture’ as many pieces, in this case smoothed stones, as possible. Before the next round was demonstrated, though, the children were called in en masse, and Tanarah tucked the thought away for a later date. Come the end of the school day, she did not feel she had learned anything of value pertaining to the world itself, but she knew the names of three of her classmates, and the rules to a new game. These, she figured, were valuable enough pieces of information to consider the day a success, and after catching up with the three of them after class — Jasce, Danaiu, and Evanon, she repeated to herself mentally, committing the names to memory — she departed home with her sister.

Not a loss, she thought. Not a loss at all.