Day 2, morning
Training

[* What are you thinking, my rider? *]

Tinker gave Narshada a fair shrug; one thing he'd learned in the 48 hours 
they'd been joined was that she could figure out what he was thinking 
without bothering to ask. Still, the fact she bothered to ask could have 
been taken as a good sign... if it hadn't been Narshada doing the asking. 
Whenever she'd asked that question before, he'd learned that it was just a 
politer way of saying, "I know what you're thinking, and I don't understand 
it."

"You know what I'm thinking," Tinker muttered, careful not to disturb N'lin 
as he was explaining some damned thing or other. His mind wasn't really in 
the training room, and both dragon and rider knew it. On the pad in front 
of him were a number of doodles that looked frighteningly like schematics - 
because they were. Any draftsman who laid eyes on them, though, would 
recoil in horror at the way things were labeled and annotated, as they 
didn't correspond to any measurement system in use in the Lands.

Just the one in Tinker's head.

Refining those schematics had the attention of his right hand; his left was 
making cuneiform-looking scratches on another pad - notes from the lecture, 
in an equally unknown and unknowable writing system. Everything N'lin said, 
every question posed by the other trainees, every snide remark made within 
hearing of either Tinker or Narshada was making its way directly from his 
brain to the paper, without so much as a fraction of thought being spent on 
it. He'd review the notes later to see what he missed, counting on Narshada 
to alert him to something important that needed direct notice.

Narshada's formed-and-forming mind was awhirl with concepts that confused 
her even more than the erratic and unexpected behavior of her rider. [* I 
know the thoughts, but not the meaning. Why are the marks your left hand 
makes different from the ones made by your right? *]

"Because words and numbers are different." Tinker's education was another 
victim of the Gingle's twisted hold over Windtide, having what could 
charitably be considered semi-literacy in the written language of the 
Lands. He could puzzle out letters and signs with some difficulty, but 
neither reading nor writing were taught to any significant degree, and 
neither to anything close to mastery.

However, that hadn't deterred Tinker in the slightest. When what he'd 
learned in school had failed him, he'd simply invented something to take 
its place. The note-taking system he used resembled shorthand in that the 
sigils and symbols used were phonetic in nature, reducing many words from a 
string of letters to a pair or trio of runic characters. They all had the 
odd property of being asymmetric in nature, and the writing style he used 
resembled the motions of plowing fields - left to right on one line, then 
right to left on the next. The way the characters were drawn made it 
obvious (to him, at least) by looking at them which way the line should be 
read.

The same could be said for the measurements he used on the drawings he'd 
made of the pathlamps he was creating. Thumbwidths, handspans, and pace 
lengths were the basics for short, medium, and long measurements 
respectively, and units of weight were based on equivalent amounts of water 
- everything from a droplet to a bucketful, in whatever vessels were 
appropriate to the magnitude of the weight being discussed. By the time 
he'd learned the Crown-sanctioned units of measurement, he'd been using his 
system long enough that it was simply more expedient to learn how to 
convert in his head than to change how he worked.

Sleep had eluded Tinker, unlike his draconian partner, and much of the 
night had been consumed in filling page upon page with drawings of 
different ideas for lamps and the equipment necessary to make them work. 
Just after sunrise, he'd visited the library looking for a map of the 
Warren; from it, he'd started working out how much piping and metal he'd 
need to make the dream a reality. Those numbers had been sobering; if he 
had to cast the pipe and work the steel himself, it could take over a 
year's work in the forge.

Provided the forge was workable at all. He still hadn't ascertained that 
fact for himself since gaining Merissa's tentative permission to reactivate 
the Warren's smithy and step into it as at least a part-time blacksmith. It 
was true that a good forge was practically indestructible, but time and 
disuse had a way of making even the most permanent of things degrade beyond 
function.

Into his storm of thoughts came Narshada's tentative, intruding voice. [* 
Tinker, your attention is going to be needed soon. *]

His reply was a muttered, "Why?"

[* Trefoil and Gwyndaleth are being quite amused over my sire's rider's 
discomfort with the subject material. I believe that you are to be taught 
how to mate today. I've been talking to them, and they say that your 
discomfort with human mating may come from not knowing how to do it, so 
this should be of great benefit to you. I know you can do it if you focus 
on it like you do those silly lights of yours. *]

"They're *not* silly," he hissed under his breath, drawing Cybele's 
attention from their instructor.

The sword-dancer's sapphire eyes sparkled in the training room's 
illumination, indirect sunlight flashing red-gold highlights through her 
dark blonde hair still swaying from when she'd turned her head toward him. 
"What's not silly?" she asked, only then remembering how he spoke to his 
dragon in those same hushed tones. Her sudden attention brought a sharp 
flush of embarrassment to Tinker's face which she graciously looked away from.

Tinker noticed a bit of color in her own cheeks as she realized she'd just 
overheard something she probably shouldn't have. "Nevermind," he muttered, 
both to Narshada and Cybele. The next thing he was aware of was N'lin's 
piercing gaze boring directly in on him as the rider-instructor cleared his 
throat pointedly.

Cheeks stained pink suddenly darkened a dozen shades as Tinker slinked 
lower in his seat, trying to get out of sight as quickly as possible.

'At least I have everyone's attention now,' N'lin thought to himself as he 
moved toward the subject he'd been dreading getting to.

[[ snip from Bridget's post ]]

Smiling weakly, he cleared his throat and began.

"For today's lesson, we usually would split you up, but since you all have, 
ah, female dragons, I decided it would make more sense to keep you all 
together.  Anyways, today we're going to talk about, um, mating flights.

"Basically, a mating flight it when a female dragon goes into heat, and 
leads the male dragons on a merry chase until one of them catches 
her.  Once she is caught, the pair of them usually fly off and, ah, copulate."

"By that, he means they have sex, dragon style," Meredith added from the side.

"For the most part, yes," N'lin agreed, shooting her a sidelong glare.  She 
had stubbornly insisted that he give this particular lesson even though he 
was lacking a certain perspective on the subject.  For one thing, he was 
joined to a male dragon, and, for another, he had never had a mating flight 
without something going nastily wrong.  So now, he had to convince a group 
of mostly land bound students that mating flights were perfectly natural 
and enjoyable, even though he still had the occassional nightmare about his 
first.  Meredith, naturally, was enjoying every moment of his discomfort.

"Anyways, by means of the link between you and your dragon, when they have 
ah sex, so do you."  N'lin risked actually looking at his audience and saw 
several blushes.  "Since you are all joined to female dragons, you all most 
likely will be partnered with a man."

This time he looked pointedly at Tinker, and almost felt sorry for the 
guy.  Meredith had told him about the cavern, and N'lin didn't think he was 
going to take the next bit of news well.

"Cross joinings are a special case.  By cross joined, we generally mean 
that a woman has joined with a male dragon, or a man has joined with a 
female.  Such individuals tend to prefer sex with those of the same gender, 
but not exclusively.  The dragons don't particularily care either way, and 
when your dragons go into heat, I'm sure all of you will enjoy the 
experience tremedously, whomever you are partnered with."

"Any questions so far?" Meredith piped in.

He barely hid a wince, gods he hoped not.

[[ /snip ]]

For a handful of heartbeats, the class just said nothing, letting the 
silence hang uncomfortably over everyone's heads like a highly-charged 
Sword of Damocles. Tinker digested what N'lin had said, and found that it 
didn't at all agree with him - literally. His Adam's apple bobbed several 
times in quick succession as he swallowed repeatedly to keep the sour taste 
that was climbing the back of his throat where it belonged in his stomach. 
The faint dusty pink that most people had come to believe was his permanent 
skin coloration drained out of his face, a sickly greenish pallor taking 
its place.

He tried not to notice that everyone, women and man, was looking more or 
less directly at him - the fact that they were trying so hard NOT to look 
at him made it that much worse for the attention-phobic man. Tiny beads of 
sweat formed on his forehead as uncomfortable warmth filled him from 
within, and silently, Tinker sent a prayer to the gods of fire and earth to 
please open a chasm beneath him and let the fires within the world's heart 
consume him rather than endure it any longer.

[* My rider, what is wrong? *]

At first, it looked as though the shadows in the training cavern had 
themselves come to life, as Narshada's sleek form seemed to just appear 
next to Tinker from within them. Her long grey neck craned around to look 
at him with eyes the color of the night sky for a moment that seemed an 
eternity, then she nuzzled him softly with her snout, its fine scales 
slipping over his skin like silk.

"I'll be alright," he managed weakly, even if he didn't believe that 
statement for a moment himself. He tried to envision Nar getting caught in 
a mating heat and rising into the air as N'lin described, great wings the 
color of storm clouds beating frantically to elude the males that pursued 
her... and, on the ground, saw himself acting like the woman he'd met who'd 
fallen victim to her own rising dragon's spell and done her best to mate 
with him.

Tentatively, he raised a hand, not waiting for N'lin's acknowledgement 
before asking in a most anxious voice, "Um... what if you don't *want* to 
mate when your dragon does?"

N'lin was taken flatfooted by the question, blinking at Tinker a few times. 
"Maybe you didn't understand. When... when Narshada goes into heat and 
rises, you'll feel it every bit as strongly as she does. You'll... I mean, 
there's no way you wouldn't want to when it happens." The subject matter 
seemed to have transferred Tinker's permanent flush to their instructor. 
"It's a very powerful urge."

"No, I understood that," Tinker corrected gently. "What I meant was... 
well, what if you don't want to do it. What if you don't like the idea and 
don't wish to... well, I mean, if this was a schoolyard activity, what if 
you didn't want to play the game at all, even if the teacher said you *had* 
to?"

******
NRPG: Tag Bridget! Throw ME a hot potato, will ya? <WEG> All I ask if/when 
you bounce off this is that somehow, Tinker leaves the class. Either 
dismiss it or just have him turn pale, nod, gather his things and leave. I 
say this because...
******

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Day 2, a little after lunchtime
The Forge

Having had more than enough education for one day, Tinker had fled, with 
Narshada hot on his tail.

His choices in places to flee, though, were limited. He couldn't go to his 
'room' because it was in the training cavern - the last place he wanted to 
be right now. That same reason kept him from talking to Adeliannae - she 
was still in the training area. It didn't help that he couldn't look at her 
without seeing her acting on her queen-dragon's mating urges - for that 
matter, every rider he saw as he moved through the Warren drew the same 
mental imagery.

This fact amused Narshada no end, which took the edge off of her grave 
concern for her rider. He hadn't gone as far as to try to shut her out, but 
he was being unresponsive - something she knew meant he was trying to deal 
with things in his own way. Which meant, she knew, just burying the real 
problem behind a stack of other things. The smoky-colored dragonet loved 
him inside and out, hair to toenails, but one of the things she loved most 
about her Thralenkier was that when he put his mind to a task, his 
normally-jumbled thoughts attained a beautiful and chilling purity of 
purpose that filled her massive heart with awe.

If ignoring problems worked for him, she wasn't about to second-guess it - 
in her world, he could do no wrong. Besides which, she reasoned, he'd have 
to learn how to mate eventually. Nar found it somewhat disquieting to think 
that her mating urges would make him want to do so when, for all her jibes 
and teasing, she knew he didn't think he was ready to do so. For a young 
dragon, Narshada was very philosophical, and she wondered why humans made 
such a big deal out of something as simple as mating.

[* What is this place, my rider? *] she asked when they arrived at a 
largish building set mostly off by itself within the merchant's quarter of 
the Warren's enclaves.

"It's the smithy, Nar," he replied, only partially present in the 
conversation as he took in the sight of the place with a critical 
professional eye. "It's where I'm going to be working."

The large, rough-hewn stone building didn't show much by way of age, but 
that wasn't unremarkable, as it wouldn't show anything like that for a few 
more decades. The heavy cast-iron doors were sealed shut with a fair-sized 
chain and padlock, the latter of which didn't hold out long against 
Tinker's concerted efforts to trip its mechanism with a set of picks taken 
from his ever-present backpack.

Once inside, he left the doors open wide to admit light to allow his eyes 
to roam the shadow-cast main area where customers would come to purchase 
wares and bring in items to be repaired. There was actually a decent amount 
of stock present from the last smith, who Tinker had learned had died in 
the last bombing attack against the Warren by the Cult of the Blindfolded 
Lady... about a year ago, he'd been told. Tinker immediately wondered just 
how the Warren had managed without a resident blacksmith for so long, then 
remembered that many of the Warren's goods and services were part of their 
tithes.

How much broken equipment was lying around then? For that matter, where was 
his stock of ores to work with? Slowly and methodically, Tinker moved 
through the fair-sized merchant building, opening shutters and windows and 
investigating what sort of workplace he'd inherited.

Narshada remained outside, despite her body being small enough to fit 
inside. She'd peeked inside when he'd opened the door and come to the fast 
conclusion that while she might fit inside, there wasn't room for her to 
walk with him without knocking one or twenty things over. She'd satisfied 
herself with wandering around to the back of the building, and finding a 
truly huge apparatus sitting there beneath a ramshackle roof. [* My rider, 
what is this out here? *]

Much as Cara had loaned her hearing to Eleanora - a process Narshada had 
been intensely interested in, even if it hadn't worked out quite as well as 
the duo had hoped - Narshada shifted her perceptions just enough to let 
what she saw filter through the link between herself and her soulmate. The 
sharing was short-lived, though, as a loud crashing sound erupted from 
within the building, and she broke the link at once as she concentrated on 
moving her pony-sized bulk over to the window nearest where she knew Tinker 
to be.

Her mindvoice didn't betray the sense of panic she felt as she asked, [* 
What happened? Are you alright? *]

More, but smaller, sounds of clutter being moved in haphazard ways passed 
before her prying eyes were rewarded with the appearance of Tinker's 
now-rumpled hair in the windowpane, followed by his hands lighting on the 
sill and a shuddering grunt as he picked himself up off the ground. "I 
couldn't see where I was going," he half-growled as he nursed at what 
promised to be a considerable lump on his head. "Next time you're going to 
do that, warn me first, OK?"

[* You're alright, *] Nar pronounced, based solely on the tone of his 
voice. [* So what did you see? What is it? *]

He shook his head slightly, wincing a bit as his brain complained about 
being rattled around again within his skull. "That's the forge. It's where 
I'll be working on metal."

[* How does it work? *]

"I'm not sure it works at all," he said honestly as he made his way outside 
and over to the heart of the forge. "It's been out of use for quite a 
while..." His voice drifted into silence as he focused his attentions on 
the forge itself. It was of a good size, and appeared to have been carved 
and shaped from a single piece of granite. It had four bellows arranged 
around it, intricate mechanical linkages linking the air pumps together so 
they could be operated by one person. With slight adjustments of a single 
rod, the amount of air per stroke could be varied, and each bellows could 
be taken out of the linkage without disrupting the others, allowing an 
incredible amount of control on the amount of air being blown into the furnace.

Thick steel arms on strong hinges were arrayed in various ways, allowing 
crucibles or smelting pots to be swung into and out of the fires with fair 
ease. Procuring a small can of oil from his pack, Tinker squeezed some of 
the lubricant into each of the hinges and let it soak for a few moments 
before swinging the arms back from the hearth, their loud squealing protest 
hinting at the disuse they'd endured. The grates in the bottom of the 
firepit told him what he needed to know - the forge was run on coal - but 
there were some other things down in the bottom that gave him pause, and he 
backed out while clapping his hands together to dust some soot from them.

"Looks like it's coal-fired," he explained to his impatient partner as he 
walked around the huge fornace chamber, "though these things come in from 
the outside... aha!" The odd nozzle shapes he'd seen inside the pit were 
connected to valves and pipes leading into the ground - pipes he recognized 
as being the sort used to move cooking gas around to where it was needed.

"Well, that's one problem solved," Tinker said to no one in particular. "I 
can just branch off those pipes for the gaslights."

He continued his inspection, his nosy dragon following along as he 
explained what he came across - the ore pile, scrap heap, and the coal 
stocks for the forge. The last of those met with his intense disapproval, 
as the lean-to roof over them had collapsed from neglect and allowed the 
rain and dust elements to soak into it. The ground around the coal stock 
was soaked with leached-out tars and other impurities enough to make 
walking through it an adventure in filth.

"That'll never do. Looks like junk coal to begin with," he groused, "and 
the gods only know how badly it'll burn after this much weathering." He 
stepped back a bit and scratched his head in thought. "Now where in the 
heck am I going to get new coal from?"

 From behind him, a woman's voice rang out, saying "Pav'lo can help."

With a squeal of surprise, Tinker half-turned, half-jumped around to face 
the source of the sound. He saw that it came from a rather young-looking 
woman with reddish-gold hair and sparkling green eyes that made her seem 
not so much older as wiser than her apparent years. "Pav'lo... I don't know 
the name."

She looked at him somewhat askance, peering past him to regard the 
watchful, poised form of Narshada. "A newly-joined rider and you don't know 
who Pav'lo is?" she asked incredulously. "And what're you doin' here in the 
smithy, nosin' around like a kid?"

Tinker blushed brightly under the midday sun and looked awkwardly down at 
the ground. "Oh, sorry... my-- my name's Thralenkier, but most folks call 
me Tinker. I'm... I'm the new Warren blacksmith."

"Oh, wonderful!" the woman exclaimed. Suddenly she remembered herself and 
came down just as quickly as she'd gone up. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know 
where I left my manners. My name's Tandra, and I run the tailor's just down 
the way. I was coming back from lunch and saw that someone had opened the 
place up, and I got curious. When do you think you'll be ready for business?"

Business? Tinker blanched a little at the question, unsure just how to 
answer it. "Well, it'll be a couple of days before I'm satisfied everything 
is worth keeping, and I need to go see this Pav'lo to get new coal so I 
don't blow anything up, then some more time to get things cleaned up and 
working... call it anywhere from a week to a fortnight." Provided he could 
get usable coal, he knew the time would be much faster than that to get the 
forge up and running, but she'd asked about being ready for business - and 
he had the pathlights to contend with first.

Tandra's mood didn't seem to shift at all from her excitement. "Oh, that is 
simply wonderful. We didn't realize how much we depended on Aedelrith for 
his metalwork until... until he died in the bombing. The whole warren's 
been knackered up badly having to wait all the time for things to be 
shipped in with the next tithe caravan. You won't be hurting for trade at 
all... oh, dear."

"What?" Tinker asked, both his ears and Narshada's perking at the change in 
Tandra's tone.

Her face was a mask of concern and confusion. "Well, I was just 
wondering... I've never heard of a joined craftsman before. How will your 
duties to the wings affect your work here?"

"Merissa and I agreed that my wing duties came first," he replied, his tone 
shaky at first but growing quickly into a firm, business-like and almost 
authoritarian tone. "But considering Narshada's still a baby, I don't see 
it interfering all that much. As she grows, she can spend more time with 
the... with the other d-dragons and I can work here. It can be done... it 
*will* be done."

Tandra's smile was warm and bright like the beautiful yet functional 
working dress she wore. "That's good to hear. If there's anything I can do 
to help, feel free to ask."

He gave it a moment's thought, then said, "Well, I will need some 
coveralls. Leather, preferably, or sail canvas. Would I talk to you, or do 
we have a leatherman here in the Warren?"

The elfin tailor's eyes lit with the promise of a challenge. "I can do 
either. My... predecessor, Barry, used to do Aedelrith's coveralls and 
gloves, I understand, in exchange for keeping his shears sharp and 
pincushions full." Increasing the brightness of her smile, Tandra's voice 
took on a playful quality. "We'll work something out. I should let you get 
back to your work, though."

As long as he looked at just her face, Tinker didn't have any of the 
butterfly attack squadrons on maneuvers in his stomach, so his gaze never 
wavered from the twin verdant pools of intelligence that regarded him in 
return. "Thank you for coming by," he said with an uncharacteristic smile. 
"I'm sure I'll see you around."

"Indeed," she tossed back casually as she spun on her heel and walked back 
toward the street.

Only when she disappeared from sight did he realize he'd never gotten an 
answer to his question about who this Pav'lo was.

[* I can help, my rider, *] Narshada offered when she sensed his 
self-reproachment. [* Dam says that Pav'lo is Punkin's rider. He's the 
human quartermaster, which she says means he's in charge of the Warren's 
supplies and where people live. She cautions me that you may find him hard 
to deal with... he's rather intimidating. *]

"She's never met my mother," Tinker quipped back, even as he was silently 
thankful for the warning. Forewarned is forearmed, and his ego was already 
bruised to bleeding. One more nasty surprise and he might just go find a 
hole to crawl into. All he'd done since his arrival is walk on eggshells, 
and his metaphorical feet were mighty sore about it. Tinker's need to get 
to work was conflicting with both his unease about most of the Warrenfolk, 
and his insecurity about being 'that guy from Windtide'.

Unless someone came up with a way to squeeze more hours into a day, there 
were things that just had to get cut out. Useless things that didn't get 
him any closer to getting things done. Things like trucking across the 
Warren to meet up with someone who wasn't known for his social graces, who 
might not be able to help him anyhow.

"Tell ya what, Nar... I don't have time to go chasing all over the place 
over this. Talk to Punkin. Have him talk to Pav'lo. Find out what needs to 
be done to get some decent coal over here." Tinker stalked back over to the 
forge, stopping along the way to gather up scoops and shovels with which to 
start cleaning it out. "I'm also going to need a fair-sized cart or two to 
get rid of what's in that bin back there. No rush, but my complements to 
the man whose reputation precedes him... that sort of thing."

Narshada followed him, her head tracking his movements as he worked. [* I 
do not understand. What is 'that sort of thing'? *]

"One thing I learned in my apprenticeship," he explained, "was that people 
like having their egos stroked. In that, at least, we're just as guilty of 
loving it as much as your kin are. When you want something from someone, 
you have to stroke their egos first... preferably without lying, which will 
get you caught at it. So instead, one of the safest ways to do it is to 
just say things that will let people stroke their OWN egos."

After a long moment's thought, Narshada's head bobbed. [* I think I see. So 
by telling Punkin that I'm acting on your behalf, Punkin will think the 
matter is more important, since even a dragonet's time is more important 
than petty trifles. And by complementing 'the man whose reputation precedes 
him', you're letting Pav'lo's inflated sense of self-worth fill in the 
blanks about how impressed you are with him, which will result in more 
favorable treatment on his part. *]

Tinker's grin was one of amusement and praise. "That's it exactly, Nar."

Narshada seemed to take this in and digest it somewhat, only to follow it 
up with a question that took Tinker completely by surprise. [* Then why do 
you not employ this with Merissa to get more time here at the forge? Or 
with Lady Sarah the teacher to fill in the gaps in your knowledge that you 
think rather loudly about at times? These are things you want, yet you do 
not stroke their egos to get it. *]

"It's different with women," Tinker said, all signs of his nascent 
confidence missing entirely from voice and posture. "It's... it's just 
different." He dropped the subject rather abruptly and turned back to his work.

Being a dragon, Narshada felt she had a unique perspective on the human 
situation in general, and Tinker's situation specifically. Was there really 
that much difference between human men and women? Outwardly, they didn't 
seem all that different. Women were shaped a little differently, and men 
tended to be physically stronger. The real differences were inside them, 
though.

She had the utmost faith in her rider. She knew he was a good, decent 
person... albeit one with a few little issues. Women intimidated him. 
Crowds terrified him. But that was understandable in context. The few women 
he'd known in his youth had been authority figures, and the durance that 
passed for life in Windtide had made them rather stern figures indeed. 
Factored into that was Tinker's chosen trade - smithing - which took great 
mental and physical strength... and tended to be a task performed in solitude.

He wasn't as hopeless as he believed. He was just inexperienced. Tinker's 
weakness was being unprepared for dealing with most people, and he had the 
typical loner's aversions to being in group situations. If he had a chance 
to think ahead, to plan what he wanted to accomplish, and knew something of 
the individuals he had to work with to accomplish it, there was nothing he 
couldn't do.

Punkin's reaction to Narshada's polite, almost obsequious bid for the older 
dragon's attentions proved that Tinker knew what he was talking about - 
Punkin had, as expected, decided this was an Important Issue if Narshada 
was involved. Obviously something important to the entire Warren, and worth 
disturbing the two of them. Pav'lo had immediately responded with an 
invitation for Tinker to use the Warren's coal stocks. Then he had added 
that Lord Fowler was in-Warren and would be at the wing party/wedding that 
night, and suggested that since Fowler was the main source of the Warren's 
coal tithes, that speaking directly to the Lord would be better for 
Tinker's needs.

A little smile formed on Narshada's snout, as well as her physiology would 
permit - though it looked rather ominous in how it bared her fangs. That 
task had been almost too easy, and after a few polite inquiries among some 
of the other dragons, Narshada realized just how much easier it had been to 
get the answers she'd needed by listening to stories from others on the 
perils of dealing with the quartermaster and his dragon.

There was something to this ego-stroking business...

A bright mid-day sun glimmer reflected from the smoky, glassy orbs of 
Narshada's eyes as she studied her rider working at cleaning out the 
forge's fire pit. He'd taught her that to get what you want out of people, 
you had to make them feel good about themselves first.

She wanted Tinker to be the happy, confident person that she saw in private 
moments like this one.

To get what she wanted, she had to make him feel good about himself.

Like some monstrous machine coming to life, the gears and wheels in her 
head began spinning faster and faster.

_____________________
NRPG: I promise, I'll get to Day 2's night soon. This one had just grown to 
the point where I thought it'd be better to kick it out of the nest and 
start a new one rather than keep going from here.
_____________________
Respectfully submitted,

Brian Cook as Tinker/Narshada


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