Breathing Steam

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 23rd July 2009

Characters: Rikka, Teene
Description: Vintner Hall technician, Rikka, stops to talk to Teene one evening.
Location: Vintner Hall
Date: month 4, day 7 of Turn 5

Teene blew gusts of breath - ho ho ho - into the cold evening air and
admired the puffs of steam that resulted. During the day the
temperature had never risen above what she considered cold, and
mid-afternoon it had begun to get even colder. But it hadn't snowed on
the restday, as it had on the day before, and Teene was grateful for
that small mercy.

Ho ho ho.

"You look like a steam engine when you do that," Rikka commented as she
stopped beside the other woman. Her own restday activities hadn't cared
about the snow or the temperature for she had been rearranging her room,
finally unpacking and finding the _best_ place for all the things she
had moved over to the Hall from larger rooms at the Hold upon her
transfer. Then she'd caught the evening meal in the dining hall - still
rather impressed by the fare the vintner's provided themselves and their
staff - and realised she hadn't been outside all day.

Though day was gone she still felt the need to get outside for a while
and in her newly organised room it had been easy to find her heavy coat
and scarf for her foray into the courtyard.

"Do I?" Ho ho ho. "Is it steam?" It was much like what came off
kettles, Teene supposed.

"Condensed water vapour, I think," Rikka said, "which is part of what
makes up steam."

"What's the other part?"

"Well," the journeywoman technician said, not wanting to get into the
complexities, some of which she was not entirely sure she remembered
perfectly from her apprentice classes, "it's water vapour too, but not
condensed, so it's invisible. How are you, anyway, Teene? Did you have
a restday or were you busy with the children?"

"I'm well, thank you," Teene said with a politeness her grandmother
would be proud of. "And I spent some time with the children, which is
very different from looking after them." Ho ho ho. "Surely I'm not hot
enough to produce steam? Or is it because it's so cold out here?"

Sometimes, Rikka thought, it was just as well to be reminded that just
because Southern Continent women were barred from crafting didn't mean
they had somehow been barred from being intelligent, reasoning people.
This wasn't the first time she had talked with Teene, and she had even
admired the older woman's kindly but rather care-free attitude to life
that was quite different from many of the women of the Hold. And the
journeywoman had wondered how Teene had made it into her twenties
without being married off (willing or unwilling) by her father or some
other male relative. Wasn't that what always happened?

"You're not producing steam, remember," Rikka said in explanation.
"Steam is the invisible stuff off the kettle. You're producing
condensed water vapour."

"Which is the visible part of steam," Teene agreed. "Why am I producing
the visible part of steam, then, when I'm nowhere near boiling?" Not
everybody had the time to answer questions but Rikka didn't seem to be
in any rush. "Am I keeping you from something?"

"No, not at all. I'm just out to get some air." Cold, fresh air; just
what she needed. "The fact that the air's cold is what's making the
water vapour appear," she explained, remembering belatedly that Teene
had already guesed that. She dug her hands further into her pockets and
thought that she ought to have picked up her gloves. "Your breath's
warm and warm air can hold more water vapour in it. When you breathe out -"

Ho ho ho, Teene went, to illustrate the point.

"- like that your warm, moisture laden breath meets the cold air that
can't hold so much moisture. The excess moisture condenses and what you
can see is the tiny water droplets - the condensed water vapour."

"Amazing." In the electric light that lit the cold courtyard within the
Vintner Hall buildings Teene smiled at the journeywoman technician. "We
always grew up calling it 'breathing steam'."

"Ahh." Rikka smiled back and managed an experimental and very
successful ho ho ho of her own before admitting: "So did we."

Last updated on the July 26th 2009

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Breathing Steam