It's Hard to be Mad...

Writers: Danielle, Eimi
Date Posted: 10th November 2005

Characters: Gaiya, I'zar
Description: Gaiya catches Izaronin working on an experiment
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 1 of Turn 3

It was very, very early- long before dawn and long before most of the weyrfolk would wake and start their daily tasks. Izaronin rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with one hand, the other clutching a canvas bag that was slung over one thin shoulder. His tunic was tragically too big, wrinkled, his boot laces were slipping out of thier knots, and his hair stuck up in spikes that pointed in random directions. But he was smiling as he wandered down to the dining cavern.

Once there, he claimed a table for himself, and dropped the bag unceremoniously on it. Then he peered around, but all was quiet. Good.
Then he crept over to the doorway to the kitchens, and glanced inside, but there was no one there yet. At least, not that he could see. Good!
He darted inside, grabbed a few of the water pitchers that would be put on the tables for breakfast, and began to fill them. Moments later, he brought them sloshing and dripping back to his table and set them down.

Then he went to work.

Out of the bag he'd brought came a small bowl and several little bags of powder. Izaronin opened one, and sprinkled a bit into the bowl, and poured a bit of water on top of it. He mixed it quickly, then smeared a spoonful on the bottom of one of the pitchers. Quickly, he ran, splattering water all the way, and set it right in the center of one of the tables.

Then he ran back and repeated the process over and over, using different kinds of powder. By the end of it, he had eight pitchers set out, was covered with water, and dripping. There were sounds of the Weyr stirring so she ran back to his table and dumped his mixing bowl and pouches back into the bag and kicked it against the wall, out of the way. And back into the kitchen he went, filling more pitchers and setting them out.

"You're up early this morning, aren't you?" Gaiya asked as she walked into the dining cavern. The young woman hadn't been able to sleep and figured if she was already awake, dawn was a good time to get up. She ruffled his hair affectionately as he skirted by her with a pitcher.
"You seem willing to help today. What's gotten into you, little imp?"

"Ah..well....I was working on a project. For my mother. Well, she didn't give me the project, one of the journeymen masons did...er... I had the idea, but he told me how to do it. But it's going to be for my mom." He set the pitcher down, spilling more of it on himself than not, and started back towards Gaiya and the kitchen.

"Oh, well, good for you." Gaiya grabbed a mug and sat down at the nearest table with a sigh. She watched as the boy made for the kitchens. He was a good boy. Always had been. A bit of a trouble-maker, but never maliciously so. The fact that the boy would be thoughtful enough to wake early just to make a surprise for her mother brought a smile to her face. Yes, he was a good boy.

She sighed as she wrapped her fingers around the handle of the pitcher.
"Can you bring out klah next time, Izaronin?" she called after him.
Gaiya lifted on the handle of the pitcher, but it did not budge from its spot. "What in the name of..." Wait a minute. It was stuck! Stuck _to_ the table! How on Pern did that happen? Who would have...
"_Izaronin_!"

Izaronin came running out with the klah pot- which of course splashed over his hands. "Ouch! Oh...hey...did it work?" He set the klah down on Gaiya's table and knelt down to look at the mortar that was stuck to the bottom of the water pitcher. "It works!" He laughed and ran to grab his notes.

"Wait wait wait... Come back here!" Works? Just what did that boy have in his head? "Izaronin! What did you do?"

He shuffled through the bits and scrapes of hide that he'd made notes on. "Here...so it's _that_ mixture. Right. And it dried in a quarter candlemark...." He scrawled some more notes down. "Nice." Then he wandered back over to the table and Gaiya. "Look. It's waterproof. Or at least water-resistant. See?" He pulled on the handle of the condensation-covered water pitcher. "The mortar doesn't dissolve or crumble after it's dried when water hits it." Then he moved to another table, glancing at his notes. "But this one..." He tugged on the pitcher, which lifted fro mthe table with effort, "This one, the mortar mixture fails when it gets wet again." It was all making sense.

"Just a moment, young man," Gaiya called after him as she still tried to tug the pitcher loose from the table. She couldn't follow his rantings about mortar and condensation. All she knew was the pitcher of water wasn't budging! "_Why_ are the pitchers glued to the table? What is going on in that head of yours?"

"I'm making a sun-catcher out of glass for my mother. It's a pretty green-glass dragon. I have the design here somewhere. But I need a mortar that's waterproof, so she can hang it outside. So I've been testing these different mortar mixtures to figure out which ones will be waterproof and dries quickly enough for artistic mosaic."

"Uh huh," the young woman replied skeptically. "And just how are the rest of us supposed to get a drink out of the pitcher if it's _glued to the table_?"

Izaronin thought for a moment, frowning. "Oh. I suppose I didn't think about that." He hung his head and kicked at the floor with the toe of his boot. "I'm sorry, Gaiya. I was just so excited about my experiment."

Gaiya tried her best to be upset about the boy's little prank, but it was so hard to stay angry at him when he looked so contrite. "Well, how do you get the pitchers _unstuck_, hmmm? Did you think about?"

"Umm...." He hadn't thought about that...but... "Well, there's supposed to be this stuff that helps clean off old cement. It's a mild acid, I think." He riffled through his hide notes, then paused to read one- "Here. I think I have the ingredients to make it." Luckily, no one had asked how he got those ingredients.... "Yes. So if we take this and mix it two parts to one with water and that one there..." He wandered off again and started to add stuff to the mixing bowl.

As she watched him walk off she covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head and trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny. It _couldn't_ be excused. But shards, it was hard to be mad at that boy!

Last updated on the November 10th 2005

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