After a few days, Heron received the call that he was to fulfill my assignments in the library as well. The library was conveniently located next to the cantine. So Heron's new schedule was as follows: Wake up, take a shower, have breakfast, go to the infirmary, have lunch, go to the library and then have dinner, and the rest of the time is free until bedtime. Heron would also usually take time to change clothes after infirmary duty since they were bloody. Luckily he didn't have to wash the clothes as it was assigned to another person. Depending on the day, a man or a woman would take his dirty clothes and give him washed ones. He had only three pieces of work clothes that he rotated. He had to be careful, for he'd get a negative rating if he were to wear dirty clothes on the training camp. So he changed in the infirmary before taking dirty clothes to be washed.
On the first day of library duty, Heron came only to find no one around.
The library wasn't large. There was a front desk, two desks with chairs, and, behind the front desk, there were shelves with scriptures and books. Between the shells was a doorway leading to an office. The library was relatively small, and it shared the building with the cantine. It was probably partitioned from a small space that was once part of the kitchen.
"Hmm... should I wait, or should I look around?" Heron thought.
And so, after almost two hours of sitting around and doing nothing, there was a sound of footsteps. As Heron turned around, he saw a man that looked like a wizard. He wore a turban with a gold round badge in the middle with Riana insignia. His robes were ceremonial velvet blue with a red belt. Across the fold, there were golden runes. The man himself was a dark-toned man with green eyes and a dark brown beard long almost to his belt. His hair was under the turban, but dark brown fringes were visible. He looked at Heron, awaiting some kind of an answer.
"I'm sorry, but the librarian is currently absent. I'm waiting for him as well," Heron said politely.
"Well, it surely would be troublesome if the librarian was present, as there would be two of us then, and the office is rather small for two people to share it," the man chirped.
"I'm sorry for the waiting child. I had to attend to some important matters with Sir Pridens. I applaud that you've stayed and waited for me. I shall make a note of it. My name is Anton, and I take care of this library. It brings me joy that Owen finally sent someone over to help out. What is your name?"
"Heron, sir."
"Ah, a nice short name. Good. Well then, Heron, I should assign you some work. As you can see, the library is a bit dusty since I had to take an absence to visit the capital. So until dinner, I task you with cleaning the front. Please don't touch the shells. If water damages books or scriptures, that would be a terrible loss. And getting new transcriptions may take a while. Also, starting tomorrow, I shall assign you to slowly start transcribing some of the scriptures for other orphans who attend clergy lessons."
"But I don't know how to write."
Anton sighed.
"Of course, Owen would send an illiterate child. Tell me, Heron, would you like to learn to write and read?"
"If it will make me of service to you, I would like to learn how I can help you out."
"Ahh, that is joyous to hear. And here I thought we'd have problems considering Richard complained about your behavior. It's a relief to see his complaints are unfounded."
"That man is really out to get me," Heron murmured to himself but smiled and spoke politely.
"Sir Pridens and I had an incident that I caused. I have since been punished, and I have apologized. I will do my best not to cause any trouble for you, teacher."
"Well, that is so good to hear. I look forward to getting along. Now, if you would be so kind as to get to cleaning."
And so for the remained of time, Heron was cleaning the floor and the wooden furniture with a cloth while Anton was doing some paperwork.
The next afternoon Heron came, and Anton took him to one of the reading tables upon his arrival. There were some literature objects on the table.
"The first thing you'll have to learn is differentiating between a scripture and a book," Anton said while pointing at two objects that looked like books.
He proceeded to take the scripture first.
"This is scripture. Scriptures may have forms of scrolls or books, depending on their content. But all scriptures must have a red stamped insignia. This is a magical insignia for which we have tools to validate its authenticity. Scriptures are only made in official clergy printshops. When transcribing them, you must always write in the beginning that it is a copy of scripture while I'll stamp it with a seal guaranteeing its source is verified."
"Why is this scripture in the form of a book? In my village, we only have seen scroll scriptures which were a guide for our prayers."
"That is because villagers only know the form of scriptures written to serve to maintain harmony. All scriptures serve that goal, but besides prayer instructions, many contain research, logs, and other useful historical information. All scriptures must be approved by Kapehu first as only then are they recognized to be in service of the gods."
"And who is Kapehu?" Heron asked, genuinely curious.
But Anton froze for a bit.
"I can't believe your village priest failed to teach you about him?" said Anton, now concerned.
"Due to the low literacy rate in the village, the priest focused mostly on prayer, so he never went into details about harmony itself. Instead, he said we only need to obey those in the upper echelon."
"While he spoke the truth, he must have at least explained the barrier and history of the federation."
"No, he never had those lessons with me. I wasn't born in the village, so it took a few years before we were embraced by the villagers. I know some children were told stories when they came of age, but the priest never got around to tell me those stories."
Anton rubbed his temples.
"I haven't prepared the scripture for this, but I shall educate you on the most important history of the Riana federation in the near future."
"I would really appreciate that."
Anton proceeded to take the second book.
"This is a book. There is no clergy insignia, but this one has a seal of the Adventuring Association of Divinium. Books can be written by adventurers, soldiers, poets, or scholars. We have mostly adventuring books and compiled military reports. They serve you who are in training to learn of dangers that await you and advice for various situations."
Then he proceeded to bring the third book. This one had black cloth.
"These are prohibited books. You will need special permission to read them."
"Why are they prohibited?"
"These contain teachings and writings from those who federation deems enemies. We only keep them as resources from which we can extract information if any adventurer or soldier comes across the situation involving said parties."
Anton then went ahead and put away the books. He came back with another scripture.
"I planned today to show you the special scripture called a bookvar. It is used to teach literacy among the town folk. It has letters and drawings to help you learn to read and write."
He opened the first page. There was a picture of some fruits and vegetables and clothes that started with the letter "a."
"Here, you can see the pictures that help you associate them with the rune. Along the picture is also how it's written. Once you learn the letters, you will manage to read the words. Today will start with the letter a. These are pictures of apricot, arugula, and apron. Remember when writing that one grapheme (one letter) corresponds to one phoneme (one sound). Now here is an ink pen and a parchment. I wish that you write down the letter for the first half of the page."
Anton then proceeded to show Heron how to handle the pen by writing down the letter. Heron started really slowly to write line by line until he managed to write the letter.
"Very good, it is shaky, but you need to keep writing them down. Take your time while trying."
And so, on the first day, Heron only managed to write two rows of one letter, but with each one, his writing improved. The next day, he had cleaning duties, but he went back to writing after finishing. It took him three days, but he managed to write the first half of the page.
"The last ones look like proper letters. But at this rate, teaching you the remaining runes will take more than 90 days, which is unacceptable. So there is a limit for the next rune. You only have one day to learn it. You won't have cleaning tomorrow. Also, I'll write it down on the parchment how it's written so you can practice in your room. Are we in agreement?"
"Yes, teacher!"
"Well, then you can do this task as a reward upon inspecting your effort, and if time allows it, I shall teach you some of the Riana history."