An Ode to Men
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Heather, Sia
Date Posted: 29th November 2025
Characters: Z'vallan, Rhysalen
Description: Zavallan wants Rhysalen's help with his notes, but he learns a thing or two about smiths instead.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 10 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: R’lor, Zarkarth
Zavallan was stuck. It was an unusual place for the scholarly harper turned Candidate.
He’d been doing his best to write down, in great detail, _everything_ about his experience at the Weyr. The Egg Touching had certainly taken up several pages of his notebook. Three paragraphs alone had been spent on the glorious brown sire, Zarkarth, and his equally handsome rider.
But now, he was on the page dedicated to his future Weyrlingmaster, if he Impressed.
“Hey Rhysalen, how would you describe R’lor?”
"R'lor?" Rhysalen looked across at the scrawl of notes and the full notebook and grinned. "Oh, give him some good harper flair. He used to be a smithcrafter. He's…like a blade just out of the forge. Hot, but honed."
Zavallan’s nose wrinkled. “Hot and… honed? _R’lor_? Are we talking about the same person?”
"Uh, yeah. You need to casually ask about requisitioning something from the smiths when he's there. I mean, it's a great past time no matter who's there-- it's so hot and everyone is _glistening_." Rhysalen said dreamily. "You can watch all those smithcraft muscles really work."
“Smithcrafters,” he said with a distasteful tone. Most of them were just hammer slinging dimglows, he thought. Oh sure, some had the power of thought, the ones who used the Harper Hall’s meticulously kept archives. **So even then, Harpers should be getting the credit.**
“Why would I ask R’lor about the smiths?”
"Because you get to watch them work while you're there. C'mon." Rhysalen said. Faranth, holder kids. "It's still hot in the forge, so some of them are pretty poorly dressed. Pants and the apron. It's well worth the trip."
“Yeah but… they’re _stupid_. What good is pretty packaging if it’s on a deadglow?” Zavallan was worried about Rhysalen’s poor taste.
"I don't need brains for what I want to do to them, just some good listening ears." Rhysalen said with a grin.
Zavallan tapped the end of his writing utensil against his notepad. “_Listening_ ears? Why… do they sing?”
Rhysalen just stared at him. Eyebrow-raised, lips-curved, 'come on, put the pieces together' stare. "Not for _singing_, Zav. For when I'm _busy_ with them."
“They talk a lot when you’re placing your orders?” Zavallan continued to stare at Rhysalen quizzically.
"You know, for a harper, you're terrible at catching innuendo." Rhysalen teased.
Zavallan’s eyes flattened into slits. “I’m an academic, not a poet.” But then he smiled, amused at his own misunderstandings. “So, you get busy with smiths a lot, then?”
Rhysalen sighed. "Not as much as I'd like. And it's probably for the best, really. Present or past commitments would make it awkward for me to ogle in my spare time. I'd have to find a new hobby."
“You could always turn to writing poetry about your longing,” Zavallan shot back with a gleam in his eyes.
Rhysalen barked a laugh, tipping his chair back on two legs. “Poetry? What, like, ‘Ode to a Sweaty Smith’?” he drawled, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest. “‘Oh molten heat and hammered form, your muscles gleam, your apron torn…actually that's excellent, you got an extra pencil?’”
The harper-turned-Candidate produced a writing implement and passed it to Rhysalen. “See? This is how poetry starts. A little lust, a few rhymes, an analogy or two, and boom, you’ve got yourself a masterpiece.”
Rhysalen took it eagerly, made a few marks on the page, then looked back up, flabbergasted. "Wait, what did I say?"
Last updated on the December 30th 2025