Making a start

Writers: Eimi, Emma
Date Posted: 30th June 2008

Characters: Almonteo, Thanja
Description: The Hallmaster and his Second begin preperations for the Turns End celebration
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 10, day 15 of Turn 4

Almonteo

"All right," the Hallmaster said as he turned over the Suggestion Box and dumped the scraps of hides on his desk. He had been pleased that so many Weyrfolk had contributed their ideas for their Turns End celebrations themes. Now he and his Hallsecond had the unenviable task to read them all and chose only one. "Let's just make a stack and start going through them one by one. How does that sound?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," agreed Thanja. There seemed to be a substantial number of ideas that had been put in the box. "With luck there will be a common theme jumping out."

Almonteo frowned thoughtfully as he looked at the top sheet. "Hopefully that one isn't it. 'A Return to Morality'. I was hoping we were past all that."

"That isn't in a certain master Harper's writing is it?" she teased, sure that he'd know who she was talking about, as she pulled out the next one. "Renewal," she read.

"Simple. To the point. Not bad," the Hallmaster nodded. "'A New Beginning.'" He shrugged and put it in the good pile, even though it was a bit cliche.

"The Crafts," Thanja read. "Another simple one."

"And slightly exclusive." He certainly wouldn't want to shun their dragonrider guests. "So many of these are the same - 'A New Turn', 'A New Day', 'A New Start', 'A Fresh Start'... You'd think a Hall full of Harpers could come up with something powerful and poetic."

"I know," she reached into the stack. "'Hold, Hall and Weyr', that could be too general, don't you think?"

"A bit, but hold onto it anyway." Anything that included the Weyr in it was worth a second look. "Now this one isn't bad - 'A Step Forward'."

"Kind of like this one," Thanja brandished the slip of hide. "The Future."

"Yeah, not bad," the Hallmaster agreed. His brow furrowed a bit as he looked at the next slip. "Hmmm... I think this person might have mistaken the spirit of the box..." he said, turning around the hide which showed a rather skillful drawing of himself with his lips attached to the backside of the Weyrleader. "It's actually very good..."

Thanja laughed. "Indeed, but not what we're after. Although the artist might have quite a promising career. I don't advise letting the Weyrleader see it though."

"You don't think that should be the cover art for the program?" he asked with a wry smile, flicking it off into the reject pile.

"Perhaps not, I might leave that to one of my illustrators who can make sure it's printed properly."

Almonteo looked at her over the scrap of hide he was about to toss in the reject pile. "Are you so sure this wasn't drawn by one of your illustrators?"

She studied it carefully, "I don't think we teach that technique with charcoal, so unless one of my printers has been sitting in on art lessons taught by one of your Masters..."

"Oh you printers all stick together," the Hallmaster chuckled. His Hallsecond was obviously taking it far more seriously than he was.

"Maybe we should put the word about that we are looking for an illustrator to do the cover work. He or she clearly has talent and might make themselves known."

"Do we really want to know?" he asked with a sigh. "If we made a conscious effort to root out all of our disgruntled crafters, we'd find them all to easily."

"Maybe not," she admitted. "But I'm sure there really are some talented artists and illustrators out there who could deserve their chance to design the programme cover."

"I agree. But first," he said pointing to the stack of suggestions, "we have to find what we want them to illustrate."

"We do indeed, are there many left in that stack?"

"We can get through reading them in ten minutes. But then we have to chose which one we want to use." And that might take a while.

"Well there is a lot of commonality in those, perhaps we can work with them."

"I think we will certainly have enough to work with," the Hallmaster nodded. "What do you say we have some klah and a pastry or two sent up and we try and nail this down before lunch?"

"Sounds like an idea to me."

Last updated on the July 3rd 2008

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Making a start