(Open to anyone who wants to reply. Kili is about 30.)
It was a cold day in late winter that young Kili was busy in the little room adjacent to the library that Balin used as a place to teach dwarflings (Fili and Kili, mainly), their lessons, though they were sometimes joined by others. It was so cold that it seemed that the frost had permeated the very stones that made up the rooms walls, which, when not lined with bookshelves that held precious volumes and objects of curiosity, were covered in tapestries that had been hung there in a vain effort to keep warmth in the room, but which didn't seem to do a very good job of doing so. Even the fire in the hearth struggled to battle the cold and the heat from it barely extended beyond the iron grating that kept the coals from rolling out on to the floor.
Kili shivered and flexed his fingers in an attempt to rid them of the stiffness that the cold had brought to them. On this particular day, Kili had been set to read a chapter from a book on the Elven Houses, (from a dwarvern perspective, of course), and then write a short scroll, in his own words, on what he had learned. When Kili was about half way through the chapter, a scribe arrived with a message for Balin calling him away. As Kili's full concentration was on the chapter, he was only vaguely aware of the scribe's presence, and didn't quite catch was was said to his teacher. The dwarrow stood, scraping his chair on the stone floor, causing Kili to raise his head from the book.
"I have to go, laddie. I shall be back as soon as I can. Keep in mind, Kili, my leaving is not an excuse for ye to slack off. I want the scroll finished by the time I get back," Balin said.
Kili nodded, and tried to hide the look that would sour milk that crossed his face. "I'll try my best, Mr Balin."
Kili sighed, knowing that the warning came because he was notorious for leaving his school work unfinished, or in some cases, not starting it at all. The chapter wasn't an easy read for the young dwarfling, full of archaic modes of writing that he didn't always understand - the words he understood the meaning of, of course, but the context wasn't always clear and part of him wondered if an actual elf had actually written the book. It was in Khuzdul, of course, and his instructions was to write the scroll in Khuzdul. His understanding was also hampered by the fact that what he really wanted to do was be outside, either fishing in one of the lakes, practicing his archery, or exploring the woods closest to his uncle's halls. He forced himself to finish reading the chapter and began write on the scroll. It was quite a frustration for him, because the scroll refused to lie flat on the table, and kept rolling back up as he tried to write on it.
To make matters worse, he had not quite mastered the technique of writing smoothly with a quill, and doubted that he ever would. He would either get too much ink on the tip of the quill, which caused it to drip onto the parchment in messy blotches, or he would pick up too little and the ink would hardly catch on to the parchment at all, so he had to scratch at the surface over and over again to write a single rune, leaving some strokes darker than others. The runes themselves, when the quill and ink did co-operate, were wonky and curved, not neat and straight like those those in the book. He also found it impossible to keep the lines of text straight, and his writing had a tendency to slope downwards slightly across the scroll, wasting quite a bit of space.
The final straw came when the scroll rolled back on him once again, and, while he attempted to unroll it, he knocked the ink well crashing to the floor. He muttered in Khuzdul a curse that would have gotten him in trouble if one of the adults had heard him utter them. He remained seated, for a moment or two and stared at the mess. The ink well had shattered, and spilled ink all over the expensive rug that was on the floor beside the table. His sight took in the badly hand written scroll, and grumbling, he got up and walked over to Balin's desk to see if there was any spare ink that he could use to continue (and hopefully) finish his work. He failed to find any, and looking at the ruined rug, the wasted ink and the mess of a scroll that he suspected he would have got into trouble for in the first place once Balin had a chance to scrutinize his work and seen how badly he'd done with it, he decided that the best thing for him to do was to not be there when Balin returned. Just as he was about to make his escape, he paused, thinking that he heard someone approaching from the library.
It was a cold day in late winter that young Kili was busy in the little room adjacent to the library that Balin used as a place to teach dwarflings (Fili and Kili, mainly), their lessons, though they were sometimes joined by others. It was so cold that it seemed that the frost had permeated the very stones that made up the rooms walls, which, when not lined with bookshelves that held precious volumes and objects of curiosity, were covered in tapestries that had been hung there in a vain effort to keep warmth in the room, but which didn't seem to do a very good job of doing so. Even the fire in the hearth struggled to battle the cold and the heat from it barely extended beyond the iron grating that kept the coals from rolling out on to the floor.
Kili shivered and flexed his fingers in an attempt to rid them of the stiffness that the cold had brought to them. On this particular day, Kili had been set to read a chapter from a book on the Elven Houses, (from a dwarvern perspective, of course), and then write a short scroll, in his own words, on what he had learned. When Kili was about half way through the chapter, a scribe arrived with a message for Balin calling him away. As Kili's full concentration was on the chapter, he was only vaguely aware of the scribe's presence, and didn't quite catch was was said to his teacher. The dwarrow stood, scraping his chair on the stone floor, causing Kili to raise his head from the book.
"I have to go, laddie. I shall be back as soon as I can. Keep in mind, Kili, my leaving is not an excuse for ye to slack off. I want the scroll finished by the time I get back," Balin said.
Kili nodded, and tried to hide the look that would sour milk that crossed his face. "I'll try my best, Mr Balin."
Kili sighed, knowing that the warning came because he was notorious for leaving his school work unfinished, or in some cases, not starting it at all. The chapter wasn't an easy read for the young dwarfling, full of archaic modes of writing that he didn't always understand - the words he understood the meaning of, of course, but the context wasn't always clear and part of him wondered if an actual elf had actually written the book. It was in Khuzdul, of course, and his instructions was to write the scroll in Khuzdul. His understanding was also hampered by the fact that what he really wanted to do was be outside, either fishing in one of the lakes, practicing his archery, or exploring the woods closest to his uncle's halls. He forced himself to finish reading the chapter and began write on the scroll. It was quite a frustration for him, because the scroll refused to lie flat on the table, and kept rolling back up as he tried to write on it.
To make matters worse, he had not quite mastered the technique of writing smoothly with a quill, and doubted that he ever would. He would either get too much ink on the tip of the quill, which caused it to drip onto the parchment in messy blotches, or he would pick up too little and the ink would hardly catch on to the parchment at all, so he had to scratch at the surface over and over again to write a single rune, leaving some strokes darker than others. The runes themselves, when the quill and ink did co-operate, were wonky and curved, not neat and straight like those those in the book. He also found it impossible to keep the lines of text straight, and his writing had a tendency to slope downwards slightly across the scroll, wasting quite a bit of space.
The final straw came when the scroll rolled back on him once again, and, while he attempted to unroll it, he knocked the ink well crashing to the floor. He muttered in Khuzdul a curse that would have gotten him in trouble if one of the adults had heard him utter them. He remained seated, for a moment or two and stared at the mess. The ink well had shattered, and spilled ink all over the expensive rug that was on the floor beside the table. His sight took in the badly hand written scroll, and grumbling, he got up and walked over to Balin's desk to see if there was any spare ink that he could use to continue (and hopefully) finish his work. He failed to find any, and looking at the ruined rug, the wasted ink and the mess of a scroll that he suspected he would have got into trouble for in the first place once Balin had a chance to scrutinize his work and seen how badly he'd done with it, he decided that the best thing for him to do was to not be there when Balin returned. Just as he was about to make his escape, he paused, thinking that he heard someone approaching from the library.