Logs:Firestone
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| RL Date: 26 May, 2007 |
| Who: Zahava, Illya, P'draig, C'nroy |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Learning to sort firestone. Starting to flame. |
| Where: Outside the Weyrling Barracks, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 6, Month 2, Turn 12 (Interval 10) |
| P'draig is hunkered near a couple of sacks of firestone, each bearing a different lable. Weyrlings are grouping up around the Weyrlingmaster and the sacks, some looking curious, others excited. Ciath and Zahava step out of the barracks together. Yesterday, both halves of the pair had been showing a bit of disctraction, the former making a few silly errors in drills, the latter scolded for not paying attention in lecture... but today has been going a bit better, so far. The young gold spreads her wings to stretch, momentarily blocking the barracks exit as she does so, looking curiously towards the sacks of firestone. Illya is running late. Or more accurately Azath is running, Illya is merely late. In a classic case of bad timing the green has to plant her feet and skid to a halt as Ciath's wing blocks the exit from the barracks, causing Illya to bump into Azath's backside with a resounding thump. And other Weyrlings still exiting pile up behind ILlya. Weyrling jam!!!! Ohnoes! P'draig looks up and over, quirking one brow at the group that's stuck. "Uh ...." he stands, scratching at his head, the sacks of firestone lingering behind him. Both Zahava and Ciath turn to look back, and the dragon quickly waddles out of Azath's way. "Sorry, sorry," Zahava apologizes, aiming one at Illya and the weyrlings behind her, and the other to the Weyrlingmaster. Ciath's hide shudders delicately as she settles herself out of the way of her clutchmates. Azath snorts slightly in Ciath's direction before picking herself up and moving out of the way herself -- making sure, of course, to take a path that takes her away from the blockading gold. Illya seems tohave come off unscathed, though as Azath moves she comes close to tumbling to the ground. She comes very close to saying something nasty to Zahava, it's pretty clear from her expression that she really wants to, but instead settles for. "No serisous harm done. She's not a small as she used to be." Eyeing Illya and Zahava in particular, P'draig maintains a largely neutral expression but a hint of relief might be detected on his face for the lack of fireworks between the two. "All right, everyone gather around, provided there's no bumps or bruises. No? Good. Okay, today ... firestone! Which is a good thing. After you get comfortable with flaming, you'll be required to carry a sack of this stuff with you at all times when doing long flights. It's a protective measure in case of sudden Thread." Zahava nods quickly at Illya, glancing between Ciath and Azath, then stepping into place to listen. Somewhat. She does look at P'draig most of the time, but the rest she spends scanning the faces of the other weyrlings. Ciath, however, is intent, watching the Weyrlingmaster closely. Illya straightens up as if to prove she's definitely not hurt and gives P'draig the maority of her attention, though occasinally she does drift a glance over to Zahava. Azath is enthralled. Desperate to get going. Fooood. "Also, while not all of you will be /using/ firestone, you'll all need to know what good and bad firestone looks like, just for the purposes of recognition." P'draig looks over at Zahava with a nod. "You'll all also need to learn how to use a flamethrower if you don't already." Zahava nods slightly at P'draig's glance in her direction, though her expression is rather bleak about something. She flicks a glance at Illya just in time to see her glance her way, and she flushes, quickly looking back to P'draig. Beside her, Ciath is outwardly unperterbed, the end of her tail twitching slightly. Illya's head snaps back to the front as she catches Zahava catching her glancing over. Her hands clasp behind her, and she stands like a statue for a moment, before sidling a little closer to Azath. The green for her part seems oblivious to teh human interactions going on, she's stretching er neck towards one of the bags of firestone. "Okay, so for today, we're going to do something that's pretty boring. We're going to sort firestone." P'draig pauses, waiting for the groans. "Each of these bags has fine grade, medium grade and junk stone in it. I want you each to come up and have a look, get familiar with the differences and the we're going to dump it all out in one big pile. You'll be divided up into teams. The first team to fill up three bags of each of the types of stone wins a day off drills." Zahava blinks, and far from groaning, she brightens a bit, a hint of relief in the faint smile that tugs at her lips. She lifts a hand to rest it on Ciath's leg, patting her lightly. Illya doesn't quite groan, it's more of a semi-concealed eye-roll. Something passes between the greenling pair and she coughs slightly, raising a hand. "Are we going to be feeding the dragons any of the stone we bag so they can get used to the taste?" P'draig nods. "Yes, after you finish getting familiar with junk stone. If you feed them the wrong thing, it won't be pretty. They also need to start thinking about the right stomach. They may as well do that while you're sorting." The Weyrlingmaster claps his hands. "Okay, so pick your teams, three to a team." Zahava raises her hand while Tally, Vivy and J'ffny form themselves into a trio, while Andamy wanders towards Kassey. "Sir? Should Ciath be working on that? Er... or does she... can she?" she asks, her forehead furrowed in confusion. Illya's immediate reaction is to turn to Tally, just in time to see her pair off. Gaze then drifts on to the group with one free space, but just as she and Azath make to move over Zahava speaks up and she pauses just long enough for S'mon to take the last slot. Y'var is spotted and the pair move quickly over to join him, regardless of how panicked he looks by it. C'nroy steps out of the Weyrling barracks. Chameth steps out of the Weyrling barracks. P'draig shakes his head. "No, Ciath can sit and watch, but she shouldn't eat any firestone. Ever." P'draig waits until everyone's teamed up then clears his throat. "All right, here we go," he passes the sacks around to each of the teams. "Look through each sack and get used to the feel and look of each type of stone based on the label. When you're done looking, dump the sacks out into this patch of clear ground and mix it all up." Zahava nods slightly. "Thank you, Sir," she says, turning to eye Ciath for a moment. It's only then that she turns to take stock of the groups. She spies two complete trios first, already going for their sacks of 'stone, and then her eyes skip over Illya and Y'var. Illya's group's first bag is average, and they quietly hand the stone round to each other. In fact it seems their group is going to work in silence, unlike the others who discuss the merits (or lack there of) between themselves. Azath seems to be taking a very close interest in the stone. Almost too close in fact. One ill timed sniff of the stone causes the green to sneeze on Y'var's leg and silence is finally broken by Illya's quietly muttered apology. Y'var seems to take great affront to having been sneezed on. He snaps back. "You're not sorry. You never are. In fact...." even as he rambles, C'nroy raises his hand. "Sir? If Y'var wants, I can switch out with him." Zahava catches H'myn's eye and heads towards that weyrling, leaving a rather disgruntled Ciath behind. She seems not so much in a hurry, taking her time about inspecting the stone in the sacks, checking the lables a couple of times. Illya hurls the lump of stone she had in her hand back into the sacks and turns away from the bluerider. Face like thunder she stalks off towards H'myn's group, not even registering that Zahav's headed that way as well. C'nroy motions to the disgruntled bluerider and leans over to speak to Vivy, who nods. C'nroy waits for word. It's ... musical Weyrlings ... P'draig stares at the mixing up for a moment. "All right, all right, this is it, no more swapping. We've got Vivy, Tally and J'ffny. S'mon, Kassey and Andamy. Illya, H'myn and Zahava, C'nroy, Anabelle and Y'var." The Weyrlingmaster moves off a little ways, watching. "Okay, trade sacks so you see all the different types of stone." C'nroy grins, nodding at Anabelle as she offers him a sample of the stone in their sack. Zahava pulls a chunk of stone from one of the sacks, only to find the thing starting to crumble in her hand. "Bad 'stone," she begins to say, looking towards H'myn only to spot Illya at that moment. "Illya," she greets, a faint note of surprise in her voice, having missed the exchange with Y'var. She opens her mouth again just as P'draig speaks up, and she glances towards him. Illya blinks. What was that other name in her new group? At least when you're already looking upset there's little change in expression to more upset. She nods back to Zahava, keeping her mouth firmly closed for the moment and reaching out a hand of a sack. Azath tundles over to join the little group as well, stopping with her head in line with Illya's shoulder. P'draig paces around, looking a little ruffled. "All right, has everyone had a chance to see each kind or do you need a few more minutes?" C'nroy looks at Yvar and and Anabelle and the three nod together. Zahava stuffs the crumbly stone back into her sack at P'draig's question, nodding. "We ready?" she asks the other two, her tone carefully polite. Illya mutters something quietly, and it's only after she repeats it to H'myn that he looks over to P'draig and asks for a moment more. Reaching for another sack Illya quickly gropes around a few pieces of stone and then nods to P'draig herself this time. P'draig nods as a few of the Weyrlings need more time. "You really do have to be careful with the junk, it can behave oddly in your dragon's stomach and it definitely won't produce a good flame." "And the Weyrwomen have to deal with the mines if it's bad, to send it back, or restock, and all," Zahava supplies new wisdom just recently acquired on the subject. She hefts the sack and heads towards the flat spot they're supposed to be dumping them out into. C'nroy glances over at Zahava and grins. Azath stretches forwards again, trying to get a better look in the firestone sacks for herself. Illya once more clasps her ahnds behind her back, but her gaze seems to be rivetted on her feet at the moment. As Zahava speaks she glances up, but it seems that Y'var's outburst has made her completely retreat into her shell and it's only the briefest of moments before she looks down again. Waiting another few minutes, P'draig checks in again. "All right, ready to mix it up, get this thing going?" he says cheerily. Illya is nudged by Azath before she replies. "Yes sir." Her voice is flat, almost emotionless, but there's a slight spark of anger still lurking in her eyes. Zahava carefully dumps out the sack of stone in the space, nodding towards the Weyrlingmaster. "Yes, sir," she confirms with a faint smile. Anabelle gathers up the bag and rocks for her group and nods to the Weyrlingmaster. "Ready, sir." she states. Zahava has the sack designated for bad 'stone, and so when it's time to start, she begins reaching for that particularly crumbly stone she'd noted before, stuffing it in her back. The next, she seems a little less sure of and she turns to Illya, holding the chunk in hand. "Do you think this is yours or mine?" she asks. Illya takes up the medium sack, looking up as Zahava questions her. She blinks slightly, then asks, "Can I hold it a second?" She rubs her thumb over the stone several times before offering it back, "Yours I think. It feels a bit bubbly." Her reply is polite, almost friendly in tone for once. She reaches quickly for another piece of stone, though this one is offered to H'myn, then finally finds one that's just average. Zahava nods without comment, stuffing the piece in question into her sack. She reaches for another, handing it towards H'myn immediately, but the next goes quickly into her sack again, wrinkling her nose. She's too slow reaching for the next - S'mon scoops it up just ahead of her. Illya and Y'var's hand grab the same piece of stone at almost exactly the same time, and she drops it as if she's been stung. She moves away from him once more, though he apparently has decided to follow her around the stone mound. Her next piece is snatched just before he reaches for it, but she once more loses out tot he piece that follows. Zahava glances at Y'var, and when she moves next, she inserts herself between him and her teammate, eyeing the bluerider as she reaches for the next piece he was reaching for, and offers it to Illya, judging it of medium quality. P'draig circles around the sorting Weyrlings, keeping an eye on the proceedings. He leans in past Tally at one point and corrects her dropping of a piece into a sack. "That's junk," he notes and points out the flaw she missed in the rock. Illya's "Thanks." to Zahava is accompanied by a faint smile, and for once both smile and appreciation seem genuine. Th epiece is dropped into her sack and she leans over to grab another from the mound. medium. It's sacked and she moves to grab another. P'draig draws back and keeps moving around, a quickly flashed smile showing up on his lips as something approaching a connection seems to be in the offing over Zahava and Illya's way. "Keep at it, fill those sacks up!" he says encouragingly. "We'll do this exercise a few more times over the next few weeks until you can practically do it blindfolded." "Welcome," Zahava replies pleasantly, if absently, as she hunts out another piece of junk stone, which breaks as soon as she tries to pick it up. "Shardit," she mutters, dropping the edge of her sack to reach for it with both hands. Illya hesitates a moment, then tucks her own sack between her knees and grabs Zahava's sack to hold it open. P'draig starts forward, then hangs back, nodding and moves around to S'mon's end of things. "That's the good stuff, not the bad stuff, that kind of slight nubbliness isn't a flaw," the Weyrlingmaster points out with a grin. The Weyrling lets out a soft oath and sifts through his sack, passing half of his rock over to Andamy to re-sack. Zahava glances at Illya, trying to smother the surprise in her expression, and achieving it for the most part. "Thank you," she says, dumping the large chunk into a sack that's nearly full. She reaches to take the edge back from the other weyrling. "Welcome." Illya nods, letting go of the sack once more. Favour returned she goes back to concentrating on her own sack, genuinely surprised at how full it is already. Two more pieces are sacke, a third handed off to H'myn. Zahava hands another piece to H'myn, and adds a final two to her own. "Done," she calls out, glancing towards Illya and H'myn to see how theirs are faring as well. First Tally, then S'mon and Andamy call out that they're finshed. H'myn makes the call a moment later, and a well timed grab for a piece of medium means Illya can call out next. Stepping away from the pile, and with some relief away from Y'var, Illya once more fades into the background. With the chorus of 'dones' getting thicker, P'draig steps in to start inspecting the contents of the sacks. Zahava sits back on her heels, waiting for P'draig to make his way around to her, glancing occasionally towards H'myn and Illya. P'draig roots through a couple of sacks, shaking his head over J'ffny's. "Sorry ..." he says to the team, "but this one's all mixed up." He lays out a few samples to show what they did wrong, explaining the differences then moves on to Zahava, Illya and H'myn. "Let's see 'em." Zahava opens the neck of her sack, and H'myn does the same. She leans back to give the Weyrlingmaster room to go through the 'stone, biting her lip lightly. Her selection may contain a few borderline stones that would do better at medium grade, but not many. P'draig weeds through Zahava's sack and points out the few that need to go over into the other sack. "These are a close call, each one, but these three pieces should have been in medium grade." He checks through H'myn and Illya's sacks and trades off another few pieces. "Good job, only a few misses and not bad ones at that." And he's off to the next group, until all the sacks have been examined. "All right, well, it's a close one, but we've got two groups that did pretty well. No one was perfect and J'ffny you need to spend some quality time with your firestone over the next few days. Andamy, your group and H'myn, your group, one day off drills." Zahava glances towards H'myn and smiles, failing to catch Illya's eye at the small triumph. "Thank you, Sir," she says tying off the end of the sack to keep the 'stone in, and transfering the medium-grade chunks over to the proper sack. "All right then. All Weyrlings with dragons who can take stone, pick up the medium-grade sacks and start feeding chunks of about this size," he closes his fist to demonstrate, "to your dragons. Za, let's do a preliminary check on this flamethrower and then we'll all practice flaming those targets over there." He points to a couple of straw dummies. Zahava grimaces as she gets slowly to her feet. "Alright," she mutters. As she approaches, she eyes said flamethrower as though it is a dangerous and unpredictable animal. One of the assistants steps in to help out with the Weyrlings who have dragons chewing stone, reminding them over and over to keep their tongues out of the way and to think of their second stomachs. Shortly a few of them are belching out short, weak bursts of flame. P'draig hunkers down by one of the flamethrowers. "Okay, first thing you always do before using one of these, is to check the safety on the nozzle. Make sure it's /off/ until you're ready to point it at something. Then you check all the other parts to make sure there's no cracks or loose fittings." Zahava nods slightly, frowning at the flamethrower. "Safety," she echoes, nodding as though to try to commit that to memory. After a moment, she crouches next to it as well. P'draig makes sure that the safety is firmly closed, then turns the handle towards Zahava. "Hold onto it like so and check the wand for any cracks, then check the tank too. See the dials? That's how you turn it off and on." Zahava reaches gingerly for the handle of the instrument, reaching for the wand with her other hand. First, she lifts it just a little to feel the weight, and her eyebrows shoot up as she lifts it a little higher than expected. "It's not as heavy as I remember... the one I used for that fall when I was a candidate seemed impossibly heavy," she remarks, turning her eyes to the wand to check for cracks. P'draig shakes his head. "That was for agenothree, right? It's a little different. Flamethrowers actually throw flame," he explains. "Agenothree's acid and you pump it out into burrows. This you can point in any direction. Try it out, the safety's on. Pretend you're spraying it around." Chameth turn his head, sticking out his tongue. "I know it doesn't taste good. Its not supposed to! Just think about flame." C'nroy tries to coax the brown to take a bite of stone. The assistant helping out the others, wanders over to C'nroy. "Don't forget to remind him about his second stomach, and use the back teeth to crunch the stuff. Then when he feels like belching, it should come out as a stream of flame." C'nroy nods to the assistant and salutes. "Thank you for the reminder." A rumble behind him. "Just try it okay, back teeth and second stomach, alright?" he offers the stone again. "Go ahead...." he soothes. Hesitantly Chameth extends his tongue, taking the stone from his lifemates hand and pulls it to his back teeth with a crunch. Zahava's dubious expression smoothes a little at the news that this tool is of a different variety than the one she's used before. "Alright," she says, reaching for the wand with her right hand. She experiments with pointing it, though, despite the safety, she makes sure not to point it either at herself or at P'draig. P'draig watches Zahava, nodding. "Allright, now, let's check the tank. What you're looking for is discolorations in the metal, cracks in the housing." He pulls over a different flamethrower that's riddled with obvious problems. "See the difference?" "There you go," says the assistant encouragingly. "Once it's well down, get him pointed away from everyone else, preferably at a target, and try to flame it." C'nroy stays well to the side of the dragon. C'nroy smiles as Chameth belches, a roar accompanied with a glowing hot spout of flame! Chameth bugles! Ciath shifts, watching her clutchmates at their experiments. She snorts at Chameth's production and extends her head to nose at a bit of dropped firestone, though she does not attempt to eat it. Zahava glances at her for a moment, then looks back to P'draig and the damaged tank, nodding. "Yes, I see," she agrees. "Granted, this one's in bad shape. Real bad shape, but that's the kind of stuff you're looking for. This is early type," he shows one crack, "probably reparable. This though? Not so much. That's why we use this one as an --" he breaks off, eyes going round as Sperth suddenly coughs up enough flame to singe Blyth's tail even though she's well in front of him. "Shells!!!!' he hollers and sets the flamethrower down. "Be right back Za. Keep those safeties on!" and off he goes to check Blyth over for damage. |
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