Arc 1: First Life (and First Death)

Chapter 11: Geography and Map Making

After an hour of going over simple sentence structure, language class was officially over. Mrs. Heming looked up from the test sentences I'd written and looked at the clock. She smiled at me and said, "well, that's it for today Princess. You did very well today! You've gotten much better with your spelling, but I recommend that you do some refreshing on grammar and tenses before we meet again tomorrow."

I blush slightly, both from the praise and from the knowledge that I may have forgot some of the things she'd previously taught me in the week that I was unconscious. I bob my head in acknowledgement, "I will, Mrs. Heming."

I start to rise from my seat in preparation of moving to my next class when she speaks up, "ah, Princess. Were you not informed that all of your lessons would be in this class today?"

I look back up at her in surprise, "no." I reply. 'although… didn't Almina mention that she planned on arranging this with my tutors?'

Mrs. Heming nods, "I see, perhaps the messenger we sent missed you. No matter, you know now, so I will be on my way. Your next tutor should be here shortly. Have a good day, your Highness." She gives a small bow after she'd finished collecting her books.

"Have a good day, Mrs. Heming." I reply, I briefly incline my head in response to her bow.

She exits the classroom and closes the door behind her. I look back down at the page of sentences that she'd corrected, 'I might as well go over the corrections while I wait.' For the next five minutes I practice writing out the corrected sentences on a separate piece of paper in the hopes that the repetition will help me remember.

I look up to the sound of a light knock on the door, which opens shortly after. My geography teacher (a short, stout man by the name of Mr. Klier) steps in. He smiles widely upon seeing me, "Oh Princess! It's so good to see you up and about again. And already starting up your lessons! Such enthusiasm for learning makes this old man so proud!" He declares boisterously.

I smile back at him, "I'm glad to be back Mr. Klier. How have you been?"

He settles in the chair across the table from me, "now that my favorite student is back I'm doing excellently!"

I laugh quietly at his dramatics. "I'm your only student," I remind him.

"That might be so! But I'm sure that if I had more students that you would still be my favorite!" He says with a playful wink.

"Oh? I'm surprised, surely any other student would be better at geography than me, I keep mixing up where Hyrule is located on the map." I say lightly.

He chuckles, "that's only a small mistake! Besides my preference for people does not hinge solely on their academic prowess! You wound me by implying so."

I roll my eyes jokingly, "of course. And not knowing where your own country is, is incredibly reassuring in a member of the royal family."

"Not really, no." He says smilingly.

"Hey!" I yelp indignantly.

He gives me an innocent look as he spreads his hands harmlessly, "what? I was just stating the truth."

I huff, "well I suppose it's your job to help me sort out this egregious failing."

He nods solemnly, "that it is. So without further ado… to learning!" He declares.

I snicker quietly but obligingly pull out my notebook.

He settles a map of the continent on the table, "alright now, Princess this here is where Hyrule is." He says as he points at a spot near the middle of the continent, it has mountains along its eastern border, and its western most side has a bay that connects to the sea. 'To be perfectly honest there is a nearly identically shaped country to the south-east of the mountains… it's just, you know, reversed. And smaller… Okay so they are pretty distinctly different, but why are the countries not labeled?! Is it just because this has been prepared so he can see how well I know this without cheating by reading the names? Whatever, I'll copy the map down and label the countries so that I can study it later.'

"May I copy down the map?" I ask politely.

He smiles at me, "that's a good idea! However we should make sure it's as accurate as possible if you're going to use it to study, wouldn't want you to think that one country is bigger than another if it's actually smaller. We'll dedicate the rest of our class time to recreating the map. Let me just go get some parchment, a ruler, and a compass."

'If we're drawing it to scale…' I speak up quickly before he can bustle out of the room, "is it okay if I draw on your map?"

He hesitates by the door, "draw on it? But why?"

I ponder for a minute, 'ugh, how do I explain this?' I start describing what I want to do, as best as I can, "I want to draw horizontal and vertical lines on it, so they create equally sized boxes, then I'll do the same to my paper so that they have the same number of boxes. Then I carefully recreate what's in each box on your map, it will help me draw all of the small details and keep it to scale."

He blinks in surprise, "my, that is certainly a novel idea! And you're certain it will work?"

I nod, "pretty sure, yeah." I think to myself, 'I did it in art class to recreate a landscape picture for a project once. It's where I learned about this method, it worked really well.'

"I see… it certainly sounds easier than the method I was going to teach you." He says.

I look up at him curiously, "how would you have done it?"

"hmmm? Oh, I would have had you measure all of the landmasses then convert them to a scale that would fit on your paper, after that you'd have to carefully draw each line and landmark, being careful not to mess up the measurements." He says distractedly.

I pale, 'that sounds like a lot of math… good thing I knew another method!' but then I mentally chide myself for avoiding difficulty, 'it would probably still be a good skill to learn. It sounds like it would be difficult to stop in the middle of and come back to though, and I don't think we have enough time in an hour long class to complete it.' I sigh quietly before speaking up, "maybe we could use your method on a different day so that we can compare the accuracy of both methods? It would have to be outside of class though, because it sounds like it will take awhile."

Mr. Klier brightens, "that's an excellent suggestion! You most certainly have my permission to draw on my map. Additionally I believe that I would like to use this map, after you're finished with it, so that I might try your method." He explains cheerfully.

I nod, "that's fine with me, it was originally your map after all."

He claps his hands together excitedly, "excellent! I'll just go collect the materials and then we can get started!"

He bustles hurriedly out of the room to his classroom and collects his supplies. Once he returns we settle at the table and he watches with keen interest as I begin making the lines. After finishing the lines I begin carefully recreating what I see in each box, I only get about a fourth of the map done by the time class ends.

Mr. Klier sighs, "well that's it for today, but do be sure to bring your uncompleted map tomorrow and we'll continue working on it then."

I nod, "of course sir."

He collects his materials and leaves the room.

A/N: I noticed a continuity error in chapter 7, so I will be fixing that today as well.