[Witches' Horses] Swallow's Tail
Title: an attempt at percussive maintenance
'Verse/characters: Swallow's Tail; Taarstad, Sascha
Prompt: 41B "negative"
Word Count: 917
Notes: this concludes the 2+ pieces a day for a bit, though I still have a few more pieces to do before I call it good for the month. This is sometime after bathtime.
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Sverre knew he was getting used to the horse and her crew when he walked in on Sascha smacking the frame of a mirror with a mallet and barely blinked.
It wasn't until Sascha tapped the frame in six more places, some harder, some softer, that he wandered over and tried to get a look at the mirror around the Siberian. From what little he could see the mirror looked like it was displaying a standard calibration test image, with neatly-laid squares and other shapes in various colours.
"Vad i helvete?" he said involuntarily when he actually did get a proper look, as Sascha leaned down to smack the lower inner edge of the frame with the mallet.
Sascha glanced up, snorted, tapped it again--the colours shifted from virulent yellow and blue to a study in browns, then silver-black and shining as the Siberian smacked it again. "Reindeer-fucked thing likes to lose calibration."
"I gathered that," Sverre said, mildly and unwillingly fascinated as the mirror went through a red-and-gold phase, another set of browns, a black blue and yellow that reminded him a little nauseatingly of a school hat, silver-black again, briefly to something close to standard, then off to a bilious green. "... go back one."
Sascha obediently tapped the edge of the frame right next to the power supply, and the bilious green faded into the calibration set. Ish. It was tilted to both the magenta and yellow, but seemed closer than anything else the display had offered while he'd been watching.
"That's . . close?" Sverre offered, his head tilted a little to one side, and Sascha leaned back a little on his knees to get a look.
"Good enough," he pronounced, stood up. "I walked in and it was displaying Master Winter's colours instead of red and brown."
"Tried replacing it?" Sverre had to ask, as otherwise he'd ask who Master Winter was and if the way the Siberian'd said the name was any indication it was kind of like invoking a certain troublemaker's name around machines back home.
"Here and there," Sascha said as he stowed the mallet near the mirror. "The frame and display are from different terems, for instance, and I even tried pulling the power supply once. Put the old one back when the new one made it even flakier--trust me when I say the Captain don't look his best in blue."
Sverre clapped his hand over his mouth to swallow the laugh, heard the deep-chest rumble of Sascha's laughter as he did.
The mirror's display went all to pixels for a moment, came back again in black gray and tan.
Sascha muttered the phrase that Sverre could swear kind of sounded like he was consigning things to be gnawed by ermine again, went back for the mallet.
Sverre eyed the mirror, hand still over his mouth but more because he wasn't paying attention to it than because he needed to muffle a snicker. "Now that looked caused by a partial power cycle," he muttered as Sascha tapped the frame delicately with the broad end of the mallet and the display went light gray, white and . . red paisley.
They both squinted at that one, but when Sascha smacked it a little harder it just went to stripes of magenta and mauve instead.
"I think I want to see if there's a stripped section between the source and the end. Any chance of a schematic?" Sverre asked, as Sascha growled another curse and moved to a different spot with the mallet.
"You can try the stash down by the fire, but I think you're going to wind up just pulling panels."
" . . How pissed is the Captain going to be if I do?"
"If you're right?" Sascha grinned up through the tangle of his hair, and the close-clipped hairs on the back of Sverre's neck rose, "Not much. If you're wrong, well."
Sverre stared at him. " . . . You're so reassuring," he managed eventually.
Sascha laughed so hard he missed his next strike, hit the wall next to the mirror instead. Sverre prudently fled before the Siberian noticed that the vibration had sent the mirror skewing wildly off into the red spectrum.
The stash yielded a very, very old schematic of that section of the horse--possibly original to her papers, and wasn't that a frightening thought--amended in notation Sverre couldn't really parse and so assumed was either Sascha's work or some Russian's from before Sascha's time.
Sascha helped him turn off the circuit that mirror was on--which of course included the samovar, so limited his working time until just before the Captain was due to get up--then wandered off with the biggest pair of insulated gloves to do something under the ice converter and left Sverre to his theory.
Eight panels, a lot of muttered cursing and a near miss with one of the gravity coils later, he had to turn the circuit back on again so the Captain could get some tea. He spent the break making his own version of a schematic for the wires he was finding behind the panels--why there was a small gravity coil curled up like a bookworm behind an otherwise unmarked panel halfway down a corridor complete escaped him--and then asked the Captain if it was all right if he turned things off again to keep looking for a potential short.
The Captain gave him a look over his mug that very clearly stated that the tea-blood relationship ratio was still off, but just grunted, waved a dismissing hand.
'Verse/characters: Swallow's Tail; Taarstad, Sascha
Prompt: 41B "negative"
Word Count: 917
Notes: this concludes the 2+ pieces a day for a bit, though I still have a few more pieces to do before I call it good for the month. This is sometime after bathtime.
---------
Sverre knew he was getting used to the horse and her crew when he walked in on Sascha smacking the frame of a mirror with a mallet and barely blinked.
It wasn't until Sascha tapped the frame in six more places, some harder, some softer, that he wandered over and tried to get a look at the mirror around the Siberian. From what little he could see the mirror looked like it was displaying a standard calibration test image, with neatly-laid squares and other shapes in various colours.
"Vad i helvete?" he said involuntarily when he actually did get a proper look, as Sascha leaned down to smack the lower inner edge of the frame with the mallet.
Sascha glanced up, snorted, tapped it again--the colours shifted from virulent yellow and blue to a study in browns, then silver-black and shining as the Siberian smacked it again. "Reindeer-fucked thing likes to lose calibration."
"I gathered that," Sverre said, mildly and unwillingly fascinated as the mirror went through a red-and-gold phase, another set of browns, a black blue and yellow that reminded him a little nauseatingly of a school hat, silver-black again, briefly to something close to standard, then off to a bilious green. "... go back one."
Sascha obediently tapped the edge of the frame right next to the power supply, and the bilious green faded into the calibration set. Ish. It was tilted to both the magenta and yellow, but seemed closer than anything else the display had offered while he'd been watching.
"That's . . close?" Sverre offered, his head tilted a little to one side, and Sascha leaned back a little on his knees to get a look.
"Good enough," he pronounced, stood up. "I walked in and it was displaying Master Winter's colours instead of red and brown."
"Tried replacing it?" Sverre had to ask, as otherwise he'd ask who Master Winter was and if the way the Siberian'd said the name was any indication it was kind of like invoking a certain troublemaker's name around machines back home.
"Here and there," Sascha said as he stowed the mallet near the mirror. "The frame and display are from different terems, for instance, and I even tried pulling the power supply once. Put the old one back when the new one made it even flakier--trust me when I say the Captain don't look his best in blue."
Sverre clapped his hand over his mouth to swallow the laugh, heard the deep-chest rumble of Sascha's laughter as he did.
The mirror's display went all to pixels for a moment, came back again in black gray and tan.
Sascha muttered the phrase that Sverre could swear kind of sounded like he was consigning things to be gnawed by ermine again, went back for the mallet.
Sverre eyed the mirror, hand still over his mouth but more because he wasn't paying attention to it than because he needed to muffle a snicker. "Now that looked caused by a partial power cycle," he muttered as Sascha tapped the frame delicately with the broad end of the mallet and the display went light gray, white and . . red paisley.
They both squinted at that one, but when Sascha smacked it a little harder it just went to stripes of magenta and mauve instead.
"I think I want to see if there's a stripped section between the source and the end. Any chance of a schematic?" Sverre asked, as Sascha growled another curse and moved to a different spot with the mallet.
"You can try the stash down by the fire, but I think you're going to wind up just pulling panels."
" . . How pissed is the Captain going to be if I do?"
"If you're right?" Sascha grinned up through the tangle of his hair, and the close-clipped hairs on the back of Sverre's neck rose, "Not much. If you're wrong, well."
Sverre stared at him. " . . . You're so reassuring," he managed eventually.
Sascha laughed so hard he missed his next strike, hit the wall next to the mirror instead. Sverre prudently fled before the Siberian noticed that the vibration had sent the mirror skewing wildly off into the red spectrum.
The stash yielded a very, very old schematic of that section of the horse--possibly original to her papers, and wasn't that a frightening thought--amended in notation Sverre couldn't really parse and so assumed was either Sascha's work or some Russian's from before Sascha's time.
Sascha helped him turn off the circuit that mirror was on--which of course included the samovar, so limited his working time until just before the Captain was due to get up--then wandered off with the biggest pair of insulated gloves to do something under the ice converter and left Sverre to his theory.
Eight panels, a lot of muttered cursing and a near miss with one of the gravity coils later, he had to turn the circuit back on again so the Captain could get some tea. He spent the break making his own version of a schematic for the wires he was finding behind the panels--why there was a small gravity coil curled up like a bookworm behind an otherwise unmarked panel halfway down a corridor complete escaped him--and then asked the Captain if it was all right if he turned things off again to keep looking for a potential short.
The Captain gave him a look over his mug that very clearly stated that the tea-blood relationship ratio was still off, but just grunted, waved a dismissing hand.