Construction Post: Kin & Distant Relations
Sep. 6th, 2011 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin2:00-2:30: ~800 words
2:30-3:00: ~1400 words (+600)
[One hour in. Bout done with the "Dan at work" part of the story.]
"Something funny up in number 3."
The words seemed to come at Dan Harris from a long ways away, but when he shook himself out of the reverie he'd lapsed into he found the eager, earnest face of one of his diviners uncomfortably close to his own.
"Thanks, Willis, I'll have a look, then," Dan said, taking a careful step back, mindful of the railing. A fall from the catwalk might not hurt him, even from three levels up inside the massive, warehouse-like hangar of []namehere[]... unless he happened to land on something particularly hard or pointy and sufficiently magical to overcome his natural invulnerability, and there were certainly plenty of things like that around.
"Everything alright, chief?" Willis asked him.
"What? Oh, well, we'll know soon enough, I expect," he said.
"Only you've got that far-off look in your eyes again."
"Comes from growing up at sky," Dan said, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "You get used to seeing hundreds of miles at a go, makes it hard to get used to regular distances."
"Er, right," Willis said. "Oh, and about number 3: Don't take her up before you've felt her out... I've an inkling she might need grounding."
"Oh?"
"I've a feeling she might need a complete tear-down before we let her out again."
"Right," Dan said. "Excuse me, will you, Willis? I've only just now recalled a meeting I'm urgently needed at."
He left Willis and headed for the nearest stairs leading up towards the box-like office in the center of the immense shed. He hesitated for just a moment before opening the door, without knocking.
"That door was locked," Martindale, the hangar manager, said.
"Still is!" Dan said. "Only the bolt's sort of sheered off... you might want to have a man in. I'd suggest getting a magic one next time. Much more durable."
"It was magic," Martindale said.
"Cheap enchantments... not very stable. You get them right and they last forever, but one little thing goes wrong and they could just poof away at any time," Dan said. "On that subject: there's something off about the skyff in bay 3. I think we need to take apart the whole array... levitator, stabilizers, elemental flow regulators... before we release her. I've a funny little feeling there's something badly wrong with her."
"All that trouble? It's a glorified lifeboat," Martindale said.
"Right, so let's make sure she's in tip-tp condition before she's entrusted with any glorified lives."
"It doesn't even need propulsion or lift, it just has to reach the ground."
"Well, I can just about guarantee she'll do that, sir, but she has a full levitator suite in her and she's rated as a self-propelled craft, so we can't give her a pass just because she might fall somewhat slower than the next dead weight."
"But if everything else on the ship works right, it'll never be needed."
"And if anything on the ship fails, the boats need to work right," Dan said. "You ever seen what happens when a lifeboat fails?"
"No."
"Neither have I. I've seen what happens when they work, though. It's worth glorification."
"And proof that they're generally reliable."
"Sailors don't climb aboard generalities, sir. Otherwise we'd have to inspect them, too. And this is not a simple driftboat. There's a lot more that can go wrong."
"It's just a regulatory inspection, Harris. We schedule five of them in an hour for a vehicle that class."
"That's how long it takes to clear a boat her size with no problems," Dan said. "If there is a problem, diagnosing and fixing it takes longer... if she weren't one of ours, we could just flunk her and free up the bay for something else. They owners would take her to the shop of their choice to get her sorted, and that would be it..."
"But it is an imperial skyff," Martindale said. "Which means it doesn't leave until we sign off on it."
"Begging your pardon for a trivial correction, but I think you'll find that the words are unless and I, as in 'she doesn't leave unless I sign off on her'."
"You aren't the only enchanter here rated for that."
"And I wish you all the luck in the world in finding one who'll sign over me."
Martindale stared at him. It was meant to be a hard stare, but hardness is relative.
"Did one of the lads put you up to this?" the supervisor asked after the pause had gone on long enough for him to feel awkward. "They think they can't come to me themselves, you know. They think I'm some kind of orc."
"No one would say that of you," Dan said. "We all like Kurzg far too much for that."
"They think I'll just dismiss their complaints out of hand."
"You'll have to excuse them for being observant," Dan said. "But no, I'm here on my own agency... as a matter of fact, it's Willis who drew the inspection and he came to me ready to recommend we give her full marks."
"Willis, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Dan said. "One of the diviners."
"He's the Argenti, isn't he?"
"No, you'll probably thinking of Bard, but it's an easy mistake to make seeing as they have all different letters in their names," Dan said. "Willis says I've gone off my potions, that there's nothing wrong with the skyff. In fact, he was all set to tear her down just to prove me wrong but he said he couldn't justify holding the bay any longer on my say-so."
"Quite right," Martindale said. "Well, you tell Willis I said to have it moved to one of the interior bays, and then he can do a full tear-down inspection. And Harris, if he doesn't find something to back up your funny little feeling, your name's going on the report."
"Fair enough," Dan said. "Though fair being fair, I expect to get credit if he does find something."
Martindale snorted.
"I should reward you for being difficult and having a lucky guess?" Martindale said. "If Willis finds something, I'll see he gets due credit. I'll take a steady head and a skeptical eye over an elevated sense of self-importance any day. You take a lot of liberties, Harris, but don't forget that it's luck that landed you where you are today. Pure luck."
"True enough," Dan said. "If the wind had been southerly, I might be married to a washerwoman."
"You wound up a hero of the empire, but you could have just as easily become an albatross," Martindale said. "The man in charge of making sure the whole thing stays rightside-up and in one piece survives when it all goes belly-up and explodes? It's like a captain not going down with his ship."
"Captain McAllister was carried to his launch by three of his officers," Dan said.
"The way I hear it, his sons have a nurse following him around to make sure he doesn't slip and fall on his sword," Martindale said.
"Gentlemen of leisure often have odd hobbies," Dan said. "Were I one, I'd collect them and keep them over the mantle. Hobbies, not gentlemen."
"You'll be one someday, won't you? Just have to outlive the old man. You've said your Del is his only daughter."
"The way he tells it, his Del is my only wife," Dan said. "And she is both, but alas for my deep-seated aristocratic ambitions, Lord Robert has sons, many of them past any age the prospective Lady Ardelia would admit to being."
"The point is that McAllister ended up a pariah while you married a nobleman's daughter."
"It's not my fault. The man was a tax collector when I met him. Still, no one can help their birth."
"It could have gone the other way for you," Martindale said. "The same set-up, the same what d'you call it... scenario... only you wind up the scapegoat. My experience is it's not the happenstance, it's the handling. Someone decided to make a hero out of you instead of hanging the wreck on you."
"And vice-versa, no doubt," Dan said. "Honestly, I don't know what surprises me more... that you put this together or that you imagine I haven't."
[Half hour in. I've taken a few different tacks with this, and I've finally found one that works. I'm starting out centered on Dan, in order to have something to say about the kind of person he is, and his position in life.]
"Something funny up in number 3."
The words seemed to come at Dan Harris from a long ways away, but when he shook himself out of the reverie he'd lapsed into he found the eager, earnest face of one of his diviners uncomfortably close to his own.
"Thanks, Willis, I'll have a look, then," Dan said, taking a careful step back, mindful of the railing. A fall from the catwalk might not hurt him, even from three levels up inside the massive, warehouse-like hangar of []namehere[]... unless he happened to land on something particularly hard or pointy and sufficiently magical to overcome his natural invulnerability, and there were certainly plenty of things like that around.
"Everything alright, chief?" Willis asked him.
"What? Oh, well, we'll know soon enough, I expect," he said.
"Only you've got that far-off look in your eyes again."
"Comes from growing up at sky," Dan said, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "You get used to seeing hundreds of miles at a go, makes it hard to get used to regular distances."
"Er, right," Willis said. "Oh, and about number 3: Don't take her up before you've felt her out... I've an inkling she might need grounding."
"Oh?"
"I've a feeling she might need a complete tear-down before we let her out again."
"Right," Dan said. "Excuse me, will you, Willis? I've only just now recalled a meeting I'm urgently needed at."
He left Willis and headed for the nearest stairs leading up towards the box-like office in the center of the immense shed. He hesitated for just a moment before opening the door, without knocking.
"That door was locked," Martindale, the hangar manager, said.
"Still is!" Dan said. "Only the bolt's sort of sheered off... you might want to have a man in. I'd suggest getting a magic one next time. Much more durable."
"It was magic," Martindale said.
"Cheap enchantments... not very stable. You get them right and they last forever, but one little thing goes wrong and they could just poof away at any time," Dan said. "On that subject: there's something off about the skyff in bay 3. I think we need to take apart the whole array... levitator, stabilizers, elemental flow regulators... before we release her."
"All that trouble? It's a glorified lifeboat," Martindale said.
"Right, so let's make sure she's in tip-tp condition before she's entrusted with any glorified lives."
"If everything else on the ship works right, it'll never be needed.'
"And if anything on the ship fails, it needs to work right," Dan said. "You ever seen what happens when a lifeboat fails?"
"No."
"Neither have I. I've seen what happens when they work, though. It's worth glorification."
"And proof that they're generally reliable."
"Sailors don't climb aboard generalities, sir. Otherwise we'd have to inspect them, too."
"It's just a regulatory inspection, Harris. We schedule five of them in an hour for a vehicle that class."
"That's how long it takes to clear a boat with no problem."
[]A bit further on, Martindale tries to turn the conversation to Dan's fortunes and his "troubled" past to get him to back down.[]
"The man in charge of making sure the whole thing stays rightside-up and in one piece survives when it all goes belly-up and explodes? It's like a captain not going down with his ship."
"Captain McAllister was carried to his launch by three of his officers," Dan said.
"The way I hear it, he has a nurse following him around to make sure he doesn't slip and fall on his sword," Martindale said.
"Gentlemen of leisure often have odd hobbies," Dan said. "Were I one, I'd collect them and keep them over the mantle. Hobbies, not gentlemen."
"You'll be one someday, won't you? Just have to outlive the old man. You've said your Del is his only daughter."
"She is, but alas for my deep-seated aristocratic ambitions, Lord Robert has sons, many of them past any age the prospective Lady Ardelia would admit to being," Dan said.
"The point is tha MacAllister ended up a pariah while you married a nobleman's daughter."
"It's not my fault. The man was a tax collector when I met him. Still, no one can help their birth."
"It could have gone the other way for you," Martindale said. "The same set-up, the same what d'yu call it... scenario... only you wind up the albatross. My experience is it's not the happenstance, it's the handling. Someone decided to make a hero out of you instead of hanging the wreck on you."
"And vice-versa, no doubt," Dan said. "Honestly, I don't know what surprises me more... that you put this together or that you imagine I haven't."
2:30-3:00: ~1400 words (+600)
[One hour in. Bout done with the "Dan at work" part of the story.]
"Something funny up in number 3."
The words seemed to come at Dan Harris from a long ways away, but when he shook himself out of the reverie he'd lapsed into he found the eager, earnest face of one of his diviners uncomfortably close to his own.
"Thanks, Willis, I'll have a look, then," Dan said, taking a careful step back, mindful of the railing. A fall from the catwalk might not hurt him, even from three levels up inside the massive, warehouse-like hangar of []namehere[]... unless he happened to land on something particularly hard or pointy and sufficiently magical to overcome his natural invulnerability, and there were certainly plenty of things like that around.
"Everything alright, chief?" Willis asked him.
"What? Oh, well, we'll know soon enough, I expect," he said.
"Only you've got that far-off look in your eyes again."
"Comes from growing up at sky," Dan said, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "You get used to seeing hundreds of miles at a go, makes it hard to get used to regular distances."
"Er, right," Willis said. "Oh, and about number 3: Don't take her up before you've felt her out... I've an inkling she might need grounding."
"Oh?"
"I've a feeling she might need a complete tear-down before we let her out again."
"Right," Dan said. "Excuse me, will you, Willis? I've only just now recalled a meeting I'm urgently needed at."
He left Willis and headed for the nearest stairs leading up towards the box-like office in the center of the immense shed. He hesitated for just a moment before opening the door, without knocking.
"That door was locked," Martindale, the hangar manager, said.
"Still is!" Dan said. "Only the bolt's sort of sheered off... you might want to have a man in. I'd suggest getting a magic one next time. Much more durable."
"It was magic," Martindale said.
"Cheap enchantments... not very stable. You get them right and they last forever, but one little thing goes wrong and they could just poof away at any time," Dan said. "On that subject: there's something off about the skyff in bay 3. I think we need to take apart the whole array... levitator, stabilizers, elemental flow regulators... before we release her. I've a funny little feeling there's something badly wrong with her."
"All that trouble? It's a glorified lifeboat," Martindale said.
"Right, so let's make sure she's in tip-tp condition before she's entrusted with any glorified lives."
"It doesn't even need propulsion or lift, it just has to reach the ground."
"Well, I can just about guarantee she'll do that, sir, but she has a full levitator suite in her and she's rated as a self-propelled craft, so we can't give her a pass just because she might fall somewhat slower than the next dead weight."
"But if everything else on the ship works right, it'll never be needed."
"And if anything on the ship fails, the boats need to work right," Dan said. "You ever seen what happens when a lifeboat fails?"
"No."
"Neither have I. I've seen what happens when they work, though. It's worth glorification."
"And proof that they're generally reliable."
"Sailors don't climb aboard generalities, sir. Otherwise we'd have to inspect them, too. And this is not a simple driftboat. There's a lot more that can go wrong."
"It's just a regulatory inspection, Harris. We schedule five of them in an hour for a vehicle that class."
"That's how long it takes to clear a boat her size with no problems," Dan said. "If there is a problem, diagnosing and fixing it takes longer... if she weren't one of ours, we could just flunk her and free up the bay for something else. They owners would take her to the shop of their choice to get her sorted, and that would be it..."
"But it is an imperial skyff," Martindale said. "Which means it doesn't leave until we sign off on it."
"Begging your pardon for a trivial correction, but I think you'll find that the words are unless and I, as in 'she doesn't leave unless I sign off on her'."
"You aren't the only enchanter here rated for that."
"And I wish you all the luck in the world in finding one who'll sign over me."
Martindale stared at him. It was meant to be a hard stare, but hardness is relative.
"Did one of the lads put you up to this?" the supervisor asked after the pause had gone on long enough for him to feel awkward. "They think they can't come to me themselves, you know. They think I'm some kind of orc."
"No one would say that of you," Dan said. "We all like Kurzg far too much for that."
"They think I'll just dismiss their complaints out of hand."
"You'll have to excuse them for being observant," Dan said. "But no, I'm here on my own agency... as a matter of fact, it's Willis who drew the inspection and he came to me ready to recommend we give her full marks."
"Willis, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Dan said. "One of the diviners."
"He's the Argenti, isn't he?"
"No, you'll probably thinking of Bard, but it's an easy mistake to make seeing as they have all different letters in their names," Dan said. "Willis says I've gone off my potions, that there's nothing wrong with the skyff. In fact, he was all set to tear her down just to prove me wrong but he said he couldn't justify holding the bay any longer on my say-so."
"Quite right," Martindale said. "Well, you tell Willis I said to have it moved to one of the interior bays, and then he can do a full tear-down inspection. And Harris, if he doesn't find something to back up your funny little feeling, your name's going on the report."
"Fair enough," Dan said. "Though fair being fair, I expect to get credit if he does find something."
Martindale snorted.
"I should reward you for being difficult and having a lucky guess?" Martindale said. "If Willis finds something, I'll see he gets due credit. I'll take a steady head and a skeptical eye over an elevated sense of self-importance any day. You take a lot of liberties, Harris, but don't forget that it's luck that landed you where you are today. Pure luck."
"True enough," Dan said. "If the wind had been southerly, I might be married to a washerwoman."
"You wound up a hero of the empire, but you could have just as easily become an albatross," Martindale said. "The man in charge of making sure the whole thing stays rightside-up and in one piece survives when it all goes belly-up and explodes? It's like a captain not going down with his ship."
"Captain McAllister was carried to his launch by three of his officers," Dan said.
"The way I hear it, his sons have a nurse following him around to make sure he doesn't slip and fall on his sword," Martindale said.
"Gentlemen of leisure often have odd hobbies," Dan said. "Were I one, I'd collect them and keep them over the mantle. Hobbies, not gentlemen."
"You'll be one someday, won't you? Just have to outlive the old man. You've said your Del is his only daughter."
"The way he tells it, his Del is my only wife," Dan said. "And she is both, but alas for my deep-seated aristocratic ambitions, Lord Robert has sons, many of them past any age the prospective Lady Ardelia would admit to being."
"The point is that McAllister ended up a pariah while you married a nobleman's daughter."
"It's not my fault. The man was a tax collector when I met him. Still, no one can help their birth."
"It could have gone the other way for you," Martindale said. "The same set-up, the same what d'you call it... scenario... only you wind up the scapegoat. My experience is it's not the happenstance, it's the handling. Someone decided to make a hero out of you instead of hanging the wreck on you."
"And vice-versa, no doubt," Dan said. "Honestly, I don't know what surprises me more... that you put this together or that you imagine I haven't."
[Half hour in. I've taken a few different tacks with this, and I've finally found one that works. I'm starting out centered on Dan, in order to have something to say about the kind of person he is, and his position in life.]
"Something funny up in number 3."
The words seemed to come at Dan Harris from a long ways away, but when he shook himself out of the reverie he'd lapsed into he found the eager, earnest face of one of his diviners uncomfortably close to his own.
"Thanks, Willis, I'll have a look, then," Dan said, taking a careful step back, mindful of the railing. A fall from the catwalk might not hurt him, even from three levels up inside the massive, warehouse-like hangar of []namehere[]... unless he happened to land on something particularly hard or pointy and sufficiently magical to overcome his natural invulnerability, and there were certainly plenty of things like that around.
"Everything alright, chief?" Willis asked him.
"What? Oh, well, we'll know soon enough, I expect," he said.
"Only you've got that far-off look in your eyes again."
"Comes from growing up at sky," Dan said, clapping him gently on the shoulder. "You get used to seeing hundreds of miles at a go, makes it hard to get used to regular distances."
"Er, right," Willis said. "Oh, and about number 3: Don't take her up before you've felt her out... I've an inkling she might need grounding."
"Oh?"
"I've a feeling she might need a complete tear-down before we let her out again."
"Right," Dan said. "Excuse me, will you, Willis? I've only just now recalled a meeting I'm urgently needed at."
He left Willis and headed for the nearest stairs leading up towards the box-like office in the center of the immense shed. He hesitated for just a moment before opening the door, without knocking.
"That door was locked," Martindale, the hangar manager, said.
"Still is!" Dan said. "Only the bolt's sort of sheered off... you might want to have a man in. I'd suggest getting a magic one next time. Much more durable."
"It was magic," Martindale said.
"Cheap enchantments... not very stable. You get them right and they last forever, but one little thing goes wrong and they could just poof away at any time," Dan said. "On that subject: there's something off about the skyff in bay 3. I think we need to take apart the whole array... levitator, stabilizers, elemental flow regulators... before we release her."
"All that trouble? It's a glorified lifeboat," Martindale said.
"Right, so let's make sure she's in tip-tp condition before she's entrusted with any glorified lives."
"If everything else on the ship works right, it'll never be needed.'
"And if anything on the ship fails, it needs to work right," Dan said. "You ever seen what happens when a lifeboat fails?"
"No."
"Neither have I. I've seen what happens when they work, though. It's worth glorification."
"And proof that they're generally reliable."
"Sailors don't climb aboard generalities, sir. Otherwise we'd have to inspect them, too."
"It's just a regulatory inspection, Harris. We schedule five of them in an hour for a vehicle that class."
"That's how long it takes to clear a boat with no problem."
[]A bit further on, Martindale tries to turn the conversation to Dan's fortunes and his "troubled" past to get him to back down.[]
"The man in charge of making sure the whole thing stays rightside-up and in one piece survives when it all goes belly-up and explodes? It's like a captain not going down with his ship."
"Captain McAllister was carried to his launch by three of his officers," Dan said.
"The way I hear it, he has a nurse following him around to make sure he doesn't slip and fall on his sword," Martindale said.
"Gentlemen of leisure often have odd hobbies," Dan said. "Were I one, I'd collect them and keep them over the mantle. Hobbies, not gentlemen."
"You'll be one someday, won't you? Just have to outlive the old man. You've said your Del is his only daughter."
"She is, but alas for my deep-seated aristocratic ambitions, Lord Robert has sons, many of them past any age the prospective Lady Ardelia would admit to being," Dan said.
"The point is tha MacAllister ended up a pariah while you married a nobleman's daughter."
"It's not my fault. The man was a tax collector when I met him. Still, no one can help their birth."
"It could have gone the other way for you," Martindale said. "The same set-up, the same what d'yu call it... scenario... only you wind up the albatross. My experience is it's not the happenstance, it's the handling. Someone decided to make a hero out of you instead of hanging the wreck on you."
"And vice-versa, no doubt," Dan said. "Honestly, I don't know what surprises me more... that you put this together or that you imagine I haven't."