Kierna walks in from the ballroom.

Will walks in from the ballroom.

Kaeryn slips, feet almost not touching the ground and eyes twinkling happily, in from the ballroom.

Teraille dumps her armload of lumber of the floor, rooting through it to the obvious bewilderment of those scattered about the room. "Ah!" With a startled cry of joy, she emerges with two long, thin pieces of wood, each nearly two feet long and no more than an inch across. She then throws a plank down on the floor, one which apparently bore a knot at one point, as a hole now advertises its loss. A thin piece of metal around four inches long joins it, then a five inch spring. "Ladies and gentlemen!" she announces cheerfully. "These are our materials! We will make music with them!" She pauses briefly, one eyebrow arching. "How?"

Will straightens up, paying careful attention to where his feet are going. He needs to, the room is not entirely solid from his perspective. "Morning..." he mumbles, hurrying to a chair. Sit down. Chairs are safe. He blinks blearily at Teraille. Oh dear...does she have to be so /loud/?

Kaeryn wanders in, following the crowd, and looks around. As she walks further in the room, she practically floats, and glows, but she moves to the back of the room to watch.

Arialla moves quickly and quietly in from the ballroom.

Kierna eyes the wood, atempting to figure out the purpose of them.

Arialla trots into the room, then blinks and grins. "Oh! something already scheduled in here? I didn't mean to intrude..." She grins over at Kaeryn as she spots the new knot.

Teraille glances around her class, getting very little from them by way of response. She peers up at Arialla. "Arialla!" she calls, pointing at the objects on the floor in front of her. "Tell us how to make music with these!" The objects are: two long, thin scraps of wood, almost two feet long and only an inch across, a plank with a hole in its center, a four-inch piece of thin metal, and a spring.

Will's fervent prayer is little more than a low whisper. Sure, there's no religion on Pern, but he doesn't care by this point. 'Please, don't say we're going to bang on them....' Banging on wood is far more than Will's poor head can take. "Carve them into instruments?" he offers hopefully.

Teraille peers at Will. "I don't see carving tools as part of the pile," she observes, her cheer a sparkling antithesis to the apprentice's hangover. "Do you?"

Arialla walks over to the pile of items and frowns just a bit. "Well, you could use the wood to beat on the plank, rather drum like...ah...someone could flick the spring with the piece of metal... " She chews on her lower lip for a moment, nodding over at Will. "There might be a way to assemble them into an instrument, but you'd need a soaking tub and some tools to do that." She pulls over a chair and plops down onto it.

Will blinks fuzzy blue eyes at Teraille. "No, Journeyman." He neglects to mention that he's seeing very little but fuzzy blobs of shapes that somewhat resemble objects.

Teraille picks up one of the long pieces of wood, bouncing it between her hands as she considers Arialla's suggestions. "Flick the spring how?" she asks, looking down at spring and metal. "Care to demonstrate?" She taps with the stick of the plank herself, to be greeted by a rather unmusical thunk. "I think the hole might be affecting the acoustics," she observes.

Kierna stays near the back, she may be a harper but music is defineatly not her forte.

Arialla wrinkles her nose at the spring and metal piece. She reaches down and retrieves both, then looks at the plank with the hole in it. "That board does resemble the sounding board for a gitar.. but the metal pieces here have me baffled." She wedges the spring between her knees and tweeks it with the metal bar. She chuckles softly at the rather sick metallic sound it makes.

Kaeryn slips into a seat in the back of the room, pulling her knees up to her chin, still a little too overwhelmed from everything the evening before to be helpful in this lesson, not that she has all that much experience with 'instruments' like these anyway.

Will focuses dull blue eyes on the array of object. C'mon, Will, you totally blew last night, come up with something clever and astound the Journeyman...or then again, perhaps not. "Hook the spring between the pieces of wood and clap them?" He /knows/ it isn't witty, he's just trying to keep his head above water.

Teraille's response to the sound is a wrinkled nose, not a chuckle. "Hrm," she muses. "Did that work?" She continues to tapthunk the plank as she speaks, finding an interesting tone by rattling the stick inside the hole.

"Don't think of what you've been exposed to; these aren't supposed to be related to instruments you know." She turns to Will. "Clap them?" she repeats. "How so?" She offers him her stick, glancing over to Arialla. Arialla hands the spring to Will with a grin. "Go for it, Will," she murmurs softly to him.

Oh, great, now she's going to make him /work/. Will slides off the chair and takes up the sticks and the spring, peering at them closer. Now, if the spring went like /that/...and hooked on right /here/... It doesn't, of course, whether because it isn't supposed to or simply because his hands aren't entirely obeying his bleary brain's commands, and the apprentice sighs, defeated. "It was a theory."

Teraille laughs lightly, the sound bubbling out as if without its owner's consent. "So," she says. "No wedging. No tapping with stick of plank. No plucking the spring.... How can we use textures?"

Arialla watches Will, nodding a bit, her curls bouncing around her shoulders. "There some way you can use this piece of metal to ... maybe wedge the boards through the hole in the board and thus keep ten.... " She pauses as

Teraille speaks, making a bit of a mou. "We can rub the sticks together, rap the metal on the wood... ah.. scrape one of the sticks over the spring...." She glances at Will to see if he has any ideas.

"Drill holes in the wood and play it like a flute," Will grumbles irritably at the mess of objects, rocking back on his heels. "I'm sorry, Journeyman-I don't /know/."

Teraille tests the suggestions as they're thrown forth. The sticks rubbing together doesn't make much of a sound, as they're relatively smooth. The metal on the wood make an interesting reverse-xylophone noise, and the scratching of wood across the spring is /almost/ musical. On a whim, she trades it for the metal piece, listening to the clinging/scraping noise is interesting, if nothing else. To Will, the journeyman speaks, quietly. "It's okay," she says. "There aren't any right answers here. We're learning to think on our feet. /All/ of us."

Kaeryn stifles a giggle with the back of her hand as she watches Will try so desperately to impress Teraille and fails horribly. She just shakes her head as she realizes that apprentices will probably be doing that to /her/ now.

Arialla grins over at Teraille and then smiles sympathetically at Will. She picks up the plank and raps on it with her finger tips, a not too shabby sound coming from the board. She moves her fingers closer to the hole and then further out, testing the echos and vibrations.

Will gave up some time ago on trying to impress Teraille. His standards have been reduced to making it through this lesson without his head exploding. Chin cocks at the sound of the metal on wood--/that/ isn't too bad.

Teraille grins at Arialla, tapping the metal against the other side of the plank as she mans her side. With her free hand, she passes Will a piece of wood and the spring, to do with as he pleases. She bounces her head lightly to the rhythm they're constructing.

Ooh. Boys and gadgets. Will fiddles with the spring and the wood for a bit, tugging--boing...boing... Not exactly musical, but at least it's mildly amusing. Now what about the wood? Could you hum into it, sortof a complicated Pernese kazoo...?

Arialla taps her foot lightly, more a wiggle of the toes, as she drops into a rhythm with Teraille. On the down beat, being that she's beating a four count, she raps the plank with her knuckles instead of her finger tips. Her head nods along with the rhythm as her eyes dart over to Will and she grins as he *boings* the spring.

Teraille kinda likes the boing. You can't expect anything /too/ musical out of a spring, anyway. The journeyman is having fun with her piece of metal, and begins a lightly syncopated double-tap; the metal hits the wood, then her fingernail hits the metal. Plunk-ting! Plunk-ting!

Will hooks one end of the spring against the edge of the wood, and streeetches it out. Lets go--Boing!! One good solid bounce for each of Teraille's Plunk-tings. Nobody will ever ask them to play at Gathers like this, but they could keep younglings entertained for hours.

Arialla chuckles softly at the 'music' that is being made. In between her light *tapetta tapetta tapetta thunk* she turns her hand over and slides her fingernails over the wood. A soft *brrrshhh* sound mingles with the other bits.

A slow smile steals over Will's face. This is /fun/! Plunk-ting, Boing! He stretches the spring a little further--all the better to get a really good, high-quality sound--when the spring rebels! "Ow!" Tenor becomes a nigh-soprano shriek as the spring lets go the wood and takes flight, slicing across Will's cheek on its way to realms unknown.

Teraille starts a.... what, fifth? kind of percussion. At every fourth plunk-ting!, her knuckles roll along the wood, leaving four separate beats, rolled together into a quick rumble, which falls away immediately for three plunk-ting!s. Then it repeats. At Will's cry, her music stops. "Will! Are you all right?"

Arialla blinks over at Will, her hands stopping in mid rap. "You okay, Will?" She looks at her fellow appie with concern on her face.

Will watches the spring soar off into the stratosphere--or at least almost to the ceiling, before it falls to its death with a satisfying thud. Serves it right. "I'm fine," Will assures, blushing as a finger pressed to his cheek reveals that it's a minor wound only, and the apprentice will manage to keep his good looks after all. "I, um, let it go too fast I think." Now he'll just go retrievee it, see?

Teraille stills seems a smidge concerned. "Well.... How about if we wrap up?" she suggests. "Did you guys have anything to add or ask?"

Arialla shakes her head slowly, concern still hovering in her eyes over Will. "No mam.. although next time we should try some gourds and guts strings to the pile too." She flashes Teraille a brief smile as she watches Will retrieve the spring.

Will scrambles under the chair to retrieve the spring and delivers its limp corpse into Teraille's hand. "Um--was that /really/ just to see what we could come up with on our own?"

Teraille flashes a grins at Arialla. "Oh, but strings make it /easy/." She tilts her head Willwards. "What else would it be?" she asks, genuinely puzzled. She begins gathering her lumber together.

Good question, that. Will just shrugs. "It just...well, it was sure a new kind of lesson." That smile steals over his face again, brightening hangover-dulled face by degrees. "I liked it. It'd work especially with children, I think." Look, he speaks more than a sentence at a time.

Teraille grins again. "Thank you," she says. "I try to keep stuff relatively interesting.... And I /will/ be working more with children soon."

Arialla raises an eyebrow over at Teraille. "Children? They're definitely different than working with adults." She laughs softly. "Trying to keep their interest has been the hardest thing for me so far."

Teraille nods to Arialla. "Weyrharper," she reminds. "I'm actually leaving tonight..." Her expression turns wistful for a moment. "But the Weyr isn't /that/ far, and it would help to be able to get some time away from Mak, I think..." She doesn't sound overly pleased about it, somehow....

"I like 'em," Will confessess, eyeing his ink-spotted handkerchief before pressing it to his cheek gingerly. That poor handkerchief has been through a lot in the past few days too. "That's what I'd like best, I think." Ah, but what a lot to learn he has.

Kaer gets to her feet and moves towards the other harpers, unable to do anything but smile. "I have to get back to the weyr and start packing my things, actually... but I'm not really sure how much longer I'll be staying there before I go to Tillek to join Jerran." Her eyes sparkle happily and her smile broadens at that idea. Will remembers the snatches of conversation he eavesdropped--er, overheard the night before. "Aife comes down here from /her/ Weyr all the time," he offers helpfully. "And High Reaches is yonks further than Ista. You'll find somebody to bring you back whenever you need to."

Arialla smiles softly over at Teraille. "Hard to study with Mak around?" Her eyes sparkle just a bit as she ribs her former mentor. "I'll just try to keep him busy with my play so he won't notice you gone... unless you want him to notice?" Curiosity crosses her face and she flashes a toothy smile over at Teraille, winking at her.

"He'd /better/!" Teraille snaps, with a cross between cheerful and moody. Interesting cross. "But before /too/ much longer he'll be required to." She has to smile at that. Happy memories-to-come.

Kaeryn laughs and wraps her arm around Tera, squeezing gently. "We know what it is like to be apart from the ones we love, don't we?" she says in a mock-teasing tone, eyes sparkling in amusement.

Arialla grins a bit wider over at Terialle, then sighs ever so wistfully. "Thanks for letting me sit in on the ah... lesson, Tera. I've got to check on how the set is coming along for my show." She nods to Teraille, Kaeryn and Will and trots towards the doors, her curls bouncing around her shoulders.

Teraille smiles lightly up at Kaeryn. "True," she says lightly. "And I waited a turn for him before earning my promotion, and it's been six turns /since/ then.... He can keep his mind on me for the few turns I'm at the Weyr."

Will waves his free hand at Arialla and grins--wincing a little at the stretch of his cheek--his goodbyes to /both/ Journeymen. "Going to clean this up," he mumbles, and makes a hurried escape back up the stairs.

Kaeryn grins and nods her head, "And you and I both know that he will, I've no doubt of that in my mind..." She runs her fingers through her hair and shakes her head, "So, are you headed to the weyr soon? If so, I might just wait for you to go so I can go with you."

Teraille nods. "Tonight," she says lightly, though there's a trace of sorrow in her voice. "Aislynn and I have requested a ride for us and our things..."

[RP stalled out here, alas.]

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