Cooper For A Sevenday (Part 1)

Writers: Eimi, Noola
Date Posted: 1st May 2010

Characters: Ariavin, Miniam
Description: An apprentice from the Woodcraft Hall joins Ariavin for a sevenday to experience the life of a working cooper.
Location: Vintner Hall
Date: month 8, day 8 of Turn 5
Notes: This is Part 1 of 3

Ariavin glanced up from his work and frowned when he noticed the time.
He was due in the courtyard now to meet the apprentice from the
Woodcraft Hall who was going to be following him for the next
sevenday. The boy was considering a specialization in cooperage at the
Hall, so had come to see the sorts of things someone in the profession
would be expected to do. Get a little hands-on exposure and discover
if it was truely for him. Ariavin had undergone a similar ritual when
he had been a senior apprentice nearing time to walk the tables. He'd
examined a few different specialties before settling on cooperage.

The woodcrafter removed his apron and wiped the dust off his hands as
he made his way out the door, headed toward the courtyard. He wondered
what sort of kid he would have following him around. He hoped the boy
would take the opportunity here seriously.

Miniam was just as curious about a woodcrafter who lived his life in a
Hall, but one so very different from their own. The Woodcraft hall
always had that certain smell to it. The smell of cut wood, sometimes
varnish if you were walking around the shop. But this Hall smelled
like... nothing, really. That was the first impression that struck him
as he looked around at his new surroundings, waiting for this Journeyman
Ariavin to appear.

When Ariavin arrived at the courtyard, he spotted the boy right away.
The Woodcraft Hall knots were both familiar and distinctive. "Hello
there, you must be the new shadow I was told to expect." He offered a
friendly smile to the boy as he approached.

"Yes, sir. I'm Apprentice Miniam," he nodded, taking the measure of his
assigned mentor. The journeyman was a good head taller than he was, and
certainly broader in the shoulders and thicker in the arms. Miniam
supposed that after working with his hands that long, he also would grow
to be so strongly built. And he didn't really look _that_ old. Much
younger than many of his teachers.

"Welcome to the Vintner Hall, lad. Are these all your things?" Ariavin
reached to pick up a bag. "You'll be staying with me, unless you want
to bunk with the Vintner apprentices? Either way, my wife has cooked
something nice and you're to join us for supper."

Homecooked food sounded much better than anything a dining hall could
put out! "Your cot would be fine, thank you."

"Right then, we'll just drop your things off and then I'll give you a
quick tour. We'll start with the basics - dining hall and kitchens,
I'll go ahead and show you the apprentice dorms, the rec areas."
Ariavin led the boy toward his home. "Then, we'll go through the
cellars, so you can see how our barrels and kegs are used. After that,
it'll be the workshop. We'll spend most of the day there. Most of
every day this sevenday, in fact."

---------------

Miniam wondered if there was such a dark cellar anywhere at the
Woodsmith Hall as he walked between the dimly lit rows of kegs, casks,
and barrels. "You made all these?"

"Not all of them, no. Some of them are old. They get reused, you see.
I did make a lot of them though, and I maintain the old ones.
Sometimes the hoops have to be replaced and so on."

"Could you even make some of those giant ones by yourself?" the boy
asked, remembering the whiskey casks they had passed that looked larger
than his living space at the Hall.

"Oh, no. The biggest ones are team efforts. There's a couple of other
coopers here besides me usually. I'm the most senior - unless a Master
in the specialty decides to come. But there's usually an apprentice
like you or two here and there's another journeyman who helps as well.
You'll meet him later, I'm sure."

"Of course," Ariavin continued, "these really big beauties, sometimes
the Vintner Hall has to borrow woodcrafters from the Woodcraft Hall
for special projects like them. But they don't need new giant vats and
casks like that often. They last a long time. These were all here when
I was assigned. I've only had to do maintenance on them."

"So you just make barrels and casks every day?" Miniam asked looking
around at the sheer volume of work that would have had to have been put
into making all of them. "Doesn't that get kind of boring sometimes?
Making the same round shape?"

"Not really. I'm kept too busy to be bored for the most part. And
while the basic shape of everything a cooper makes is the same,
there's a lot of variety in design and each design has different
uses." Ariavin went on to explain about the four basic types of
designs and how they made containers for anything from dry goods to
pressurized liquids to bathwater. "Of course, at the Vintner Hall, I
do mostly work with certain types of designs, but that doesn't mean
I'm not occasionally asked to make different ones. Or that the Vintner
Hall is the only place a cooper might wind up working."

"Have you ever worked elsewhere?" the boy asked curiously.

"Not for long, this was actually my first permanent assignment. I
spent a little time working in the Weyr several turns ago, but I like
my posting here. I enjoy the notion that the work I do influences the
product the Hall here produces."

"The Weyr?" The apprentice was rather surprised by that revelation.
"Were you a Candidate?"

"Oh, no. My brother was though. He Impressed a brown," a bit of pride
entered the cooper's voice at this. "While I was there, I found out
there was a big project and the Weyr's woodcrafters were going to need
an extra hand. I volunteered to help so I could spend a bit of extra
time with my brother before heading back to the Hall is all."

"Ah, ok." Miniam, like many boys still of Impressionable age still
harbored hopes that one day a Search dragon would come looking for him.
He was a little disappointed that his mentor had not been chosen to
Stand. But at least he had _been_ to a Hatching. "What was the Weyr
like?"

"Noisy, mostly. You can't imagine the racket a few hundred dragons can
make all hours of the day and night." His time at the Weyr was full of
bittersweet memories and he was beginning to regret having brought it
up. Usually he tried to keep that time and the things he'd done there
buried in the past.

The boy leaned in a little closer, his eyes wide with curiosity. "Are
the women like they say?"

"Depends on which stories you're meaning. If you mean the ones where
women throw themselves at any man who passes by, not so much. As I
recall, they were quite a bit more forward, but a man -could- walk
down the halls without being mauled." He grinned at the lad.

"Now, if you mean that they're headstrong, bossy and act more like men
than women have a right to, even crafting a lot of them, then yes.
Those stories aren't too far off from what I remember. The woodcrafter
in charge at the Weyr was a woman when I was there, if you can imagine
it."

"Yeah, but..." What Miniam really had wanted to know if they were
really naked half the time and willing to sleep with just about anyone.
He didn't want to just come right out and say it, but he was very
curious. "I heard they are more... willing... to do things... than
Hold girls."

Ariavin laughed out loud at that, "Oh, they are. Like I said, the lot
of them are more forward than is decent. But the Weyr isn't quite the
walking orgy that some stories make it out to be either."

Miniam blushed slightly. He didn't exactly know what an 'orgy' was, but
he knew it had something to do with sex, and it wasn't proper. A
'walking orgy' must be even more scandalous! Maybe he didn't really
want to know any more. "So..." he thought, trying to change the
subject, "you said that barrels come in different designs?"

Hiding a grin at the boy's discomfort, Ariavin moved along with the
change of subject. In truth, he was glad to leave the topic himself,
though for different reasons. "Yes, there are four main types, each
depending on what sorts of things you're wanting to store." He went on
to quickly summarize the difference between dry, dry-tight, white and
wet designs. "And of course, within each type, there are many
different varieties depending on the size needed, the space available
and so on."

Last updated on the May 3rd 2010

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Cooper For A Sevenday (Part 1)