Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aire's smile faltered. That she didn't quite share his delight had dampened it some, took a little of the fun from sharing it. But second thoughts popped up quickly to bridge the gaps. I advertised bangs, pops and roars, flashes and bits everywhere. She just doesn't have the context. Nothing that can't be salvaged. He breathed in deep, broken nose whistling slightly, and steepled his fingers. "...While I won't disagree with you there, I'd like to ask you indulge me. Just a little. From where you sit, put your hand towards the fire. Or even turn your face to it and close your eyes. Can you feel that?" Indeed, a solid wave of hot air pushed gently against them, even from this distance. And kept pushing, steady and almost smothering.

Even the desert breezes barely shifted its direction, and the motion of the dune surfaces would clearly indicate that this rolling heat went counter to the natural winds. "About what time would you make it? Noonish, out here in the desert? And that looks like it'll keep burning a while yet, with nothing under the goo but sand. No wood nor peat nor firestone. Bit unusual, wouldn't you say? What else can you think of that does this?" He snapped gloved fingers, the grin returning full force. "That's why it's special. We might have just made something completely new, not discovered an old passed-over recipie or duplicated a dusty magic trick by mundane means! How long does it burn? How is it put out? Does water just spread it around? Don't know! And I can't wait to find out!"

In the doubled heat, the lightning chymist had picked up an unmarked waterskin and taken a celebreatory pull. "Mm! Make sure to write down any questions you have, as well! It's just as new to me as it is you, and you'll probably come up with a few that slipped right by me." It passed Zasha's way, along with the holder himself moving past her. If she had no free hand, he'd lay it in the sandbag-cast shade, passing her to gather a few more instruments for the next ignition. Some looked to be nautical in nature, others much simpler, such as a notched metal stick with wood on the end. 'Sold to me as a dragon detector', he'd told her when previously asked. 'The man said once the wood was burnt up I'd found my dragon. Thought it'd come in handy for something else, someday.'

He waved a hand to the cautions, though the green of crystals creeping up his cheeks still contrasted the reddish tinge of recent burns. Any disappointment that had lingered, it was burned away by now. If anything, rekindling the local girl's enthusiasm had fired up his own. "Yes, yes, I'll rest once this batch has burnt out. We've two more to get through, just to establish a barebones average. Now that we know overall what happens when it goes off, we can put down a couple more measures to get data on other factors. We want hard numbers here; guesswork will get us nothing going forward if we don't have facts for context." That hers was still a tentative 'prenticeship seemed to have clean slipped Aire's mind. Many masters could have continued saying 'I', rather than 'we', for example, and later published their work while talking sole credit. That didn't seem to have occured to Zasha's teacher. She was there, she'd helped, so she was due her part, even if she didn't stay on.