I have a question!

"Mommy!!!" Andraste ran in with a paper, a book, and a journal, "Mommy I need your help." she said looking around holding onto the items. Her puppy, kitten and bunny were following her closely, they always liked to follow the girl around if they weren't too tired. The puppy yips happily running over to Yv, and the kitten goes over to one of the plants and curls up against it, the bunny just stared up at Yv, hungry for a carrot which the girl was out of.

Yvonne stands up from her desk, where she is considering a multitude of papers, and squats down to rub the puppy behind the ears. "You've my gift with animals, it seems," she told the girl with a smile. "What can I do for you, dear?"

((Sorry, short, I wanted to get something written at least.))

"Mommy, I don't understand this assignment." She put the paper on the desk, and then handed her her open journal.

Assignment : http://aalc.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d39lln4
Journal : https://aalc.rpg-board.net/t100-andraste-journal

"I understand the book part, and I already have it here, but I don't understand the journal thing... so I wrote that I would ask you about it..." she said with a smile looking up at her for help.

Yv chuckled and sat down on the floor, leaning against the sapling in its pot. "All right, come here, then." She patted the floor next to her, laying the journal in her lap and checking out the assignment. "Identity. Well, do you know what identity means, Andraste?" she asked with a smile.

The animals were always welcome in the room, but for this Yv gave them each a look. "You can stay if you be quiet. Otherwise, you should go play in the courtyard." She spoke to them as she might any child... Andraste didn't need to know she could talk to animals, there'd be no end in sight.

"It's about who you are, right mommy?" she asked slowly thinking about what an "identity" was. She thought she knew, and but that wasn't where the problem was... the problem was that she simply couldn't remember who she really was. Her memories were all fuzzy, and it actually made her question what was going on. As far as she was concerned Yvonne was her mother, and always had been, and she also believed that Yvonne came through Stonehenge with her, but they got separated but somehow they managed to get back together at the castle.

It didn't seem that strange to the child, but she was having trouble remembering things much past that, "I know I'm a mage mommy, but ... but ... I ... I don't remember." she cried, "Why don't I remember mommy?! What's wrong with me?" she was starting to catch on that something had gone wrong...

The kitten had curled itself around the tree and the bunny was laying in her lap. The puppy who had been licking her feet, suddenly stops at the child's outcry. He tried to move to get the girl's attention on him to ease her pain. The kitten didn't want to get in the mix because she had been so tired lately she hardly knew what was going on, but it did give a little meow to say 'I wish I could help'.

"Nothing!" Yvonne dumped the journal off her lap and wrapped an arm around Andraste, pulling her closer. "Nothing is wrong with you, love. When you have been through what you have been through, it is not surprising that your memory is not perfect. Think about it... time stopped for you to pass. Miraculous! Asking you to remember all that happened before a miracle? That is silly. If you trust nothing else, trust this... you do not need to know what happened before to decide who you are."

Yes, it might be a weighty concept for a seven-year-old, but Yv thought she needed to discuss this... and this was only the beginning of the discussion that would likely come and go for years. She needed a way to make it stick. "Let me give you an example, and I'll tell you how it relates to your assignment afterward. If you woke up right now and saw me, a kitten there, a puppy at your feet, and a bunny in your lap, but remembered nothing... what would you think?"

The child looked up at her mother for a moment, "Well I would think that you had to be someone important that I knew cause I don't like to go to sleep when I don't know the person..." she said in her old irish accent, "And I would think the kitty was too tired to be bothered, and that the bunny must know to want to be all snuggly with me and that the puppy is either really curious or that he knows me too." she said softly, she wiped away her tears with both hands, she was trying to settle down, it was still a big adjustment for her, it had only been a few days since she had made it into the time period...

Yvonne gently touched Andraste's chin. "And how much of that is true? Am I somebody important to you? Of course, I'm your mother. Your kitty is definitely tired, your bunny loves to snuggle because he loves you, and the puppy certainly knows you. See? You can tell something about you and each of us, without actually knowing what came before." Yes, this is definitely a lesson Yv wants to teach the girl, because Andraste, in the end, would have to decide for herself.

"Your identity is what you choose. In fact, we are what we choose to be. I choose to be a teacher, and to spend my time with a lot of very special people. You choose to help out young animals, and you choose to learn. What does that make you?"

"A learnerer helperer person?" the child asked quietly. She was still trying to get the hang of it and her head was still somewhat in the clouds. She really didn't know what to do. She looked up as Yconne had moved her chin up, and looked into the woman's eyes, "I just... feel like I gotta learn stuff over again mommy." she whispered. She blinked a few times and looked down and away, she was getting upset because she felt like she was missing something important. In reality the soul of Stonehenge was looming in the shadows again, and it was sucking away her happiness. It loved the taste of her, and it hadn't had something to eat in centuries.

"It makes you a really nice person, Andraste," Yvonne replied quietly. "Your animals would run away if you weren't. You think of other creatures, human or not, before yourself. And you try to learn, to make yourself better. There's no finer purpose anywhere. Helping others and making yourself better are wonderful causes."

"Everyone learns, my dear. You are young, so you have a lot to learn, but plenty of time to learn it. All right?" She offered her daughter a smile. "You will always be able to come to me when you need to, but I think you do just fine on your own." She paused long enough to decide if she'd said enough for the moment. "So, I think you should take time to write your journal on different days, with different people. Each time, stop, and like we just did here, look around. Who's with you? What are you doing? And then think about what it says about you. Happy, sad, playful... and write about that."

"Alright mommy." the child snuggled into her a little. She was quite clingy right now. While she was sensitive to things like spirits and energies she would never know the difference between the two. It as when the dark shadow in the corner suddenly got lighter that the tension in the child finally seemed to settle down.

"I'm going to write one right now..."

"Mommy said I a nice person... and dat animuls like me |-------------d-i-s-------------| much. (mayde moer). She reminb me adout trip frew da Stonehenge an how it coulb make my memry fuzzy - I wonber if a fuzzy memry is warm.

Mommy want me to write bown what going on rounb me so - Mommy and I talkin and I feel comfy wid her cause she's nice anb like to helq me. I want play wid my animals rit now 'cause dey r playin' wid my feetz. I haz a dunny a kitty anb a boggy.

~Andraste"

She handed the journal to her mother to read not knowing that letters were flipping around on her, not to mention she sounded completely uneducated in her writing despite the way she talks. She got up as Yvonne had the chance to read and chased after her puppy who really wanted to play - he gave her the play bow, and next thing - the two "children" were chasing and batting at each other as two dogs would do as they first grew up in the wild. Andraste was quite the free spirited young child when there wasn't something looming over her shoulder. She was giggling and playing and having a good time as her mother read her latest work.

Yvonne hugged the child and then moved her arm so Andraste wouldn't have trouble chasing her puppy. The two of them were quite adorable... And then she turned her attention to the journal.

Yv sighed. She hadn't anticipated this, though why not, she wasn't sure. The girl was from centuries ago. Writing wasn't exactly a strong point back then, and even if it had been, it probably wouldn't have been a language the rest of the school could read. But she let the girl play as she rose, going to her desk to rummage for a pen. She retrieved one of her green pens (red didn't suit the nymph much) and sat at the desk to mark on her daughter's entry. Ds and Bs seemed to be a problem... and one P was backwards. She was less concerned about the spelling--Andraste WAS seven--but the letters themselves needed to be readable.

"Come here, love," she called after the 'children' played for a while. "We need to talk about your writing a little."

"What is it mommy?" the girl asked with a giggle running right over and trying to see onto the woman's desk. She tried to climb on the woman's chair so she could see what her mother was looking at.

((if you want to you can post the corrections in her journal so it supports the fact that she actually made corrections...))

She looked over the journal, "Moooooommmy, why does it look like you were coloring in my Journal? It's not a coloring book!" she giggled.

((sorry it's short))

((Here's the corrections, whew! If you hit 'quote' you'll get the markup and can copy/paste to the journal thread wherever it is... or even edit your journal post with the markup. I figure I'll let you move it over if you want to.))

Mommy said I a nice person... and dat animuls like me |-------------d-i-s-------------| much. (maydbe moer). She reminbd me adbout trip frew da Stonehenge and how it coulbd make my memry fuzzy - I wonbder if a fuzzy memry is warm.

Mommy want me to write bdown what going on rounbd me so - Mommy and I talkin and I feel comfy wid her cause she's nice anbd like to helqp me. I want play wid my animals rit now 'cause dey r playin' wid my feetz. I haz a dbunny a kitty anbd a bdoggy.

~Andraste

Yv pulled Andraste into her lap so she could see better, and pulled the journal closer. "You made some mistakes, dear. I used green so you could see. See this?" She used her pen to point out the first correction she'd made, to the word 'mayde'. "That letter is backwards. I think you know that, you just wrote it wrong. There are a lot of places you did that, so make sure you look over your journal before giving it to your teacher, okay?"

"I wrote it wrong..... " she whispered looking over her paper, the girl seemed so upset.

She ran her fingers over the the corrected journal. She started to cry softly, "I can't write write... and Miss Everly's writing is soooo pretty and write, and I'm going to disappoint her." she seemed so upset because she was going to disappoint Everly, and she felt like she was going to disappoint her mother about the horrible writing.

She looked over all of the green marks on her paper, not knowing that the corrections were technically not even finised as there were some "z"s in place of "s"s and a couple of other spelling mistakes thanks to the child's reading and writing problems.

"Sweetheart, Miss Everly has been writing for years. She's had time to make her writing perfect. You haven't. So let's focus on getting yours to look more like hers, all right?" She stroked the child's hair. "Don't be upset, it's hard. I was much older than you before I could write correctly, so you're doing great." Since the nymph was born in the medieval ages, there hadn't been a lot of writing going on... and those that did used runes long since extinct. "I think you're doing great. Would you rather work on what to do here, for this journal entry, or would you rather look at something else? I know it looks scary with all the green marks. I'm sorry, I should have asked you first."

The girl looked at her mother and wrote clearly in Ruinic "I am Andraste and my mommy is going to teach me how to write" It was clear, it was written correctly, and nothing was backward. She had learned about this a while ago. The letters themselves began to glow for just a moment before fading. It was the sign of a mage, the first time that the woman, she called mommy, learned that she was actually a little mage.

"Perhaps it's only when writing in English, dear. Will you try that for me, please?"

((She heard Rosie say she was a mage and understood it then.))

((thought she missed it cause she said that the girls soul wasn't magically inclined....))

She wrote the same sentence "I m Andraste nag my momy is poing to taech me how to wirte."

even her mistakes weren't consistent...

"All right, dear. Your runic is better than your English. I don't know who can and can't read runes, so you're going to have to work with the English, unfortunately. It gets easier the longer you do it." Her pen pointed at the second 'word', only a single letter. "Tell me what that says. What's it supposed to say? Sound it out, please."

((Said "it'd be impossible if she weren't so inclined"... 8)))

" 'm " She said looking up at her mother, "I 'm Andraste." she says, she didn't realize that in her speech, she left off the "a" She gave a little sigh, knowing this was going to be hard hard hard work. She quietly looked at the floor now, she wanted to give up at this point thinking that this was going to be much to hard for her... she'd probably have to go talk to Miss Everly to make sure she could remain in the class...

Yv smiled and stroked her hair once, just a quick pat of assurance. "We say 'I'm' as the short version for 'I am'. So there needs to be an 'a' here." She wrote 'am' beneath Andraste's 'm'. "So it says 'I am Andraste'. You can write the shorter version like this..." She wrote 'I'm' beneath both. "See how it gets run together? That's to show that there's really more letters in there, but it's a shorter way of writing it."

She pointed at the next word, which was definitely wrong, not even close. "What about this one? You wrote something different than what you meant." The letters n-a-g definitely didn't spell 'and'. "You've got the hardest part, dear, since I know you know the letters and the sounds. Sometimes you go a little fast, I think, and your pen writes something your brain didn't mean."

Andraste nodded slowly and watched her mother do the corrections, she was still feeling a little depressed, "It says 'and' mommy" she said dragging her finger across the word, she really was reading it as "and" she didn't see the fact that the a and n had switched and the g was upside down.

She looked up at her mother, her eyes saddened "I'm really bad at this mommy." she said laying her head on the desk in defeat. She really just wanted to get up and run around with her puppy. She couldn't believe that she was having such a hard time with this, it was actually making her cry as the desk began to get wet from her tears.

"I'm never going to be able to do this..." an aura of sadness surrounded her as she silently knew that this would always be harder for her than it was for everyone else, she just wished that something would come easy to her... for once...

Yv shook her head until the girl looked up, so sad, then laid her head down. "It's okay, dear. You're a special child, but you are still a child. No one expects children to know everything, certainly not me." Her hand gently came down atop Andraste's head, lying still. Not quite stroking the girl's hair, just making sure Andraste knew she was trying to be sympathetic. Yv noted but had no intention of drawing attention to the girl's tears if the girl didn't want to show her face.

"Of course you will be able to do this. You already can do some of it. You just need a little time, okay? The other students here all started out slow, too, and they didn't have to learn a new language like you do. Your teachers will understand, and I certainly do. Another language is hard! One is hard for most people. You're doing really well, believe me." She paused, hoping her daughter (the word still took a brief moment to register) might look up.

"If you want me to talk to your professors with you, I am happy to do that, alright? And you can always come to me for help, whenever you want." Yv hesitated, not sure if the girl really wanted the extra time commitment or not. "We could set up a time for you and me to work on your writing, dear, if you like. Not just your writing, any of your homework, if you want. We could make a party of it... work for a little while, and then I'm sure Rosie would make us cookies or something good to eat when we're done." She tried to put an extra cheeriness in her voice--hey, it sounded like fun to her, bonding with her daughter over a problem she could assist with, and with the promise of sweets! (Not that Yvonne was likely to eat much, but still, she knew what tasted good of the mortal food offerings she'd tasted.)

The new mother was still a little unsure if her comfort was accepted. She didn't know how her daughter would react to different emotions, so she felt a little uncomfortable making the assumption that the child would feel better just with words. "I don't want you to be sad, Andraste. What can I do to help you cheer up?"

The girl slowly nodded, picking her head up slightly, only to move so that her face rested against Yvonne's dress. "We can go together to talk to them?" she asked softly, she wasn't quite understanding things correctly, but got the notion that her mother was going to help her with homework and such, "No... no you.. I .. I'll be too much of a bother for you to have to help with all my homework. You have work to do.. and I'll be a distraction" the girl started... but then she started to seem quite distant... She hardly could make out what was going on for a minute, and she began to mumble. "Earraigh a samhradh, samhradh ag titim, titim chun an gheimhridh, gheimhridh a earrach." (Spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter, winter to spring.) After she had repeated the phrase a number of times, she passed out, a strange cold energy wrapped around her.