Main Hall and Ballroom
The ballroom's vast space is simply and tastefully decorated, combining images and materials from many parts of Pern. Opposite the main entrance, a broad balcony is supported by pillars of the finest northern marble; polished to glassy smoothness, they contrast the toning blues of the walls. A staircase of the same stone rises in sturdy flights to the upper level. The high vaulted ceiling with its round wrought-iron window is white, brightening the room, while the varnished floor is the deep red-brown of a Lemos hardwood. High on the west wall, a large 'mural' shows a map of Pern, framed by images of harper life and symbols of the Craft, while the bright 'tapestry' opposite offers an… [look closer]
Watching from a bit of artistically carved lintel are six firelizards.
Jessa is standing in the main hall a bit to the right of the entrance that leads into the rest of Ista Hold. In her hands she holds a book and she stands straight, as if she were trying to look somewhat official in the hall as she looks around at the comings and goings.
Tytom is looking around the main hall, awaiting the rest of the gathered apprentices. Walking towards the door he approaches Journeywoman Jessa "How fare you this day Journeywoman?"
Esmati emerges from the balcony, making her way down the steps at a demure pace. She pauses briefly at the bottom, and then makes directly for the unfamiliar face by the doorway. "Excuse me," the tall girl queries, "would this be where we were to meet for the dolphinsinging class?"
Jessa's wandering gaze turns towards the apprentice that greets her and she smiles, "Doing quite well, and yourself? Are you here for the dolphinsinging class?" And if that didn't answer the female apprentice's question, Jessa nods. "Yep, I'm Jessa, waiting here to lead you to the dolphin hall for the class." A few other apprentices mill about and start to slowly gravitate towards the trio.
Tytom says, "Yes, Journeywoman, I am here for the class. I am well today and looking forward to hearing your Dolphins today."
Esmati nods, satisfied. "Pleased to meet you, Journeyman Jessa," the girl says, drawling Igenite voice polite, before shooting a mildly curious glance Tyran's way. "Excuse me, are you a new apprentice here? I don't believe I've seen you before."
Jessa smiles to Tytom, Esmati, and the vague semi-crowd of random apprentices "Alright then, well, shall we head over to the dolphin hall then?" Not so much a question as a polite command to the group. "This way you can see the dolphinhall, learn more about dolphinsinging, and meet the dolphins." The journeywoman turns and then heads out, at a slow pace so that even the most dawdling of apprentices can keep up. Let's see how many of them follow along.
Main Hall
Running through the cavernous Main Hall of Ista Sea Hold, a ten meter ledge of sea-worn stone comprises the main working area along with a lane of seawater the flows parallel to the shelf. Upon the ledge are six tables used mostly for classes or cleaning dive gear. To the west a large archway leads to the entrance foyer and the dormitories, as well as the Crafthead's office. Along the other walls are smaller archways, leading to the other areas of the Hall. Opposite this area runs a wide bridge that crosses the sea-lane towards the other side, to the other archways that lead deep inside. On non-Thread days, heavy metal shutters are opened from large windows, letting fresh sea air and sun… [look closer]
Tytom turns towards the other apprentice. "I am Tytom. I have bin here for a while, but have bin keeping to my self recently" then turning back he follows the Journeywoman.
Jessa enters the main hall of the Ista Sea Hold, also known as the Dolphincraft Hall, and walks to the middle where she stops and turns around to look at the Harper apprentices that followed her here. When the last one enters she smiles, "Alright, welcome to Ista Sea Hold, which has the Dolphincraft and Seacraft Halls. Now if you'll follow me, we can go to the Lounge and see if the dolphins are here and start class."
Esmati trails on Jessa's heels, glancing about the sea hall with enough curiosity that it's plain she's never ventured this way before. "Yes'm. Are they probably here, or is it hard to predict?"
Tytom says, "This hold seems well built. I take it that that you have a water lip so that the dolphins can come right up to the hold?"
Jessa shrugs in reply to Esmati, "They're not too hard to find, and especially mornings and evenings they are here to share news with us. And yes, we have a water lip for them, which you'll see in a moment or two." The dolphinsinger looks at the assembled group. "Well then, let's head over." Jess turns and heads them over towards the rest of the hall.
Hall's Lounge
Cozy to the point of downright stuffy this lounge exudes a salty briny air. Overstuffed and comfortable looking are the chairs of dark blue that reside at one end of this circular room. The smattering of tables that they surround are nothing more than tops with scarred wooden legs attached as well they should be. The bases of the tables and chairs are waterstained and marked by mild salt buildup. Rugs worn with age decorate the polished floor of this relaxation area soft greens and browns making barefeet swoon. Paintings of charts and various sea mammals and fish have been painstakingly added to the walls creating the atmosphere of their mother sea. To one side of the bridge is a wide ledge… [look closer]
A mottled grey and white head pops up and peers into the lounge, chittering happily. "Hello. My Name Tesia…" She begins. "J'ssa? Who people?"
Tony watches with a memoic look on his face
Esmati nearly jumps back a step, but catches herself in time. Barely. "Er."
Tytom with a entranced look upon his face Tytom takes a knee in order to take a better look at the dolphin
Tony steadies Esmati, with a passing thought to push, instead of support.
Of course the extra activity of a small group of Harpers would awaken the dolphin's interest and cause them to come. Or perhaps Jessa asked them to come. The journeywoman smiles, "G'day Tesia, these are some Harper apprentices that came over for a class on dolphinsinging." And there's a harper master there too, but no time for specifics. Jess points to the lip, "And there you can see the lip that lets them get closer. We also have a shallower pool used for medical cases."
Tony gets down on his knees and places his hand in a gesture of greeting
Esmati stares, though her bemused expression quickly turns rather charmed. "Um. Pleased to meet you, Tesia," murmurs the girl, picking forward through the little crowd of apprentices.
Tesia chitters more quickly, peering around at the guests. "Harpers? Sing like you?" Has the little 'phin heard Jessa sing? Well, undoubtedly, one of them has, and what one of them knows, the rest of them know of course. "Come to sing happy song for us?" The dolphin squees happily.
Tony sings a small scale of 18 notes then slides the notes in waves back to where he started
Tony with a final hum, slides the notes into silence, with a rings tone, which was reverberaated off the water
Jessa looks proudly on at the gathered Harpers and their varying reactions, smiling as someone sings a little bit for the dolphin. "So any of you notice anything about Tesia?" Jess asks the crowd in an attempt to get the class moving along in a direction.
Tony stands up again
Tony says, "Would it be Tesia unusual colour markings ?"
Tytom takes out his reed pipes and repeats the scale
Esmati's lips quirk. "Well, she certainly seems to like music, ma'am. Is that why there're dolphinsingers?"
Tony 1/2 stumbles, springs out his hand but safely regains his footing, and moves to the rear of the group
Jessa shakes her head at Tony and notices his rank. A master, eh? To attend out of interest or to keep an eye on the oh so rowdy apprentices? "Well, besides that…" she says, and before she can get to what she was looking for she smiles at Esmati. "Dolphins have an oral history that is passed on, and dolphinsingers record this, and have another main purpose. So can anyone tell me something that they noticed?" Hint: not physical.
"Un-us-ual?" Tesia asks. "What means /that/ word?" She swings her head from right to left as the singer and piper offer the music. "Pre-tty." She says, nodding to her friend. "What those?" She means the pipes of course.
Tytom offers the pipes for Tesia's inspection. "These are my pipes Tesia. They are made of sea reeds an stained with fish oil for color."
Esmati purses her lips, peering down over Tytom's shoulder. "Well … she doesn't seem to talk quite like a human would, but that isn't what you mean, is it, ma'am?"
Tika squees as she surfaces in the lounge cavern, look around at the humans.
Okay, Jessa's class is tending towards the chaotic at the moment, what with people discussing pipes with Tesia and others stumbling around. But the journeywoman continues nonetheless, since even in this disorganized array there is certainly something to be learned or at least observed. And it looks like someone is actually paying attention and putting her observations to use. Jess nods to Esmati, "That's actually exactly what I mean. Their language. For a while they were separated from humans, so their language changed a bit. So dolphinsingers also work with dolphin language and grammar and try to prevent it from, ah, deteriorating further." The dolphinsinger waves to Tika, "Hello Tika!"
Esmati always pays attention in class. It's one of her more aggravating points, really - though she actually does look quite interested. The girl steps back, slightly, obviously unwilling to venture *too* close to the water - within splashing range, specifically. "Oh, I see. How do they learn to speak? From their parents, the way people do?"
Tesia splashes idly with her fins, listening to the boring human talk. "J'ssa," She asks. "When your boring class done, harpers can come swim?" She flips on to her back, and swims a slight ways away from the ledge, reappearing to hear the answer.
Tytom steps back from the edge, sliding in behind Esmati
Jessa is just oh so hurt by Tesia's harsh words. "Of course they can." If they want to, but Jessa's not going to tell Tesia that and get her all excited over nothing if the Harpers decline. "They learn to speak from their parents, and specifically the Tillek, who is the oldest, wisest, and knows all the history from memory. The Tillek is also supposed to keep the language accurate." And obviously something didn't quite work right with this system. "Any other questions before we move on?"
Esmati's lips quirk. "So, the … Tillek … is sort of the Masterharper for dolphins? Though I'd feel sorry for a Masterharper who had to memorize everything without paper to help." Despite having just *asked* a question, the girl shakes her head. "No, ma'am."
Tytom nudges Esmati tords the edge
Luckily for Esmati, Jessa isn't too picky about details and all. "Essentially, yes. The Tillek is the historian for the dolphins." The journeywoman pauses and looks at the group. "So what kind of stories do you think that dolphins tell?"
Tesia squees, clicks and laughs, listening to Jessa for a moment. She watches Tony swim out to the Sea Lane. "We tell stories about Shad's." She squees loudly. "Podsisters tell us good stories about swimming and catching fish and…" She stops, realizing she's probably messing up Jessa's class again. "I Sorry, J'ssa."
"Oh, hm. Well, you said they have an oral history, so -" Normally, Esmati is fairly graceful on her feet, but a series of events conspire against her. Tytom's nudge comes just as the girl is in mid-sentence and failing to pay attention. Caught off balance, the girl only makes things worse for herself by overcompensating, and ends up - "Ack!" - tripping. Whoops.
Tytom reaches out his hand to catch Esmati, befor she hits the water
Yep, a chaotic class indeed. Jess says nothing about the lack of balance in this batch of students and instead nods and continues, "No problem Tesia, you're welcome to continue." Jessa did, after all, invite the dolphins, which implies that they're free to contribute. "Yes, they have an oral history. What kinds of events do you think they pass on?"
Esmati is probably blushing at the moment, though it's hard to tell with her dark complexion. The girl gives Tytom an extremely chilly nod of thanks, primly smoothing down her skirt. And taking a good long step back from the water. Well, then. "Um. Could you repeat the qu -" One of the other apprentices mutters it to her. "Oh. Really bad storms? Shipwrecks?"
Tony swims in from the southwest.
Tesia flops her head around happily, swimming up and down the ledge. Maybe this could be fun. Especially if one of them fell in. "Hissstory, G'ography." Her tone sounds like she's listing a litany of classes. "Fissh catching." She swims back over to where the bulk of apprentices are, and splashes a big splash on to the ledge. "Being nice to pod."
Tytom says, "the first thread fall, and the crossing from southern"
Tony goes home.
Jessa doesn't even flinch as Tesia plays 'splash the Harpers', a game quite similar to 'splash Jessa' apparently. "Right, they record history of important events such as storms, crossings, threadfall, shipwrecks… and other things that we may perceive as less important like fish flows and geographic changes. But that's important to /them/."
Esmati makes a face at the splash, even if she's far back enough that only her toes get touched. "What do you mean by 'fish catching' … Tesia?" She looks a bit hesitant talking directly to the dolphin. The girl turns her gaze to Jessa. "Is that what you mean by 'fish flows'?"
Tesia tilts her head toward Jessa, as if to say that the Dolphineer would answer the question. Her reply is less clear. "Like humans, learn to eat not messy." She says, meaning that little dolphins have to be taught to catch fish.
Jessa shakes her head at Esmati, "Tesia is talking about eating, I'm talking about the patterns that fish migrate in. They tell all sorts of stories about what goes on in the ocean, and some of that is important history to them that is passed down." The dolphinsinger smiles at Tesia and then looks over to her group of apprentices. "So, dolphins pass down history that is important to them, and what importance do you think this can of to us?"
Ihiske peers at Jessa before blowing out a spray of water to clear his blowhole, "Jessa has a lovely voice. For a human," he teases, this once choosing to speak correctly. He can. When he wants to that is.
Tytom smiles as he gets showered by water. "So, things like how weather affects the currents. They can show fisherman, where the fish are and where it is and is not safe to sail. They are probably also good at giveing weather warning"
"Well," says Esmati, slowly, "I know that we lost a lot of information about what happened before the Plague in the 6th Pass, because so many records were lost or deteoriated. Do they maybe help fill in the gaps? How far back does their history -" Ihiske's proper grammar makes her start. "I thought you said their speech was a little different than ours, ma'am?"
Jessa shakes her head to Tytom, "That isn't exactly history, that's news that they bring to the dolphineers and seacrafters to help them. It does become history if something big and important happened because of it though." Jess looks over at Ihiske. "G'day Ihiske," she says, grinning at the silly dolphin. "Well, for the most part their grammar and pronunciation is off, but that's because they were separated from us for so long, and they can learn to speak more like us." Jess takes a breather. "They also tell us stories about shipwrecks, and we can use those stories to correlate the finding of artifacts…" she says, giving an example of the use of their history.
Tesia dives under the water, and swims toward Ihi, popping up near him. "Hiii. J'ssa is teaching class." She says, trying to get her grammar as close as possible for the elder dolphin. "One almost fall in." She listens to Jessa, squeeing delightedly. "You find wreck?" It helps to listen to the teacher, silly 'phin.
Ihiske squees with mirth at the startled comment, "Some speak better," is the large dolphins comment, he turns an eye on the younger dolphin, "Wreck?" what'd he miss?
"Ohhh. I see. You've very good speech then, er, Ihiske." Esmati ruminates on Jessa's example, folding her hands demuring behind her back. "So they bring up artifacts? What sorts of things? I wouldn't think much would stay whole for very long in the ocean."
Ihiske bobs his head. He speaks good, but he knows 'phins that speak better, "Jessafish find wreckstuffs?" okay, so now he's not speaking well. That's hard work after all, and usually saved for very few people. Esmati is eyed for a moment, "Wreck stuffs. Old old stuffs. Lots of stuffs," he answers.
Tytom says, "so do they rember the stories of man's first arival in Pern?"
And dolphins have short attention spans. But they make up for it by being cute and sweet. And this class is rapidly divurging into the realm of slightly off-topic. "Er, no… there is no wreck, at least that I know of, I was just saying that dolphins tell stories about old shipwrecks and we can correlate that to findings in the ocean," Jessa says, catching the dolphins up. "Dolphins don't necessarily bring things up, but dolphineers and their partners find things like bracelets, old tools, boxes…" Jess says to Esmati, giving the girl a rather short version reply. "I think Mailli found something recently?"
Ihiske bobs his head, "Old stuffs. Lots of barncles on it," he answers helpfully. Always happy to talk about his Fish.
Tesia swims under the water back to the other side of the ledge, but just barely underwater. Most of her dorsal fin and back can be seen. "No wreccks." She says, sadly. "I found a ball a time." she says, remembering, popping up happily. Short attention span indeeed.
Esmati gives a thoughtful nod, though she looks a little disappointed at how mundane the list of discoveries is. "Oh, I see. What else do they do? Other than helping sailors and the rest of it?"
"There's a contract between dolphins and humans. Dolphins protect humans in the water and inform of weather, changes in conditions, tell them where the fish are, and help humans. In return humans take care of dolphins by removing bloodfish, and treat them when they're sick and stranded," is the brief reply given to Esmati because Jess is determined to move this course onwards in a direction. "So, we talked about the dolphin's grammar and pronunciation, what types of stories dolphins tell, and the use of such stories. So uh, would you like to /hear/ a story from their oral history?"
Ihiske bobs his head, flipping water towards the humans nearest him, "We 'membered the contract. Not forgett, long long time. Long long time we sing/No answer we hear/Long long time we search we guide/No thanks we are given after many many Turns/Long and longer we sing and we Guide/Long and longer do we seek to abide/Ever the contract to us it is new/Long long time." Ihi's voice fades slowly in the echoing of the lounge area, the mournful tone broken by the squee he lets loose with at the end.
Esmati opens her mouth to respond to Jessa, before going silent as Ihiske sings. "*Oh*. They really do sing!" She abandons her habitual reserve, looking utterly charmed. "Yes, I'd like very much to hear a story, thank you."
Jessa was going to sing one herself, but since Ihiske so nicely demonstrated, that spares Jessa from that task. The journeywoman crouches down next to the ledge to give Ihiske a scratch, assuming he wants one that is, and looks to the Harpers, "So… any questions?" Or rather, any last requests before they get tossed in the water? "Thanks for that, Ihiske."
Ihiske bobs his head and clacks his beak. Which sends water spraying into the air. Ooh, a scritch! "Scritchings?" aww, how pathetic?
Esmati clears her throat, recovering her scholarly air. "Er, no, ma'am. Thank you very much, it was very interesting … I've never seen dolphins up close before, they're very interesting." Yeah, that? That was pretty much her just *asking* to be dunked.
Jessa gives Esmati a close look, but just sort of half-shrugs it off as she looks down to Ihiske, "Yeah, scritchings!" she says to the dolphin, giggling at Ihiske as well. "Well, you're free to stay here and talk with the dolphins or go back to the Harper Hall. If you have any questions later feel free to seek me out and ask." This is the cue for the random apprentices to mill about and start chattering and making noise.
Ihiske squees happily as he tail walks back from the ledge far enough to slip down beneath the water a good ways. Another squee is given as he drops himself. And wait for it… Here he goes. Ihiske launches himself swiftly into the air in a full breaching and crashes back down into the water after turning a summersault.
Silly Ihiske. Jessa didn't even scritch the 'phin and he's freaking out. As the apprentices mill towards the exit, Jess stays crouched to spend time with the dolphins.
Ihiske bobs his head again, "Fun!" he states emphatically, "Come back? More fun?" is asked. Not that he wants the apprentices to stay, just that he would like to see them again.
Logfile from Jessa
