Appearances Count

Writers: Chelle, Jane
Date Posted: 2nd September 2014

Characters: Sahna, Asley
Description: Asley and Sahna talk about promotions.
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 8, day 20 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: R'haran

"If my father wasn't a harper I would say Pern would be well rid of the lot of
them," Sahna grumbled as she entered the printercraft apprentice study room.
"They're menaces, that's what they are. Milling around when a person has places
to go." She set her satchel on the table and grinned at Asley who was the only
occupant of the room. Asley often seemed to be studying in her free time, just
as Sahna was.

Her head came up from a manual she had been reading. These days she was
completely focused on getting her knots. "Harpers have their uses." She
remembered a certain few faces. "We wouldn't have people to write the books we
print without them."

"But we'd still have all the other work - from the technicians and smiths, and
the miners and the Hold stuff." Sahna unpacked the work she wanted to do from
the satchel and spread it out further down the long table from the senior
apprentice. "There are just so many of them compared to us printers. And they
carry instruments in the corridors and just generally clutter the place up. I'm
glad I'm not a harper."

"Well Sahna, to be fair it is really their Hall." Asley had noticed that. Even
though this Hall had been built with the printers in mind, it wasn't a printer
hall. Not their own Hall as the Seahold had been. "I mean, we're visitors here."
She sighed and put her paper down, feeling her growing dissatisfaction rearing
its ugly head. "Besides artistic types tend to clutter."

"I think some printers are artistic," Sahna said with a frown. "They just don't
wallow in in their artistic-ness as they waft down the corridors thinking of the
glory of music and the beauty of 'Art'." She grinned. "My father's not like
that. He loves music but he's very sensible."

"Your father?" She thought of her brother briefly. He was nothing like that. "I
like music. It's good to set type to if there's a good rhythm." That was true
enough.

"I like music too, now." She frowned. "Do you not know my father? He's a
dragonrider and a harper. Evielenth's green and we're adopted." Those statements
tended to have to go together. "We're his sister's great-grandchildren, really."
Her expression had lightened into a smile. "He remembers women in _all_ the
crafts because he was at the Harper Hall - but not this one - before the Craft Ban."

"I wasn't raised at the Weyr. I came after the other Hall at Topaz was messed
up." Unlike most folk, Asley was a northerner by birth. "I was born at Southern
Boll." She had no parents but at least she had her brother even if she didn't
really see him much anymore. That was part of growing up, wasn't it? "Don't
really have a big family, just my brother. Which harper hall then if not the one
at Emerald Halls? Fort?" She'd been there, once, when she was young, for a gather.

"The main Southern Continent one, I think. I've never asked him. He said he was
sent to the Weyr because they thought he'd fit in better there. And then he
Impressed Evie, so I guess they were right."

"Oh hm. Yeah...greenriders are a different breed." She herself didn't fit as a
rider or a person. Female greenriders usually liked men so Asley knew she wasn't
ever dragon material. "We need them to fight Thread though, for sure. And
harpers are smart, so maybe they knew that."

"I think they knew he liked men," Sahna said, not really able to remember when
they had first met R'haran and she had thought that strange though she must have
since it wasn't very common among holdfolk.

"Might be true too. Though I daresay there are crafters out there who aren't
properly wed. They just probably aren't open about it." And that was the last
she'd ever say about that.

"I never thought of that," the younger apprentice said, then she shrugged. "Not
that it matters."

"For some it does." She didn't stress it overmuch but for Asley the emphasis was
there. "In a Weyr, not so much. But if you're posted to a Hall or Hold,
appearances count for a lot. Like promotion for example." Indeed, it seemed the
married people got better postings.

Sahna was so far away from any sort of promotion that she would never have
thought about it in relation to whether men like her father would have had
difficulties getting promoted, though when she thought about it it was a little
strange that he wasn't a master harper. "At least everybody should all get to
journeyman, though, since it's rare for apprentices to marry so nobody will get
an advantage."

"As long as they do their courses aye. Course some apprentices drop out so not
all the apprentice classes make it to the tables." Asley hated to say it but
some of them ended up pregnant and went home. Some of them just didn't want to
do the work.

"I will," Sahna said firmly. "And you will, too."

There wasn't another option for Asley and she knew that. "Mm...hopefully soon."

And then the older girl would be gone. Sahna wasn't looking forward to that; she
didn't have so many friends at the Hall that the loss of one wasn't important
but she knew Asley was looking forward to leaving.

Last updated on the October 3rd 2014

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Appearances Count