Writs and Passages [Intellectual Lesson]

She smiled as they exchanged greetings, and at the girls’ queries, she answered first to Aslaug, “These are runes, or, if you mean what they’re written on, various things. Pigskin, parchment, and such. The ink is made from black walnut ground down and boiled. It makes a black ink, like making tea.”

To Rhaegara, she added, “These in particular say nothing precisely. It’s our alphabet. Enito was some help with this, putting it all together. He’s old enough that man was still around when he was young, and though he refuses to say what it was like in detail, he is willing to share his knowledge.”

She ran them through the alphabet, brushing each symbol as she named the letter. And then she took up a pair of whittled sticks carved into roughly pen-like shapes, offering them to the girls before she took her own and settled before one of the fresh parchments, demonstrating the strokes for each symbol. “Each of us may have our own technique for writing. Ardyn, and Aoife, for instance, can use their paws in ways none of us three can do. Those with primate companions can opt to have their companion scribe for them.”

She held the end of the ‘pen’ in her teeth, dipping the end in the ink and slotting the stick between her toes on the right paw. She used her paw to guide the pen, and her teeth to keep it from flying off of twisting from between her toes.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Labhair an Sean-Teanga." ---- "Hear" ---- Think