Astreya

Starla sits her daughter down and motions towards a pile of books. “This is for you, Astreya. Learn these subjects and report to me once you’ve mastered them.” She doesn’t waste time waiting for her young daughter to respond. She immediately walks away.

Astreya is left struggling. But after a few days of struggling Astreya begins to cry. She doesn’t know what most of these words mean, she’s only just learned to read. She can’t use context clues if she doesn’t know most of the words in a sentence.

Cygnus looks up from his invention. He briefly looks back down at it, but then puts his tool down and moves to Astreya’s side. “Hey biscuit. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t read it! I don’t know what it means!”

“You know, I have to read a lot of technological things for my research. Do you want to know what I do to help with words I don’t know?” She looks up at him, hopeful for an answer to her frustrations. “I look it up in my dictionary.” He pulls out the book and hands it to her. “This one is the latest, and it has all the definitions to all the words. Has two examples of them too!” Cygnus sits with her as she thumbs through the pages.

“Why didn’t Mama give me this?”

He winces a little. “Your mom isn’t the most thoughtful, Astreya. But she means well.” He stands to go back to his workstation.

“Dad?”

“Yes biscuit?”

“What if I still don’t understand?”

“Then you can come get me. I’ll keep my listening ears open and help you out whenever you call for me, okay?”

“Okay.” Astreya looks at the book as he goes back to his station. There’s only a pause of a few minutes before she speaks up again. “Dad?”

“Yes biscuit?”

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."