Glimpses

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 4th January 2015

Characters: Azyn, Quarrel
Description: The Harper Hallsecond investigates more duties around the Hall.
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 10, day 25 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: Ryell, Lynta

Master Printer Quarrel nodded a dismissal at the last senior apprentice from the
ground crew. The equipment was all back in the racks; cleaned and replenished,
as required. The senior apprentices and their journeymen crew leaders were all
accounted for and released back to their Threadfall day routines.

"And that's it for me," he said, signing off the log book and sliding it into
one of the lattice of open ended equipment boxes that covered one wall of the
purpose-built room.

The Harper Hallsecond nodded. "Thanks for running me through it, Quarrel. Do you
think this duty needs to be done by a master ranked crafter?"

The other man smiled. "Usual story; it could be done by a reliable junior
apprentice with one arm tied behind his back - until something goes wrong.
Somebody doesn't come back with the group, something is missing, the
flamethrowers have a problem. Then you'd want some rank to get things sorted out
and - to be honest - there's not a lot else going on for masters during
Threadfall. We don't teach classes and the apprentices are all gathered in the
larger classrooms."

"Hmm. There's not a lot of rosters to go back through -" the Hall only having
been reopened less than a Turn, "- but it does look as if some masters are
exempt the duty. In fact, there are only three of you who are ever rostered on."

Quarrel shrugged. "There are a few things like that around the Hall. Perhaps
because we moved back here from the Weyr in dribs and drabs?" he offered, though
he, like many of the printers, thought that they tended to get more than their
share of the less welcome Hall duties. He might think it but he wouldn't say it;
it would do nothing to improve the situation the printers found themselves in as
part of the larger Harper Hall.

"Perhaps," Azyn agreed.

The Hallsecond had worked with Quarrel at the Printer Hall at Topaz SeaHold for
a number of Turns and had a lot of respect for the younger man. He was one of
those people who did his work well, had raised a large printercraft family, and
for the most part kept himself out of conflicts within the craft or Hall.

That wasn't how Azyn's life in the craft had developed but who knew how
different things would have been if he and his first wife had been able to have
children. Now he did have a family he was too set in his ways to become an
apolitical family man, and he had the feeling Ryell wouldn't want him to change
even if he could.

"I'd ask if you were enjoying being back at the Hall," Quarrel said
thoughtfully, "except that it's not exactly the Hall you left."

"The backbone of it is the same," Azyn said, "and I get glimpses of the old
Hall." The Printer Hall at Topaz SeaHold that he and Ryell had left immediately
after their marriage was long gone, its physical aspect destroyed by a storm and
the personnel dispersed through a series of moves - to Emerald Falls, to Dolphin
Cove Weyr, and back to Emerald Falls into a new building to replace the one that
was destroyed by arson. "I've enjoyed catching up with the old crowd and Ryell's
pleased to find some of her old friends still here." It was that phrase 'still
here' that was the one that always made one stop and think because 'here' wasn't
the place they had all been together before. It might just be that he should
accept that the Hall wasn't a physical location and that the core of the old
Printer Hall was alive and well no matter how many changes it had been through.

"I suppose most of them are journeymen by now." Quarrel nodded to himself. "I'm
glad to see she's been able to continue in the craft -" he paused and added
cautiously: "and that you two have made a go of it."

The Hallsecond thought that was probably about as involved as Master Quarrel was
ever going to get in something not directly related to his craft or family.

At the time Azyn and Ryell had married it had seemed that everybody in the whole
Hall had had an opinion about their plans - as they had had an opinion about
Ryell's pregnancy. He would have preferred they keep their opinions to
themselves, but since he tended not to do so he supposed he could hardly
complain. Although most of the comments supported marrying Ryell off (to anyone,
it had seemed by the number of suggested grooms) if the father wouldn't come
forward, very few had been in favour of Azyn marrying the apprentice. He had
never fathomed whether it was the gap in their ages or in their ranks in craft
that bothered people the most, but he and Ryell had gone ahead and married, left
the Hall for the Northern Continent, and made a happy life for themselves in
defiance of the many predictions of doom.

"Things _have_ worked out well," Azyn agreed, "and we are very happy together."

"Everyone's noticed that," Quarrel said with a smile. Nobody who saw them
together could doubt that the Hallsecond and his apprentice wife enjoyed each
other's company and he had to admit that he was pleased to see a good example of
a woman continuing with her craft once she was a mother. His daughter Lynta
would someday have to make her own decisions about crafting and motherhood and
her having grown up in the Southern Continent sometimes gave him qualms about
what she might have picked up from the attitudes outside the Hall.

"Any mutterings about her promotion chances being improved by my appointment as
Hallsecond?"

Quarrel shrugged. "A little bit of talk but there's not much heat in it since
she's so far behind those her age."

Azyn laughed. "Who would have thought that was a positive? Are we done here?"

"Just have to turn out the lights and lock the door as we leave."

"Then let's go and see what the printer apprentices are up to in their free
time. And you can tell me a little about them as we go."

Last updated on the January 4th 2015

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Glimpses