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31_days2008-05-05 10:39 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2008-05-05 10:39 pm
[May 5, 2008][Suikoden V] My Tutor and I
Title: My Tutor and I
Day/Theme: May 5, 2008 "How terribly strange to be seventy"
Series: Suikoden V
Character/Pairing: Shula Valya and Ananda, his tutor
Rating: G
I had my own personal tutor who came to our house to instruct me in my studies from literature to military strategy. He was a stooped old man, with an unfashionably long beard. He had been my father's teacher as well, in the distant days of my father's youth. Master Ananda's chief qualities in his favor were his great wealth of personal experience and his unending patience which reached deep and inexhaustible like a desert well. I was a lovely and pampered sort of princeling then and was just beginning to make use of my increasingly fine-tuned ability to pinpoint the strengths and talents of those around me. Unlike my frivolous lute lessons, this was something that would assist me greatly in the years to come.
Old as he was, Master Ananda was by no means frail and he seemed to dislike sitting down during our lessons. "I might fall asleep," he explained to me with his ever-patient smile.
I was disinclined to believe this. There are many kinds of old men in this world (as many are there are young men, I belatedly realize) and that was not the kind of man he was. "If you were to fall asleep," I asserted, "You would do so purposefully, not by mere accident of growing too comfortable while sitting down."
"Perhaps you're right," he chuckled, unwilling to give me a straight "yes" or "no" in his personal matters. This vagueness only caused me to speculate further on most occasions. Sometimes it felt like I was being taunted, but I was actually being encouraged simply to think and consider many possibilities.
My mind became sharp as a well-honed blade, allowing me to cut away illusion and falsehood from those I encountered. And my manner of doing so was all the stronger for being a bit off key. I was neither what most were expecting nor thinking as they expected me to. I suspect it was my own innate gifts that allowed me to be that way, but Master Ananda always continued to say, "It may have been you, it may have been my training. I suspect it is a combination of the two."
Were I to have children, I believe I would be hard pressed to find as good a tutor.
Day/Theme: May 5, 2008 "How terribly strange to be seventy"
Series: Suikoden V
Character/Pairing: Shula Valya and Ananda, his tutor
Rating: G
I had my own personal tutor who came to our house to instruct me in my studies from literature to military strategy. He was a stooped old man, with an unfashionably long beard. He had been my father's teacher as well, in the distant days of my father's youth. Master Ananda's chief qualities in his favor were his great wealth of personal experience and his unending patience which reached deep and inexhaustible like a desert well. I was a lovely and pampered sort of princeling then and was just beginning to make use of my increasingly fine-tuned ability to pinpoint the strengths and talents of those around me. Unlike my frivolous lute lessons, this was something that would assist me greatly in the years to come.
Old as he was, Master Ananda was by no means frail and he seemed to dislike sitting down during our lessons. "I might fall asleep," he explained to me with his ever-patient smile.
I was disinclined to believe this. There are many kinds of old men in this world (as many are there are young men, I belatedly realize) and that was not the kind of man he was. "If you were to fall asleep," I asserted, "You would do so purposefully, not by mere accident of growing too comfortable while sitting down."
"Perhaps you're right," he chuckled, unwilling to give me a straight "yes" or "no" in his personal matters. This vagueness only caused me to speculate further on most occasions. Sometimes it felt like I was being taunted, but I was actually being encouraged simply to think and consider many possibilities.
My mind became sharp as a well-honed blade, allowing me to cut away illusion and falsehood from those I encountered. And my manner of doing so was all the stronger for being a bit off key. I was neither what most were expecting nor thinking as they expected me to. I suspect it was my own innate gifts that allowed me to be that way, but Master Ananda always continued to say, "It may have been you, it may have been my training. I suspect it is a combination of the two."
Were I to have children, I believe I would be hard pressed to find as good a tutor.