Improving her skills: awesome! Not falling in the dirt when she messes up: also awesome! She'll keep trying until she gets the hang of it or her teacher tells her to do something else.

Amat is happy to indulge her for a while. It gets easier pretty quick now that she knows the general shape of the thing she's supposed to do. She can even go forward a little bit without making Amat balk.

After a few minutes she suggests a short rest, maybe to talk about navigation, and then Margaretta can try hovering on her own.

Margaretta would be happy to talk about navigation! She fidgets excitedly with the ends of her hair.

Well, this is how you do navigation! There are ways to do it using a compass and map, ways to do it with complicated metal tools and looking at the stars, and a tricks for using landmarks and dead reckoning on trips you don't need the first two things for. You can guess how fast you're going like so... And so on.

She's a quick study, though a bit hampered by never having learned the habit of taking notes. She thinks the complicated metal tools for keeping track of the stars with are so amazing.

"It's pretty difficult to look at the stars in the middle of the day, or when it's cloudy, of course, so learning the other methods is important too. Perhaps we can try using the astrolabe tonight if the weather is clear?"

"I'd like that. And I definitely want to learn all the methods!"

Amat teachers her navigation indulgently for several hours. As a test, Margaretta gets to use the compass and map to point them back towards her village!

She needs to think for a bit, but she gets them going the right way!

"Good job. I have to go soon but I can come back in a day or two."

"Okay. I look forward to seeing you again and learning more things! I'll practice flying while you're gone." She stares at the navigation book and almost asks if she can hold onto it while Amat is away, but doesn't quite dare.

"I'll try to find you a present for next time! Goodbye for now!"

And off Amat goes.

Margaretta will diligently practice flying while Amat is away. And also go over her mental notes on navigation and try to practice that too, but without the ability to get from point A to any interestingly distant point B this mostly involves staring raptly at the night sky and drawing maps of the village in the dirt with a stick.

When Amat comes back two afternoons later, she's grinning. "I wonder if you can guess what your present is..."

"Is it a book? Is it an astrolabe? Is it a compass? Is it a broom that's good for flying?" (Hey, it doesn't have to be something that fits in a pocket, she could have left it somewhere.)

"It's a map of Castille and some of the surrounding area!"

She takes out a folded paper from her pocket and hands it over.

"Wow, thank you!" She looks at the map, searching for anything she recognizes and trying to memorize all of it.

The map is black and white, no nicely colored seas and land and terrain, and there are some printing smudges, but it's a fairly good map none the less.

"Your village is here, and see, the abbey you mentioned is here... I live in this town over here. It looks far away but it's only about an hour of flying."

She peers at the map. How much farther away is that town than the abbey?

It's ten times as far at least. The abbey is practically right next to her village.

"Flying is fast."

"Yep! You don't have to follow the road, and it's fast even if you do follow roads. Faster with a good broom too. Usually, fast brooms are also harder to fly, though."

"Why is that? And how much do different kinds of flying brooms cost?"

"Why is it that a shovel is harder to use than a garden trowel? And - are you sure you wish to know?"

"I can't afford any kind of broom, I'm ten, I just want to know because I'm curious."