Well begun is half done

"Begin with your name."

Begin, my master says -- as if I had not pressed ink-sticks, bound soft marten hairs into bristles, pulped paper rags for more than a year before he let me merely hold a brush in writing position.

I take up the brush, dabble it in ink, draw it over the page. Transfixed by the shock of dark ink on creamy paper, I strain to recall all his teaching. Move from the elbow, not the wrist. I trace the last stroke of lambe simply, not daring to flourish, and hold my breath.

He considers. "A good beginning."

[For Meril, who wanted to see a student (any kind) learning something in Middle-Earth. The speaker of the drabble is Tasariel from my story Fading Leaves.]