It was beliveed... believed... that the knigdo-- no, kingdom of Ar... Arnor... even... eventually broke.... up... into there... three sep rate kingdoms, which weer-- were, were... named Cardolan, Rhudaur,andArtha... Arthedain.
"Ford."
The young boy's eyes continued to trail over the parchment with strenuous effort.
Re ords point to the outbra... outbreak of a civil... civil war that broke the stablit-- stability of the mi hty mannish dom.... domain and saw the kin dom decline as... as... as each of the king's sons... prece-- proce ded to claim... a d main for themselves.
"Ford."
He bit his lip. A finger traced the words across the parchment slowly as the boy squinted.
Even... tually... all three kni-- kingdoms... kingdoms... fell to ruin, and the peoples of... of Arnor scattered. To tis-- this day, Bree remains the only survri... surviving settle...ment and ... a central hub for trade.
"Ford, you've been tryin' to read the same paragraph five times in a row now. Don't you want to take a break?"
"No!" Ford insisted stubbornly. He peered at the parchment and growled in frustration, "I can read this!"
It was nightfall, and the winter season of Ford's twelfth year of life. Combe had been hit hard with extended snowfall over a period of two days, which meant that hardly anyone had been able to go out without finding themselves knee-deep in a thick layer of snow. Thus, the town had entered a stage of static stagnation as the delivery wagons got stuck and only the hardiest of men were able to brave the cold and snow to deliver to the craftsmen and shopkeepers of Combe. The children, Ford included, had to contend themselves with staying at home in front of the hearth, but Ford had gone beyond merely lying in front of the fire and was now sat in front of the dinner table at home with his aunt, Sandra, with half a dozen scrolls sprawled out on the wooden surface.
He was learning how to read.
"Ford, it's getting late, you ough' t'go to bed." His aunt, a spirited women in her mid-twenties with brown hair tied up in a bun, said, "You've spent enough time tryin' to learn the letters."
"No, no, I want to finish this." Ford insisted, frowning and looking down at the parchment, "What does 'Domain' mean, auntie?"
Sandra sighed, leaning over the chair to get a better look at what Ford was reading, "It's a word you use t'explain land a kingdom's go' control over. Like when all o' Bree-land was still a part o' Arnor-- Isn' this a bit too much for you, lad?"
Ford shook his head. Reading about kingdoms and old tales of a bygone age was not the thing that overwhelmed him (He didn't even understand half the words that were thrown at his face) - rather, it was the act of reading itself that was giving Ford a hard time. A few weeks ago, he wound up arguing with the daughter of one of Sandra's fellow scholars over how fast it took for someone to learn their letters, and challenged the girl over who could do it faster. To that end, he had spent days persistently bothering Sandra to teach him how to read, but it was only when she discovered him in the morning half-buried under a pile of books that she agreed to tutor him in learning the alphabet.
To his dismay, however, learning his letters was proving to be far more difficult a challenge than he had initially thought. They were finicky and, in his eyes, always seemed to shift and warp about in strange ways, disrupting the flow of the sentences he'd read out to his aunt. There were many, many times where he had abruptly stopped reading out of confusion as the letters began to jumble, and long where the days that were spent staring at a simple chart containing all the letters of the alphabet. Sandra often had to remind him that he had read out the same words twice or even three times.
Yet despite this he persisted, and refused to let the odd phenomenon of the 'jumping' letters bother him. Like most boys his age, Ford disliked losing and loved the thrill of a challenge, and he wasn't about to lose to a girl, of all people. With his pride and honor at stake, he went into the battle against the jumping letters with a stubborn, determined energy that made his aunt nearly tear her hair out in frustration.
"No, I jus' want to make sure I read it right." Ford replied. He squinted down at a word and frowned, pointing down at it. Csatle? Saclet? "Castle?"
He tried to sound out the other combinations in his mind and concluded that that word made more sense. His aunt nodded.
"Well, you're gettin' there lad." She said, patting Ford's shoulder, "But really, was it tha' hard?"
Ford frowned, "I told you, auntie, the letters..."
Sandra furrowed a brow, "Listen lad, you're a smart boy an' it's wonderful tha' you're curious about the past an' Bree's history, but you won' be of any use to the scholar's here if you need five minutes t'read the title of a book, volunteer or no."
"I know, I know, that's why I want to get better. I won't lose to her!"
He smiled up at his aunt and looked down at the parchment again, starting on the next paragraph. Sandra had nurtured his love of history with grand stories of the past ever since he was a wee lad, but even her own patience was now wearing thin in face of the seemingly daunting task of teaching Ford how to read. At first, she had been dismissive of how he described the jumbling, jumping, distorting words, but as time went on she began to recognize that Ford's difficulties with reading and writing were not make-believe. Still, it wasn't easy to deal with how long he took for a single paragraph, but the fact that she was still willing to teach him made Ford love her all the more, even if she was starting to get impatient.
The rest of the town was not as accomodating, however.
Some of the children in Combe had begun to question his intelligence due to how hard it was to read, and he had ended up with a lot of scrapes and bruises from fights because of it. Even some of the adults who'd come by the scholar's library would indulge in some flighty gossip, whispering about him in hushed tones when they thought he wasn't listening. For Ford, all the smalltalk meant that he was sometimes scrutinized and looked at strangely by some people, but thankfully his older brother Finn had always come to his defense whenever some of the children were in a particularly mean-spirited mood.
He had gotten into more trouble for fighting those children who'd call him slow or stupid, but the whispering had only served to make Ford more determined to learn. Jumping letters or no, he was going to prove them wrong and he was going to help the scholars where he could. He wanted to know more about everything and read all about the history of the old kingdoms and Bree-town.
Sandra looked down at him, her expression blank, but eventually, even she had to let a flicker of a smile show on her face: "You're too stubborn for your own good, lad."
"I know. I'll beat her for sure."
(OOC Disclaimer: I don't actually have Dyslexia myself as a person, but I've done research on the subject and tried to depict some symptoms as accurately as I could. Feedback and Critique are appreciated.)
