• Solo • [Saoire's Dream] The Value of Kind Words

[Kalortah]

20th of Cylus 721

The miserable season of Cylus oft reminded the avriel about his misadventure in the streets of Scalvoristown, where Maxine and Navyri had cornered him, and he was then beaten half to death by Navyri, his wings broken. As such, he began grading the homework that he'd set his students to, looking it over for errors and furrowing his brow over their cute and all-too neat penmanship. He had the run-in with Navyri on his mind then, when he came to Stella's own paper. She wasn't the most gifted of singers in Kalortah's class, but seemed to have a greater grasp of the intellectual side of songs and songwriting. She understood how to touch someone's emotions with the written or sung word. He almost... almost envied her song-writing ability. But of course, Kalortah was more than an adequate song-writer himself, by his own estimation. Perhaps a little heavy on rhymes and such, but his voice made up for whatever conceit the jumble of his lyrics made.

Plus he happened to be the most charismatic bard in all of Scalvoris. Certainly better than that foolish oaf, his rival, the unbearably dull Devin.

He tried to instill in his students an admiration of his own style of bardic performance, which was quite unlike that of Devin. Whereas Devin relied upon a wooden box with strings attached, Kalortah had an ensemble, not only that but he had a voice, and words and messages to convey. He tried to instill in his mostly cadouri students the idea that messages carried, while tunes faded one into another. Tunes could easily be appropriated, but lyrics held the imprint of the artist's soul.

Or something like that.

At any rate, he had papers to grade, and the students would be arriving shortly to collect the results of their impromptu testing of knowledge. The purpose of this exercise was not to fail them out of the course if they should know less than Kalortah deemed adequate. It was more a way of getting the lay of the land, to ascertain just how ignorant his pupils were.

And back to Stella's paper, it was flawless. Impeccably drafted, with the neatest penmanship one could ever imagine. He had to admit, as she raised her hands many times in his class, he was very much impressed with that particular cadouri. She'd even become something of a favored student, a teacher's pet if you will. Another time, Kalortah would've considered making her an apprentice. But on some level, having a large feline following him around set his primal instincts on alert. It was silly, of course. He knew the cadouri were harmless.

But he did consider keeping up a correspondence, if this teaching gig didn't work out. It was time, at very near the apex of achievement, for Kalortah to begin to give back to the world. To give back some of the wisdom he'd accumulated over his many arcs of performing, traveling, and being an artist.

[Kalortah]

He sat and graded papers for a few more moments before the first of his students began milling in. Garth Kindman was there, as a supervisor and also a student, as it happened, to watch and make sure that Kalortah was perfectly kind and did a good job. Part of an on-the-job evaluation for the avriel. Saoire and her faculty knew about the races of Idalos, and he suspected that didn't exclude the avriel and their tempers. Yet, Kalortah saw himself as ascending their nature. He was capable of self-control and had thoroughly purged the savagery from himself during long arcs of travel and personal tests of will. Through the arcs, in that time, he'd arrived at a state where he saw value in magnanimity. There was value in being kind to others when they had something you wanted. Not that any of the Cadouri gave him cause for envy. He only wanted them to learn, and give him enough of an easy time that he could teach them, and receive his bounty in payment from Saoire.

That didn't mean he didn't enjoy their company. For all their being furry little fleabags, the Cadouri were obnoxiously self-effacing and complimentary. For all the races that existed outside and even within Athart, he found the Cadouri the most agreeable, if only because they saw the value in being kind to Kalortah. They were respectful, well-behaved, and above all knew their place. Well, most of them, anyway. Kalortah hadn't met all cadouri, but in general, this was his experience with them.

At any rate, they began filing into the classroom. They all took seats on comfortable cushions before Kalortah's desk, as he signed and graded the last of the papers. He used a simple grading system. There was A for Adequate, B for Broken, C for Cringey, and D for Depressing. He didn't grade any lower than a D, because he wanted to set a higher threshold for failure, given the level of the class.

"Stella, would you come and pass out the assignments that have been graded?" She nodded with a bright smile, and walked up to the front of the classroom. Then she took the stack of papers and went to distribute them to the rest of the class. Meanwhile, Kalortah stood from his desk and addressed the classroom. "Now, my young pupils, I must warn you if you scored a D, a C, or a B not to be too concerned. These grades will not follow you and are not binding. I'm merely trying to see where you're at with your levels of knowledge."

Kalortah put on a saccharine smile and swept the room in his faux benevolence. "Remember, you're here to learn, even though you are very astute students, there's always more to learn, to know, and always room for improvement. Never stop improving, or seeking improvement, and you will go far!" Kalortah turned to Stella, who'd finished handing out the papers, and taken a seat herself. He winked conspiratorially at her. "Now, where were we? Ah yes, let us recite scales!"

And so the sound of Cadouri singing filled the classroom, and it was quite pleasant even to Kalortah's discerning ears.

[Kalortah]

At the end of the class, Kalortah was fairly confident that they’d brought on board more of the knowledge and habits they’d need to excel at the highest level as vocalists. While some of them were still rough around the edges, they had the exercises more or less down to a science and would be able to carry that forward into their attempts to break into the barding career.

Kalortah had tried to instill in them an admiration for him as a teacher, and absolute disdain for Devin. He wasn’t overt about it, more dropping subtle hints and references to the famous teacher of arcane sciences and doctoring from the Scalvoris University. Perhaps in time Saoire’s school would form a rivalry with the University of Viden! That would be interesting to witness…

But then, Kalortah was forgetting where he was in his daydreaming. Stella had stayed on to chat a bit with him and Garth. They were both rather pleasant, Kalortah came to find out. Always so encouraging and nice to Kalortah, and of course downplaying their own worth, as was proper.

Garth said to Kal, ”That wasn’t a bad first try at teaching… Oh wait, you said you weren’t new to this.”

Kalortah nodded, with a thin smile, ”Yes, I taught at the university a couple of times, but I’m still not the best at imparting my vast knowledge.” He winked at the tall rabbit-man. Who then turned to Stella.

Stella smiled, ”Mister Kalortah is very wise, though, he is well-traveled with much experience in barding.” Kalortah quirked a brow, wondering if she was truly kissing up to the teacher. But he dismissed the possibility that she might only be trying to flatter him. Of course, he was wise and well-traveled, and the finest most experienced bard in all of Scalvoris. Perhaps the world entire.

He sighed nevertheless, ”I hope you keep on with your song-writing, Stella. I’ve seen some of what you’ve done, and it’s really quite clever the way you use words.”

Stella looked down in humility and wrung her hands. ”D’aww, Mister Kalortah, you’re too kind. But… say, would you have time to look at my rhyme book, my songbook? I want to see what you think of some of my songs?”

A thought occurred to Kalortah then, a strangely mean one considering the agreeable company, but then Kalortah couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of songs she kept in her little book. She had certainly displayed talent at impromptu writing. He could only wonder what she’d come up with when given a length of time to perfect those words…

Finally, he nodded. ”If I’m still around in Ashan, let’s have a look at them!”

Stella clapped her hands, and nodded, then exited the classroom like she was dancing on a cloud.

Garth merely stared at Kalortah with undisguised admiration for the kindness he’d seen the avriel display. If he only knew what Kalortah had in store for that songbook…

[Fate]

Your Review

Name

Overview

This is the first Kalortah thread that I have read and I found myself chuckling through much of it. I loved the way you played his race and also a tolerant member of his race. I could feel how much he actually was enjoying teaching, and having good students. Very nice thread, It was a good job thread that was entertaining with its story, but still showed his doing such a good job.

Points

XP: 10
Renown: 5

Loot

Knowledge

Abilities Played to level

Appraisal: Figuring out the quality of students' graded work.
Appraisal: Judging the talent of particular students.
Appraisal: x 2
Singing: Brilliant lyrics can make a song or tune more memorable.
Teaching: Giving grades in coded letters.

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