Making Lines

Writers: Chelle, Suzee
Date Posted: 12th February 2016

Characters: D'ale, R'gelen
Description: A brownrider trains a bronzerider.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 4, day 3 of Turn 8

D'ale

He walked quietly down the hall. He'd never really been down here
before where the offices were. Looking around to make sure it was the
right way he thought he saw the right door. Going up to it, he knocked
and waited. In his other hand he had a tablet with some hides and a
writing stylus.

"Come on in," D'ale called from inside the smallish office. He was
expecting one of the weyrlings for a one on one lesson so he lifted an
expectant smile as he watched the door open.

Inside came the young weyrling, but R'gelen stopped short of the desk.
He took one moment to look around the office then bring his eyes up to
D'ale. "R'gelen reporting for duty, sir."

"Good," D'ale nodded and waved the youngster over. "Come over here and
take a look," he angled the hide he was working on so they could share
it. "What do you see here?"

"A chart with names and something beside it. There's a timetable too."
R'gelen thought it looked similar to the weyrling chore chart.

"Yes," D'ale nodded. "This is the duty chart." He pulled another very
similar one over next to it. "And this is for last sevenday."

"So you do it for every sevenday? How come not for the month?" R'gelen
was busy scribbling notes. His eyes roved across the hide, huddled near
D'ale's left elbow.

"I've done it both ways," D'ale nodded at the observation. "But I find
there are fewer changes when I do it sevenday by sevenday."

"Oh...because things happen?" His mind went immediately to injuries
brought on by threadfall which would necessitate duty changes but he
didn't mention it. That was a pretty gruesome part of riding.

D'ale nodded without smiling. "Things happen," he agreed. "I just don't
like trying to erase someone's name from the charts." He shrugged.

"Right cause it's a reminder." R'gelen tried to think about it then decided
maybe it was better not to dwell on it. "How long do you rotate between
things? Like for watch duty and sweeps and stuff?"

"Yes exactly," D'ale pointed out a place on another hide separate from
the schedule. "See here? I keep track of who has done it when so I can
be fair in assigning the tasks people like the least."

"Do you ever allow riders to swap, like if something comes up? Or do they
have to request it in advance or something?" He was trying to answer the
questions he had on his hide.

"Good catch," D'ale smiled. "Yes, I do let them swap but they have to
tell me so we know where they are at any given time they're supposed
to be on duty."

"Any reason why you wouldn't give them a swap, sir?" He furiously scribbled
notes. In the back of his mind, Iroth was only half listening to the
conversation.
This sort of thing was not exciting to him.

"There are times when a specific duty is assigned because of another
issue or punishment or whatever reason the Weyrleaders need someone.
In those cases, no swapping is allowed and I put a mark like this." He
pointed to a small star near the rider's name.

Nodding to himself, R'gelen began to draw a very small version of what D'ale
had in his hand. He could use that for an example anyway. "Wish my lines were
neater. Oh well."

"You'll get the hang of it," he smiled. "But for the lines you might
want to use a straight edge like a board or something." He reached into
his drawer for a piece of wood like he had described. "Got this from a
smith. See these markings," he pointed along one side. "They use it
for measuring and marking."

"Oh, that's neat. We vintners always used cups for measures. Cause it
was for different kinds of things." Things had been much simpler then
though the chemistry had certainly been harder. He had never seen a
stick like that before. Thinking about it, it seemed as if it would be
useful.

"Oh yes," D'ale nodded. "Cups would be very useful for measuring
quantity while these sticks are good for distances, or simply to draw
a straight line." He demonstrated by adding one at the bottom of his
list. "If you look here. You can see how to make all the lines
exactly the same length."

"Right. How big do those lines go?" In his mind he was wondering if those
smiths measured planks of wood with such a small stick. It would take a long
time.

"I'm not sure," he said. "But I did see them using string with chalk
to draw pretty long lines. But we're getting away from the subject. I
want you to take this and make a copy for next sevenday's schedule.
Once you've done that, we'll go over the schedule and fill it in. You
just make the grid and add in the names. Think you can do that?"

"Oh okay. I can. Thanks D'ale." He turned and disappeared, finding a
workspace not far off so he wasn't disturbing the wingsecond. This wasn't
so hard, really.

Last updated on the February 21st 2016

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Making Lines