The Happy Harper
You find yourself in the well-lit Happy Harper. It seems to be perhaps one of the most cared for items of the hold. The walls have deep-red wood panelling, and glow baskets placed at a very regular interval. There are about six tables for eight and four booths in the corners. All the tables and chairs seem to be of a very nice quality and very well taken care of. Serving also as the center of social interaction at Gar hold, it is usually where one looks to find anyone.
Kentin and Merdia are here.

Alexander makes his not really dramatic entrance. "Hi."

Merdia nods... wow, no smirk. "I didn't know you felt that way," she says, a slow smile coming to her face. She glances at Alexander as he enters. "Hey," she calls. "How's it going?"

Alexander is bored. And just fine.

Kentin gets up,and refills his klah. "Your talkative this afternoon Alex."

Alexander nods and is.

Merdia drains her mug and returns it to the bar with a bang... louder than she meant to do in the quiet room... and slides off the barstool. "Is it always this dead in here?" she asks Kentin. "At least in the dining hall there's the fire..."

Kentin shakes his head. "No, not normally.. and it is a bit warm for a fire I think."

Alexander leans against the table and snores. "No, not usually. I'm just dead."

Kentin smirks at Alex. "What have you been doing?"

Alexander glares at Kentin and Merdia. "Don't you two have anything to do usually? Like mucking out the stables? Oiling the Thread shutters? Feeding a firelizard? I'm procrastinating. That's my official excuse."

Kentin raises an eyebrow at Alex. "No, my job is to sit around and wait for Natch to give me an errand."

Alexander yawns and stands up. "Okay, whatever. If you need me, I'll be outside checking the windows."

Gar Hold CourtYard
You stand on the porch of Gar Hold. Just inside you can see the elegant, yet simple design of this burgeoning hold. Outside, you have a beautiful view of the hold valley. Large trees line the trail here, creating a nice canopy of shade for the weiry traveller. A couple of paths diverge from the hold to follow their own paths. Each path is set with red brick cobblestone. Flower Beds line the porch creating a nice feeling of returning home. Several rockers, a bench or two, and a swing can be found on the porch, for those who wish to come out and enjoy the beauty of nature.
It is a summer afternoon.

Kentin nods to Alex. "I decided checking the shutters and such would be a good idea. Would you care to help?"

Alexander waves to Kentin from his seat on a windowsill two storeys up. "Yeah, I could use a hand," he calls. "Natch will kill me after I'm dead if Thread falls and the windows are stuck and won't close."

Kentin grins. "That would put a damper on living. Dont fall or anything."

Merdia looks up at Alexander and pales... "You want me to go... up there?"

Alexander kicks at the air. "Thanks for reminding me, Kentin," he calls loudly for his benefit. "You guys can do the lower ones, I guess. I figured you were all wimps. You only need to climb a tree or two."

Kentin raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me? I did not say anything about going up that high!"

Kentin takes off his cape and puts it on the bench,and puts his satchel down with it. "Now how do you get up that high?"

Merdia takes a step or two back. "Is there something I could do from here?" she asks uncertainly.

Alexander hrrmphs and continues to scrape the rust off of the slats with stiff bristled brush. "I contacted some aliens from outer space. They gave me a hot air balloon and I soared around Pern in 30 minutes, then landed on the fireheights. I took a hemp rope and rappelled down."

Kentin shakes his head. "Whats an Alien? Or a hot air balloon. Starts to climb up a tree to the Second story. "Merdia, I forgot a bucket,could you pass one up>?"

Alexander swings the shutter open a little more. "Aliens. Like, people from Fort, silly. People who come to a Hold illegally. A hot air balloon. When they blow... hot air.. into a bladder, so it inflates. And it flies. I think the Smiths tried it once." He sighs melodramatically at Kentin's idiocy. "You know it's true."

Merdia blinks, looking around the courtyard... spots a bucket and moves to the bottom of the tree with it. She holds it up from the bottom, trying to get it into Kentin's reach without actually leaving the ground herself...

Kentin smirks at Alex. "What have you been drinking?" Looks back at Merdia. "Thats not helpfull..."

Merdia grimaces a bit. "You can't reach it? Um..." She grabs a lower branch and hoists herself up a bit... "Now?"

Kentin smirks,and climbs down enough to take the bucket. "Thank you very much." He climbs back to the second story, and proceeds to clean the windows. "This sure is exciting.. now I see why we let you do this."

Alexander flails his arms around. "I'm *serious*," he exclaims. "Don't you believe me? Do you think I'd be a total IDIOT and go upstairs, open the window from the *inside* and climb out? Why would anyone do *that*?"

Kentin looks at Alex. "Dont flail,youll drop something, or fall."

Merdia laughs as the truth of that statement hits her. "Good idea," she says. "/That/ I'm up for." She picks up another bucket and brush and disappears inside the hold and reappears a few minutes later in the window above the one Kentin's working on. "Hi," she says as she peers down at him.

Kentin almost drops the bucket. "Hi, dont scare me,thanks." Tries pry open the shutter, but it doesnt want to move. "Guess this one needs some work."

Alexander continues to rant, one arm slung over a shutter to keep his balance. Well, he has been listening. "Like it matters that Natch doesn't let any vegetation grow within a mile of the hold, including trees. Because I'm so amazing, I can jump twenty feet from the topmost branch through a closed window, because metal liquifies at my tiniest whim."

Merdia pulls her head in the window and reappears a minute later in the window above Alexander. "You're a pain, you know that?" she calls down, emptying a bucket of water over his head.

Kentin smiles at Alex. "No more cider for you." He climbs back down,and rummages through his satchel,and produces a small file, and than climbs back up. "When was the last time these were cleaned? This one is rusted at the hinges."

Merdia opens and closes the shutters with a rasping squeak, carefully applying oil to the neglected hinges and brushing debris off the sill... onto Alexander...

Alexander sputters about as he is dumped upon. "Gah!" he yelps and falls back into the second story hallway. "I hope that *water* is clean.." He sighs and reseats himself on the slippery sill, only to have Merdia's crud fall on him. "I don't know Kentin.. ask the drudges. We've fallen into the habit of just keeping the windows open except for rain, with dragonriders doing all the protection for us. And someone should tell Aidany about that tree branch your own.. it's growing far too close to the hold."

Kentin smirks at Alex. "Yes sir. I'll get to it right after im done sir."

Merdia pulls the shutters shut with a bang, evidently satisfied with that set, and reappears in another window to repeat the process. "Are they all this bad?" she remarks, disgusted. "I'd rather be mucking stalls."

Alexander ducks his head back into the hallway. A banging sound is heard against the shutters of the window next to the one where Alex previously was, then a squeak. One shutter opens a bit, then all the way with a new coat of oil on the hinges easing its journey. Yes, they are that bad. "Hahaha!" he calls up to Merdia. "You can't throw water at me now!"

Kentin attacks the worste hinge with the file,removing the rust,than covering it with oil, and climbing in, hoping noone is home. "Sorry!" is hear being yelled from inside. He pops out the window next to it.

Merdia peers down at Alexander to assess the angle. No... not /quite/... give her a chance, you little monster. She finishes that set and pulls back inside.

Alexander hears Merdia close her set of shutters, and hastily oils the second in his set, without even bothering to test it. He rushes on to the next window in his corridor, diagonally below Merdia's, in a living game of vertical chess. Or more like checkers or those 'Whack-a-Wherry' carnival games.. you know, with the giant hammers and the wherry puppets popping out of holes in a table that you have to hit in a given time? Yeah, those.

Kentin shakes his head,and moves on to the room next to his, and starts to work on that shutter.

Merdia opens another set of shutters with great difficulty, pushing with all her weight... it suddenly gives and she tumbles out, holding onto the shutter in a terrified death grip as she swings out over the courtyard. "Oh!"

Alexander instinctively ducks the shadow falling down from Merdia's window above him, then cranes his head out again when he doesn't hear anything go crashing or splashing to the ground. Geh? The shadow's still there. It's *Merdia*!

Kentin looks at Merdia. "That looks a bit dangerous,should you be doing that?"

April walks in from the Gar Hold Entry Hall.

Alexander uuuhs. "Kentin, I don't think she's doing that on purpose," his voice echoes out his window as he races back into the hallway. A pause of several moments, and his figure appears at the window Merdia is clinging for dear life to, slightly breathless. A hand is extended and wrapped around Merdia's wrist.

Kentin looks at Merdia. "You dont?" His head dissapears, and than reapears at Merdias window, and swings it back towards the window. "Dont let go, ok? Thanks."

Merdia releases the shutter enough to grip the offered hand, but she hesitates to let go of the shutter with her other hand, not sure if Alexander is strong enough to keep her from crashing to the courtyard below.

Alexander is a short eleven year old kid. "AHHH!" He screams in a voice higher than he's usually admit to, almost tripping out of the window too, if he weren't so short. "Kentin, I could use a HAND here!!!" Literally.

Merdia grips Alexander's hand with white knuckles, her eyes wide, too frightened to even scream...

April walks in from the entry hall carrying a mug of klah in her hand. She doesn't seem to notice anyone else in the courtyard until she hears Alexander. Turning around, she raises her eyebrows, "Um..."

Kentin grabs Merdia around the waist,and hauls her in through the window. "I think you should clean the lower windows now."

Merdia collapses in a heap inside the window, shaken. She looks up at Kentin and Alexander from her seated position and manages to murmur, "Maybe I should stick with the runners..."

Kentin grins at Merdia. "Oh, come on, did I stop riding cause I almost got thrown?"

Alexander kneels down besides Merdia with a concerned expression on his face. "What *is* it with girls and heights?" he exclaims a little harshly. "They always end up needing saving." Pause as he rubs his sore arm. "Oh. And. You're welcome."

Merdia blinks at Alexander. "Thank you," she says belatedly, glancing at Kentin to include him. She doesn't move to get up yet...

April goes home.

Kentin shrugs closes the window. "I guess that one works fine."

Merdia puts a hand to her head, still shaken and sitting on the floor, tracking a smudge of blood and dirt up her cheek where the shutter cut into her hand...

Kentin holds out a hand to Merdia. "You dont look so good, need some help? You should probably clean that up."

The same voice from the room Kentin had busted into wafts into the hallway, "Could you keep it down out there?? What are you trying to do, kill yourselves??" Merdia blinks again, looks at Kentin's outstretched hand as if seeing it for the first time. She looks at her other hand.

Rendall walks in.

Merdia accepts Kentin's outstretched hand, cradling the injured one to her stomach, and gets unsteadily to her feet.

Hmm. Nobody seems to be in the courtyard, but several voices are heard from the open windows in an upper storey hallway. A few of the window shutters are unusually clean and shiny, and a few buckets of water, cans of oil, and stiff-bristled brushes are lying abandoned on the courtyard floor.

Kentin pulls Merdia up to her feet. "There ya go, now lets go down to clean you up."

Rendall mutters to himself "Man, I really dislike ...." He looks up and greets "Hello, there."

Alexander waves down to Rendall. "Hi!" he calls cheerfully, and tosses a brush down to the boy below. "You wanna clean the rust off of the lower storey shutters? We were doing the upper ones, but it turned out to be somewhat dangerous."

Gar Baths
As you open the door, You are greeted with the pleasant smells of a variety of fruit blossoms. You can easily make out redfruit, cherry, and orange. As you step in, the air seems to shimmer a little in all the steam rising off the baths. You gingerly step across the smooth wood floors. A set of stairs descends into a rainbow shaped pool of very shallow warm water. The water swirls and eddies in random patterns, originating from the submerged part of the far wall. When tired of the constant motion of the center, one can move toward the more relaxed motion of the steps. Along the two edges lay an assortment of bath related items. Bath oils, sponges, and a bowl of cleansing sands each have their own little niches. Wash cloths and large fluffy towels lay within easy reach.

Merdia walks in from the Staff Quarters.

Kentin walks, his cape swishing about him in from the Staff Quarters.

Kentin leads Merdia over to the water, and takes a wash cloth, and hands it to her. "Here ya go, are you ok?"

Merdia takes the cloth numbly and drops her hand into the water, wincing a bit. This seems to bring her around, and she nods slowly. "I think so."

Alexander shrugs. "Maybe later. We should clean it off first."

Merdia absently watches her blood cloud the water before pressing the cloth against her palm.

Alexander sits on the steps that enter into the water, watching Merdia dye it red. "Uh.. ew.."

Kentin turns and takes a washcloth, guessing the best thing to do is just wrap up the cut. "Could I see you hand?"

Merdia draws her hand out of the water and holds it out for Kentin to inspect, looking at it herself in curious detachment.

Kentin takes the cloth and wraps it around the cut. "Does it hurt?"

Merdia winces at the pressure of the cloth. "Not a /lot/..." she says.

Kentin nods his head. "I guess thats a good thing...." Ties off the cloth. "Thats the most I can do,sorry."

Merdia nods. "It's okay," she says. She squeezes the bandage with her other hand and looks around the room. "I feel /really/ stupid," she says after a long moment.

Kentin smirks at Merdia. "Why feel stupid? You almost died, thats nothing to feel stupid about."

Merdia shrugs. "Well... all the same." She gets to her feet. "Thanks for helping... I guess I owe you one again," she says to Kentin.

Kentin raises an eyebrow. "I dont remember you owing me anything in the first time. And where are you going? We're not done with windows."

Merdia chuckles weakly. "Well," she reminds him, "you got Bryden off my back, so I owed you one then... but I paid you back when you decided to take Sunset on a wild ride. And /you/ may not be finished with the windows, but I know when I've had enough."