Log: Falling Jars, Fish and Feet
Who: Jaeni, Leova, Milani
When: Late morning, day 21, month 6, turn 15 of the 10th Interval
Where: Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
What: Stores cleanup continues and Milani's gotten exploded upon by nasty jars. Leova has commentary, then Jaeni arrives with recycling ideas and an interest in feet.
Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
This ledge is a good size, allowing two large dragons on it at the most, however the furniture and decorations do very little to allow dragons to land. The stone has, through time, become smooth with the sting of High Reaches' biting winter winds. Lacking are the telling talon marks of an occupant at any time within the past decade and the ledge has been weeded and cleared of greenery. Situated along the western bowl, this ledge offers a view of the lake in the distance and has a set of wide steps curving along the bowl wall to the ground.
A stone half-arc shelters half of the ledge from the extreme weathers, where a iron-wrought bench and two patio-like tables have been set up. Little niches, carved out of the stone in a rustic fashion hold glow baskets to provide light at night. The very edge has been decorated with wooden boxes of potted flowers that blossom beautifully in the spring and summer.
The morning is clear, and the sun shines with a few small clouds floating past. A light wind blows and the summer air temperature feels comfortable.
The sun is bright enough, the breeze is brisk enough, that between them the ledge is comfortable for some to sit. Some who aren't out flying about the greater part of Pern, at least, or who aren't restricted by their jobs to tiny hide-filled cubbyholes or echoing steam-filled wash caverns. Somewhere in Tillek, a two-month-old filly is skipping and leaping in the green grassy meadows, but right now Leova is here, taking up the bench with her legs spread out along it the way she liked to occupy the bench along the Hold's path, her jacket padding her back and mending across her lap. She sews carefully, mechanically, competent but not anywhere near adept.
From within the Snowasis rings the sound of a familiar-by-now voice: "No, no, I'm not going back in there right now, that was just /too/ sharding disgusting. We're all taking a break, Selmin, go have a drink or something. Hayda? I'll deal with Hayda okay? Break time. Tell her I said so if she bugs you. Got it?" And Milani strides out onto the ledge, right to the edge of it not too far from Leova's bench, swabbing ineffectually at the front of her blouse and skirt. "Augh. Rotten jarred, preserved fruit just ... /stinks/. This is /never/ coming out." The girl sighs and pushes back straggling strands of hair falling down from a knot that must have looked carefully put together earlier.
Leova's eyes lift. "That happen much? Hope not." Waste of fruit. Waste of time. Waste of cloth, and water to wash it with. "Try rubbing some fish into it. The oil helps get the smell out." Though Leova has returned to turning a sleeve inside out, and setting the child's shirt on the doesn't-need-much pile, she keeps a sideways eye on what Milani's reaction might be.
"What?" Milani swivels a little and blinks over at Leova blankly for a moment, then her face creases into a bright smile. "Oh hi there. And um ... no. We're digging out the last of the back store rooms and there's some really old and really nasty stuff back there and one of the handymen knocked over a shelf and all these jars came flying down and well I went to pick up one of the ones that wasn't broken, but it exploded. Boosh. And it got me." A gesture to her front. "Fish ... you've gotta be /kidding/ me." And she stares over at Leova in disbelief.
"You're right. I am," Leova says happily, shaking out another, larger shirt that looks all right at first, but turns out to be threadbare at the elbows. "Although you could still do it, and then have the handyman wear it... Glass, though. You'd have said if you weren't all right there."
"Okay, phew." Another sunny smile follows and Milani eyes her front, gives up on clean up and plucks a little shard of aforementioned glass out of a fold in the fabric. "Speaking of ... should probably change. Hopefully all of /that/ will come out in the wash too. I really /like/ this top." A soft sigh follows and then the assistant headwoman nods vigorously. "Oh yeah, yeah, not hurt, just a little rattled and ... frustrated."
Leova sobers at that. "You should. Come back after you're done, maybe? Give yourself a breather." She tugs lightly on one of the worn elbows; it rips, she shrugs and rips it the rest of the way off. "Easier on everyone."
Milani eyes the little glass shard and then blinks over at Leova. "Easier on everyone? And shells, /that/ shirt's a /real/ mess." Her head shakes a couple of times. "All right. Hold that thought. I'll be right back." And she vanishes back inside and all the way through to the caverns to divest herself of the stained and glassy stuff to wash up and change, because when she returns, she's got on fresh clothes and her hair's damp and down.
When she returns, Leova's piles of clothing have changed: the salvage-what-you-can pile grown, the just-needs-a-little huge, the needs-a-lot in between, and the original pile shrunk to only a few left. She picks up the conversation as though Milani had never left, "Everyone who deals with you, anyway." Methodically she checks some frayed hems. "And you too."
Milani tucks her hair back behind her ears and flops onto the ground in front of the Candidate's bench and eyes the mending pile. "You're just cruising right on through that pretty well." Then she looks up and laughs, equanimity restored by the break. "You meant the smell. And you're right."
"Because I'm still sorting," Leova tells the newly washed-and-changed Milani as she works, stopping only to stretch out her legs some more into the sunshine and shift a little on the hard iron bench where she sits, piles of mending on her lap. "Then mend the easy ones. Rip up the rags, saving the buttons and things. So there's that much more to wear, sooner." She chuckles. "The smell, and... you sound less rattled too."
"Ohhhh," Milani nods knowingly and folds her legs beneath her tailor style from her spot on the ground in front of said bench. "Very efficient. I'll let Hayda know so," she teases a little, grinning up at the Candidate and leans her weight back on her hands. "Yeah well, it was kind of scary I guess, all that glass flying everywhere. It's why I told everyone else to knock off for a bit, honestly."
Leova says uncomfortably, "It's just sorting. Same way you do most anything..." She shifts again, knees going up and piles of clothes tipping but managing to stay together, and that seems to make things easier. "Sounds like everyone else is all right? Except being rattled. Nobody expects some jars to turn into a nest of tunnelsnakes."
"Oh no no, you should see some of the staff doing the same thing. They wouldn't organize it that way. Of course most of the seamstresses /do/ because you know, they know their jobs, but not /everyone/." Milani nods wisely along with this statement. "And yes. Nothing more serious than a few little cuts and some cussing and embarrassment and the stink. I guess we'll go in there with a lot of sand in a bit, cover it up, wait, then sweep it out and get cracking again."
Jaeni has a packaged tucked tightly under her arm as she walks by with a brisk step. Milani and Leova are given a little wave before she ducks into the Snowasis. It's several minutes before she reappears, this time without the package in tow. Her face is slower now and she takes the time to stop for a moment by the two girls. "Afternoon, how's everyone?" She asks, tucking a bit of her back behind her ears.
Leova picks that idea over, teeth picking at her lower lip, but she glances up at Jaeni with a nod as the girl goes by. "Never thought about it being a seamstress way. Just a get it done way... Least you're not going to run out of sand." Suddenly she laughs. "Not going to sweep it back onto the Sands, are you?" And when Jaeni does return, "Sunshine. It's good."
"Hey Jaeni!" Brightly to the other Candidate, Milani's head tipping backward to see the blonde. Then her head rocks forward again, nodding. "Yeah, well, the seamstresses usually want to get it done so," she winks at Leova, then laughs outright. "Shells no and no. That'd be all sorts of fun if someone stupidly goes out there with no shoes on."
"I know! I pulled 'errand running' today and it sure is a nice day to have to run all about." Jaeni agrees, glancing up at the sky, resulting in some definite sun-related squinting. An uncertain look crosses her face as she listens to their conversation, her eyes shift from Leova to Milani and finally, "I'm sorry, what are you going to sweep back onto the Sands?"
"So if I didn't want to get it done, wanted to just sit back in the sun..." Leova glances back at Milani in time to catch the wink, and grins back at her, hands busy despite her words all the while. A moment later, "Not going to get burned, are you, Jaeni?" and she waves a pant leg at Milani: her story to tell.
"Exactly!" Milani makes big innocent eyes at Leova and tilts another look over at Jaeni. "Lucky you. Most of the caverns-staff are stuck down in the way-back caverns today. Had a little accident with some exploding jars of preserved fruit that went bad. Very smelly. Need sand to control the smell and the mess. But it won't get swept back onto the Hatching Sands and I think we'll get it from like, the lake or send some riders down to a beach or something." Millie shrugs loosely and draws her knees up to her chest, skirts pooling around her.
"Oh, I hope not! It would be terribly inconvienent to get sun burned. You know?" Jaeni's hand reaches up to touch her fair skin, while she looks down at the other arm to see if there's any noticiable pinkening. When Milani starts to speak the distracted girl re-focuses on her. "That's terrible! It must smell something awful down there!" She exclaims, wrinkling her nose. "What are you going to do with it once it's all... goopy with bad fruit?"
Leova's grin widens at Milani again, then disappears as she carefully unpins the needle out of her shirt, takes the little spool of thread, and starts with the actual mending. "Hope you don't too, Jaeni. You know Lu's a runner, right? Keep meaning to ask her about feet."
"Uh yeah, sunburn, no fun," Milani sticks her tongue out expressively then pulls it back into her mouth and waves vaguely skyward. "Dump it Between of course. What else would you do with something that smells that bad?"
Leova says idly, focused on the awkward little stitches, "Wonder if anything gone Between gets... out somewhere. Someday. Be a surprise."
"Oh, I don't know. At the Hold we put things that smell bad with the compost. Then it breaks down and gets all soil-y. Use it for the gardens and stuff. You know?" Jaeni explains, tilting her head to the side in contemplation. "Lu..Lujayn? Is that her name? I've heard of her but I don't think we've met yet. They must be really muscular. Her feet that is."
"Oh ew, that'd just be ... ew ..." Milani makes another face at Leova's suggestion then nods at Jaeni's explanation. "We do that with stuff from the kitchens, but ... this if full of glass bits." And another pair of nods. "Lujayn. From Fort. My mother Searched her and I guess she knows my brother. And .. y'know, I never really thought about feet that way."
Leova isn't seen to grin, but only because she's pulled the shirt up close to her face, as though that would make it easier to attach one of the buttons from the bottom to the missing place nearer the top. "That's her. Maybe she'll show us her feet. Your brother?"
"Well, you know, like, not crazy muscular. But more muscular than the average foot. Some feet are plump, other feet are skinny. Her's should be all buff, kinda. Right? If she uses them a lot more than everyone else?" Jaeni swings her head back and forth between the two girls, looking for some sort of confirmation of her theory. "Oh, right. There is that glass. What a terrible waste of some good sand."
"Yeah, P'draig, Weyrlingmaster down Fort-way," Milani explains to Leova, feet flexing a little and dropping back down flat again, she takes off one shoe and eyes her own foot. "Skinny," she pronounces and sticks her shoe back on. "And yeah, guess so. Just like how riders get all big in the shoulders from hefting firestone." Jaeni's last earns a baffled look. "Got another idea for getting rid of broken glass safely."
At that buff comment Leova smiles widely again, stitching away from her lap. And then she looks puzzled for a moment, only to abruptly laugh. Could be the glass. Could be Milani's foot. Could be the thought of runners with big feet instead of big shoulders. Could be something else. But then all of a sudden she pricks herself with the needle and makes a muffled sound.
"Well, if you had like, a really big shifter? You could shift through it and get rid of the glass. Then you could send the glass back to whoever makes the glass jars and the people who make the jars could use the old glass to make you new jars. But I guess that all hinges on whether you have a really big shifter. Or, or maybe just a lot of small shifters and a lot of people willing to sit around and shift glass for hours." The How-To-Clean-Sand explanation comes out in rapid fire sentences, the wheels in her head spinning. Milani is given the eyeball when she pops her shoe off, then she looks at her own shoe and soon she's removing it. "Plump!" She announces and pushes her footwear back on. "Are you okay?" She asks, noticing Leova's finger-pricking incident. "What about your foot?"
"A what?" Milani blinks at Jaeni a few times and peers at Leova for that sound. "Oh shells, here ..." and she pulls a hanky from her pocket to hand over to the stitching Candidate. Jaeni's foot appears and she grins. "Cute," she opines and then suddenly gets a flash of eureka. "Oh you meant a /sifter/ like they use in the kitchens for flour?"
Leova, not about to become one of those glass sifter volunteers, sucks on her finger. She does stop to take the handkerchief, apply it, and then say gently enough, but very firmly, "You are not looking at my foot." A moment later the rest sinks in: kitchens. food. "Lunch!"
"Oh... right. A /sifter/." Her face flushes with pink and she laughs. "Well, yeah! Just like the ones they have in the kitchens. You could save the sand and the glass." Confusion flashes in her expression, "Wait! You can't leave until you show us your foot! It's for very important reasons! It could all be put into a study and sent off to the healers!"
"Uhh, I'll think about it. I guess we can just keep the sand until we can sift it ... or just dump it still." Milani looks over at Jaeni open-mouthed. "A study of feet? Uhhhh ...." she shakes her head. "It's okay. Lunch sounds good."
Leova's eyes narrow, not about to be sent off to the healers either. Or even just her foot. Or especially just her foot. Or even just a description of her foot in a study. "Going to wash up. Get lunch. Milani, I'll get you this back," waving the handkerchief, hopefully when it's clean. She awkwardly gathers the piles of mending in her uninjured arm and hunches off, muttering something about cheese tarts.
"I still think it would be a waste of good sand though, but it's up to you people in charge." Jaeni rolls her shoulders back. "Oh! Fine!" She calls after Leova. "You're going to miss out on a very important study though!" She hmpfts, and turns back to Milani. "Well, yeah. I mean, if the healers knew all there was to know about feed we might have like, better shoes or something."
"Sure, Leova!" Milani waves a couple of times and then pushes up to her feet. "Well I'm saying we can save it and figure it out. So ... anyway. Want to go get some food?"
"Really? That's great!" She responds, looking pleased. Jaeni pats her hand on one of her pockets. "I suppose so! I have to drop this letter off in the kitchen, so I'm going to have to go down there anyway." The girl waits patiently for Milani to be up and ready to go. "What's going to be on the menu for lunch today? Roasted leg of something tasty?" She asks, taking a few steps towards their destination.
Milani hops up swiftly enough, making sure both shoes are firmly on and thinks for a minute. "Umm ... y'know, I think it's mostly sandwiches. But there's probably the usual soup and stew and bread and stuff too." She starts to move towards the Snowasis then pauses. "D'you want to walk through the inside or stay outside as long as possible?"
She glances down at her arms and sure enough, they're turning a brilliant shade of pink. "Oh dear. I think we'd better go through the inside." Jaeni doesn't hesitate at this point to hurry past Milani, worrying away at her pink skin the whole way to lunch.
When: Late morning, day 21, month 6, turn 15 of the 10th Interval
Where: Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
What: Stores cleanup continues and Milani's gotten exploded upon by nasty jars. Leova has commentary, then Jaeni arrives with recycling ideas and an interest in feet.
Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
This ledge is a good size, allowing two large dragons on it at the most, however the furniture and decorations do very little to allow dragons to land. The stone has, through time, become smooth with the sting of High Reaches' biting winter winds. Lacking are the telling talon marks of an occupant at any time within the past decade and the ledge has been weeded and cleared of greenery. Situated along the western bowl, this ledge offers a view of the lake in the distance and has a set of wide steps curving along the bowl wall to the ground.
A stone half-arc shelters half of the ledge from the extreme weathers, where a iron-wrought bench and two patio-like tables have been set up. Little niches, carved out of the stone in a rustic fashion hold glow baskets to provide light at night. The very edge has been decorated with wooden boxes of potted flowers that blossom beautifully in the spring and summer.
The morning is clear, and the sun shines with a few small clouds floating past. A light wind blows and the summer air temperature feels comfortable.
The sun is bright enough, the breeze is brisk enough, that between them the ledge is comfortable for some to sit. Some who aren't out flying about the greater part of Pern, at least, or who aren't restricted by their jobs to tiny hide-filled cubbyholes or echoing steam-filled wash caverns. Somewhere in Tillek, a two-month-old filly is skipping and leaping in the green grassy meadows, but right now Leova is here, taking up the bench with her legs spread out along it the way she liked to occupy the bench along the Hold's path, her jacket padding her back and mending across her lap. She sews carefully, mechanically, competent but not anywhere near adept.
From within the Snowasis rings the sound of a familiar-by-now voice: "No, no, I'm not going back in there right now, that was just /too/ sharding disgusting. We're all taking a break, Selmin, go have a drink or something. Hayda? I'll deal with Hayda okay? Break time. Tell her I said so if she bugs you. Got it?" And Milani strides out onto the ledge, right to the edge of it not too far from Leova's bench, swabbing ineffectually at the front of her blouse and skirt. "Augh. Rotten jarred, preserved fruit just ... /stinks/. This is /never/ coming out." The girl sighs and pushes back straggling strands of hair falling down from a knot that must have looked carefully put together earlier.
Leova's eyes lift. "That happen much? Hope not." Waste of fruit. Waste of time. Waste of cloth, and water to wash it with. "Try rubbing some fish into it. The oil helps get the smell out." Though Leova has returned to turning a sleeve inside out, and setting the child's shirt on the doesn't-need-much pile, she keeps a sideways eye on what Milani's reaction might be.
"What?" Milani swivels a little and blinks over at Leova blankly for a moment, then her face creases into a bright smile. "Oh hi there. And um ... no. We're digging out the last of the back store rooms and there's some really old and really nasty stuff back there and one of the handymen knocked over a shelf and all these jars came flying down and well I went to pick up one of the ones that wasn't broken, but it exploded. Boosh. And it got me." A gesture to her front. "Fish ... you've gotta be /kidding/ me." And she stares over at Leova in disbelief.
"You're right. I am," Leova says happily, shaking out another, larger shirt that looks all right at first, but turns out to be threadbare at the elbows. "Although you could still do it, and then have the handyman wear it... Glass, though. You'd have said if you weren't all right there."
"Okay, phew." Another sunny smile follows and Milani eyes her front, gives up on clean up and plucks a little shard of aforementioned glass out of a fold in the fabric. "Speaking of ... should probably change. Hopefully all of /that/ will come out in the wash too. I really /like/ this top." A soft sigh follows and then the assistant headwoman nods vigorously. "Oh yeah, yeah, not hurt, just a little rattled and ... frustrated."
Leova sobers at that. "You should. Come back after you're done, maybe? Give yourself a breather." She tugs lightly on one of the worn elbows; it rips, she shrugs and rips it the rest of the way off. "Easier on everyone."
Milani eyes the little glass shard and then blinks over at Leova. "Easier on everyone? And shells, /that/ shirt's a /real/ mess." Her head shakes a couple of times. "All right. Hold that thought. I'll be right back." And she vanishes back inside and all the way through to the caverns to divest herself of the stained and glassy stuff to wash up and change, because when she returns, she's got on fresh clothes and her hair's damp and down.
When she returns, Leova's piles of clothing have changed: the salvage-what-you-can pile grown, the just-needs-a-little huge, the needs-a-lot in between, and the original pile shrunk to only a few left. She picks up the conversation as though Milani had never left, "Everyone who deals with you, anyway." Methodically she checks some frayed hems. "And you too."
Milani tucks her hair back behind her ears and flops onto the ground in front of the Candidate's bench and eyes the mending pile. "You're just cruising right on through that pretty well." Then she looks up and laughs, equanimity restored by the break. "You meant the smell. And you're right."
"Because I'm still sorting," Leova tells the newly washed-and-changed Milani as she works, stopping only to stretch out her legs some more into the sunshine and shift a little on the hard iron bench where she sits, piles of mending on her lap. "Then mend the easy ones. Rip up the rags, saving the buttons and things. So there's that much more to wear, sooner." She chuckles. "The smell, and... you sound less rattled too."
"Ohhhh," Milani nods knowingly and folds her legs beneath her tailor style from her spot on the ground in front of said bench. "Very efficient. I'll let Hayda know so," she teases a little, grinning up at the Candidate and leans her weight back on her hands. "Yeah well, it was kind of scary I guess, all that glass flying everywhere. It's why I told everyone else to knock off for a bit, honestly."
Leova says uncomfortably, "It's just sorting. Same way you do most anything..." She shifts again, knees going up and piles of clothes tipping but managing to stay together, and that seems to make things easier. "Sounds like everyone else is all right? Except being rattled. Nobody expects some jars to turn into a nest of tunnelsnakes."
"Oh no no, you should see some of the staff doing the same thing. They wouldn't organize it that way. Of course most of the seamstresses /do/ because you know, they know their jobs, but not /everyone/." Milani nods wisely along with this statement. "And yes. Nothing more serious than a few little cuts and some cussing and embarrassment and the stink. I guess we'll go in there with a lot of sand in a bit, cover it up, wait, then sweep it out and get cracking again."
Jaeni has a packaged tucked tightly under her arm as she walks by with a brisk step. Milani and Leova are given a little wave before she ducks into the Snowasis. It's several minutes before she reappears, this time without the package in tow. Her face is slower now and she takes the time to stop for a moment by the two girls. "Afternoon, how's everyone?" She asks, tucking a bit of her back behind her ears.
Leova picks that idea over, teeth picking at her lower lip, but she glances up at Jaeni with a nod as the girl goes by. "Never thought about it being a seamstress way. Just a get it done way... Least you're not going to run out of sand." Suddenly she laughs. "Not going to sweep it back onto the Sands, are you?" And when Jaeni does return, "Sunshine. It's good."
"Hey Jaeni!" Brightly to the other Candidate, Milani's head tipping backward to see the blonde. Then her head rocks forward again, nodding. "Yeah, well, the seamstresses usually want to get it done so," she winks at Leova, then laughs outright. "Shells no and no. That'd be all sorts of fun if someone stupidly goes out there with no shoes on."
"I know! I pulled 'errand running' today and it sure is a nice day to have to run all about." Jaeni agrees, glancing up at the sky, resulting in some definite sun-related squinting. An uncertain look crosses her face as she listens to their conversation, her eyes shift from Leova to Milani and finally, "I'm sorry, what are you going to sweep back onto the Sands?"
"So if I didn't want to get it done, wanted to just sit back in the sun..." Leova glances back at Milani in time to catch the wink, and grins back at her, hands busy despite her words all the while. A moment later, "Not going to get burned, are you, Jaeni?" and she waves a pant leg at Milani: her story to tell.
"Exactly!" Milani makes big innocent eyes at Leova and tilts another look over at Jaeni. "Lucky you. Most of the caverns-staff are stuck down in the way-back caverns today. Had a little accident with some exploding jars of preserved fruit that went bad. Very smelly. Need sand to control the smell and the mess. But it won't get swept back onto the Hatching Sands and I think we'll get it from like, the lake or send some riders down to a beach or something." Millie shrugs loosely and draws her knees up to her chest, skirts pooling around her.
"Oh, I hope not! It would be terribly inconvienent to get sun burned. You know?" Jaeni's hand reaches up to touch her fair skin, while she looks down at the other arm to see if there's any noticiable pinkening. When Milani starts to speak the distracted girl re-focuses on her. "That's terrible! It must smell something awful down there!" She exclaims, wrinkling her nose. "What are you going to do with it once it's all... goopy with bad fruit?"
Leova's grin widens at Milani again, then disappears as she carefully unpins the needle out of her shirt, takes the little spool of thread, and starts with the actual mending. "Hope you don't too, Jaeni. You know Lu's a runner, right? Keep meaning to ask her about feet."
"Uh yeah, sunburn, no fun," Milani sticks her tongue out expressively then pulls it back into her mouth and waves vaguely skyward. "Dump it Between of course. What else would you do with something that smells that bad?"
Leova says idly, focused on the awkward little stitches, "Wonder if anything gone Between gets... out somewhere. Someday. Be a surprise."
"Oh, I don't know. At the Hold we put things that smell bad with the compost. Then it breaks down and gets all soil-y. Use it for the gardens and stuff. You know?" Jaeni explains, tilting her head to the side in contemplation. "Lu..Lujayn? Is that her name? I've heard of her but I don't think we've met yet. They must be really muscular. Her feet that is."
"Oh ew, that'd just be ... ew ..." Milani makes another face at Leova's suggestion then nods at Jaeni's explanation. "We do that with stuff from the kitchens, but ... this if full of glass bits." And another pair of nods. "Lujayn. From Fort. My mother Searched her and I guess she knows my brother. And .. y'know, I never really thought about feet that way."
Leova isn't seen to grin, but only because she's pulled the shirt up close to her face, as though that would make it easier to attach one of the buttons from the bottom to the missing place nearer the top. "That's her. Maybe she'll show us her feet. Your brother?"
"Well, you know, like, not crazy muscular. But more muscular than the average foot. Some feet are plump, other feet are skinny. Her's should be all buff, kinda. Right? If she uses them a lot more than everyone else?" Jaeni swings her head back and forth between the two girls, looking for some sort of confirmation of her theory. "Oh, right. There is that glass. What a terrible waste of some good sand."
"Yeah, P'draig, Weyrlingmaster down Fort-way," Milani explains to Leova, feet flexing a little and dropping back down flat again, she takes off one shoe and eyes her own foot. "Skinny," she pronounces and sticks her shoe back on. "And yeah, guess so. Just like how riders get all big in the shoulders from hefting firestone." Jaeni's last earns a baffled look. "Got another idea for getting rid of broken glass safely."
At that buff comment Leova smiles widely again, stitching away from her lap. And then she looks puzzled for a moment, only to abruptly laugh. Could be the glass. Could be Milani's foot. Could be the thought of runners with big feet instead of big shoulders. Could be something else. But then all of a sudden she pricks herself with the needle and makes a muffled sound.
"Well, if you had like, a really big shifter? You could shift through it and get rid of the glass. Then you could send the glass back to whoever makes the glass jars and the people who make the jars could use the old glass to make you new jars. But I guess that all hinges on whether you have a really big shifter. Or, or maybe just a lot of small shifters and a lot of people willing to sit around and shift glass for hours." The How-To-Clean-Sand explanation comes out in rapid fire sentences, the wheels in her head spinning. Milani is given the eyeball when she pops her shoe off, then she looks at her own shoe and soon she's removing it. "Plump!" She announces and pushes her footwear back on. "Are you okay?" She asks, noticing Leova's finger-pricking incident. "What about your foot?"
"A what?" Milani blinks at Jaeni a few times and peers at Leova for that sound. "Oh shells, here ..." and she pulls a hanky from her pocket to hand over to the stitching Candidate. Jaeni's foot appears and she grins. "Cute," she opines and then suddenly gets a flash of eureka. "Oh you meant a /sifter/ like they use in the kitchens for flour?"
Leova, not about to become one of those glass sifter volunteers, sucks on her finger. She does stop to take the handkerchief, apply it, and then say gently enough, but very firmly, "You are not looking at my foot." A moment later the rest sinks in: kitchens. food. "Lunch!"
"Oh... right. A /sifter/." Her face flushes with pink and she laughs. "Well, yeah! Just like the ones they have in the kitchens. You could save the sand and the glass." Confusion flashes in her expression, "Wait! You can't leave until you show us your foot! It's for very important reasons! It could all be put into a study and sent off to the healers!"
"Uhh, I'll think about it. I guess we can just keep the sand until we can sift it ... or just dump it still." Milani looks over at Jaeni open-mouthed. "A study of feet? Uhhhh ...." she shakes her head. "It's okay. Lunch sounds good."
Leova's eyes narrow, not about to be sent off to the healers either. Or even just her foot. Or especially just her foot. Or even just a description of her foot in a study. "Going to wash up. Get lunch. Milani, I'll get you this back," waving the handkerchief, hopefully when it's clean. She awkwardly gathers the piles of mending in her uninjured arm and hunches off, muttering something about cheese tarts.
"I still think it would be a waste of good sand though, but it's up to you people in charge." Jaeni rolls her shoulders back. "Oh! Fine!" She calls after Leova. "You're going to miss out on a very important study though!" She hmpfts, and turns back to Milani. "Well, yeah. I mean, if the healers knew all there was to know about feed we might have like, better shoes or something."
"Sure, Leova!" Milani waves a couple of times and then pushes up to her feet. "Well I'm saying we can save it and figure it out. So ... anyway. Want to go get some food?"
"Really? That's great!" She responds, looking pleased. Jaeni pats her hand on one of her pockets. "I suppose so! I have to drop this letter off in the kitchen, so I'm going to have to go down there anyway." The girl waits patiently for Milani to be up and ready to go. "What's going to be on the menu for lunch today? Roasted leg of something tasty?" She asks, taking a few steps towards their destination.
Milani hops up swiftly enough, making sure both shoes are firmly on and thinks for a minute. "Umm ... y'know, I think it's mostly sandwiches. But there's probably the usual soup and stew and bread and stuff too." She starts to move towards the Snowasis then pauses. "D'you want to walk through the inside or stay outside as long as possible?"
She glances down at her arms and sure enough, they're turning a brilliant shade of pink. "Oh dear. I think we'd better go through the inside." Jaeni doesn't hesitate at this point to hurry past Milani, worrying away at her pink skin the whole way to lunch.