Does That Look Funny To You?

Writers: Avery, Mirren
Date Posted: 4th January 2016

Characters: D'shiel, Kapera, Hevalda, N'yarl
Description: While restocking strap oil, Kapera and D'shiel discover a problem.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 3, day 23 of Turn 8
Notes: Mentioned: Barenziah, Cyradis

Kapera

Kapera pushed the cart through the door into the supplies room and
left it against the wall. This cart had supplies for riders on it,
specifically supplies for maintaining and repairing. riding straps and
leathers. She could have asked someone else to do it, but this month
she was doing supply review anyway, so why not do it herself? It was a
change of pace.

D'shiel swore under his breath. The jar was empty. He could have sworn
he'd had half a jar left at least. Well it wasn't the first time he
was wrong, it wouldn't be the last.

}:That's for sure.:{ Padraith replied unhelpfully.

**Thanks** D'shiel replied, although he knew sarcasm would be lost on
the dragon. He pulled on a shirt and hurried down to the stores,
nodding to people he knew that he passed along the way but not
stopping to chat. He saw the goldrider as he approached the storage
cavern and nodded to her as he stepped inside.

"Goldrider," he said politely.

"Bronzerider. How are you today?" she asked, continuing to stack jars.

"Fine thank you, and you?" He wondered how he was going to get oil
without undoing the work she was currently doing.

"Riyanth and I are well. I'm restocking to avoid other duties," she
admitted cheerily.

He snorted. "What the fe… shells is worse than stacking shelves?" It
looked tedious to him.

"I could be doing the infirmary tasks. I picked stocking supplies and
ensuring inventory instead."

"No one likes the infirmary," he replied. "Except the healers and
they're probably masochists." Except Barenziah of course. "At least
it's quiet over here."

"Exactly. Minding rider disputes would be much noisier." She realized
she was standing between the cart and the shelves. "Did you come in
here for oil, leather pieces, sewing equipment?"

Once he'd have said he come to see her. Now, he just nodded toward the
shelf. "I just need some oil, but I don't want to get in the way."

"Feel free to take some," she said immediately. "Off the cart if you can."

"Of course." He grabbed a jar. "Do you need any help?" Offering seemed
the gentlemanly thing to do.

"If you've got time and your dragon doesn't desperately mind, sure," she
said.

It served him right for asking. "Padraith doesn't mind, he was napping
anyway, as usual." He put his jar aside and picked up more to place on
shelves.

"They do like doing that," she said. "How long have you been here?"

"At the Weyr? I was born here." He held up a jar and peered into it,
"Does that look funny to you?"

"A little bit off-colored. How's it smell?"

He unscrewed the lid and sniffed, then shrugged. "It smells oily. I
mean, like oil. It's probably fine, but…" He wasn't sure he'd use it
on his dragon.

The goldrider unscrewed a second one and took a sniff. "This one's
normal, so maybe it's just that one." She stepped over to see the one
he had.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "So much for the infirmary being simple." Bad
oil could be time consuming, if it meant chasing the source.

If you see any other jars like that, put them to the side. I'll look
into this," she said.

"Will do boss." He smiled. It faded when he found another one. "This
one looks worse." He held it up and squinted.

She looked over and winced. That was badly discolored. "Shaffit!"

"I'm wondering if the ones that look all right really are." He frowned
at the jars on the shelf.

"We could test it and see," she said.

He nodded, picked one up and opened it. It smelled the same as the
cloudy ones. "It smells fine at least."

"That's good. Would you mind staying here and watching the cart while
I go two storerooms down to grab some leather to test on? I don't want
one of the caverns workers dropping by to mess with things," she
added. Someone seeing the unattended cart and moving it without paying
attention wouldn't help matters.

D'shiel nodded. "Sure. I'll look through the rest and see if any more
are cloudy."

"Thanks." She flashed him a smile, but it was distracted and faint. It
only took a few minutes to go to the storeroom and pull out a suitable
amount of leather. Some was scraps and some were longer strips, but
Better to ruin these than have actual straps ruined.

She came back in and laid them out on the top of the cart. "So, let's
try this out..."

"Did you get a cloth?" he asked, swirling the oil around in a slow
circle and watching it move inside the jar.

She produced two from where she'd put them in a pocket, offering him
one. Then she picked up one of the suspicious jars, dipped the corner
in, and brushed some oil on one of the leather pieces. "Hmm."

"It doesn't look like it's being absorbed," he remarked. "It's just
sitting on the surface, making it slippery." That was concerning;
slippery straps were dangerous.

"No, it doesn't." She scowled as she considered what this meant.

"This means testing this whole batch, put aside the ones that are
useless. Then have to update the stocks to reflect what's unusable.
Then we have to find who sent us this bad batch. And _that_ means I'm
going to have bad news for the Weyrwoman."

D'shiel winced. "This isn't good. We're going to need more leather and
maybe some help."

"Yes, we are. It's going to be a lot of testing." Another grimace. You
don't have to stick around if you don't want - this became more of a
project than I expected," she added.

"No, it's all right," he heard himself say. "I'm kinda curious to see
how this turns out now."

"Oh good. Don't worry, I won't make you come with me to give the
report," she joked as she set aside that jar.

Kapera's eyes closed for a few seconds as she reached out to Riyanth.
"We're getting help from two weyrlings whose dragons are too injured
for them to drill," she said after a moment.

D'shiel nodded. "Thank Faranth for that." Not that he was intimidated
by Cyradis, but he liked to keep a low profile. "Between four of us,
this shouldn't take too long." Hopefully.

"It shouldn't be necessary at all," she grumbled. "I do appreciate
your help with this."

In short order two weyrlings appeared. N'yarl's brown had been wounded
and couldn't drill, but he was physically fine. In contrast Hevalda
had been injured, but was finally good to walk around again after her
burning. "We're here to help?" the greenrider ventured.

"Good to see you both. These jars of oil seem spoiled. They're not
sinking into the leather correctly," Kapera began. "We need help
applying it to these scraps. Any jars where it doesn't work, set to
the left."

"Do you know what happened?" N'yarl asked.

"No. I was unpacking them. D'shiel was the one who noticed it looked
off. Might have happened in transit."

Hevalda didn't comment, she just went to some jars and started work,
keeping her head down and letting her hair fall over her face.

D'shiel made a face at her and shrugged before getting to work
himself. Hopefully they'd find some good oil, since he actually did
need some. "Any good ones yet?" he asked, having found two that
weren't.

"This one's good," Hevalda ventured softly. "It's in a different jar
too." The jars the bad ones were in were plain bottomed and more tall,
and the good ones were in one that were shorter and rounder, with a
ridged ring at the bottom.

"Different shipments," Kapera guessed. "Still, check inside just in
case these were bad too."

"I found another good one. Same as Hevalda." N'yarl set it to the side
that had been indicated.

D'shiel grabbed a good jar and set it aside for his own use, then went
on working.

Last updated on the January 12th 2016

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Does That Look Funny To You?