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 Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:34 am
 Anezka was nervous. She knew she ought to be confident in herself, her family was long established in the pride after all, but nothing had ever really prepared her for this. It would take work to become a lawspeaker, she knew, and she knew she should appreciate that lion who had agreed to teach her, but still she worried. What she had heard about this male was mixed. He didn't dally around with flings, that she liked, but he also didn't have a stable mate. No one seemed to know too much about him other than that he was very good at what he did. She would hold her head up high and she wouldn't back down. With that held in her mind she positioned herself near the center of the pridelands and waited for her teacher to arrive.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:09 pm
 Tuomas glanced down the cliffs toward the sea and sighed once more when his paws refused to move even an inch forward. It looked like he would remain among the living this week. It was a check he performed every Wodensday, and so far, from his first day as a "free" thrall of the Stormborn up until this day when he was to meet a new student, it had turned out that he was going to live for another week.
He shook his head, took a deep breath of sea air, and went down to where he had agreed to meet Anezka to begin her lessons. There were those who might argue that she was beginning her training at the wrong time. Either she was too old to begin training, according to those who thought lawspeakers ought to be trained from cubhood, or she was too young, according to those who thought lawspeakers ought to be old and wise.
"Someday," he said wearily to Anezka when he saw her, "I will kill you."
He hadn't slept well the night before.
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 5:50 pm
"But that day is not today," Anezka answered with a soft incline of her head. She was wary of taking her eyes off him but she knew it would irritate him if she simply stared. "Master Tuomas," she added, using the term her mother had told her to use, "Thank you for agreeing to teach me, I know-" she paused, trying to think of how to phrase her knowledge of how he'd come to be in the pride, "I know you gain nothing from it." That sounded alright, thought she wasn't sure what to expect from him. Even her mother had had little information to offer.
Lifting her head she looked out toward the cliffs, trying to think of what else she could say. She supposed it was best to move forward with the lesson, "What would you like to begin with?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:43 am
Tuomas, despite his relative youth, was accustomed to people treating him with respect. He knew he deserved it. The mental acuity and stamina to recall the entirety of the pride's history, laws, and lineages was no mean thing, and those who possessed it were worthy of respect. So he had been trained, at any rate, by his adoptive parents. He accepted her respectful demeanor and address as his due.
"No it is not," he agreed. With a tired smile he went on: "And if you prove an apt pupil I have much to gain from your instruction: the hope of one day retiring."
He had not been like this as a younger lion, but as seasons passed his long separation from his love, and the certainty that she had forgotten him completely had worn his spirit down until he had much the same carriage as the older lawspeakers, and fit in perfectly with their number. At this point many in the pride did not even recall that he was younger than the Warlord.
"Walk with me. These lessons are best conducted without audiences. We are meant to be infallible, after all." Another tired smile. In lore, law, and lineage Tuomas was almost infallible, particularly when it came to lore, but there was still much he did not know, and those things gnawed at his gut, even after all this time.
Once they were no longer likely to be interrupted or distracted, Tuomas leapt onto a rock a little higher than his shoulder, not quite spacious enough for two, and crouched into a comfortable position, waiting for Anezka to make herself similarly at ease before saying anything else.
"Before I begin to teach you anything, I actually have to make sure you're able to learn, and also, that you're able to recall little-used facts that you may have heard only once before, and long ago. So tell me: what day of the week, according to the gods' calendar, was the current High Priestess's litter born?"
There would be more questions to follow if she got this one correct, and then he would have to test her in other areas as well. In a younger learner, these tests would be unnecessary, but a younger learner would have time to learn a new trade if they turned out not to have the requisite skills to be a lawspeaker. With older learners, it was better to find out before time was wasted training them, if their memories would serve.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:24 am
Anezka paused, racking her brain for the answer. She knew the high priestess's cubs were of an age with her, perhaps even a bit older. Still, if he was asking her she must have been told at one point. With a soft inhale she closed her eyes, visualizing the information she had been presented with in her life. It traveled across her mind in a long chain, things intermingling based on their chronological and topical connections.
Suddenly it came to her. She hadn't been told the information directly but had overheard it one day at the river, when a pair of reavers had been talking about their coming of age. "Saeternesdaeg, I believe," she answered finally, feeling her heart tighten as she doubted her single source's reliability.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:27 pm
Tuomas didn't have to think about it particularly hard to check Anezka's answer, but he was used to such mental exercises.
"Correct," he said. Immediately he followed his confirmation with another question, "And what was the day when you learned that?"
He had no way of knowing the answer to that one, actually, but she didn't need to know that. He was more interested in her response to the answer he'd demand from her after she came up with her response. He would want to know who had told her, what they looked like, where they had been, what they had been doing, what the day had been like, and probably he'd think of some other details to demand, too. Not all of them were necessary, of course, but attention to detail was, and that was part of what he was testing.
He also wanted to know what kind of descriptions she gave, because part of being a lawspeaker, sometimes, was to come up with the sagas and poems that would become the pride's history. Usually there were freeborn bardic types who were happy to do those things, but they didn't always get the details right. And other times it was more important to have a prosaic description than one in verse, and he wanted to hear how she'd describe things prosaically. Whether she could compose verse was of less importance to him.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:44 pm
She closed her eyes again, tilting her head toward the sky so should could isolate the sound of the river from the everyday sounds of the pride. The senses helped to illuminate the day for her and within a few moments she felt as if it was all around her again. "It was when I was much younger, the morning after the new moon," she began, moving her head a bit, "The sky was cloudless and the wind was pulling their scent towards me. I didn't know them, and they didn't know I was listening in. Males, much larger than my mother or any of her friends, with dark dirty coats and bellies from too much indulgence. They were washing mint to take with them on the viking." That much she thought for a moment she might have kept to herself, but it was important to the validity of her claim, she felt, they weren't censoring themselves from her.
"The river was tinted green from the mint, it hurt my stomach. I wasn't listening at first, but I heard them mentioned the high priestess," she continued, blushing a bit, "My mother had always pointed her out to me in ceremonies, they said her cubs were already nearing age and how quickly it seemed to have happened. I suppose time moves faster when you've lived through more of it." She opened her eyes, realizing it hadn't been the most poetic description, but she was still struggling with the line between telling him enough and boring him. Either one would be detrimental to her training she felt.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 6:54 pm
Again with the eye closing, Tuomas observed. She would have to be broken of that habit. It made her seem unsure of herself. It was better for her to look an interrogator in the eye and remain silent while thinking than to put on a display like that. But no sense pointing that out at this point. He didn't even know if he was going to take her on.
"And the day of the week?" he asked, gently reminding her of the question he had actually asked.
He rested his chin on his paws as he awaited her answer. Probably she just wanted to impress him with her ability to recall things. That she could recall so much detail was good, but that wasn't what he had asked her for, and she hadn't given him the information he had requested. That was the purpose of a lawspeaker, when it came down to it, and if she couldn't answer a question as asked, that would be a problem, too.
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Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 5:06 pm
"Tirshdaag," Anezka choked as she tried to look him in the eye, mentally cursing herself for leaving out such a crucial element. Her mother would be furious for her if she was dismissed from her lessons so quickly. She'd just have to work harder, there had to be something she could impress him with. "I do want to learn," she insisted, holding her gaze though her stomach had gone ice cold, "I want to make my family proud, I'll practice endlessly just as my mother does fighting. The mind is as good a weapon as the claws." Despite wanting desperately to look to the ground she continued to watch him, waiting to see if there would be some recoil for her mistake.
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Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 7:34 pm
Tomi was used to being shown respect despite his relative youth. He was not used to people having difficulty meeting his gaze. He was a lawspeaker, it was true, and he could pass judgment on people on trial, but even then most Stormborn would have had no difficulty meeting his eyes. Even when they were in the wrong. He had no trouble meeting other lions' eyes either. He never had. It made him an excellent liar at need.
"I have no doubt of that," he assured Anezka once she had managed to hold his gaze.
In some ways this reminded him of the time he'd spent teaching the warlord's trueborn cubs. Some of them had been more attentive than others, usually the girls more so than the boys, but that was hardly a surprise. They all wanted earnestly to do their parents proud though, and since this was something their parents wanted for them they all vied to be the fastest and the best, sometimes striving so hard to outdo one another that the point was missed completely.
"You have a keen mind from what I've seen, and that is one of the most important traits a lawspeaker must possess. I don't fault you for your answer. Just remember to answer the question that's actually been asked along with all the other information you include. There's nothing wrong with giving a simple, direct response if it is the correct one."
That had actually been a problem for Aesir's cubs, too. They thought that by giving him more information than he had asked for, they would make a better impression. He had been pleased by their eagerness to learn (or seem to learn) and so he had not taken them to task for it, but they were not training as lawspeakers. Anezka was. Or hoped to be.
"Shall we continue?" he asked.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:27 pm
"Yes, please," she said sheepishly, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. Her mother would have a field day with this, she knew. She had always been criticized for being long winded, and this time she'd let it interfere with her performance. It was shameful, even if it was just a mistake. She'd have to play closer attention in the future. At least he didn't seem to be holding it against her. She steeled herself, straightening her shoulders and sharpening her gaze on him.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:05 pm
Tomi glanced at the sun. It seemed to have barely moved. How was it possible that they had not been at this for hours? It felt like hours to Tomi. Perhaps that was because he had to think of ways to test Anezka. He had never before had to play this role, that of a trainer of lawspeakers. He usually trained cubs. Perhaps he just wasn't suited for this. His own training had been unconventional, after all.
He grasped mentally at some way to bring this session to a close. Despite his reservations, he had already decided that he would train Anezka. He just didn't feel like training her any more today. If she wanted him to train her, she would just have to live with the fact that the training would take place at his him and on his timetable. He decided to use the same tactic he'd used on Aesir's cubs.
"All right. We will continue this tomorrow. Before then I would like you to interview a reaver of the pride and get from them a story worth committing to verse. Then commit it to verse and tomorrow I will hear it."
He realized that he'd been gazing into the distance as he spoke and shook his head. "You may go."
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