Forest plopped himself down on a coach pillow he had thrown on the floor excitedly. He had a deck of cards in his hands that he set on the low table of the living room and they spilled off to the side.
Across the table sat Buddy, obediently waiting for whatever antics Forest had in mind. Their new front paws resting awkwardly on the rim of the table. They were used to having metallic claws that dug into the wood, so they usually kept their front legs on the ground.
That was only one of the changes Buddy had gotten recently, Rue had slaved away in the lab upgrading the canine's software and hardware. It was difficult with how sensitive their system was, any wrong move could shut down Buddy permanently. And one of the more practical upgrades Buddy had received was the ability to identify letters and numbers through their optics. They had the ability to read and count previously, but they could only interpret it in the form of digital data fed directly into their system.
Forest didn't understand the technical jargon Rue had told him once the operation was completed, but he did know that Rue was going to let him teach Buddy to read in a traditional sense. Not entirely of course, but to assist the process. Forest was confident that he could do the teaching all on his own, he'd seen his teachers teach and Rue helped him with his homework all the time.
Forest pushed the slipping stack of letter flashcards back up, pausing to make sure they didn't fall over again before he slid the first five cards onto the table ruining the best stack once more.
On the table lay bold letters, in both upper and lower case, the first give letters of the alphabet.
"Okay Buddy, are you ready?"
[Yes!] A sharp yip accompanied that affirmation. And Buddy lowered his head to the table to get a closer look.
"Okay, so these are the first five letters of the Alphabet. They're important, okay? So this one is 'A' like in appie berry. This one is B, like Buddy! That's the first letter of your name." Forest went down the row of letters in a similar fashion, spending the next hour or so getting through the stack of flashcards and small set of numbers at the end. Through the whole process the light whir of the operating systems became a constant whire noise.
Once through them all Forest grinned, "We did all of them!" He felt pretty proud of himself, and hoped Buddy learned it all. "Did you get it Buddy?"
Buddy nodded firmly. He did not have a full grasp of them, but it was a good start. [I got it, do I learn to spell now?]
Forest paused to think. Spelling was the best step right? But Rue said he had to take it slow with Buddy, because he didn't know whether Buddy's optical processor could fully interpret delicate letters just yet. "Hmmm… not yet, we'll save that for a different class. Now it's snack time!"
Buddy's ears perked up st the mention of snacks. They jumped to their feet with Forest. [Bread!]
Forest giggled, "Do you want me to make you a sandwich?"
