Without Thinking

Writers: Rochelle
Date Posted: 1st February 2009

Characters: R'syl
Description: Klah: 4, Weyrlingmaster: 0
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 13, day 10 of Turn 4

He'd done it this time.

R'syl stared gloomily at the empty klah pitcher sitting on his desk. It stared smugly back, not saying anything. Not that R'syl expected it to. The insidious thing had won.

He'd thought he'd managed to avoid it. He'd carefully limited the amount he'd drank today, and avoided it entirely that afternoon. There had still been just under half a pitcher left when he'd stopped working that evening and gone to dinner. He'd fallen asleep in relatively short order after crawling in bed, and had been prepared to wake up before the weyrlings the next morning for another day of training.

He should have expected to be awakened by his staff shortly before midnight to discipline the two brownriders who'd snuck out and got into a brawl. One of the hazards of working with weyrlings was the irregular sleeping patterns, particularly when the dragons were young. He hadn't even been particularly surprised at the summons, although he'd certainly been angry at the pair for being so stupid in the first place.

But they'd been waiting for him in his office when he got there, and -without thinking- he'd poured himself a cup from the now cold pitcher on his desk. He'd nursed it through the conversation, more to keep his hands busy than anything.

Or so he'd thought.

The lecture had gone on longer than many, because it turned out that the brawl wasn't the only infraction the two had caused. And somewhere in the middle he'd realized that the mug in his hands had been refilled without his noticing.

Nearly a candlemark later, as the pair were leaving under the watchful and grumpy eyes of his staff, he'd reached absently for the pitcher again, and discovered it was empty.

So was his mug.

With a sense of forboding, he'd gone back to his weyr, hoping vainly that he'd simply misremembered the original level of klah in the pitcher before he refilled his mug. Surely there had only been a single cup left in there, right?

It hadn't taken him very long while lying in bed staring at the ceiling to come to the conclusion he was sorely mistaken. There must have been two in there, since he distinctly remembered being surprised that the mug had refilled itself in the middle of the lecture.

When the peculiar vibrating feeling from too many stimulants began to set in and finally drove him from his bed to pace his quarters, he'd reluctantly admitted there must have been three mugs worth left in the pitcher.

Or four. Or five.

He was pretty certain there couldn't have been more than five left, but it wasn't a reassuring thought as he gave up all attempts at sleep and got ready for the day as slowly as possible with all the energy humming through his bones.

It was now three candlemarks until dawn, he'd caught up with all his hidework for the next sevenday, and he was still wide awake.

Shardit.

He glared at the pitcher. It glared smugly back.

He tried closing his eyes, resting his head on his arms folded acropss his desk. Shards and shells, he was tired...

His bones vibrated. He sighed, and opened his eyes to glare at the pitcher again.

Shardit.

And the worst part of the whole mess? Not only was he going to have to deal with the two idiots responsible for his current sleeplessness in the morning for their punishment duty and _still_ deal with all the normal trials and travails of a class of weyrlings...

But he was going to need another whole pitcher to keep him awake long enough to do it.

Last updated on the February 17th 2009

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Without Thinking