Craft Complex, High Reaches Weyr(#2176RJ)
A passageway hewn into the rock and heavily patched with cement leads a short distance in to the bowl wall, with a door on either side. Lit by regularly spaced glows, the white-washed walls have been covered over by colorful tapestries, wall hangings and pieces of art made from metal and wood. To the left of the entranceway, just a single step inside, a spiral staircase opens out of the wall, leading upwards through the stone. Further down, a doorway opens to either side of the corridor, while at the far end, there is a hewn-stone staircase leading up to the residential quarters, wreathed by two final doors to private quarters and the bathing room.
The door leading to the east opens into an expansive room that seems to provide both general working space - with long, bare benches and chairs - and a cozy lounge complete with over-stuffed sofas and a few fuzzy armchairs. Three tall windows are carved into the stone, and offer air and light when the heavy wooden shutters are left open, though the lounge area has to make do mostly with glows. A hearth at the back of the room provides both heat and basic cooking facilities. The white-washed walls are bedecked with decoration - from quilts, to tapestries, to wooden carvings and metal sculptures.
The western door leads into another passage, off of which the main workrooms have been built. The loading dock is at hte northern end, leading back out into the bowl, with the rest of the rooms leading deeper and deeper into the wall.
Contents:
Xhaeon
Obvious exits:
Greenhouse Workrooms Residential Quarters Bowl
Snow flurries outside, slowly gathering momentum in piling up in ever-growing piles of cold, white mounts. Inside, Ceawlin has opted to stay within the crafter's complex today in order to practice some of the more complex musical arrangements taught in today's lessons. With stringed instrument in hand, he's going through rounds of soft, musical notes -- soft only because the desire isn't there to annoy anyone else who may be working indoors today. That, and it's not for any particular performance. Attire is warm, yet fashionably immaculate; pale hair shines in the glow-light from a head that's bent to the task at hand.
Not at all unused to this kind of weather, the tall sight of the most recent transplant - this one from Telgar - enters from the exterior, a long message-tube slung over one shoulder and snow still speckling chestnut hair and long eyelashes. Xhaeon's cheeks are flushed from the weather, and he takes a moment to stamp his boots, getting the remainder of cold slush away from the tread. This moment allows him to catch the strands of light music, and his grey eyes move unerring to track the position of Ceawlin. The young man diverts his stride towards Ceawlin, unslinging his message-carrier and settling down in the general vicinity of the Harper, already opening the tube and carefully extracting the contents: blueprints, it looks like, carefully chalked with measurements and dimensions and neatly-printed notes off to the side. In a lull of the notes, his deep baritone offers a mild: "Perfect weather for a day like this." Scruffy chin tilts briefly to the door and the snowstorm just beyond.
Ceawlin would fit perfectly well in with the snow and ice, given the relative paleness to hair and eyes, eyes that steal a glance to the emerging blueprints. In or out of his element, it's hard to tell with the harper, sharp features giving very little away. "It is," enunciation is perfect, and neutral; without accent to place area of birth, "perfect weather." Sharp, thin-lipped smile follows, attention drawn away from music and composition to face the (much) taller Xhaeon. "Ceawlin," introduction is made with the same accentless words, "Harper Senior Apprentice." The slight smirk is for the fact that the 'harper' is not hard to discern. "Bit far from home, eh?" The boy's got an ear for accents.
The Telgari drawl isn't necessarily something that Xhaeon tries to withhold. "How'd you guess?" His tone is affable with just the hint of a sarcastic bite. He unrolls the blueprints, leaning forward in his chair to carefully plant waterworn river-rocks, purloined from pockets, at the corners of prints so he can better assess them. The Smith doesn't even comment about the perfect weather, instead leaning over to offer one well-scarred and well-calloused hand - damn thing looks nearly like a dinner plate - in welcome. "Xhaeon, Smithcraft Hall." It's as self-introductory as he gets; the cords on his shoulder indicates he's a journeyman. "Are you native?" he questions a little after-the-point.
Ceawlin, surrounded by giants. "Lucky guess, I suppose," deadpan humor mixes with a dry tone; still, humor nonetheless. Taking the smith's hand, his own are noticeably softer with the predictable callouses that come from stringed instruments. "Well met, Xhaeon." Withdrawing his hand after a firm shake, the young man's smile widens. "Nah, came straight from the hall a few sevendays back." Or so. "To study and be prepared for when I walk the tables." Implication: soon.
Poor Ceawlin. It isn't Xhaeon's fault that his father's a scarily tall man! (Though he's scarecrow-tall... and scarecrow-thin.) "Smithcraft's regards to Harper," Xhaeon replies with another inclination of his chin. "Oh. Good luck," the big man comments mildly in regards to walking the tables, settling back in his chair. "I remember passing the journeyman exams," he recollects with a fond expression; "And the alcohol afterwards," he tacks on with another of those grins for his fellow crafter.
"The alcohol after," Ceawlin muses, "I'm not too far away from it, myself. This is the last leg of my studies." Fingers still on strings, ending their musical notes as conversation becomes the focus. "And Harper's duties to Smith," is rejoined back, smile widening a fraction, yet never quite warming frigid eyes. "Did you get posted here? Or did you request to come here?" idly asked, more for conversation than anything else.
"For now." Xhaeon's comment is ambiguous, but a slight tilt of supple mouth would indicate his private consideration of studies ending. "Posted here, for my journeyship," the other returns easily. "Faranth herself only knows why I ended up at this cushy gig rather than traveling bumshards Nabol, trekking through the woods and building piss-poor lean-tos for farmers and ranch-hands." A self-depreciating smile, display of calloused palms, a chuckle for his luck. "I'm not going to question them /too/ hard on it, if you know what I mean. They may realize they've made a mistake after all, send me back."
To that comes laughter, something finally penetrating the icy gaze in what might pass for real humor. "Touche," Ceawlin remarks, tucking the instrument into its case while he talks. "I wouldn't question that either. Luckily for me, rarely does a harper have to suffer the indecencies of," vague distaste colors his expression, "/farm/ life. At least, not one in good standing." Wryly added, humor crackling dry in the boy's smooth tenor. "Good job on landing the cushy posting." Chin-nodding to the blueprints, "What's that?"
"I've known a fair share of Harpers who have had to suffer small-time rural life," Xhaeon wryly returns, acknowledging the laugh with a broad grin of his own. "Everyone has to learn their letters, don't they?" It's more rhetorical than not: though Pern's literacy rate is remarkably high, considering, everything can-- always use improving, back in the boondocks. He smooths calloused fingertips down the nearest line on the blueprints. "Though a few of those may not have been in the -- neatest standing they could have been, in relation to craft and hall." His voice is absent, his expression considering. "Eh, suggested renovations for the Smith workshop," he returns, his tone easy. Like ANYTHING here needs a face-lift?
Ceawlin's response is the mere lift of pale 'brows once again, though a debate of semantics doesn't follow as Xhaeon made his point for him in the relative 'rarity' of such undertakings. "Everything, as you stated, can always use improvement," the harper turns the smith's words back to him, in regards even to renovations. "If it is better, more efficient, and used to drive productivity and an overall satisfaction with the workplace, I'm sure it'll be considered." Twisting slightly, Ceawlin reaches over to retreive his composition notes, shuffling them into a more ordered pile. "I've seen a fair amount of smiths here. Are you to be their venerable leader?"
"Efficiency is, of course, a laudable thing to strive for," Xhaeon bandies back, an ease to tone and relaxed set to shoulders and expression. He critically studies the blueprints, carefully picking up the first layer of the sheaf of papers and moving to the next layer: this one literally displays the proposed facade for a wall nearest the forge, carefully layered with due consideration to temper and heat. He glances up, a moment or two belated, after Ceawlin questions his street cred. "I'm not sure about venerable leader," he replies, bemused. "There are a few journeymen senior to myself already posted here, of course." Dismissive, his words, a hint of laughter just underneath the thin veneer.
Sly, is the look Ceawlin sends Xhaeon, askance. "Truth, except that usually they foist the apprentices off on the new journeymen to allow the older, senior journeymen more time to play." Perhaps observation, perhaps personal experience; it's difficult to tell. Harper's attention drifts as well, blue eyes pouring over the composition in hands, making notes here and there, allowing the conversation to lapse momentarily.
Xhaeon pulls a face. "And you, young sir, are just about to be that new journeyman yourself. Are you ready to shepherd along baby Harpers like a flock of geese?" There's resignation there, his dismissive approach having failed utterly. "Not to mention that the commissions the older journeymen make far outclass what my own capabilities could produce." Here, with so little masons and minecrafters and lack of individuals with ambitious building projects. "All experiences are worth learning something from," is what he finally states, in the same resigned slant that a person would utter 'all things happen for a reason' in.
"I am no shepherd of baby Harpers," Ceawlin mutters, though in much the same resignation as Xhaeon might have uttered his final statement. "I am hoping," confidence remains unshakeable in this hope, "that once I am a journeyman, I will be given more interesting tasks than being the Mother geese to young and annoying baby Harpers. They would be more apt to die," pause, word choice is reconsidered to: "fail than not." Nose wrinkles; tow-head comes up to once more regard the Smith, "Though I will do my duty to the Hall as I am sure you do, even if it is distasteful." Ceawlin? A leader of impressionable minds? That'd be the end of the world.
"Doesn't every aspiring journeyman hope for interesting tasks rather than menial? Ability in no way matters when it comes to assignation of such - seniority does." Xhaeon stops tapping his index finger absently against the blueprints, shakes his head, glances up. "If you know what I mean." And they are both on the younger slant of things - Ceawlin even moreso than Xhaeon. "There are worse things in life than shepherding apprentices, after all." This is much more reflective: teeth gleaming impertinent against rebellious tan and scruff of chestnut stubble about his mouth. "You could be a beastcrafter."
Palpable is Ceawlin's distate at the mere thought of being a beastcrafter. "Seriously," comeraderie seems to be the order of the day, for this single moment of bonding over the lesser craft (in their eyes) does much more to warm icy blue eyes than anything else. "It is too bad one can't just off one's seniors in order to make way for one's self," the boy laments, off-handedly, before snapping his case close and gathering up his hides. "On that note, I'll excuse myself. Classes are not yet done for the day. Later, Smith." The lack of name is not derogatory in nature, rather, the boy seems almost genuinely interested in Xhaeon as a person and not as a thing to be studied, written about, and spied on. With a half-assed salute -- and somehow, Ceawlin can turn even this act to the sarcastic irony -- the harper turns and heads off; presumably to class.
Stylus brandished in a salute; "Same to you, Harper." It doesn't seem to be ironic, either, this addressing of purpose rather than name - Xhaeon's eyes thoughtfully follow Ceawlin for a moment, likely indulging in some crazy mental devices to try to remember his name, before returning to his blueprints and future efforts. There's a sigh, the conversation of lesser crafts and bettering one's position pushes firmly aside - mentally - and with a scrape of stylus on paper, he's
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