Learning Properly

Writers: Cali, Jane
Date Posted: 11th January 2009

Characters: F'gol, Eshmeir
Description: The boys talk music and classes.
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 13, day 17 of Turn 4

Eshmeir was taking his time walking along the rocky corridors between bathing room and dormitory, not exactly thinking, more just feeling aware of the differences in his life at the Harper Hall and at the only home he had known before coming to the Hall. Though, even in his meandering thoughts, he realized that many of the differences were about the Hall being at the Weyr - because a Weyr, _this_ Weyr was very different from his cothold home.

As he passed the open door of one of the rooms the Harper Hall was using as a classroom and study room and glanced in, surprised to see an apprentice still at work. It would soon be time for all the apprentices to be in bed and their supervised study was long over but Figol was still working.

"Hey, Figol," Eshmeir said in a rather diffident tone for though they were about the same age Figol was a senior apprentice to his own very junior status. "You're working late."

"Huh?" Figol looked up, his concentration broken. "Oh it is getting late isn't it. I was just finishing up."

Eshmeir edged into the room, looking around to make sure he wasn't intruding on others who might be still working. "Is it another composition?"

He shook his head and held up the sheet music. "No, it's the same one, the competition piece I won. I just can't stop fidgeting with it. I'm playing second gitar now, and I just found out that we're playing it at the Hatching Feast too."

"Do they want you to change it this late in the day?" the junior apprentice asked. He could play well enough - that's how he'd ended up at the Hall - but if it was something he'd rehearsed and it was changed at the last moment he'd be ... tetchy.

"You've never played with Galitino then." Figol said with a chuckle. "He'll change things right up until the performance! I'm not doing much though. Just polishing things that didn't sound quite right in rehearsal."

"Oh. I'm not really playing with anybody," Eshmeir admitted. "Just learning things. Did you come here as a junior? To the Hall, I mean." He wasn't quite sure when the Hall had moved to the Weyr, and weather Figol had been an apprentice at the former location at Emerald Falls Hold.

Figol nodded, "When I was twelve. You start to play in small groups when you've been here about a turn. Once you figure out what you're best at playing. Like for me it was gitar. I can play drums, pipes, and a few horns, but I'm best at the gitar so that's what I usually use in groups. Do you know what you're good at yet?" He was older, so maybe he'd been playing at his home hold for a few turns.

"I can play most things I've had the chance to," Eshmeir admitted. "By ear and figuring them out. I like pipes and flutes and things best - or I seem to be best at them. This learning everything properly ..." He grinned. "I know it'll make me a better harper, musically, but it mostly feels like a big step back."

"You never know when you'll be in some little hold and you get handed a passed down lute you're expected to play for them." Figol grinned as he remembered stories the journeymen had told of just that happening. "And knowing all the instruments makes composition class a lot easier."

"Well I can tell you that everybody seems intent on making me learn everything," the new apprentice said with a sigh. "Slowly. And properly."

Figol laughed, he knew exactly what Eshmeir meant. "And it doesn't speed up. I still have to do everything slowly and properly. If anything it gets worse because after a few turns they think you should know better."

"That I should know 'slowly and properly' are the only ways to do things? I'd sort of hoped they'd let up after a while. See that I wasn't as stupid as they think. Well, not on every subject."

"Maybe as journeymen?" Figol suggested with a shrug. "Anyways, I've got another few fixes to make before lights out so I'll see you later okay?"

Eshmeir recognized he was being dismissed and accepted it philosophically. Perhaps when he was as busy as the more senior boy - or if he ever developed as much talent ... "Good night, then, Figol."

"Night" he echoed, but his back was already to the boy as he bent back over his latest notations.

Last updated on the January 18th 2009

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Learning Properly