Welcome to Gaia! ::

Mairin was slowly but surely adjusting to candidate life, some things still caused her to pause and confused her but for the most part she managed. Perhaps the most comforting thing was that much like being on a ship , everything ran on a nice tight schedule in the Weyr. Knowing where she had to be and what she was supposed to be doing at any given time was a great boon to the young woman and also to her fellow candidates. A bored Mairin was a nosy one, likely to go poking about and telling you why you were doing something wrong.

At the moment Mairin found herself assigned to a fairly familiar task, tying knots. While no one needed her to tether any dragons to each other or rig a flag to fly above the Weyr there was still plenty the skill was useful for.. While riders were responsible for keeping an eye on the wear and tear of their riding tack it was left up to candidates like herself to test out the replacement versions of some of the more minor things.

A new shipment of leather had come in, containing many long braided or flat strips used for tethering firestone sacks and the like to the neck straps or chestplate of riding leathers. While the Weyr certainly didn't distrust the crafters who routinely supplied them with high quality leather it was also best to make sure nothing had been missed. They needed to be sure even supplementary equipment was strong but supple, capable withstanding the rigors it would endure during an active fall without making a rider's job harder than it needed to be.

Thus Mairin found herself tying knots in each one pulling them taut and twisting, seeing how the leather reacted to the tension. Then afterward she untied it and checked for unusual creasing or cracking along the leather's length.

Mairin looked up as she was addressed, her fingers continuing to work regardless, she could tie knots in her sleep at this point. "I'm testing the flexibility and strength of the leather, with thread actually falling now the last thing the riders need to worry about is losing their firestone sack because the straps tying it to their gear gave way suddenly." She imagined it had to be an exhilarating if hectic thing to fly during thread and you really needed to trust that all your equipment was going to function properly. No different than knowing that lines, sails and the like would hold during rough weather on a ship.

Mairin nodded and grinned, enjoying the compliment. " I could swim before I could walk properly and I spent a lot of time on boats even before my apprenticeship." There was a light of amusement to the young woman's eyes. "My mother was less than pleased the day she found all my clothes tied together though." Mairin had been quite young then and more adept at twisting and looping things than getting them undone again.

"I could show you some basic stuff if you like, and it'd make the work go faster unless you have more boxes to bring in." Mairin wasn't certain just how much leather was coming in today only that she was supposed to do this until dinner and then whatever was left would be assigned to someone else after the meal.

" I'm Mairin and there's plenty of coast people who don't necessarily know knots used at sea. My mother's lived not too far from the shore her whole life but she do anything but simple stuff." Everyone had different skills and if you weren't taking up a craft that required the knowledge you didn't spend time learning certain things. Although most people regardless of craft seemed to learn fairly young how to kill and clean fish, at least in Mairin's experience.

"Stretch them out a little first, put a bit of force behind the pull and feel when the leather starts to resist." It was necessary to do a basic strength test first to make sure the strips were solid before testing anything else. After all it didn't matter if they mostly passed further tests if they couldn't hold any really weight on them.