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Salin sat in a corner of the Weyr kitchen, a knife in one hand, a tuber in the other, and a bucket full of peels on the ground in front of her. She glared at the vegetable as she peeled its skin off, annoyed that she was set to the task. If there was any truth to the phrase "glaring daggers," she could have peeled it with her eyes alone. It was no consolation that she wasn't the only Candidate set to this task.

"This is drudge work," she complained to Kerrit, who was nearby. "Completely mindless. Why are they making us do this when we have better things we could be doing?" She finished scraping off the peel from her tuber, dunked it in a bowl of water to rise it off, then added it to a pile of finished tubers. With a grumble she grabbed a new tuber and started peeling that as well.

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"Isn't stuff like this what drudges are for?" she answered, which a particularly angry slice that nearly hit one of her fingers. She stopped with a muffled curse and checked her finger to make sure it was ok before continuing the work and her chatter. "Most of them aren't quite right on body or mind, so they're set to simple work. Manual labor, mostly. Or the old folk who can think fine but can't get around much might be set to simple sit-down work like this. There's plenty of people who could be doing this besides Candidates!"

Dangerous? Only if you're very careless, like Salin had been a moment ago when she nearly cut herself. But when she looked at the tiny scratch on his thumb she had to give an amused half-smile at the sight. "Oh yes. Very dangerous, that. Life-threatening, to be sure," she said in as straight a voice as she could manage.

At Kerrit's mention of crafts, she nodded. "Yeah. Not all weyrbrats are Apprenticed to crafts, but the ones that are should have time to train in them! How am I supposed to become a dragonhealer if I spend my time peeling tubers instead of learning medicines!" she said, starting to wave her potato-wielding hand in emphasis. His suggesting of doing something else made her pause, but then she looked at the cook down at the other end of the room as shook her head. "Naw, that wouldn't be a good idea. Even if we got by her, and everyone else in sight of the kitchen, someone would notice we're not at our place sooner or later, and then there'd be trouble. I don't really believe the stories of Candidates being prevented from Standing because they missed some chores or something, but you never know."

A friend? That might be overstating their relationship, since Salin barely knew him. But she had to agree that peeling with a friendly companion did make the shore more tolerable. "That's true enough," she said to his last comment. "Unless someone just assigns us some other task that's better suited to weyrbrats who're being punished for misbehaving." She glared at the tuber in her hand as if her current shore were its fault.

Then she shot another glance at the cook she added in a lower voice, "Though come to think of it...if we finish this pile of tubers while nobody's around to see us, we could probably just sneak out of here. We'd have finished our work, after all, and have more important tasks." She raised her voice to a more normal level and asked, "What would you rather be doing? Are you training in a craft, too?"

Salin made a face at the thought of mucking stuff out, too. "Not the nicest chores, I agree. I wouldn't mind mending clothes, though. It'd be good practice for surgery, considering it's not just stitching but also practice in small, precise hand movements."

The thought of firelizard eggs perked her up. "Searching for firelizard eggs sounds fun to me, too. I don't have a flit, but I'd love to have one. They're really useful, and taking care of one could be good practice for caring for dragons. As for music," she shrugged. "I know my Teaching Ballads, but I don't do much singing beyond that, and I don't know any other instruments."

Salin nodded. "Yup, I'm an apprentice Dragonhealer. I don't know too much beyond the basics myself, though. The masters seem to be reeeally careful about what you're allowed to do. I can be trusted to apply numbweed and bandages on my own, but not much else unless a teacher's looking over my shoulder. And most often I'm not even allowed to do that much yet." She made an annoyed face at the memory of her teachers. "I understand that healers have to be have to do everything perfectly, since a mistake could make injury or illness worse. But I wish they'd let me do even a little bit more."

She smiled back at him for the suggestion. "I'd love to go egg hunting. I'm sure the sands around her are scoured regularly for unattended clutches, but we could always get lucky."

She scowled again at the thought of teachers who wouldn't let apprentices do more than the most basic tasks for turns. But her face eased to a more pleasant expression at the thought of flits. They were a welcome distraction, so she turned her mind to that instead.

"If we look hard enough, maybe we will find them," she said. "Who knows, we may even find a queen's clutch. Though considering how hard they guard their nests, I'm not sure if that would be good luck or bad. Imagine finding a clutch, only to be unable to get anywhere near it because the queen and her friends keep driving you off."

"Yup, I'm a weyrbrat," Salin said. "My parents are both riders, so I've been hearing about dragons since I was little. Not that you need to be related to a rider to learn about them, if you live in a Weyr," she said wryly as she finished her latest tuber and set it aside. "I don't know as much about firelizards, but it's pretty basic that you can't Impress an adult. And I know how Impression works, how yo have to feed them and all." She glanced at the bit of jerky in his hand and said, "I'd suggest we find a bit of meat to bring with us if we go egg hunting, but I think it'd be better to just get out of here as fast as possible so we don't get caught leaving."

As she reached for her next tuber to peel, she noticed the pile was getting rather small. "Hey look," she said in a low voice as she indicated the pile. "And there's still just the one cook in here. We might get our chance to sneak out soon."