|
|
Post by claire on Aug 19, 2011 15:47:03 GMT -5
For the most part the ongoing cleanup operation worked much as the chores shift assignments had. People were assigned to whichever tasks best suited their abilities, and if said task was not entirely to their tastes, well that was just too bad. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the circumstances, he had heard none of the grumbling and whining that had tended to characterise the posting of a new shift list in the candidate barracks. With all that had happened, personal preference was a petty luxury. You did whatever had to be done.
The clearing of the kitchens, however, was alone amongst the tasks in being on a strictly volunteer basis. And small wonder really when those who did volunteer were regularly unearthing charred bones. There was no sense in forcing whoever fell to hand into such a task when many wouldn't be able to handle it.
Va'an straightened and wiped a hand across his brow before leaning on the shaft of his shovel, pausing briefly in the task of loading debris too incinerated to be salvageable onto a cart. The morning had already seen hasty departures from a few individuals who had clearly overestimated the strength of their resolve. To say nothing of the strength of their stomachs. He couldn't find it in him to blame them, really; for many people it must have been difficult to see the kitchens and dining hall, a hub of daily life for most of them, in a state of such utter devastation.
Of course similar logic could reasonably be applied to his own feelings on the matter. But truth be told he felt rather detached from the whole mess. No-one he knew was dead; none of his friends were so much as injured. What right could he possibly have to be upset when others had suffered real losses? There were some he hadn't spoken to since, right enough, but word was that all the weyrlings were safe and accounted for. He would run into J'rit and Tana sooner or later.
A flake of soot alighted on his face; absently he brushed it away, leaving a dark smear along his cheek. Soot and ash were everywhere in the kitchens. Every movement stirred it up, every breath sent it puffing in clouds through the air in a macabre mimicry of the snow falling outside. Like most of the others working there, he had bound a cloth across the lower half of his face. They had all done their lungs enough harm breathing smoke without making matters any worse. Even with the cloth keeping the ash from his mouth and nose, every breath carried with it the heavy reek of charred wood. The smell pervaded the entire weyr; clinging to clothes, hair, skin, bedding. Everything he'd eaten for days tasted of it.
With a stretch and a mental sigh he went back to work, moving on to a fresh pile of debris. The ash silenced the sound of his boots on the floor.
|
|
Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman 
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Aug 20, 2011 14:46:25 GMT -5
Unath reclined on her side by the lake, the wings tucked to her back the only sign she had not simply collapsed there. Her jaws lay open by a toothy fraction, her eyes shut, skin fresh-oiled and completely oblivious to the stark daylight. The snows were too light to do anything but touch the dragon and turn to tears. With her comfortable, Q'sis headed on to the kitchens. The cloth wrapped over his face was soaked in pungent, camphorous salve. His eyes stung, but his breathing went easy as he prowled burnt ebony halls studded with freshly exchanged glowbaskets. The fungus had come in a little variable this week, with purples and stronger blues dissenting the green light drawn around his figure.
The Tanrider had a wake of ashes, each following him briefly before losing its way and spinning, floating, falling to the stone. His boots touched on Va'an's footprints, tapping the quiet, but at the same time he spoke: "Good morning Tideturner. You look well." Q'sis' eyes narrowed in amusement as he circled the other trader, peering into the cart before he tossed a couple handfuls of charred footstool legs onto the pile. The mint scent of his face covering punched through the acrid soot stench at such a distance, but there was also the cinnamon-like tinge of dragonhide that he could not detect on Va'an in return. The salve, or maybe the kitchen's atmosphere, overwhelmed it.
Q'sis bent and opened cupboard doors that had lost their tops to the flame. "They told me to come here. They did not say I would have company." Metal banged and wailed as he stuck his arms inside the cupboard, then he rose again with an armful of pots and pans. "There are worse people though," he said as he lined the individual pieces on a countertop.
|
|
|
|
Post by claire on Aug 20, 2011 20:25:05 GMT -5
Over the cloth wrapping the lower half of his face, all that was really visible of his expression was a quirked eyebrow. The rest of it could probably be inferred from there. In light of the look currently sported by every member of the cleanup team - clothes they didn't mind getting ruined, already covered in various grades of grime and filth, expressions running the gamut from pained to haggard to exhausted - he could only assume that in context 'well' meant 'apparently uninjured'. A shrug interrupted the fluidity of his motion before he continued shoveling. "Morning. You seem more or less in one piece yourself."
The cloth also concealed a brief wrinkling of his nose. Shards, what in between was that smell? It was sharp and oddly medicinal; the sort of scent that called to mind Iriya's wagon, and the mysterious concoctions therein. Though he'd managed to avoid the infirmary thus far, it was the sort of smell he would have expected to be found therein. A curious glance flitted briefly over his fellow weyrling, though discreetly; perhaps he was not as uninjured as he outwardly appeared. Recovery time would certain explain the previous absence of someone so well suited to it from the cleanup.
The shovel clanged against something concealed within the next pile of debris; pushing the top layer aside revealed a twisted fragment of one of the stoves. He leaned the shovel against the side of the cart and bent to lift it, grateful for the thick wherhide gloves he had borrowed as the sharp edges of the metal tugged and tore at them. It threw up yet more ash as it clattered into the cart. Sharding stuff was everywhere.
The next comment struck him as a loaded one. Compliment? Insult? Impossible to tell, and pointless to speculate. "The work goes faster with more hands," he replied; "I can't say I'm especially picky about who they're attached to."
|
|
Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Aug 26, 2011 19:40:01 GMT -5
"Fair enough."
It would be a motto for all the sunless day that followed. Q'sis, at least, spoke little. His breathing was challenged enough by the scouring of his lungs and did not require further lip-flapping aggravating his recovery. For once he settled with doing only a normal man's quantity of work. A few potbellied iron stoves had to be moved out, their black legs crumpled and bodies folded in on themselves; Q'sis enlisted Va'an for assistance, but would drag them by himself if the other trader was less than amenable.
Some of the rooms they cleared required the walls and the ceiling scrubbed of soot still, and some of the floors plugged sticky black films into the treads of their boots. At one point Q'sis extracted a thin arm-bone from a burnt rubbish pile. He broke it to little pieces and tossed them in with the rest of the trash. The glow fixed on a pole at the cart's head swung dizzily when one of the fragments struck it on the way down. The Tideturners' silhouettes danced ghost-like across the room.
Q'sis went right back to rummaging through the pile where he had found his original treasure, but he did not locate any more such prizes. "I'm leaving," he announced, even as he continued to filter through the melted garbage. "There's food." On top of providing a reason at all, the Tanrider's voice had a distinct tone of advisement. He hauled up the several remaining armfuls of debris at once and lumped it into the cart. He glanced down the ruined front of his long-sleeved tunic, a moist stain black as ash and wet as blood coating him from shoulder to stomach. "After a wash," he clarified, seizing the handles of the cart.
Va'an would have to follow to retrieve the transport after Q'sis dumped the trash from its mouth, for the tall Weyrling left immediately, navigating the tunnels out to the Bowl.
|
|
|
|
Post by claire on Sept 18, 2011 17:09:11 GMT -5
The work was slow and tiring, but it was possible to settle into a rhythm and let the mindless nature of the task carry their hands along while minds were elsewhere. He worked in silence, ignoring the ache of tired arms; helping the older weyrling or accepting his help in return when it was necessary, but otherwise not really interacting. There were chores where a certain level of chatter was appropriate. This did not have the feel of one of them. And in any case, with breath coming short due to smoke and ash already, the exertion would have made speech a labour even if either of them were inclined to it.
By the time the silence was broken long candlemarks later he was filthy and tired. He shrugged, rolling his shoulders and feeling the tug and twinge of overworked muscles. "I could eat," he replied; it was not an acceptance in exactly the same way the statement it was a response to was not an invitation. Now was as good a time as any to stop, and the already seemingly endless work would slow even further with fewer people working on it. Working to the point of exhaustion would help nothing in the long run.
He followed suit, finishing loading up the pile he had been clearing onto the cart before a certain relaxation in body language signaled no further intention of doing any further work. He rested the shovel across his shoulder and fell into step behind the loaded cart, taking a moment to look around the kitchens. Progress was being made. The place was still a disaster area, true enough, but by comparison to how it had looked even a mere few days ago the difference was massive. Once the smiths and miners had declared the place structurally sound and safe to enter the cleanup work had gone relatively quickly.
As they emerged into the clear air of the crisp autumn afternoon, he tugged down the cloth that had been covering the lower half of his face and took a deep breath. After a long day in the wreckage of the kitchens it was a relief to breathe freely again, without the charnel-house reek that pervaded the caverns. The cleaner skin revealed underneath gave the fleeting impression that the mask was still in place, so sharp was the contrast with the soot and ash smearing the rest. He wiped his hands absently on one of the cleaner patches on his tunic. A visit to the baths was definitely in order.
|
|
