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Reading aloud wasn’t something that came easily to Nelda.
She had only really learned to read since she’d constructed the library at Caed Nua. Her childhood reading lessons were lost in her mind, erased by hardship. Before that she had known just a few simple, everyday words, like her name, or store or tavern. Reading a whole book was certainly beyond her.
Learning Engwithan – or having the knowledge of it restored in her memory, at least – was a strange experience. She could read without knowing how, and while that new knowledge did help her with her own studies, it did not give her any practice in reading aloud.
Even when she was learning, she tended only to read aloud when she was alone, since she found the process clumsy and stumbling and awkward, no matter how much she practiced.
She wasn’t ashamed of the fact that she hadn’t learned to read until she was an adult. The circumstances hadn’t been of her choosing, after all. But she was a little embarrassed by it.
So, when one night, as Nelda was carefully pursuing a fragile Engwithan diary in her quarters and Aloth asked “what does it say?” she was surprised, though perhaps she shouldn’t be, since Aloth’s eyes were bright with curiosity as he stared at the book on her desk.
Nelda shifted awkwardly, hesitating for a moment. Reading aloud was difficult for her anyway but reading aloud and translating as she went would only be even more so, but Aloth looked so excited by the diary that she didn’t want to disappoint him by refusing. Besides, he read to her often enough.
“It says, uh…” she began, clearing her throat. “It says: today we arranged, no, arrived… at the tower and inside we heard a, um, a terrible noise.”
She glanced up, embarrassed, but Aloth’s expression of interest hadn’t faltered at her stumbling words, and his eyes as he watched her read were warm and fond. He smiled at her encouragingly and her nerves faded away.
She turned back to the diary with a smile of her own and continued to read to him.