Not Like That

Writers: Kastaka
Date Posted: 3rd March 2009

Characters: Vasha, G'van
Description: Vasha runs into G'van while he's grounded from Fall.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 1, day 15 of Turn 5

}: We should be up there, :{ fretted Gheleth, reiterating what had become a continual mantra for the dragon since the pair had been grounded.

**And we will,** G'van reassured him, **just as soon as that sharding wherry of a Weyrleader has come to his senses.**

G'van was lounging against the wall with a mop and a bucket. Every now and again some jumped-up journeyman would come and jabber at him, and he'd saunter over to some patch of ichor, or blood, or dragon dung, or on particularly delightful occasions all three, and proceed to make vague motions in the direction of cleaning it up until someone got fed up enough to do it properly themselves.

"Apprentice!" called one of the attending journeymen at the site of a particularly unpleasant underbelly score. Vasha got up from her redwort bowl and rushed over, taking a moment to glance curiously at the wound as the dragon was carried away and wonder how on earth it had managed to get threadscored quite that badly just there - had the pair just dropped straight down into a big cluster or something?

"Yes?" she replied, presenting herself for duty.

"Get that reprobate over there," the journeyman indicated G'van with a movement of his head, "to clean this mess up, and watch him to make sure he does it properly. He's got away with far too much this Fall already."

"Okay," replied Vasha, and headed over towards G'van with a determined look in her eyes.

G'van couldn't help but chuckle when he saw the little girl storming over to him, looking like she owned the place and was going to presume to tell him what to do. She looked barely old enough to Impress, let alone to be ordering around a full-grown man like him.

}: If you wouldn't antagonise them so... :{ whined Gheleth.

**Look, it's going to be fine,** G'van reassured him. **Just let ol' G'van do his thing.**

}: I wish your thing didn't get us into so much trouble, :{ moaned Gheleth.

"Hey little lady," said G'van as Vasha got within hailing distance, "what'cha got for me?"

Vasha sighed. This was obviously not going to be a straightforwards assignment. "Cleanup from a stomach wound," she explained. "Think your stomach's strong enough to handle it?" she continued, trying to make it into a challenge. Hopefully she could motivate this hopeless rider by appealing to his macho side.

"Sure, let's go," he said, lulling her into a false sense of security. "Lead the way, sweet cheeks."

Vasha turned to lead him off to the location of the mess and rolled her eyes while he couldn't see the gesture. She could see why the journeyman had called him a reprobate, quite apart from whatever had landed him with this duty in the first place.

"Hey doll," he said as he hefted the bucket full of disgusting effluviant and maybe some water and sweetsand somewhere in the middle, "looks like my bucket's kind of messed up, you know? Maybe we should stop by a tap or something, get it rinsed out."

"You should have been doing that while you were just standing there," replied Vasha snippily, but the rider was right, the contents of the bucket was appalling and not something she wanted to see him slosh all over the floor. "Look, you can empty it out over there," she indicated the sluice that all the contaminated water went down when they were done with it, "and there's a tap just round there, where we can get it filled back up again."

"Hey, hey," replied G'van, more amused than irritated by the apprentice's didactic tone, "I've been here all week, I know where the water is." He sauntered over to the sluice and grinned broadly at the girl as she insisted on hovering right next to him, then sloshed the bucket with a vicious motion guaranteed to splash back and cover her in unpleasant stuff. If she was going to play tetchy, than she was going to get what was coming to her.

Vasha gave G'van a deeply unimpressed look as he tried to splash whatever had accumulated in the bucket over her. Having had some experience with high-spirited other apprentices and similar antagonists, she had picked exactly the correct place to stand to avoid any of the splashback reaching her, and the corners of her mouth twitched slightly in a suppressed grin as some of the nasty stuff soaked into the rider's trousers. "Right, over here and fill her up, then we'll fetch more redwort and sweetsand," she instructed.

G'van was frustrated by his lack of success in bothering the little apprentice girl. He'd hoped for some nice squealing and jumping out of the way, and maybe a little more respect, but he guessed he shouldn't have underestimated her familiarity with her own territory. He dumped the bucket under the tap rather harder than was entirely necessary and started deliberately trying to turn it on the wrong way. "Hey, this is stuck," he complained.

"Maybe if you'd turn it in the right direction, dimglow," snapped Vasha, getting thoroughly fed up of the rider's antics. She could see why the journeyman didn't want her to just leave him to it now - the job would never get done otherwise. It was tempting to just snatch the mop and bucket and get it done herself - there wasn't much spare space here during Threadfall and it was obviously inconvenient to have some of it occupied by the residue of some rather unpleasant surgery - but she wasn't stupid and she could see that was exactly what the rider wanted.

"Hey now, missy," replied G'van, obviously delighted at the apprentice's growing irritation, "mind your language, now. I might be on punishment duty but I am still a rider, you know?" He straightened up to fix her with a superior look, which he was happy to note didn't please her in the slightest.

"Then I pity your dragon," Vasha said frostily, "and you really should have learned to turn on a tap. Go on, I'm not doing it for you."

Casting around for some way to turn this to his advantage, but seeing that the apprentice was almost ready to call for help and not wanting to deal with more po-faced journeymen, G'van reluctantly turned the tap the right way and filled up the bucket, making sure to overfill it, bash the edge against the tap, slosh water around and generally turn the place into a hygeine disaster zone.

"Now mix in the redwort and sluice those surfaces down a little," instructed Vasha impatiently. This wasn't getting anywhere and meanwhile the valuable floor space over there was still going to waste.

"Like this?" asked G'van insouciantly, dropping in a pot of concentrated redwort from the shelf and then emptying a good three-quarters of the bucket's contents everywhere. This time some of it did get Vasha in the feet, soaking into her shoes in a very aggrevating fashion.

"No, you incurable wherry-head," stormed Vasha, "not like that at all, and you know it!"

"Maybe you'd like to show me, then?" asked G'van smoothly, offering her the bucket.

"Unless you want me to belt you round the sharding head with that," threatened Vasha, "you'd better keep it and fill it up properly this time."

"Ooh, violent now, are we?" taunted G'van, confident that the young apprentice wasn't going to do more than threaten a fully-grown rider.

"Fine," replied Vasha, wresting the bucket from his hands. "Be like that, then. I hope your dragon dies and they stake you out for Thread." She turned away and started filling the bucket, leaving G'van free to saunter back to his post against the wall and wait for his next victim.

}: G'van, :{ complained Gheleth. }: G'van, you really don't have to be like that. :{

**They'll never learn, otherwise,** G'van reassured him. **It won't be long now. You'll see. We'll get in the air, and then we'll show them.**

}: I hope you're right, :{ concluded Gheleth sadly.

Last updated on the March 13th 2009

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Not Like That