Sort it out (Chores)

[shadowreine]

Keloran did not mind archives duty. Sure, it could be boring and tedious, but it was seldom as boring or as tedious as some of the other tasks around a Weyr.

It also did not involve anyone expecting him to develop the ability to cook, something distinctly absent from his personal repertoire. He understood why they had to know how to cook. Everyone should, just in case. He was just no good at it.

So, yes, he had no objection to being down in the records room. The archivist had, as usual, found a task to dump on him. He had a veritable stack of hides, a huge one. Each one was the birth record of a child born at the Weyr, and he was supposed to sort them into alphabetical order. Judging by the size of the pile, it had to be everyone born at Selenitas in years. Maybe.

To his amusement, the third hide he picked up had his own name at the top. Not that it contained anything the boy did not know, but he couldn't help but pause and look at it anyway.

Was his life going to be more than a marker in the birth records and then the death records? He chased the thought away, and stoically started a 'K' pile.

How had this got into such a mess anyway? He had a suspicion that somebody had knocked the shelf over while looking for a record...not that anyone would admit to such a thing.

They'd probably blame a flitter or a mandyr for it.

[ladybug]

Once again, Alifyr had been placed with an unfamiliar task as his chore. Kitchen chores had been worse, he supposed, but he wasn't sure how he felt about being cooped up all day sorting musty old records. If only farming, or herding, or even gardening had been a chore, he'd feel a great deal more comfortable. He supposed being in the Weyr was all about new experiences, but he was beginning to miss the familiar. He was homesick.

He quietly entered the archives, wrinkling his nose slightly at the scent of the old records. His eyes widened as he took in the stacks upon stacks of hides, all waiting to be sorted. No wonder they made candidates do it. It didn't seem like a very pleasant task. With a sigh, he took a seat and grabbed a stack of records. This was all just part of candidacy, and if he ended up with a dragon, he wouldn't mind.

"Hi, I'm Alifyr," he introduced himself to the other candidate amiably. Maybe the chore would go by quickly if they could start a conversation. "This place sure is a mess, isn't it?"

[shadowreine]

Keloran glanced over. "It gets like this periodically. If we could get everyone in the Weyr to put hides back where they found them when they leave..."

He had never had problems doing so, and did not understand why other people got so untidy. "Keloran. I think I've seen you around...how long have you been here?"

They were Searching a lot of new candidates. And he bet they would all Impress and he be left on the Sands again, bereft. Maybe he should...no, he could do nothing else. He could not let his father down. And if he ended up aging out of candidacy. Heh. Maybe he could be a records keeper. "Alphabetical order by name, if you didn't catch it."

[Ruby]

Chores again. Raila had skipped out on chores in the Kitchen last time, and had been sent by the Headwoman to Kemma once she had been found out. The usually malleable Candidatemaster had not been at all pleased, which made Raila even less so. In fact, Kemma had threatened double chores if she got caught again, and called Raila a bratty little girl when she'd challenged her. This was rare for the Candidatemaster, who usually said nothing of the sort, even when Raila thought people *ahem Mutasim* deserved it. Maybe in private Kemma wasn't so cuddly as she liked to make herself seem. No matter- Raila had gotten her revenge.

And now she had to alphabetize things. How ridiculous. Isn't that what drudges and little children were for?

She headed for the boys already at the table the Archivist pointed her to, both near her age, but neither of which she knew. Neither were attractive enough to garner her notice or attention- she simply grabbed a stack of sheets off the unsorted pile, nodded vaguely in their direction, and began to sort. Once again she was pleased that she could read and write- sorting these was no problem at all. Unfortunately for her, it was no problem at all for the other boys, either, so she couldn't show off. Well, at least she was prettier than they were handsome, and she didn't have to talk to them if she didn't want to. And they weren't Mutasim.

[Kisha-Ra]

Janisi let herself into the archives with a sigh, it was a nice day and she’d rather be outside with Storith than stuck in the archives. Point of fact she’d rather be doing a more active chore, one that didn’t involve sorting birth records into stacks, which was what she’d been told to help with. Birth was just a bit to close to her current problems to be comfortable, or rather it was the opposite side of her most pressing problem, and now she had time to obsess over things. Wonderful…

She joined the three people at the sorting table with another sigh. ‘Alphabetical by name? Wouldn’t chronological order be better?’ She asked innocently to take her mind off a certain subject, totally missing the dark look that was cast at her by another weyrling.

Roshya smacked the greenweyrling who had mentioned sorting things by date lightly in the back of the head as she passed. ‘You idiot, don’t give the archivists new ideas, you’ll end up sorting it all over again.’ She hissed in the black haired girl’s ear. ‘Furthermore they might decide to switch the whole place around while they’re, or rather, while you’re at it and I don’t want to have to do any more cleaning the necessary. Right R’aro?’ Roshya waved a dusting rag at her partner in cleaning, indicating the bronze weyrling was to reply.

R’aro ignored the chatter from the sorting table, trying to return hides to the cleaned shelves in order. He wondered if this was how some shelve had gotten so jumbled up in the first place, had someone dropped an armful of records to the ground in a moment of carelessness? Then he realised that Roshya had just asked him a question, he wondered what it was. Sheyath’s rider stated that you do not wish anyone to make more work for you and asked for your agreement.[/color] Idith helpfully supplied from his comfortable position outside in the sun, R’aro envied the young bronze. ‘Definitely not. It’s already bad enough, don’t make it worse.’

[shadowreine]

Keloran shook his head. "I think the point is to be able to find a particular person's record quickly."

He eyed his stack. "Or there's no point, and they just want to keep us too busy to fret about the Hatching."

It wasn't working, at least in his case. The task occupied his mind just enough to make him fret even more. Birth records. Hatching records. And he suddenly felt surrounded by weyrlings. Joy. Even if he did Impress, he wouldn't escape the scutwork.

Then again, he had already known that. Looking after a dragon contained a lot of scutwork in and of itself. There was nothing he could do about it.

"Gah. This is just tedious enough to be boring and not tedious enough to let me think about other stuff."

Except the Hatching. He could not, would not, stop thinking about that. Stupid dragons, anyway.

[dragon]

Finally making his way to the Archives, Cloar made his way in through the door. Archives again. He didn't really mind the place, but ... how come he seemed to keep coming back here for his chores, when there were so many other things he could do? Three times he'd been assigned chores, and twice now it had been archives.

What kind of organizing skill did that display? Not alot, in his opinion. But oh well. He didn't mind copying things down, even if it was boring most of the time. And then he learned he wasn't going to be copying anything ... sorting? Shards. He didn't like that idea. It meant handling a lot more parchment and hide than just copying did. And that implied fluffing alot more dust, and alot more wandering around like a healess wherry, trying to find everything. Not to mention getting it all to fit back on the shelves it had come off of...

Ah, well...

He silently did as instructed by the Archivist. Taking an indicated sheaf of material over to the table where sorting was obviously underway, Cloar wondered if he could have avoided the sorting if he'd come either earlier or later in the day?

One look at the group of people about told him one thing clearly: this was not an amiable bunch. Blunty, they all looked pissed or peeved or some variation thereof. Not very good working companions in his opinion.

Ah, but he wished he were brandishing a hammer on steel, rather than papers on a table. Ach, but he missed the joys of working with metal! Sparing a moment to push his black hair out of his eyes, he looked at another faded page. Hm ... maybe they needed a tad more light for this job?

[shadowreine]

OOC: This thread started -before- the Hatching .

Keloran glanced up as somebody else entered, then back to the work. Sure, he was bad company and so were the others.

The other candidates were probably as nervous as he was, as afraid of failing. As unsure. What was wrong with him? And back went his thoughts, round and round and round. He realized he'd just put an 'n' on the 'm' pile and corrected the error quickly. A deep blush began to color the boy's face.

He had to focus better on his task. He had to, and did. Sort, sort, sort, and not a thought about dragons or their eggs.

For now.