"Well, brother, if we add this mix to this beaker..." Landon said and pushed his glasses to the top of his eaglebeaked nose, "This, should happen!" He said with rare excitement tinging his medium toned voice. He dumped the glass tube with the klah extract into the beaker with the numbweed extract. He trust the beaker out to his twin, "Sniff this." He demanded and covered his nose as his twin took a whiff of the concotion. Landon laughed as Lannor, his almost-identical twin, screwed up his face with distaste.

Lannor frowned. "Lan, why didn't this work? We'll have to try it. You know that the mixture isn't harmful. It just reeks." He explained and ran a hand through mousy brown hair. Lannor was the bigger of the two boys, although each were identical, Landon's few minutes ahead arrival put him in charge of the exploration team.

The team consisted of nineteen-turn old Lannor (the field tech- in other words the grunt worker); Lillo, the hard-working brown flitter (who no one knows which boy he is bonded to) who serves as messenger; Esrai, a drudge told to watch over the boys since their parents are never around (she acts as lookout and materials gatherer) and of course, Landor, the leader and overseer of all.

Landor was also the most achieved of the twins, he takes the credit for the whole teams' work. He is also the most analytical, preferring to use "big words" and act like he's forty some-odd turns. Lannor, on the other hand, is more compatable with people, preferring to work with others and usually enjoying the commands. Commands meant less brainwork and the brainwork was left to his brother. Both were fairly smart, but Landor pushed his luck and Lannor merely coasted.

Both are apprentices to the starcraft and spend nights out watching stars. Waking hours (which are few in the day) are spent trying to find odd concotions that might earn them a few marks at the next Gather. The latest project was to strengthen klah enough to overpower the taste of the powdered juice to give patients more a of comfort.

Esrai peeked into the room and almost gagged. "What have you been making?" She asked, sounding like a mother flitter. She glanced around the clothes-strewn weyr and wondered how these two had ever been picked for candidacy. Weren't candidates supposed to be somewhat neat? Sure, Landor is the neat twin, but Lannor makes up for that... Too much to think about she thought and left.

The pair had been Searched to stand at Navi Weyr by a handsome blue and his wonderful rider. They now resided in a small candidate's weyr which could NOT be described as cozy. Landon cleaned it and Lannor messed it up, the balance tilted usually towards Lannor usually.

Both shared an uncanny interest in science and Lillo often being the brunt of their experiments. Landon smiled. "Lillo?" He asked and a muffled chirrup could be heard from under a pile of clothing. Lannor darted fowards and uncovered the large brown and held him firm. "Got him." He replied, answering his brother's unspoken command. Lillo's eyes swirled faster as he was set down on a table and allowed to stand upright. He put his wings out and chirruped questioningly as Landon brought the flask towards him. He chirruped alarmingly and Lannor warned him not to go /Between/ or else.

"Brother," Landon began, "we know this mixture will not have the effect we wish, so should we try it on his wing membrane?" Lannor smiled at that and held the brown's wing out gently.

"I've heated this abit more so it'll have more potentcy. Stand still Lillo and cease your movement!" He commanded smoothly and the brown stood still, eyes whirling a mixture of reds and blues.

Lannor held out the wing gently and Landon took a measure of the reddish-green goop out of the beaker. He blew on it some and spread it thinly onto the delicate brown wing membrane. Lillo was practically cooing, his eyes whirling a delightful blue, slow pattern.

Watching the flit croon with delight, Lannor let go of the wing and spread a measure of the stuff on the underside of his arm. Despite the fact that the mix was slightly warm, his underarm cooled magnificently and felt slightly numbed.

The feeling was different than the cold hardness of numbweed salve. The klah extract must have toned down the coldness of numbweed and added some of it's own properties. Landon stared, amused at his smiling brother and the crooning flitter.

"Report findings!" He declared, again excited and looked at the mixture in the beaker.

Lannor smiled, "Coolness, pleasant, better than numbweed salve and a spicy scent. I like it alot and so does Lillo, apparently. Weklah. Yes, the name fits it. Call it weklah!"

Pushing glasses up further onto his nose, Landon grinned and wrote down the finding on the hide and pulled out the stpes he took to get the mix. "Weklah is it. We also have the recipe for more, brother, the contents are easily avaliable and we shall go and get more ingredients, no? Lillo will be fine here. Mark the time. Let us see how long the effects last." He paused and looked at his notes, "the dosage I used on you was far lower than the normal amount of numbweed salve and the preparation had none of the normal numbweed stench!"

The twins had a reason to be excited.