Safe Lives

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 17th February 2007

Characters: Arateyka
Description: Arateyka has a visit in the smithy from her greenrider sister.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 2, day 9 of Turn 4

"Hello."

Arateyka looked up from her work, hearing the familiar voice out of its usual setting.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, surprised at finding her eldest sister standing at the end of her bench and looking very much the dragonrider.

It was almost strange to see Teykara in heavy jacket, now hanging open, with helmet and goggles slung around her neck. Unexpected. Teykara usually turned up at meals or around other family members, dressed pretty much as everybody else was, with just the conformation of the knots at her shoulder giving an indication that she was a dragonrider.
Arateyka had felt a little of the same surprise when she and her sister had flown to the Smith Hall; surprise and a faint sense of unease at the reminder of what Teykara was.

And now, in the smithy, where she seldom appeared, the feeling was stronger.

Teykara held up a set of rings and buckles threaded on a scrap of braided hide. "I'm making new straps and these are two Turns old.
That's what they say. Replace all metal fittings all every two Turns."

"Return the discarded ones to the smithy for inspection," Arateyka quoted, having spoken to weyrlings on the subject. She also did a lot of the inspection work, rerecording the results in the hope that eventually the smiths would know more about how long metal fittings were safe under the stresses of fighting Thread. "Wait a moment. I'll get the record book."

Teykara watched her sister cross the room and disappear through the open doorway, smiling at the picture Arateyka made in her heavy boots and trousers. Although they served as protective clothing in the same way her own wher-hide did, it still made little Ara look as if she was playing dress-ups. Those boots! They were probably half the reason Arateyka didn't take to wearing dresses easily. In a dress and light footwear her feet probably felt naked and unprotected.

"Here." The journeywoman set the heavy book down on a clear space on her bench and hauled it open. She noted the date, Teykara's name and that of her dragon. "Now, it's a full set of fittings?"

"Yes." Teykara peered over at the heavy pages in the book, watching her sister make notations in the columns.

"And two Turns of use by you?"

"Yes."

"And no long periods of - Well, no."

"Of what?"

Arateyka looked up from the book. "Of disuse. If you had been injured and not flown for months."

"Oh. No. Why does that matter? I thought it was all about the age of the metal?"

"And the work they do – see, I've even estimated your body weight – and the cycles of temperature they've been through. That's the one most affected by long groundings."

"Why the temperature? You mean like flying low and high, or here and Dragonsfall at winter?"

"More like anywhere and /between/. That's a huge temperature cycle for metal to deal with, even if it is only brief. It's the frequency of the cycle that matters so ... Oh, goldriders, for instance? The fittings on their straps will have a different safe life."

"A safe life? The _fittings?_" Teykara laughed at her sister's abstract view of the fittings having a life of their own. "What about the safe life of the rider?"

Arateyka closed the book and nodded. "Cause and effect, wouldn't you say?" She reached out and took the fittings from her sister's unresisting hand.

Last updated on the February 17th 2007

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