Not-so Ancient History
What: Aivey has a specific purpose in mind for when she comes to visit J'lor.
Who: J'lor and Aivey
Where: J'lor/Vellath's Weyr
Vellath and J'lor's Weyr
The cavern is set high on the cliff wall and offers a sparing ledge that is adequate enough for a blue dragon but would prove cramped for the larger colors. The inner weyr is equally modest and allows enough room for a mattress piled high with furs and a roughly hewn desk and chair. A woven rug, the colors dulled and the cloth threadbare, is spread out on the floor. A newer and more brightly colored weaving hangs on one of the walls, and if it is novicely made, it is at least cheerful. The only other decoration is a single hide posted up on the stone wall next to the mattress. It is crinkled with age, the worn image depicting a rider and a blue dragon with color and markings clearly intended to be Vellath's. The drawing looks to be done in a child's hand.
It's heading toward the end of the day when most people are looking forward to retiring for the night. For Aivey, living with a rider has its benefits. She's come to know E'sere's schedule, and by proxy, some of J'lor's. Such is why she arrives now, choosing a time she's calculated J'lor will be home and available for a nice long chat. Thus the scramble of feet up the slope, the habitual cursing under her breath and at last, Aivey herself at the entrance of J'lor's weyr. A moment after she's regained her breath and pushed a sopping 'braid over her shoulder, Aivey calls out, "Mind company?"
It's the cursing, really, that's the giveaway. J'lor was lying on his bed for once, on his stomach, in nothing but a pair of loose pants. eyes closed. Not so much sleeping as trying to ignore the aches that extra drills and running with the weyrlings are creating in his spine and shoulders and upper legs. Vellath is coiled on the ledge and it is he that responds to Aivey first with a sort of hybrid between a growl and a hiccup. But perhaps, has his eyes are dark blue and whirl slowly, it's meant to be a friendly sound?
When Aivey announces herself, the bluerider pushes himself into a sit, choking back a groan as he reaches for a shirt and begins to pull it on. "-course, Aivey," (the 'of' gets lost as the collar is jerked over his head) "Please come in."
With such greetings, Aivey truly feels loved and it's any wonder she's not grinning from ear to ear. As it stands, she's fiddling with a stone, palming it and revealing it before switching it from one hand to the other. Fidgetting, if not openly so. "I can always come back," she says after a quick look toward the bluerider as he pulls on a shirt, "Never mean to interrupt." At least it sounds genuine. Still, Aivey has enough manners that she doesn't move any further into the weyr until she's bade, and then it's in she goes, head half-bowed with either concentration or respect to J'lor's privacy. "I was hoping I could talk."
"I never know when to expect company," J'lor admits with a small smile. "I don't always present very well. My apologies. Please come in, and we shall talk." He gestures to a spot on the edge of the bed near to where he sits himself. "Or we can move to the floor, if you'd rather." The weyr is, at least, tidyish.
"Bed, floor...doesn't matter," Aivey counters as she makes an abrupt change of course and moves to head to the bed, to the spot he's offered no less, before settling there. She's a little wet, what with the island being in a wet season and all, but not to the point where she's soaked through. As she stills, the stone continues to switch hands and becomes the focus of Aivey's attention. "How're things going? All around sort of going, I mean."
"All right, I think," the bluerider muses, arching his back with a wince. "The weyrlings are coming along, I think. The turn is turning. No injuries last 'fall. Things seem steady." His eyes rest on Aivey. Patient. Curious. "And with you?"
There's a faint frown at mention of 'fall, a twist of Aivey's lips and a rather tight clenching of her fist around the stone. Successive and quick, they've come and gone all in the pause of one breath, "I'm getting restless. But that's kind of obvious, isn't it?" Tilting her head and cutting a look to J'lor, Aivey studies the bluerider before shaking her head, "Anyways, I was hoping you might entertain me with some stories. Information, you know, the typical."
"It's perhaps a little bit obvious," J'lor says with a small laugh. He leans back on his hand, looking down at the stone and the way Aivey's hand squeezes it. "Stories? What sort?"
"About way back when. When all of this was just a twinkle in your eye... maybe about some of what happened along the way - if you've got anything I can take and run, I'll even settle for that." The stone continues twitching, Aivey's hands constantly moving and her head once more bowed as though it takes all of her concentration to keep things this way.
"Ancient history then. What's got you wondering about that?" Still, the bluerider seems more tickled than pensive. He looks upwards now, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment. "It was a long time coming, really. Sort of a winding road. Nera, when I met her, was the first to suggest we could do it differently. Before that, I was trying to petition the Weyrleader for little changes. Well, little comparatively, I suppose." Chuckle. "That sort of thing, you mean?"
"I'm restless," Aivey explains to his first question, "Trying to figure this all out... it's not so easy and it's not like they had a library full of information at the 'Reaches-" Another look to the bluerider draws a brushing of the back of her hand against her face, "So it started with Nera? Do you think you'd have gotten anything done if you would've stuck to the Weyrleader?"
"The gathering of people started with Nera. The ideas came before that," J'lor says. "I suppose I had been trying with the Weyrleader for some turns. He and I...he'd always hear me out and always reject my suggestions immediately. I don't know that he even listened after a while. Through B'sano...no. I would have gotten nothing. I did get nothing."
"They call that humoring," Aivey informs J'lor, "Like you do with me, sometimes," The stone skips to the opposite hand, is clenched tight; at rest, for the moment. "So you tried your route, and when it was obvious you were heading nowhere, you went with Nera?" The assumption is given to the floor, her question the bluerider, "When did my father come into the picture?"
"I went with Nera when I found Nera. We met at a gather. We talked. She listened." J'lor places a bit of emphasis on the last word and a bit of wonder. "She heard my thoughts and she wanted to do something with them. Derek..." and even in musing, J'lor's voice drops a bit and the smile fades, "was one of the first I spoke to once Nera and I began to look for others. He wanted change. He was already a guard captain and he made it sound as if we wanted the same things."
"He made it sound that way," Aivey is careful to phrase such neutrally, to let none of that fondness creep into her voice that tends to whenever mention of her father is made, "Nera I can understand but..." She trails off, shaking her head and looking back to J'lor, "You trusted him still, back then." Dangerous trap, that.
"I saw what I wanted to see," is J'lor's response to that tangled question. "For a while. And then, Nera trusted him and I trusted Nera, so things went on for a while more. And then it all spun out of control and people were getting hurt and S'val said he had a friend who might help. And the rest, as they say, is history." Just not the good sort.
"Brief history," Aivey confirms with a small frown, "What else, though? Before - what sorts of things did you ask my father to do... or did he just do them and tell you about it? And afterwards. When it all fell apart." There's more not-looking, stone-switching and a slight shift as Aivey tries to find a more comfortable spot.
"I tried to ask him things, but Derek always had his own ideas about what we should and shouldn't try next. And he never...he always spoke tactics with Nera. He'd come by when I was at Telgar, they'd talk, she'd tell me what the next move was going to be. She always made it sound reasonable. Necessary. I...like to think that she believed it to be so." J'lor glances down at his knees for a moment and then up at the stone ceiling again. "After? Well, we were caught, tried, and sent away. Settling here, do you mean?"
Aivey accepts the bit about her father with the smallest of smiles, but doesn't comment on it. The story progresses and she stays still for it, up to when she's questioned for clarification. That the stone makes another leap from one hand to the next, and is shifted about within that palm helps suggest it's not her meaning. "The trial," Aivey prompts, "Who was there - who led it, oversaw it and all that. Did you guys know what was waiting for you at the end of it all?"
A slow breath is drawn in through J'lor's nose. "The Masterharper oversaw the trial. There were so many of us, it was hardly a surprise," he says with a faint smile. "It was held at Fort, in the Grand Hall or...something. I don't remember. A big cavernous room they'd filled with chairs. It felt like most of Harper was there taking notes. I don't recall specific names. At the end, well, not really. Some thought we'd be staked. Derek nearly was. We couldn't see how they'd exile all of us but..." Shrug. "There you have it."
"They almost staked him?" No flinch for that. Anger, but it's to be expected. And something harder to define that puts a glint in Aivey's eyes, for she looks to the bluerider for confirmation. At his shrug, the point is dropped...tucked away, even, for later discussion with the man himself. A harder note enters her voice now, "And who was responsible for ensuring enough information was collected when no one was willing to talk?"
"Well, staking was discussed. He was...he'd built a reputation by then. His violence. But Kazamir noted that what was done to one of us had to be done to all of us, so that put the debate to rest." J'lor's eyes slide down and over to Aivey, brows furrowing at this last question. "I...haven't the foggiest, Aivey. Nobody bothered to tell us that sort of thing."
Aivey maintains a neutral expression come yet more news on her father - news she's undoubtedly looking to with the wrong sort of insight. J'lor's vague reply at the end earns a new approach, "Then tell me who did the collecting." The stone has stopped switching - Aivey herself has stopped moving entirely.
Brows have hitched lower and J'lor's expression is an actual frown now. "What...exactly are you asking me, Aivey?"
"When people know they're screwed they tend not to cooperate...unless they're properly motivated to do so." Aivey's scrutiny tightens, her tone drops another level, "I want to know who did the torturing and who allowed it."
"Aivey," Her name has a bit of disapproval threaded through it. "Is that what you're doing with your restlessness? Plotting to get back at those you think wronged us?" One of J'lor's brows arches. "Vengeance is a fool's game, and anyhow, I have no names to give. The men never bothered to introduce themselves or list their superiors for us."
"Yes, J'lor. I plan on exacting revenge from this very island," Aivey's use of J'lor's name is more droll then disapproving, "-I want to know. I want to know so I can understand. And if you have no names to give me on /who/ did it-" Disapproval now, "Then at least answer me this. Who was capable of ordering this to happen? The Masterharper?" A tilt of Aivey's head brings her study more square upon J'lor's, turning what has been up to this point a surface-level study to an intrusive one, "I promised my father I wouldn't seek vengeance. If that's what you're worried about."
The bluerider listens, though the faint frown remains on his features. For the first, the idea of revenge via island, J'lor notes, almost sulkily, "That wasn't what I meant." But then he lapses back into silence. Finally he says, "The Masterharper, I suppose. Maybe the Lord of Fort. Someone had to provide the cells and the men...I...think we were still in Fort then." It may say something that J'lor isn't positive. "The men who...saw to us changed. And there were different dialects, so I suspect they came from various places. It was organized. So perhaps a better question might be 'who in power did -not- know', now that I come to think on it."
A faint tightening of Aivey's lips might suggest an amused smile, but just as quickly as that assumption might be made, it changes to something most distinctly unamused. "That would be a big list of people to kill," Aivey surmises, once more fidgeting with the stone, "You're unsure..." A quick beat, "How long was it? From start to finish, before they were satisfied they'd gotten all they could?"
"I don't..." the bluerider frowns again, blinking slowly up at the ceiling. "We were taken in the second month. The trials started...the fourth? Yes, because the sentence was passed in the fifth. Her birthday and mine." That last is murmured very softly. "Two months we were questioned. A few of us a few weeks longer, but it stopped mostly when the trial began."
"You. My father and... Nera." Aivey's assumption is on one name alone, now, though not as blindly as it had been before. Aivey's jaw works between clenching and opening to almost offer another question or insight, but in the end its only clenched and the stone switched between her hands.
"Anybody who was violent or seen as a leader," is J'lor's quiet reply to Aivey's supposition.
Aivey's reply is even quieter. "I should probably go now," The strain in keeping her voice that level is audible, and the twitch of the stone between her hands stills altogether as she clutches it in one white-knuckled fist. Its as she rises and turns to face J'lor that more reactions betray her - the brushing of the closed fist against her jaw just over a still visible bruise, the flush of her cheeks and the tight swallow before a rough, "-anything else?"
The rider studies Aivey, but for once there are no well-selected words of comfort. Only a quiet chinjerk upwards towards that fading bruise. "What happened?" That's what else.
Comfort in any shape or form would be pointless which might become known when Aivey looks at J'lor for his question, her expression more betraying then anything else: vivid anger and nothing short of such. Though it's directed not at the bluerider, but the information gleamed from him, it still taints her curt reply. "I made a mistake." Then, the quickest pause ever before she turns her back to him, "Thanks for the talk."
And that, really, answers that. "Vellath and I will take you down." Because it's dark and raining. "I'm not requesting." J'lor pushes to a stand, swallowing down a wince as he follows Aivey while she skulks away.
"Afraid I'll slip and fall? Break my neck?" Curt tone continuing, Aivey turns to look at J'lor from over her shoulder, "I'll be fine." Dismissive of his not-request, Aivey's steps quicken as she tries to beat him to the ledge where Vellath is already waiting. Small problem, there.
"Yes," is the simple answer. "Come on. You want to leave, he's not going to let you. Save yourself time and irritation and climb aboard." J'lor, once he arrives at the ledge, leans idly against Vellath's arm. The blue makes a rather handy barrier.
"Afraid of him, more likely," is Aivey's softly muttered comment. Still, she detours to approach the blue and does a quick size-up before scrambling (literally) aboard. Vellath is treated to all the same jabs, knee-pokes and kicks Morelenth has likely become accustomed to at this point. The stone is thrown out toward the open space in front of the ledge, released back to the wilds from whence it came.
Vellath tolerates it. he has ever been tolerant of little dark-haired things scrambling over him, and it's been some time since he's had one jabbing and kneeing him. The blue warbles cheerily and J'lor climbs up after with a bit more finesse. "Hang on." And that's all the warning there is before Vellath launches into the darkness and glides to the ground.
Cheerful dragons and dark flight do not sit well with Aivey, who, at the first sign of movement from said cheerful blue, abruptly latches onto J'lor and remains rigid until safely grounded. As soon as the touch-down comes, however, she wastes no time with dismounting. This is far more easily accomplished.
J'lor remains settled between Veallath's neckridges. "Good night, then," he calls quietly. He does not, at least, attempt to detain Aivey any longer.
There is a brief wave and something that sounds like a goodnight - it might just as easily be the scuff of Aivey's heel over stone as she breaks into a light jog - heading toward a shape that looks distinctly Morelenth-ish in size.
Who: J'lor and Aivey
Where: J'lor/Vellath's Weyr
Vellath and J'lor's Weyr
The cavern is set high on the cliff wall and offers a sparing ledge that is adequate enough for a blue dragon but would prove cramped for the larger colors. The inner weyr is equally modest and allows enough room for a mattress piled high with furs and a roughly hewn desk and chair. A woven rug, the colors dulled and the cloth threadbare, is spread out on the floor. A newer and more brightly colored weaving hangs on one of the walls, and if it is novicely made, it is at least cheerful. The only other decoration is a single hide posted up on the stone wall next to the mattress. It is crinkled with age, the worn image depicting a rider and a blue dragon with color and markings clearly intended to be Vellath's. The drawing looks to be done in a child's hand.
It's heading toward the end of the day when most people are looking forward to retiring for the night. For Aivey, living with a rider has its benefits. She's come to know E'sere's schedule, and by proxy, some of J'lor's. Such is why she arrives now, choosing a time she's calculated J'lor will be home and available for a nice long chat. Thus the scramble of feet up the slope, the habitual cursing under her breath and at last, Aivey herself at the entrance of J'lor's weyr. A moment after she's regained her breath and pushed a sopping 'braid over her shoulder, Aivey calls out, "Mind company?"
It's the cursing, really, that's the giveaway. J'lor was lying on his bed for once, on his stomach, in nothing but a pair of loose pants. eyes closed. Not so much sleeping as trying to ignore the aches that extra drills and running with the weyrlings are creating in his spine and shoulders and upper legs. Vellath is coiled on the ledge and it is he that responds to Aivey first with a sort of hybrid between a growl and a hiccup. But perhaps, has his eyes are dark blue and whirl slowly, it's meant to be a friendly sound?
When Aivey announces herself, the bluerider pushes himself into a sit, choking back a groan as he reaches for a shirt and begins to pull it on. "-course, Aivey," (the 'of' gets lost as the collar is jerked over his head) "Please come in."
With such greetings, Aivey truly feels loved and it's any wonder she's not grinning from ear to ear. As it stands, she's fiddling with a stone, palming it and revealing it before switching it from one hand to the other. Fidgetting, if not openly so. "I can always come back," she says after a quick look toward the bluerider as he pulls on a shirt, "Never mean to interrupt." At least it sounds genuine. Still, Aivey has enough manners that she doesn't move any further into the weyr until she's bade, and then it's in she goes, head half-bowed with either concentration or respect to J'lor's privacy. "I was hoping I could talk."
"I never know when to expect company," J'lor admits with a small smile. "I don't always present very well. My apologies. Please come in, and we shall talk." He gestures to a spot on the edge of the bed near to where he sits himself. "Or we can move to the floor, if you'd rather." The weyr is, at least, tidyish.
"Bed, floor...doesn't matter," Aivey counters as she makes an abrupt change of course and moves to head to the bed, to the spot he's offered no less, before settling there. She's a little wet, what with the island being in a wet season and all, but not to the point where she's soaked through. As she stills, the stone continues to switch hands and becomes the focus of Aivey's attention. "How're things going? All around sort of going, I mean."
"All right, I think," the bluerider muses, arching his back with a wince. "The weyrlings are coming along, I think. The turn is turning. No injuries last 'fall. Things seem steady." His eyes rest on Aivey. Patient. Curious. "And with you?"
There's a faint frown at mention of 'fall, a twist of Aivey's lips and a rather tight clenching of her fist around the stone. Successive and quick, they've come and gone all in the pause of one breath, "I'm getting restless. But that's kind of obvious, isn't it?" Tilting her head and cutting a look to J'lor, Aivey studies the bluerider before shaking her head, "Anyways, I was hoping you might entertain me with some stories. Information, you know, the typical."
"It's perhaps a little bit obvious," J'lor says with a small laugh. He leans back on his hand, looking down at the stone and the way Aivey's hand squeezes it. "Stories? What sort?"
"About way back when. When all of this was just a twinkle in your eye... maybe about some of what happened along the way - if you've got anything I can take and run, I'll even settle for that." The stone continues twitching, Aivey's hands constantly moving and her head once more bowed as though it takes all of her concentration to keep things this way.
"Ancient history then. What's got you wondering about that?" Still, the bluerider seems more tickled than pensive. He looks upwards now, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment. "It was a long time coming, really. Sort of a winding road. Nera, when I met her, was the first to suggest we could do it differently. Before that, I was trying to petition the Weyrleader for little changes. Well, little comparatively, I suppose." Chuckle. "That sort of thing, you mean?"
"I'm restless," Aivey explains to his first question, "Trying to figure this all out... it's not so easy and it's not like they had a library full of information at the 'Reaches-" Another look to the bluerider draws a brushing of the back of her hand against her face, "So it started with Nera? Do you think you'd have gotten anything done if you would've stuck to the Weyrleader?"
"The gathering of people started with Nera. The ideas came before that," J'lor says. "I suppose I had been trying with the Weyrleader for some turns. He and I...he'd always hear me out and always reject my suggestions immediately. I don't know that he even listened after a while. Through B'sano...no. I would have gotten nothing. I did get nothing."
"They call that humoring," Aivey informs J'lor, "Like you do with me, sometimes," The stone skips to the opposite hand, is clenched tight; at rest, for the moment. "So you tried your route, and when it was obvious you were heading nowhere, you went with Nera?" The assumption is given to the floor, her question the bluerider, "When did my father come into the picture?"
"I went with Nera when I found Nera. We met at a gather. We talked. She listened." J'lor places a bit of emphasis on the last word and a bit of wonder. "She heard my thoughts and she wanted to do something with them. Derek..." and even in musing, J'lor's voice drops a bit and the smile fades, "was one of the first I spoke to once Nera and I began to look for others. He wanted change. He was already a guard captain and he made it sound as if we wanted the same things."
"He made it sound that way," Aivey is careful to phrase such neutrally, to let none of that fondness creep into her voice that tends to whenever mention of her father is made, "Nera I can understand but..." She trails off, shaking her head and looking back to J'lor, "You trusted him still, back then." Dangerous trap, that.
"I saw what I wanted to see," is J'lor's response to that tangled question. "For a while. And then, Nera trusted him and I trusted Nera, so things went on for a while more. And then it all spun out of control and people were getting hurt and S'val said he had a friend who might help. And the rest, as they say, is history." Just not the good sort.
"Brief history," Aivey confirms with a small frown, "What else, though? Before - what sorts of things did you ask my father to do... or did he just do them and tell you about it? And afterwards. When it all fell apart." There's more not-looking, stone-switching and a slight shift as Aivey tries to find a more comfortable spot.
"I tried to ask him things, but Derek always had his own ideas about what we should and shouldn't try next. And he never...he always spoke tactics with Nera. He'd come by when I was at Telgar, they'd talk, she'd tell me what the next move was going to be. She always made it sound reasonable. Necessary. I...like to think that she believed it to be so." J'lor glances down at his knees for a moment and then up at the stone ceiling again. "After? Well, we were caught, tried, and sent away. Settling here, do you mean?"
Aivey accepts the bit about her father with the smallest of smiles, but doesn't comment on it. The story progresses and she stays still for it, up to when she's questioned for clarification. That the stone makes another leap from one hand to the next, and is shifted about within that palm helps suggest it's not her meaning. "The trial," Aivey prompts, "Who was there - who led it, oversaw it and all that. Did you guys know what was waiting for you at the end of it all?"
A slow breath is drawn in through J'lor's nose. "The Masterharper oversaw the trial. There were so many of us, it was hardly a surprise," he says with a faint smile. "It was held at Fort, in the Grand Hall or...something. I don't remember. A big cavernous room they'd filled with chairs. It felt like most of Harper was there taking notes. I don't recall specific names. At the end, well, not really. Some thought we'd be staked. Derek nearly was. We couldn't see how they'd exile all of us but..." Shrug. "There you have it."
"They almost staked him?" No flinch for that. Anger, but it's to be expected. And something harder to define that puts a glint in Aivey's eyes, for she looks to the bluerider for confirmation. At his shrug, the point is dropped...tucked away, even, for later discussion with the man himself. A harder note enters her voice now, "And who was responsible for ensuring enough information was collected when no one was willing to talk?"
"Well, staking was discussed. He was...he'd built a reputation by then. His violence. But Kazamir noted that what was done to one of us had to be done to all of us, so that put the debate to rest." J'lor's eyes slide down and over to Aivey, brows furrowing at this last question. "I...haven't the foggiest, Aivey. Nobody bothered to tell us that sort of thing."
Aivey maintains a neutral expression come yet more news on her father - news she's undoubtedly looking to with the wrong sort of insight. J'lor's vague reply at the end earns a new approach, "Then tell me who did the collecting." The stone has stopped switching - Aivey herself has stopped moving entirely.
Brows have hitched lower and J'lor's expression is an actual frown now. "What...exactly are you asking me, Aivey?"
"When people know they're screwed they tend not to cooperate...unless they're properly motivated to do so." Aivey's scrutiny tightens, her tone drops another level, "I want to know who did the torturing and who allowed it."
"Aivey," Her name has a bit of disapproval threaded through it. "Is that what you're doing with your restlessness? Plotting to get back at those you think wronged us?" One of J'lor's brows arches. "Vengeance is a fool's game, and anyhow, I have no names to give. The men never bothered to introduce themselves or list their superiors for us."
"Yes, J'lor. I plan on exacting revenge from this very island," Aivey's use of J'lor's name is more droll then disapproving, "-I want to know. I want to know so I can understand. And if you have no names to give me on /who/ did it-" Disapproval now, "Then at least answer me this. Who was capable of ordering this to happen? The Masterharper?" A tilt of Aivey's head brings her study more square upon J'lor's, turning what has been up to this point a surface-level study to an intrusive one, "I promised my father I wouldn't seek vengeance. If that's what you're worried about."
The bluerider listens, though the faint frown remains on his features. For the first, the idea of revenge via island, J'lor notes, almost sulkily, "That wasn't what I meant." But then he lapses back into silence. Finally he says, "The Masterharper, I suppose. Maybe the Lord of Fort. Someone had to provide the cells and the men...I...think we were still in Fort then." It may say something that J'lor isn't positive. "The men who...saw to us changed. And there were different dialects, so I suspect they came from various places. It was organized. So perhaps a better question might be 'who in power did -not- know', now that I come to think on it."
A faint tightening of Aivey's lips might suggest an amused smile, but just as quickly as that assumption might be made, it changes to something most distinctly unamused. "That would be a big list of people to kill," Aivey surmises, once more fidgeting with the stone, "You're unsure..." A quick beat, "How long was it? From start to finish, before they were satisfied they'd gotten all they could?"
"I don't..." the bluerider frowns again, blinking slowly up at the ceiling. "We were taken in the second month. The trials started...the fourth? Yes, because the sentence was passed in the fifth. Her birthday and mine." That last is murmured very softly. "Two months we were questioned. A few of us a few weeks longer, but it stopped mostly when the trial began."
"You. My father and... Nera." Aivey's assumption is on one name alone, now, though not as blindly as it had been before. Aivey's jaw works between clenching and opening to almost offer another question or insight, but in the end its only clenched and the stone switched between her hands.
"Anybody who was violent or seen as a leader," is J'lor's quiet reply to Aivey's supposition.
Aivey's reply is even quieter. "I should probably go now," The strain in keeping her voice that level is audible, and the twitch of the stone between her hands stills altogether as she clutches it in one white-knuckled fist. Its as she rises and turns to face J'lor that more reactions betray her - the brushing of the closed fist against her jaw just over a still visible bruise, the flush of her cheeks and the tight swallow before a rough, "-anything else?"
The rider studies Aivey, but for once there are no well-selected words of comfort. Only a quiet chinjerk upwards towards that fading bruise. "What happened?" That's what else.
Comfort in any shape or form would be pointless which might become known when Aivey looks at J'lor for his question, her expression more betraying then anything else: vivid anger and nothing short of such. Though it's directed not at the bluerider, but the information gleamed from him, it still taints her curt reply. "I made a mistake." Then, the quickest pause ever before she turns her back to him, "Thanks for the talk."
And that, really, answers that. "Vellath and I will take you down." Because it's dark and raining. "I'm not requesting." J'lor pushes to a stand, swallowing down a wince as he follows Aivey while she skulks away.
"Afraid I'll slip and fall? Break my neck?" Curt tone continuing, Aivey turns to look at J'lor from over her shoulder, "I'll be fine." Dismissive of his not-request, Aivey's steps quicken as she tries to beat him to the ledge where Vellath is already waiting. Small problem, there.
"Yes," is the simple answer. "Come on. You want to leave, he's not going to let you. Save yourself time and irritation and climb aboard." J'lor, once he arrives at the ledge, leans idly against Vellath's arm. The blue makes a rather handy barrier.
"Afraid of him, more likely," is Aivey's softly muttered comment. Still, she detours to approach the blue and does a quick size-up before scrambling (literally) aboard. Vellath is treated to all the same jabs, knee-pokes and kicks Morelenth has likely become accustomed to at this point. The stone is thrown out toward the open space in front of the ledge, released back to the wilds from whence it came.
Vellath tolerates it. he has ever been tolerant of little dark-haired things scrambling over him, and it's been some time since he's had one jabbing and kneeing him. The blue warbles cheerily and J'lor climbs up after with a bit more finesse. "Hang on." And that's all the warning there is before Vellath launches into the darkness and glides to the ground.
Cheerful dragons and dark flight do not sit well with Aivey, who, at the first sign of movement from said cheerful blue, abruptly latches onto J'lor and remains rigid until safely grounded. As soon as the touch-down comes, however, she wastes no time with dismounting. This is far more easily accomplished.
J'lor remains settled between Veallath's neckridges. "Good night, then," he calls quietly. He does not, at least, attempt to detain Aivey any longer.
There is a brief wave and something that sounds like a goodnight - it might just as easily be the scuff of Aivey's heel over stone as she breaks into a light jog - heading toward a shape that looks distinctly Morelenth-ish in size.