All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright © Anne McCaffrey 1967,2000, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey, used here with permission. Use or reproduction without a license is strictly prohibited. For more information, visit the Worlds of Anne McCaffrey.

21-12-00: Words
Hanneke is quite, quite cheerful. This is a common occurance. The probationary apprentice sits, or rather, lounges, in a chair...

Hanneke is quite, quite cheerful. This is a common occurance. The probationary apprentice sits, or rather, lounges, in a chair at the apprentice table, and casts her head upwards, tawny curls bobbing about her face. "Evening, Craftsecond!"

Byre walks in tiredly, but still managing to look pretty cheerful. As cheerful as he ever looks, given his usually deadpan demeanor. "Evening," he says.

Byre hesitates. Technically, this is his correct title, but for some reason it weirds him out every time he hears it. He decides it's not worth pursuing. "How goes?'

From the look of her, Hanneke goes well enough. From the words spoken..."Oh! I'm really great! Everything is just--nifty! I heard that word the other day. Don't you think that it's cool?" Hanneke bubbles merrily, swinging legs beneath the table.

Agnes hunches in her own chair, busily scribbling in a terrible scrawl on a well-scraped hide across her knees.

Davad emerges from the main hall.

Sass emerges from the main hall.

Byre ponders the question for a minute, pausing to nod at Davad as he enters, then beckon Sass over towards him with a grin. "Sass. What do you think of the word "nifty"?"

Sass doesn't exactly stumble in bleary-eyed, but she does indeed have the bleary-eyed look that usually accompanies stumbling. "What?"

Davad seems to either have missed the nod, or is just ignoring it...regardless,. he merely heads towards the klah pot and pours himself a cup before grabbing a meat-roll off the tray and finding himself a seat near the fire (and somewhat intentionally away from the crowd...).

Hanneke crosses her hands in front of her, leaning back within her chair with a vague, but ultimately thrilled, beam upon her face. Empty-headed sweetness and like incarnate. Agnes she's already seen, and Davad, well, he's given a nod, but no more.

"Hanneke was singing the praises of the word "nifty." I was hoping to get your opinion." Byre can be such an oblique shmuck sometimes.

Davad takes a sip of his klah, and watches the fire...

"I think it's kinda throwaway." Sass slunks into a chair. She finds she's happier in the chair, for the most part, but sitting in the chair isn't getting her any food. This is a dilemma.

Byre clucks once before returning his attention to Hanneke. "I'm sorry. Apparently, it's a throwaway word." He cocks a half-grin, just so the joke is explicit, if a little odd.

"Throwaway?" Hanneke questions the word used, large eyes centering themselves upon Sass for the moment. "What do you mean by that? I don't get it." Byre, too, earns another glance, as he speaks, "Huh?" She wouldn't get a joke if it jumped on her, and explained itself word by word, but...

Davad takes another sip, an air of disinterest around him...his eyes seem to be focused on the talkers, however...

Sass isn't in on the joke, either. Her eyebrows knit a stitch of a wrinkle between themselves. "I mean it's disposable, temporary -- it's not a word with staying power. Five turns from now you'll look at something you wrote with the word 'nifty' in it, and even if that seemed to be exactly what you meant then, it won't be, later."

Hanneke pauses. "Oh. Is 'spiffy' any better?"

Davad hehs silently to himself as he looks at the meatroll...'nifty'...Hrrm...interesting term; he begins playing with it in his mind, coming up with different meanings...

Byre is trying hard not to laugh. That's saying something for him.

Sass answers with a direct "No."

Hanneke looks down at the table. "Oh." It's probably not a good idea to ask about anything like 'Cool beans', or 'cool'.

Agnes stares over at Sass from across her well written hide, and looks down at the scrawl, then starts very deliberately scraping over the entire last half-candlemark's work. "Staying power," she murmurs.

"But don't be one of those apprentices who looks at something that's plainly green and call it emerald or malachite or whatever, either," Sass goes on. "Just say it like it is."

Davad sighs...he's not really hungry, after all...he looks up at the firelizards, as if wondering if one of them would like his meatroll? Or perhaps share it?

Hanneke has probably never thought of something as anything but plain 'green' in her life, so she just nods blankly. "Not emerald, or malachite. Green. And brown." And stuff. She smiles brightly, tossing curls away from her face. "I'm getting the hang of this!"

Agnes pauses again, staring at the space just above her knees. "Say it like it is." Yes, there's an echo, and she's writing her own gospel. "Say it like it is, with staying power." She bites her lip and the end of her pen.

Sass's breath catches before her next word comes out. If Agnes is taking notes, Sass is going to watch what she says. "--Um. Hanneke. Have you written anything yet?"

Byre observes Sass preaching from the mount - the chair, anyway - and interrupts her briefly. "Journeyman Sass - can I get you something to eat while I'm up?"

Hanneke, unsurprisingly, is taking no notes. She probably never will. "Written anything? Well, I wrote down my turnday, so I wouldn't forget. And Mother and Father's, too."

Sass' mouth pulls up into a wan smile. "Oh. I meant, y'know, poetry, or a story, or an essay if you wanted." Then her face turns toward Byre and her squint comes on. "I dunno. I mean -- yeah, I should eat something. I don't know what."

Hanneke says, after a pause. "Oh. Well--I wrote something, but I didn't write it down. I sort of thought it, y'know?" Trust Hanneke.

Sass taps the tabletop. "Write it," she says. "Please?"

Hanneke flushes prettily, and nods her head rapidly, "I will! I'll try!" She adds, eyes narrowing slightly, her face completely innocent -- and not falsely, either -- "Do you want to read it, then?"

Sass holds up a fortified grin. "I sure do."

Hanneke's colouring changes again, this time going quite pale. "Oh. But what if it's no good!" Overraction, thy name is Hanneke.

"That's the purpose of revision," Sass assures. "Don't sweat it."

Hanneke takes a deep breath, and nods her head slowly, tossing her curls about. Once again, the dimpled smile returns to her features, and she assents, "That's all right then. I'll do it!"

Agnes watches the interplay, head swiveling from apprentice to journeyman, then abruptly she dips her pen in the inkwell, and her index finger as well, since she's still learning to judge the depth of the bowl. And the scratching starts up again, with more enthusiasm this time around.

Byre has gotten used to making this kind of decision for Sass, although he doesn't comment. Instead, he goes off in the general vicinity of the kitchen to see if he can scare up a late dinner for Sass.

"Thanks." Sass climbs down from her chair and prowls after Byre, picking up a napkin, a fork, a knife, a spoon, and the murmured details of his day.

Hanneke, as if given a reprieve of immeasurable need, slumps back in her chair further, exclaiming, "What a lovely day!" She glances about the apprentice table, picking up her mug, formerly forgotten about, to take a sip.

Byre chuckles a bit at Hanneke's enthusiasm before returning to confer with Sass quietly, about nothing which matters overly much.

"I gotta get over to see Vinnie," Sass mentions, coming back around. "I bet Vyath's all lumpy and uncomfortable now."

Hanneke sniffs her nose at her mug, and, with minor disgust, sets it down again. She watches the Craftsecond, and the Journeywoman, with vague interest, her face showing a vacant expression of contentness, even in her silence.

Davad sighs...for some reason, this place just doesn't feel right right now...He stands, refills his klah mug, and considers...

Agnes sets her hide aside at last, carefully sifting a bit of sand over it before rolling the thing. Then she reaches for a piece of bread, despite still ink-stained fingers.

Sass slides back into the chair she'd left, proceeding neatly with dinner and dinner chit-chat, late as it is. "Are any of you at all interested in going to the clutching?" she asks, looking over each apprentice -- even Davad.

Byre chuckles. "Let me know when you want to go," he says, then withdraws slightly to wait for the apprentices' response.

Davad looks up at the mention of something important to him. Hatching? He turns to listen...

Hanneke comments to Agnes, beaming smile quite evident, "You're going to get ink on your bread!" What a disaster! Sass, after a moment's pause, is given another glance, and a quick nod ensues. "Ooh! Yes, please!" Bounce, bounce. Oh fear.

In the distance, the drums announce the departure of Journeyman Phaedra.

Agnes peers at Sass. "Could we?" There a wistful note in her voice - homesickness, perhaps?

Hanneke leaves no doubt whatsoever, nor Agnes, but Davad she's not so sure of. "Davad?" Sass asks. "You too? It's not a requirement or anything."

Davad shrugs, and says, in a slighly musical voice, "...Sure. Where and when?"

Byre chuckles, then leans over to whisper to Sass quietly.

Hanneke wiggles into a more extended seated position, her back straight, and pulls her hands into her lap, glancing from apprentice to apprentice with a bright smile. "Exciting, don't you think? I'd just -love- to see a clutching. I never have."

"Yeah, yeah," Sass says offhandedly, shooing her husband from her ear. "The clutching should be soon, or soon-ish, within, say, the next sevenday or two. They take a long time, so when it starts we'll get word and then we'll load you all up for the ride -- I'll put each of you on the list. If you have friends who want to go, they should get on the list too; we keep it in Master Gaelin's office. And it's at Fort Weyr."

Hanneke smiles prettily, dimples becoming obvious, and nods her head. "Thank you, Journeywoman. That -will- be a -wonderful- treat." The emphasis on each word is audible; as if she's using capitals mentally.

Sass sharpens her focus on Hanneke. "Your name ends in e-k-e, right?"

Agnes offers a "Thank you," too, and smiles at her ink-stained bread. Hanneke's enthusiasm gets answered with a little shrug.

Hanneke pauses, confusion registering upon her face. Then, slowly, she agrees, "Yes. That's right."

"Got it." With that, Sass returns to her dinner and her husband's company, resolutely distancing herself from the younger set (for now) so that she may have fifteen grown-up minutes. Dogged irony nevertheless compels her to discuss the latest class of apprentices.

Hanneke is -too- adult! Okay, so she's not, but that's beside the point. "I don't like ink-stained bread," comments Hanneke, brightly, towards Agnes, "I think ink tastes nasty. It looks nasty, too. I wish we used yellow, or something pretty."

Agnes answers the ink comment with a shrug, too. "It tastes salty," she says, defiantly. "It's only mushed up plants, anyway."

Hanneke, equally defiant, although she still has that effervescent smile upon her face, "I don't like it tasting salty. It's supposed to taste...bready."

Agnes takes a bite where there's some ink, and winces, but she's not about to admit it tastes bad, so she chews and chews, then swallows. "Yummy."

Hanneke looks appalled: "Yummy? -Ew-!" She looks almost horrified. Standing, the girl backs away a little. "That's -gross-! You're sick, Agnes. Quite sick." And she runs, or rather, jogs, since running has never been her strong point. "Ew!"

Drawing open the door, you pass into the yet more chaotic outer hall.