"Tehya started it! He took my octo-ink!"
Meksira sighed. The tired teacher didn't want to be here, with these quarreling children. All he wanted to do was to drop down into his soft, woven blankets and sleep, or read one of his new scrolls of tribal legend. Maybe this evening, he could read the one about Ravzenyar's coming to the island...
No. Meksira shook himself back to the present, and its dilemmas. "Tehya!" Mek barked, "Give Kiya back his ink. Kiya.. I want you to give your brother his pen back! It's time to do our next lesson. Take out a sheet of the dried gullskin that I gave you a few days ago."
Kiya rifled through his pack. Deerskin.. no. Feathers.. no. Lovers' pendant for Kestaree.. no!! The student's face burned with sunset flame as he remembered his secret love. Kestaree.. with her soft, silver curls and beautiful red lips.. NO!! He blushed again, and put the glider maiden out of his mind as he pulled the gullskin out of his bag.
Meanwhile, Tehya had already pulled out the required writing surface and was daydreaming about going on one of the big ships to the island where the hide had been cured in salt breezes and warm, tropical sun. Crystals of white seasalt still clung like leeches onto the skin, resisting Tehya's futile attempts to rid the 'paper' of them. He was pulled rudely from his reflections as Meksira raised his loud voice at the students.
"Now.. Ready your pens, because it's quiz time!!"
Though the teacher seemed preserverishly happy at the concept of an unknown challenge to the 'wisdom' of the two, they were, of course, less than ecstatic about it.
"Now," the quiz-giver slowly intoned, "Name our first ruler."
The twin brothers' minds raced. Kiya was not able to come up with the requested answer, so he resorted to trickery. Their teacher had forgot to block all sendings between the two.
**So, what's the answer?**
**!! I was going to ask you that!**
Tehya winced. **Well, we're both in the same strangleweed now.**
**I think I know the first letter of it. Was it... "R"?**
The brother of Kiya brightened, but in his excitement of having the answer, forgot to send. "That's it! Ravenyard!!"
All the joyous problem-solvers got from their educator was a stare containing the frostiest of glowers.
"Cheaters! Why I should send you to Akkairl for your disobedience! You know sending is not allowed!" Meksira's students cringed under the teachers' blade-sharp words and stares. They should be glad that he did not have Vayesh's hypnotic glare..
Meksira sighed. His students were getting rowdy, and he could no longer take it. In an attempt to get them out of his classroom, he sent them next door to get something sweet to eat. Maybe that would calm them down.
"Let's go and make Meksira take a test!"
"Yeah! A really hard one, too!"
"Like.. 'What is the name of Kiya's lovemate?'"
"Hey! You'll pay for that, dungball!"
"Only if you can catch me!"
The two brothers raced out of the pastry shop as Koshai watched them, amusement playing across her round face.
"That's the fifth time they've done that, this moonturn," she mused, "and it's only at its crescent!"