Shard It! (Any Candidates)

[4horseshowgirl4]

"Yeah, sure, Dad, I can repair this by myself!" Pratyba shouted over her shoulder, tossing a last glance towards her rightly-concerned father, a drudge who specialized in weyr-building. While he was no woodworker, her was surely more qualified to repair Pratyba's cot than the rambunctious Candidate was, but Pratyba would have no men, not even her own flesh and blood, in the girls' barrack. Why, that would seem rather scandalous to those who didn't know Pratyba and her family that well, wouldn't it? So, off Pratyba trotted, her father's relayed instructions on how to reattach a new board to the bottom of her cot bouncing away merrily in her head like her feet were bouncing away merrily towards the barracks. Her hair, in which she'd braided a long, richly colored length of cloth, swished side to side fiercely as she ran.

In Pratyba's hand swung a crisp, new piece of wood, which was making a slight whistling sound as it whisked through the air at Pratyba's side. She had completely destroyed the last one after cracking her head on it (which was how it had broken off of the bottom of the cot in the first place as she'd been reaching for a lost shoe), and it had been battered to pieces when she'd used it as a weapon against the pesky tunnelsnakes. It was beyond repair now, but who'd want to use an old piece of wood when new wood was widely available? Besides, Pratyba surely didn't want to venture back to the lower caverns by herself to go fetch the old one! Not alone, anyway. She grinned slightly as she skipped to the barracks, reminiscing slightly. She wondered what Alalbar and Grescan were up to: her wing, she couldn't help but think.

Finally, she arrived at the barracks. Right away she set to work, pulling a hammer and some nails out of her pants pocket. The rotund Candidate slid underneath her cot, back on the floor, and hastily realized that the job would be impossible without glows. How silly of her to forget such an important thing! She slid out from under the bed, carefully, as she didn't want to break another board while trying to repair the first! That would be just a bit ironic, wouldn't it? It hardly took long to grab a handful of glows, which were freely accessible. Then, she scurried back to her cot.

Now, this was confusing. It had all seemed so clear when her father had been explaining how to fix the board to her, but now that Pratyba was staring at the dimly-lit underside of her cot, nothing that the drudge had said to her made sense anymore. She tentatively tried to fit the new piece of wood in the spot where she assumed there was a board missing, but she had no idea how to make it stay there. She was pretty sure that she wasn't just supposed to drive the nail straight upward. She didn't want to be sleeping on a bed of nails that night.

Pratyba set the piece of board down next to her head, and reached for one of the nails instead. Now, if she drove it in that way... no, that wouldn't even touch the board... what about here...? No, that wouldn't even intersect the frame of the cot. Pratyba huffed a large sigh. Why did this have to be so complicated? It had only taken her all of five seconds to break the board in the first place, after all! "Shells," she breathed, hitting a nail lightly into the wood with the hammer, just experimenting. She'd drove it in quite far before she felt a sear of pain from her scalp. She strained her head around, wincing, just to realize that she'd somehow nailed the decorative cloth in her hair onto the bed frame.

Pratyba felt a pang of desperation before she remembered that hammers came with a handy nail-pulling tool. She turned the hammer around, just to realize that her father's crudely-made hammer (he never would have trusted her with the good one), didn't have such an apparatus.

Really? Was this some sort of sick joke? She was flat on her back under a cot, nailed to it by her hair.

So Pratyba did what she always did.

She dissolved into laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. "Shard it!" she coughed out between wracks of giggles, half frustrated, half amused.

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[jack]

"Uhm....I don't mean to intrude but...uh...what're you doing?" A brow arched in confusion the girl leaned over, her rusty-red ponytails swishing as she tilted her head, hands on her knees.

A pink flit was sitting on her shoulder, mimicking her bonded's actions with an amused chirp before gliding down to Pratyba's level, hopping underneath the bed with a cheerful trill. Images flooded through the girl's mind and she laughed, shaking her head as she straightened, hands on her hips, "You nailed your head to the bottom of your bed? By Faranth, how'd you do that?"

Laughing, Durian turned away, trotting over to her own bed--as she'd been conveniently moved for convenience's sake--and pulling off the red wig, setting it on its place amongst its friends--she had quite the collection now--before pulling fruit from her shirt. Turning around she quickly changed from a skirt to trousers, humming to herself as she shuffled over to the other, looking more like a herder-boy scrounging around for tracks than a girl scootching beneath a bed.

"Okay. Leeet's see.." He shifted, twisting to see the situation, "...seriously...how'd you do this?"

[Nia]

There really wasn't much else to do in a Weyr but explore, too bad Avalle had already been there, done that, and it hadn't been too fun. So she'd resigned to hanging around the Barracks, where she actually knew what she was doing. Laying on her cot and staring up at the wall wasn't too boring, really. She had enough fun shining a glow on the wall and watching Yulari try to catch the light only to find that the light was uncatchable. But soon the yellow had caught on to Avalle's little game, and had instead attacked the girl's hands to try and steal the glow, which sure ended that game.

So now Avalle was stuck with nothing to do but stare around boredly. She didn't know anyone well enough to seek them out for company, but the barracks were interesting in themselves, she guessed. Lots of people coming and going. People that she felt jealous of for having more friends than she did, for being able to talk to people and have fun. Yulari, sensing her bonded's mind falling into these angry thoughts again, wrapped herself around the girl's neck the best she could.

However, she didn't have long to think depressing thoughts, as soon enough there was a loud banging noise coming from somewhere else. It was starting to get annoying. Avalle sat up, rubbing her temples in slight annoyance, looking around for the source. Ah... the source. She stood up off her cot and followed the noise to it's source, a girl with a hammer in her hands. What was she sharding doing?! It was annoying, too.

Scowling, she approached, only to see (well, hear) that the girl was no longer hammering. Another girl had approached as well. What was going on? Her anti-social tendencies were clawing at her mind, but she had to know. Curiosity killed the cat, you know. Anyway, she approached, ducking to look under the bed on the side that Durian wasn't on. Hearing the tail end of Durian's last statement, she commented, "Yeah, seriously. I mean... is it even possible to do... that?" she squinted a little to try and see better in the dark. It seemed that this strange girl had gotten herself nailed to the bottom of her bed.

Giggling a little despite herself, Avalle tried to assess the situation while Yulari changed her position from around the girl's neck to up on the top of her head. "But it looks like you need some help!" she looked at Durian from under the bed, "So... should we just try and pull her out? I think that might rip out her hair," she suggested. It would be incredibly painful as well, and she might lose her hair. Really, she wasn't usually so quick to help, but this was just so funny she couldn't help herself. Besides... it gave her an excuse to talk to people, right?

[4horseshowgirl4]

Pratyba was still writhing uncomfortable in her trapped position. She felt like she imagined a dragonet must feel shortly before Hatching time. Still, at least a baby dragon had a means by which to free itself! Pratyba still didn't know what she was going to do: she knocked at the nail with the back of the hammer rather listlessly, as if hoping that a nail-puller would suddenly appear on the back of it. She knew full well that it wouldn't work, but what else was she going to do? She couldn't pull the nail out by hand, and she was hardly going to tear her hair decoration, as it was one of the few pretty pieces that Pratyba, as a lowly Candidate without rich parents, had. Besides, it was pretty securely braided in her hair. Pratyba really didn't want to try and yank it out, and she had no means by which to cut it. The first way was a good way to end up with a bald patch. Pratyba was rather fond of her hair, thank you very much.

As she was running these not-so-possible solutions through her hair, Pratyba heard the sound of footsteps. She had never, never been so happy to hear that unmistakeable patter of human feet. Someone would see her, after all! It was a strange enough scene that it was hard to miss. Honestly, how many times did a person see a Candidate who had literally pinned herself under a cot? Not too many, she thought, chuckling. Even though the strain on her scalp was still paining her, Pratyba couldn't help but laugh at herself. She was well aware of the fact that she managed to get herself into these situations that no one else could possible manage. She wasn't exactly proud of that fact, but at least she gave people an excuse to laugh. If nothing else, these events made good stories to tell over a pot of klah later.

"Oh, no, you're perfectly welcome to intrude! In fact, I'd like you to intrude: I could use a little bit of help here, as you can probably see!" Pratyba chirped, raising her voice a little bit so that it wouldn't be muffled by the fact that she was staring straight at the underside of her cot. "Well, I broke this board under my cot a few days ago. I had to fix it, obviously, because I didn't want it to break in the middle of the night and send me crashing to the floor. I got a new board, some nails, and a hammer, thinking it would be easy enough to fix it by myself. By the First Egg, was I wrong!" She chortled again before continuing to chatter on. "I was trying to figure out where I should put the nail so that it would attach the board to the bottom of the bed without making me lie on it tonight. Somehow, I managed to nail this ribbon I braided in my hair to my bed. It's kind of hard to see what you're nailing down here! There's not exactly much room to maneuver!" Pratyba shut up, hoping that she hadn't scared Durian away with her long diatribe. It was probably way more information than the other girl wanted.

"Oh, hi!" she said, pleasantly surprised when Durian crawled under the cot to help her. "I'm Pratyba, by the way. Usually I don't get myself into trouble." She laughed again. "Well, actually, I do. But usually not this much trouble!" With that, Pratyba heard the footsteps of another helper. Well, the more, the merrier, she supposed! She didn't mind that the other girl was laughing at her, too, as it wasn't like Pratyba didn't have the capability to laugh at herself, though most other Candidates would be mortified to find themselves in such an embarrassing situation. Pratyba knew her-- limitations, and she knew that life was way more fun when she could laugh at herself. She was a pretty amusing person once in a while, after all. She had never met anyone else, save for possibly her brother, Porat, who was able to do these things to him or herself.

"No, no, I don't think that will be necessary!" Pratyba interrupted quickly when Avalle suggested that they just try to yank her out. The suggestion was plausible when she had suggested it to herself earlier, but now that someone else said it, it wasn't hard for Pratyba to realize that she really did want to keep her hair. "There's a reason I'm still under here, and it's not because I can't yank myself out!" She paused, a little concerned that the bossy Candidate would try to do that anyway. "Go ask one of the weyr-building workers for something that will pull a nail out of a board. The hammer that my father lent me doesn't have a nail-puller on the back of it, and, anyway, I'm not sure that I'm in the right position to have enough leverage on the nail even if I did."

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[jack]

Durian gave a soft laugh of her own, shaking her head as Reggae slipped from the bed, snagging a glow and dragging it to her bonded so that everyone could see a bit better. Job complete the Pink squirmed up onto one of the boards, squished between the furs and the board and looking oddly pleased as she peered down at the others, eyes whirling eagerly.

"My name's Durian." Durian replied with a grin, glancing at Pratyba and suddenly very sure that it wasn't unusual for her to get in trouble, before turning her attention to the new girl. "No, we really shouldn't yank her out." She responded with a laugh, a lop-sided grin on her face, "But I think I know what we can do to this either way."

She shifted and pulled herself out from beneath the bed, taking the furs and mattress from the bed and placing them on the ground, glancing at the boards. "....the nail's straight up." She repled with a lifted brow, "But you nailed it in sideways..." Okay. Pratyba definitely had some talent.

[Nia]

Avalle couldn't resist her laugh anymore, and let her giggles form into full laughs. It really was amusing. If Pratyba had been crying and panicing, she probably wouldn't be laughing, but she had to admit, the other girl's laugh was quite contagious. "I'm Avalle," she added her name to the pot, figuring she should. It was polite, you know? The right thing to do. Even if one of the girls had her hair stuck to her cot and she was talking to the other one from under the bed. Weird circumstances to meet, but hey, maybe if they all became best friends years later they'd be talking and laughing about how they all met.

Yeah, that was really unlikely.

Anyway, she smiled back at Durian and Pratyba, "Yeah, that's not a good idea. I don't think you want to lose all your hair," she directed the last statement at Pratyba with a sort of friendly laugh, though it may have come out meaner than she intended. So far, so good! She'd been able to hold her tongue. "Really?" she responded to Durian's observations, pulling herself out from under the bed as well so she could see. "Huh, it is pretty straight," she didn't know much about nails and physical labor, but she could tell a straight nail from a bent one. "It should be easier to get out that way, right? I don't really know much about building things," she said with a small smile.

As she was looking at the nail, Yulari chirped a friendly greeting at Reggae, surprised she hadn't actually noticed the other firelizard before. She was tempted to go join the Pink, but was reluctant to leave Avalle. "Weyr-building workers? Um, okay. I'll go find one," she said, nodding. She very well couldn't do physical labor like building, but she could certainly fetch things. "I'll be right back!" she said, dashing out of the room. Pratyba most likely didn't want to spend a lot of time nailed under the cot, as it was probably pretty painful, so she hurried.

Yulari was actually a help this time, as she jumped off Avalle's shoulder and flew a little ahead because for some odd reason she knew where the storage for hammers was. It was all the way in the lower caverns, and had probably been one of the rooms that Avalle had glanced in when she'd gotten lost that one time. She was surprised Yulari remembered, but followed the strange yellow into the storage room, where she quickly grabbed a hammer that had a working nail-puller on the back. With that, she ran back out of the room, headed back towards the Candidate Barracks.

Finally arriving back at the Barracks, she panted to catch her breath. She really had run the whole way there and back! "I... got one...." she panted, breathing heavily. Taking a few more deep breaths of air, she held out the hammer to Durian. "You know how to take the nail out, right?" she asked, her voice steady again. "Because I don't," she chuckled. It would probably be easy to figure out... but she didn't want to risk accidently ripping out all of Pratyba's hair. That would be... bad....