Logs:Fire-Breathing Chicken-Oven
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| RL Date: 24 February, 2015 |
| Who: Rafevan, Laine |
| Type: Log |
| What: Rafevan is trying to work. Laine isn't helping. |
| Where: Smith Workroom, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 6, Month 2, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
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| While much of the smiths' work takes place outside in the forge, they still have their workrooms. It's nearly empty this afternoon, with only a couple of young students prepping speeches for some class; and then Rafevan. The senior apprentice has claimed the prime spot by the windows thanks to his seniority, and he's currently hard at work drafting a design on a slate. There's chalk dust on his cheek where he's touched it, and one sleeve is nearly white: apparently it's more convenient than an actual eraser. When the door swings open, it's not a smith to enter; it's Laine, apprentice tanner at large, with a fistful of leather straps slung over one shoulder and a puzzled expression. She makes a beeline for the storage shelves, and rummages through the smaller appliance drawers, noisily; the metallic clatter of her pawing through clips and fasteners lasts a few moments longer than might be considered appropriate, considering the nearby speech-prep groupwork. She does eventually produce something that satisfies her, and with these clutched in her fist she drifts over to the nearest table: Rafevan's. Unceremoniously, Laine dumps everything she's carrying down, not on top of Ravefan's work, but... nearly. The noise draws Rafevan's attention first: while he doesn't look up, the tension in his shoulders is suddenly evident, and his chalk pauses on the slate. When it stops, its maker satisfied, he seems poised to resume his activities except for the interruption of everything coming to rest on his table. "Can I help you?" he says, the words sharper than probably necessary until he looks up and finds the half-remembered Laine there. Then, he just frowns at her. "You guys," Laine is answering nearly before he's got a chance to ask, speaking right on the heels of his question, "have the best light in here." Holding one strap taut and examining it in the soft white glow from the winter window, the young woman makes a small, agreeable noise (at the leather, apparently), then turns back to Rafevan. She does look mildly surprised at his tone, and scoops her heap of leather and hardware closer to the edge of the table. There. Harmless, right? She offers him her Second Best Smile(tm)--despite that frown. "Oh, it's you." "It's me," Rafevan confirms; it doesn't quite erase his frown, but the edges blur a little bit. Second best smile indeed. "And we do." No arguments on the quality of lighting from him, when he's so clearly claimed it all for himself. And he doesn't scoot to make room for her now, either. "I hear the Masters were quite adamant it should go to us. And apparently the other crafts agreed, or just thought it wiser not to argue with the knife-makers." It's a joke, probably, judging by the just-barely quirk of his mouth upward at the corner. Laine doesn't seem to mind that Rafevan won't make room; she just scooches closer to the window with that long band of leather and holds it up to her eye, flat, and examines it lengthwise. Chuckles. "Probably for the best. Knife-wielders always get priority." She turns, and *cracks* the leather strap in the air with a glint of laughter in her eye. "Best we can do is whips." From here, she's right over Rafevan's work, and she shamelessly ogles it from her vantage. "What're you doing?" "Color me afeared," drawls Rafevan, without sounding such. She doesn't seem to be going away, and now he's just being stubborn in the fight over the little window space. Unfortunately for both of them, its hours are numbered now as the short days of winter stretch on. "A design I've been brainstorming," he tells Laine then. The slate is angled just enough to let her peek at it, at least. "A modification of our current flamethrowers." It's hard to tell without something for scale, but this design looks a lot bigger--not something designed to be carried by one person at all. Laine wriggles the limp strap at Rafevan and growls, "fear the tanners! And our mysterious ways!" OK. Maybe not so scary. But she's just as stubbornly not giving up her space next to the window, even if she has to stand; she's careful, though, not to block Rafevan's direct light. Apparently whatever she's doing is less important (or perhaps less interesting) than his design, and Laine makes a whole bunch of appropriately impressed and engrossed noises before stating, very seriously, "I have no idea what I'm looking at here." Her tone somehow makes the statement into a question, an invitation for explanation--if he's feeling inclined. First Rafe's brows go up. Then he just stares at Laine, snorting back what's probably a laugh at her expense. Clearing his throat, he agrees, "Yes, right." He tries to reclaim some measure of gravity when it comes to his own work, at least; he glances down at his sketch again, then sets the slate aside on the counter. "It's only an idea so far. I like imagining what we could build if we freed ourselves from the ideas of how a thing actually is. Keeps your ideas from getting stale in the ruts of our predecessors." That offending strap gets laid aside, with a husky chuckle from Laine. She doesn't seem to mind that the laughter was at her expense, only that she did provoke it, and it's with a self-satisfied smile she reaches for that slate when Rafe sets it down. She turns it, holds it upside down, then cocks her head left/right/left. Squints. "Mm. Hmm. Looks like a big metal chicken when you hold it like this. Fire-breathing chicken," she hastens to add. For his ego's sake. But despite that, her next comment is thoughtful, drawled: "Like designing a flamethrower if you've never seen a flamethrower before." "Why would I design a big metal chicken?" The very idea seems to first confuse, then amuse, Rafevan. "Should I craft one for the kitchens? Make it roast its own kin?" he suggests, grinning outright at that. He squints at the tablet himself, as though trying to see what she does; clearly, it's not working. He shakes it off. "Something like that. Have you ever tried something similar? Maybe not; I can't imagine there are that many ways to fashion whips, even if we free our minds from the shackles of tradition," he drawls. Laine nods emphatically, punctuating Rafevan's idea with one finger rhythmically tapping the slate. "Absolutely. Could also use it to put the fear of Faranth into the laying chickens; double egg production overnight by just showing 'em the oven. Multipurpose." Noticing a smudge of chalk on her hand, Laine replaces the tablet in front of Rafe and discreetly brushes her hands on her trousers. She has a smile, wry, for his next question. "I'll admit something to you, Rafe. I am not the most... creative... apprentice they have over yonder. Though!" And she holds up one, white-smudged finger, "Dragon harnesses? Room for improvement." Now those lines are a little smudged, and while Rafevan eyes them, he doesn't seem unduly put out over the damage to his design. He sets the slate aside, nudging it out of the way. "That is... maybe not so much a negative as the crafters' mythos might lead one to expect," he says then, with a wry turn of his lips. "I often feel my Masters find me a little too creative for their purposes." Laine's eyes, following Rafevan's gaze, skitter over those few smeared lines; at least she has the decency to look a tad sheepish. Glancing away, over at the nearby group of apprentices, she says, "feels like every master--shells, every senior journeyman--has a particular way of doing thing. And the best way to win their favour is to imitate them as best you can." Maybe she's rolling her eyes, but it might be hard to tell from Rafe's angle, "Must be flattering, being a high-ranking crafter with all the apprentices trying to copy you." "Flattering, yes," Rafe agrees with that much dryly. "Advantageous to the craft, no. --Which is not to say every harebrained apprentice idea is actually useful, but." He lifts his shoulders in a vague sort of shrug. "It's a fine line to walk. I hope you're better at it than me." A shifting expression comes over Laine: she had been somewhat defiant, but when Rafevan agrees, her features soften. Phew. She's not going to be reported for craft-related heresy or saying mean things about the masters. She admits, "I'll cop to being hairbained, but rarely to coming up with ingenious innovations." She gestures casually to the smith's slate. "Easy for me to toe the line; I never come up with anything neat like fire-breathing chicken-ovens. You're not actually getting in trouble for suggesting new ideas, are you?" This last is somewhat incredulous. "To be fair, I think the fire-breathing chicken oven was allll you," answers Rafevan, with a small smile for that. "And--no, not in trouble, so much. But." Another of those carefully careless shrugs. "I'm sorry," he says then. "I remember you, but your name seems to have eluded me in all the--commotion, that night." That's one way of putting it, anyway. "I'm Rafe." Laine's expression of skepticism says that, hey, if it looks like a fire-breathing chicken-oven, and it *quacks* like a fire-breathing chicken-oven... Though she doesn't give voice to that particular thought. Instead: "But?" But. But she won't pry. She offers a hand, with a rueful curl of her mouth. "Laine. It's nice to meet you--formally." (She doesn't say "sober".) "Did you emerge relatively unscathed that night?" Rafevan echoes, amused, "Formally." He extends his own hand to grasp hers before withdrawing again; this time, he leans back just enough she might actually be able to take advantage of the (now failing) light. If she's actually inclined to work after all. "I did, for the most part. An interesting experience. I expect it's best for all involved that gold flights are so uncommon. Did you fare well?" By whatever standard that might be, says his delicately lifted brow. If anything, Laine seems more interested in basking in that dim light and whatever warmth it might impart. Her work--whatever it was--is a sad, forgotten heap at her elbow. Her own thick eyebrows perk, and she chuckles. A flush of red darkens her pale cheeks. "Hard to say. I got drunk. Pawed at a bluerider until they informed me, not-so-tactfully, that they weren't," *ahem*, "buying what I'm selling. Sulked in my dorm." One shoulder lifts, then falls. She doesn't quite meet Rafe's gaze--embarrassed, perhaps. "All in all... Not the worst thing that could've happened." Oh, now he's very much struggling not to laugh, at or with her either one. His gaze is studiously mild. The couple of younger apprentices sharing the workroom, however, keep sneaking looks over by this point, trying to keep their teeheeing quiet. "That's unfortunate," Rafe tells her, his tone bland as milk, eyes bright with laughter. "Turned down by weyrfolk. Perhaps you should reconsider your pricing plan?" "Oh," Laine presses a wrist to her forehead, drama incarnate, possibly for the very benefit of those younger apprentices, "Rafe. We've only just met and you're rubbing salt in my sorry, bruised ego." And she hmphs. "I respected their agency. That's what good, decent people do." A smirk cracks through her feigned tragedy. For all her melodrama, Laine doesn't seem terribly broken up over it. "Anyway, my ego can do with some bruising once in a while." "And salting," chimes in Rafe for his part. Poor ego. It never stood a chance. "At any rate, as long as everyone enjoyed themselves and respected their agencies..." He trails off with a drawl, grinning again now. He can't help it. That earns a delighted laugh from Laine, and an airy handwave. "Okay, enough about my sad, salty ego." She casts about for a change in subject, and settles on: "Tell me about another one of your brilliant inventions. Have you created some sort of far-viewer that can spy on the nearby planets?" "Mm. That's more the starsmiths' area of expertise there," admits Rafevan, snorting. "Though Faranth knows they end up coming to us still when they can't figure out how to make their casings work properly. It's a delicate art, after all. But myself, I work mostly with--as you may gather--flamethrowers, agenothree, that sort of thing. Explosives, where needed." Laine's brows perk up. "The not-so-delicate arts of blowing shit up, huh?" She grins roguishly. "Sounds fun. Sounds dangerous." Tone suggesting that these two things are so often compatible. She cranes her neck. "Do you still have all your fingers?" First one hand, then the other: Rafevan holds them up to wiggle them all at Laine. One, two, all the way up to ten. "The two are often synonymous," he says, of the fun and danger in his craft. She's visibly impressed. "Good for you. And your fingers. Makes drafting up a sketch easier, at least," she nods to Rafevan's slate. She's about to say something else, too, when the door to the workshop swings open and an impatient voice calls her name. Laine's eyes widen and she hastily scoops up her armload of leather, grabs her buckles and appliances, and offers a rapid-fire: "nicechattinggottarunseeyouaround!" She spins, answers that exasperated voice with a cheerful, "coming!" and just like that, she's gone. "Good evening," Rafe replies in parting, watching after Laine as he she bolts out the door again. He studies the doorway for a moment, then picks up his sketch again to study it. He adds a beak, first, then erases the entire thing with his sleeve. Back to the drawing board. |
Comments
Roz (14:06, 25 February 2015 (EST)) said...
Rafe, you can name all my logs from now on, kthnx.
But really, this was hilarious and a fun read. I like the apprentice with apprentice interaction. :D
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