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Kal frowns, glaring at the book in front of him as the scribbles morph and move in front of his eyes. How can everyone else make something understandable from this mess? He knows they do. Lonely reads to him sometimes, and Viago looks at papers all the time. So they've got to be able to make something out of the mess in front of him.
"Kalias. Pay attention. I asked you to read the passage."
Kal blinks at the aging woman. "Kal." He corrects. "It's Kal. Not Kalias."
She pushes up her glasses and glares at him. "That's not what your guardian told me." Madam Grasso states. "Master de Riva hired me to teach you the basics. So far, you have yet to make any progress on reading or writing in the last two weeks. Until you can read your letters, you will remain in this room." Kal hears a door crack open under her tirade. His eyes dart to the door behind his stupid teacher. Aloe's peaking in with a furrow in her brow. "Honestly, a child your age should already know these things, especially one of your stature."
The door slams open. "Stop being mean to Kal! It's not his fault he can't read!" Aloe complains. "He arrived with amnesia! He's really good at learning things despite that! He just needs time!" Huh? Lonely's defending him? Why?
"Young lady. Being related to Master de Riva does not give you the right to barge into my classroom and complain about my methods." Lona glares at her, "You know as well as I do that when any of you are in my classroom, you have to follow my rules. You're free to dislike them, but complaining to Master de Riva is useless."
His sister's eyes are full of something Kal doesn't understand as her tone falls flat. "Fine. But I was sent to inform you that Viago wants to see Kal, so his lessons are over for the day." Viago wants to see him? Madam Grasso huffs, gathers her things, and leaves without another word.
Kal blinks, looking at the red-headed girl in front of him. "Viago wants to see me?"
Their teacher is long gone by the time Lona answers. "Yeah. In like an hour." Oh, she's back to normal. Or mostly, at least. "Now! What are you struggling with?" Kal blinks and scoots over. "This is 'Fledgling's First Book?' Are you struggling to read?"
"I don't understand what she wants." Kal tries to explain. "How am I supposed to make sense of random scribbles?"
Aloe freezes for a moment. "Can you not actually read the letters and words?" She asks curiously. Kal shrugs. She gets that look in her eyes, grabs some paper and some charcoal, and scribbles something down. "What's this look like?"
"A knife?" Kal states.
She nods, then scribbles something else. "And this?" Kal shrugs. It looks like the scribbles in the book. "What about this one?" More scribbles. "Hmm. OK. One more."
Oh! He knows that one! "It's a griffon!" Lonely looks at him curiously. There's something in her gaze he doesn't understand, then she gets up and heads for the door.
"Come see me when you're done with Viago, okay?" Kal nods, then follows her out of the room.
It starts with a simple question. "What's the first thing you think of when I say 'weapon'?"
Kal blinks. "Knife."
"What about 'dinner'?"
He cocks his head. "A plate of food." Aloe hums. "Why?"
She smiles at him. "Just curious. Now, hurry up! We're going to be late meeting with Viago!" Kal nods and races after his new sister.
Kal stops before rounding the corner. Something's going on.
"Allona. Explain why I found Madaam Grasso passed out covered in her own feces."
"Dunno. It certainly didn't have anything to do with her being mean to Kal."
"Right." Viago sighs. "I shouldn't have to tell you not to poison the help. You've yet to pass the introductory class. You could easily kill her with the wrong dosage."
"Well, that's because you haven't signed off on me passing it yet!"
"And I won't until you can tell me what you did wrong when you poisoned Kalias' tutor." Aloe poisoned his tutor? Because she thinks the crone was being mean to him? The thought makes that warm feeling well up in his chest again. "Now, why did you feel the need to do such a thing?"
He peeks around the corner just enough to see Aloe pouting. "She doesn't understand that Kal's not an idiot and keeps berating him for things he can't do instead of crediting him for everything he can."
Viago's eyes flicker to him. "Kal. Stop hiding and come out here." Kal does. "Is Madaam Grasso treating you poorly?" There's something in Viago's tone that's sharp and cold, like a blade. He feels poised to strike.
"Dunno," Kal mutters, shrugging. "Lona seems to think so, though."
Viago's gaze only grows sharper. "I'll be looking into this." He marches off before either of them can utter another word.
A swatch slaps the back of Kal's hand as he tries in vain to copy the scribbles from the book. Kal hisses. Why does Viago insist on having him put up with her? Why can't he just kill her? She's too stupid for this job, and she doesn't listen to anything Kal says.
He mulls the idea over in his head. He wouldn't have to deal with her, and the worst Viago would do is make him wear a shirt and possibly take away his training for a while. Aloe's poisoning didn't work to dissuade the hag in front of him. Clearly, she needs to be taught a much harsher lesson.
"Kalias. Pay attention and do it correctly." She scolds, sending the writing utensil out of his hand and clattering across the floor. That's it.
He pushes himself away from the table, stands up, and climbs up on the table. The idiot doesn't even have the common sense to back away. With lightning sparking off his body, Kal grabs her face. Gathering all his lightning together in his hand, he watches silently as she screams for several long seconds before falling to the floor, twitching silently.
Good. Now, he doesn't have to deal with the stupid scribbles, or that stupid tutor, or any of that anymore.
"Kalias de Riva, what's going on in here?" Viago demands, storming in and looking around. "Why is Madam Grasso dead?"
"She was being a bitch." Kal explains. "I was tired of it."
Viago sighs, grabs one of his disgusting espressos from his pouch, and downs it it seconds. "Kal. You can't just kill people that annoy you."
"Why?"
"Because you'll become an indiscriminate murderer. We don't murder people. We assassinate them."
"What's the difference?" Kal asks.
Viago looks like he might just have an aneurysm. "Assasins have class. We do not assassinate anyone who crosses our path. We only kill those who we have contracts on and those who try to kill us."
"Why?"
"Because we're professionals, not some hired thugs." Kal looks to the floor, attempting to figure out if he has more questions or if that makes enough sense.
Kal stares straight into Viago's eyes and asks, "So why didn't you kill me?"
"It would have been a waste of perfectly good talent."
"Hmm. Okay." Kal decides. "So what now?"
"Now, you're forbidden from combat training for a week. Madam Grasso did not have a contract on her, so what you did was murder and not assassination." Well, he can't say he didn't expect that.
"Hey! Kal!" Lonely calls as she rushes up to him with a pile of papers. He blinks at her, wondering what she wants. "I got something! Come here!" She drops her stack of papers on a table and motions him over. There's a series of drawings on them with the scribbles beside the pictures.
"What's this?" Kal asks.
She beams at him. "It's how you're going to read!" Kal blinks at her. "I read it in a book! These are called pictograms, and they can convey information just like words and letters!"
"How?"
"You see this one?" She points to a picture of a knife. "This will mean weapon! And this-" She points to a picture of a bottle with a skull, "Is poison!" Oh! He gets it now!
"And this is dinner? Or food?" Kal tries, pointing to a plate of food.
Lonely nods, "Yeah!"
"What are you two doing?" Viago calls, marching up to them. "What's all this?" He appears over their shoulders, examining the paper in front of them. "Allona, what's all this for?"
Aloe gets an incredibly smug expression on her face. "Kal's dyslexic, so I'm making a set of pictograms for him!"
Viago seems exhausted. "That's what all this was about?" Viago grabs an espresso from his pouch and downs it in a moment. How's he know what's that gross coffee and what poison? Wouldn't it be easy for him to poison himself? "Alright." Viago sighs. "Since you finally decided to tell me, I can look into getting Kal a teacher that understands his needs. Are you two hiding anything else I need to know about?" Kal shakes his head, then looks back to the papers, determined to memorize everything before the hour's up.