That Action
Location: Islet near Exile Island
Time: Noon on Day 8, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: Issa, Diya, J'lor
Scene: Issa comes to give and gather news.
Though unnanounced, Oshisyth's visits to the island follow a predictable routine. It's just after midday when the ritual's initiated once again. The Reachian green betweens directly to that tinier island, bisected with a ribbon of a stream, and immediately makes contact. She offers no more than a hurriedly stated, We've come, informing first Nenuith and then Vellath of her presence, as she swoops quickly into a more inconspicuous altitude. Skimming closely over treetops, they eventually come upon that field of tall grasses and settle in, Issa dismounting as soon as her dragon has executed the landing and beginning to remove her heavy winter gear. It may be cooler than usual, clear and breezy, here on the western islands, but it's no match for the coming winter of the mountains, and Issa has to shed gloves, scarf and riding jacket and push up her sleeves before she can begin to be comfortable.
Perhaps it's the unexpectedness, the interval since the last meeting causing this one to feel a bit out of place, for Nenuith's arrival to the island is made in haste: her descent swift, and her rider's appearance speaking of a sense of immediacy from the brushed, but unmanaged hair, to the more rustic state of her attire. As quick as the gold lands, Diya is prompt to dismount having no straps to tie her in, and only when she spies Issa and the greenrider's dragon not far, does the unsubtle tension about her eyes relax. "We'll be needing to get you a change of clothes to secret here soon. I'd offer my own, but you'd swim in them, I reckon."
You have. Vellath arrives, though he arrives slowly and with a certain air of agitation that has not been there before. He is perpetually looking back towards the primary island and his eyes are a pale green as he lands, trickles of yellow lightening those orbs even more. His rider slides down, landing in a crouch before straightening. One hand rests, for a moment, on Vellath's flank before he steps forward. Whatever strains the dragon also strains the rider. That or they share equal worry for different concerns. "Issa," the bluerider nods, his warm voice just a little tight. There is a glance towards Diya and Nenuith before he asks, simple and blunt, "What brings you?"
Issa finishes tucking her jacket into a section of the straps, tossing curls aside to view the goldrider where she stands. With a final tug to secure it, she concedes, "It is a bit too conspicuous to be seen flitting around the Reaches mid-winter, short-sleeved and barefoot." Her gaze passes ever so briefly to Diya's own apparel with a quirk of a grin forming at the edge of her mouth. As if to emphasize her point, her boots sound out a seemingly louder than usual clomp as she steps closer to her once mentor, familiarity threading through her voice as she adds, "But I manage." It's a familiarity that's not turned to J'lor, however, as he interrupts with business the momentum of a motion that might have turned into a hug if allowed to continue. No, her expression holds a more subtle note of reproach beneath the usual facade of neutral decorum, mouth pressing down thinner. "Many things," she replies, letting her words fall slightly stiffer. "Sheep. Boys. It's interesting, your definition of patience, though I can't say I agree with it."
Where Issa might reach out with a hug, Diya's hand attempts to complete the gesture, reaching to try and capture what little movement the greenrider's hand might have indulged in with a firm hold. Even while J'lor speaks, while Issa responds, the goldrider's dark eyes linger and drink in the sight of her once protege, as if unhearing of the conversation that has already slanted towards business. "Aye," comes her belated reply, soft, as she shifts her gaze and stance from Issa-only to include the bluerider, and the would-be smile that that twitches her facial muscles relax into a steady expression, and if the fingers grasped before, they fall now. "Cassiel," is her return.
The bluerider's mouth opens at Issa's query, but perhaps Diya has said what he wishes to say, because his mouth closes again and he only nods at first. Then, after a moment, he adds "You can manage without the sheep. We could not, without the boys. I'm sorry for it." Just at this very moment, J'lor doesn't sound sorry. He sounds as if he is trying very hard to keep calm despite the tension in his jaw, the sharpness in his dark eyes. "Cassiel," he repeats the name in a careful whisper. "Was it sanctioned? Did the Weyr Council bid it?"
Issa cooperates with a distracted submission with Diya's insistence in that hug, folding in closer, the only active sign of involvement in the half-hug that results coming in the form of a fleeting squeeze from her fingers before they, too, release. "Cassiel?" she repeats as well, mulling with a more questioning tone over the name before a connection is quickly made. "The greenrider. That was caught. No, there were rumors of her capture from Telgar," as she shakes her head she slips a meaningful glance sidelong to Diya, "but that's all." Shifting in her stance, she looks down as her arms cross her chest. When she lifts her gaze again, it's darkened by a faint frown. "What happened?"
Diya averts her eyes, finding J'lor's more of comfort in this instance than the greenrider dear to her. Instead of addressing the question, she instead inquires: "High Reaches' Weyrleader or former Weyrleader did not sanction action?"
J'lor's eyes meet the weyrwoman's, but dart away at the offered kindness he sees there. "Would she know," a glance to Nenuith, "if she was lying?" His hands shove into his pockets, shoulders curling forward a bit as he looks back to the greenrider at Diya's question. This means that Issa's own query remains unanswered.
"She would." Diya interjects, quickly. "But I trust Issa." End of discussion.
Issa's mouth drops open slightly to form a reply to the goldrider's question, but J'lor arrests her attention. Pale blue eyes fall on him with an icy intensity, face frozen in preparation for speech though no words come now. It isn't until Diya's decisive reply comes that she's able to thaw somewhat, her arms pulling more tightly around her, her frown furrowing further before she lifts it away completely. Turning back to Diya, she finally makes use of those poised lips and speaks. "He sanctioned action, but not," and she flips a brief glance back to J'lor, "that action." Whatever it is. "And not in response to the boys. A Weyr Council's been called, but on account of E'sere and Aivey's disappearance. They're here." It's not fair to call that last part a question, really, with the way it drops so heavily from her lips, but she pairs it with a querying lift of her brows.
"That action," Diya repeats quietly, unable to move towards, despite her defense of the greenrider, to help thaw the younger woman further physically. She listens, aiming to exchange a glance with J'lor that's fleeting as she turns to catch sight of her little vtol, the profile her slanted gaze allows and then to find the paleness of Issa's eyes. A long moment of silence is filled with a firming of her look, a lift of her chin: "They are out of the Weyr Council's jurisdiction now." There's no confirmation of the presence of Aivey and E'sere either in demeanor or in the simply phrased wording of her response. "Is that why you have come? To warn us? Or...?"
The hands in his pockets are outlined in sharp relief as J'lor shoves them deeper. "What action was sanctioned, then? If not that one?" His eyes are again on Issa. Sharp. Alert, now that it sounds, to his ears, as if she already knows the answer to her own question.
"The formation of the Weyr Council. That's all." Issa answers J'lor's prodding questions with a grounded patience, soft steel firming her words as she angles her face to look his way again. "So far. I came to bring news, to warn you," and as she borrows Diya's words, she gives the goldrider a slight nod, "of further action that's sure to come. Though it seems I'm too late. What happened at Telgar?" Strange, that she should beg information of the mainland from them, but she asks again without any hint that she recognizes the incongruity. Expectantly, she tosses her gaze between the two of them, silent so the way is paved for either to respond.
This time, Diya has a response ready, and comfort in spades that reaches out to place a gentle hand on first Issa's shoulder. It surely is at odds with the ready answer as it falls off her lips succinctly, terribly. "Torture."
J'lor adds on to that single word. A piece of him, perhaps, has been burning to do so since Oshisyth announced her arrival. "Two sevens. They questioned her Chiavelth and then he kept her for two sevens." His face twists into something awful, and the bluerider turns away sharply to hide it. To glare at the ground. "S'lien. Telgar's Weyrleader. Ordered it all."
Issa's shoulder slowly stiffens under Diya's comforting hand as J'lor expounds upon her one-word answer, her eyes, too, swinging downward to peer into the foliage at their feet. She swallows heavily and mutters a whispered word beneath her breath, a tattling snick at the tail end of it reporting that it's probably the kind of curse she was instructed, long ago, to never utter in diplomatic situations, even ones as casual as these. There's only silence from her for a long moment. Then, without lifting her gaze, she asks heavily, "Is she okay?"
The kind answer might be the truth: that she was healing. However, Diya lifts her hand away after a light squeeze, holding the loosely held wrist up with fingers that half-curl. "Irreparable." Behind the trio, Nenuith's back haunches ripple with the discernible effort to keep still, and her large head swings low to regard Oshisyth with large, unblinking eyes - sad. "Do you know what further action will come? Will they use those who have fled the island against us? Tactically."
J'lor's answer is far less graceful. "No she's not okay," he snaps, eyes again turning sharply to pin Issa. "She was tortured for two sevens! We could not, at first, divine a way that she might lie down without it hurting! She was...she saw no healer. They..." He grits his teeth, exhaling air sharply out from between them. "Telgar was my home. It was supposed to be Roa's safe haven. How could...nobody knew? Nobody did anything?!"
Oshisyth shows the agitation that Issa won't let surface herself, eyes whirling a wild yellow-orange as she pauses in her attentive listening to return the queen's gaze, her mindtouch brushing into contact and helplessly offering dulled hints of cold, pristine snow as wordless comfort. Issa is much more stoic, her expression a tight mask of pained neutrality. "I can't imagine they won't think to at least ask what they've seen," she answers Diya first, finally turning up her eyes. "But there's no telling what they'll do. Just that they'll do something." Slowly, following a mild shrug, her eyes track across to J'lor, and she replies with a patience that forms an almost maddening counterpoint to his vehemence. "Eleven turns," she notes quietly. "Eleven turns of changes." Her voice, until then characterized by a vacant, thoughtful emptiness, stirs into its full form again, rich tones providing emphasis to what she tells him. "I'm not the one who tortured her, J'lor," she begins, with a rare and familiar use of his name. "And I don't like being generalized any more than the Instigators do." The term, spawned in the mouths of those like S'lien, is purposeful here, lightly stressed with a dark implication that he's falling victim to the same restricting modes of thought so prevalent on the mainland. "If I'd known sooner, so would you."
As if the thought's just occured to her now, after Issa's brought it to light, only then does Diya turn a studious look onto J'lor, narrowed eyes masking any bafflement there might be. Instead, dark glints of blue latch onto the bluerider, and the goldrider's lips press down, but whatever she might say further of Cassiel and the mainland's torture of the greenrider is cast aside in favor of cool words that while directed to Oshisyth's rider, elicits no direct glance. "Eleven turns of changes, and yet there is no end in sight. You will tell the little trundlebug of what Telgar has accomplished. Of what High Reaches' treachery has spawned throughout Pern." A beat, and then a thoughtful little twist emerges on her lips. "Such little stones cast by Ganathon and Yevide, rippling the ocean endlessly."
The bluerider is again staring downwards, one bare foot digging at the earth with his toes. It is very offensive, that dirt, because J'lor cannot seem to stop glaring at it. "I know," he manages. "I'm sorry. I know. I just can't..." A tuft of hapless grass is given a kick which likely ends up causing more discomfort to toes than to grass. "I fail to see how Yevide plays into this..." His head lifts suddenly and he says, to both of them really, "He tells me he thinks she's S'lien and Lexine's pawn. Roa. That she's too inexperienced to be anything but led. Is it...do you know her? Is she?"
Issa's replies are simpler now, on both fronts. For Diya, she offers a nod, curls bouncing with her agreement as her lips press together tightly. J'lor's question is considered for a moment, his face watched carefully, then she responds with a simple, "No," that's elaborated with confidence after another rounded pause. "She's not. Her thoughts are her own." That's all the reassurance she offers him, however, tripping instead into a tangent, turning to stare at that hapless tuft that got the brunt of J'lor's attack vacantly. "Roa... she doesn't think I should come any more. It's gotten tenser. Disappearing for a few hours has become harder," she says, perhaps to excuse that long interval that separated her visits. She doesn't offer what she thinks, however, and keeps her attention on the ground.
"A private joke," is all Diya says in response to J'lor's questioning, a simple shrug accompanying her words, but Issa's statement garners most of her attention, a brow lifting at the negation of Roa being a pawn. "And you believe otherwise, despite the tension," says the goldrider of what she presumes to glean from the greenrider's attention to the ground. "Then you should do what you believe, but recognize the consequences that may result. As always," the coolness of her low alto relents, curbed gently by an instinctive fondness for this girl, "I trust in you and your counsel, Skelissa. I would stay longer, to talk, to catch up." While she gives no reason, her movements already speak of readying to return dragon back to the main island, but not before stopping in front of Issa to lean down to try and press one cheek to the other in a pseudo kiss.
J'lor keeps his own counsel as Issa speaks, and then as Diya makes her farewell. He waits until the two riders separate to note, "If you do so, do it safety. We already know what some will resort to, if they find you traffic with us." His grass-kicking foot has stilled and settled, and he dares another glance upward as his composure is slowly restored.
"What I believe may change," Issa warns Diya softly, falling under that kiss without an ounce of resistance and offering a reluctant lift of her lips (it can hardly be called a smile), meeting her eye as they separate. "I... I need to go," she mutters with a slight shake of her head. "Threadfall tomorrow." Her only explanation. For J'lor, some of that earlier tension resurfaces, hidden beneath a shaky politeness. "I will be, as always, discreet. I will come when I can, but you'll understand if you see less of me." Perhaps it's a plea for restraint from other such misunderstandings. She moves, unwrapping her arms and already beginning to slide the sleeves back into their position. She turns to the straps, retrieving her gear, tossing out over her shoulder as she does so a simple, "Give my regards to E'sere and Aivey," apparently assuming that lack of confirmation is as good as confirmation itself.
"Then you do what you must and what you believe." Diya's response in return punctuates her vault up to her dragon, watchful as Issa and her green leave.
J'lor says nothing more. He is, perhaps, all talked out just now. Instead he returns to Vellath who waits, crouched and impatient, as his rider scrambles aboard. They're launching up and back to the island proper, even before J'lor can secure his straps.
Time: Noon on Day 8, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: Issa, Diya, J'lor
Scene: Issa comes to give and gather news.
Though unnanounced, Oshisyth's visits to the island follow a predictable routine. It's just after midday when the ritual's initiated once again. The Reachian green betweens directly to that tinier island, bisected with a ribbon of a stream, and immediately makes contact. She offers no more than a hurriedly stated, We've come, informing first Nenuith and then Vellath of her presence, as she swoops quickly into a more inconspicuous altitude. Skimming closely over treetops, they eventually come upon that field of tall grasses and settle in, Issa dismounting as soon as her dragon has executed the landing and beginning to remove her heavy winter gear. It may be cooler than usual, clear and breezy, here on the western islands, but it's no match for the coming winter of the mountains, and Issa has to shed gloves, scarf and riding jacket and push up her sleeves before she can begin to be comfortable.
Perhaps it's the unexpectedness, the interval since the last meeting causing this one to feel a bit out of place, for Nenuith's arrival to the island is made in haste: her descent swift, and her rider's appearance speaking of a sense of immediacy from the brushed, but unmanaged hair, to the more rustic state of her attire. As quick as the gold lands, Diya is prompt to dismount having no straps to tie her in, and only when she spies Issa and the greenrider's dragon not far, does the unsubtle tension about her eyes relax. "We'll be needing to get you a change of clothes to secret here soon. I'd offer my own, but you'd swim in them, I reckon."
You have. Vellath arrives, though he arrives slowly and with a certain air of agitation that has not been there before. He is perpetually looking back towards the primary island and his eyes are a pale green as he lands, trickles of yellow lightening those orbs even more. His rider slides down, landing in a crouch before straightening. One hand rests, for a moment, on Vellath's flank before he steps forward. Whatever strains the dragon also strains the rider. That or they share equal worry for different concerns. "Issa," the bluerider nods, his warm voice just a little tight. There is a glance towards Diya and Nenuith before he asks, simple and blunt, "What brings you?"
Issa finishes tucking her jacket into a section of the straps, tossing curls aside to view the goldrider where she stands. With a final tug to secure it, she concedes, "It is a bit too conspicuous to be seen flitting around the Reaches mid-winter, short-sleeved and barefoot." Her gaze passes ever so briefly to Diya's own apparel with a quirk of a grin forming at the edge of her mouth. As if to emphasize her point, her boots sound out a seemingly louder than usual clomp as she steps closer to her once mentor, familiarity threading through her voice as she adds, "But I manage." It's a familiarity that's not turned to J'lor, however, as he interrupts with business the momentum of a motion that might have turned into a hug if allowed to continue. No, her expression holds a more subtle note of reproach beneath the usual facade of neutral decorum, mouth pressing down thinner. "Many things," she replies, letting her words fall slightly stiffer. "Sheep. Boys. It's interesting, your definition of patience, though I can't say I agree with it."
Where Issa might reach out with a hug, Diya's hand attempts to complete the gesture, reaching to try and capture what little movement the greenrider's hand might have indulged in with a firm hold. Even while J'lor speaks, while Issa responds, the goldrider's dark eyes linger and drink in the sight of her once protege, as if unhearing of the conversation that has already slanted towards business. "Aye," comes her belated reply, soft, as she shifts her gaze and stance from Issa-only to include the bluerider, and the would-be smile that that twitches her facial muscles relax into a steady expression, and if the fingers grasped before, they fall now. "Cassiel," is her return.
The bluerider's mouth opens at Issa's query, but perhaps Diya has said what he wishes to say, because his mouth closes again and he only nods at first. Then, after a moment, he adds "You can manage without the sheep. We could not, without the boys. I'm sorry for it." Just at this very moment, J'lor doesn't sound sorry. He sounds as if he is trying very hard to keep calm despite the tension in his jaw, the sharpness in his dark eyes. "Cassiel," he repeats the name in a careful whisper. "Was it sanctioned? Did the Weyr Council bid it?"
Issa cooperates with a distracted submission with Diya's insistence in that hug, folding in closer, the only active sign of involvement in the half-hug that results coming in the form of a fleeting squeeze from her fingers before they, too, release. "Cassiel?" she repeats as well, mulling with a more questioning tone over the name before a connection is quickly made. "The greenrider. That was caught. No, there were rumors of her capture from Telgar," as she shakes her head she slips a meaningful glance sidelong to Diya, "but that's all." Shifting in her stance, she looks down as her arms cross her chest. When she lifts her gaze again, it's darkened by a faint frown. "What happened?"
Diya averts her eyes, finding J'lor's more of comfort in this instance than the greenrider dear to her. Instead of addressing the question, she instead inquires: "High Reaches' Weyrleader or former Weyrleader did not sanction action?"
J'lor's eyes meet the weyrwoman's, but dart away at the offered kindness he sees there. "Would she know," a glance to Nenuith, "if she was lying?" His hands shove into his pockets, shoulders curling forward a bit as he looks back to the greenrider at Diya's question. This means that Issa's own query remains unanswered.
"She would." Diya interjects, quickly. "But I trust Issa." End of discussion.
Issa's mouth drops open slightly to form a reply to the goldrider's question, but J'lor arrests her attention. Pale blue eyes fall on him with an icy intensity, face frozen in preparation for speech though no words come now. It isn't until Diya's decisive reply comes that she's able to thaw somewhat, her arms pulling more tightly around her, her frown furrowing further before she lifts it away completely. Turning back to Diya, she finally makes use of those poised lips and speaks. "He sanctioned action, but not," and she flips a brief glance back to J'lor, "that action." Whatever it is. "And not in response to the boys. A Weyr Council's been called, but on account of E'sere and Aivey's disappearance. They're here." It's not fair to call that last part a question, really, with the way it drops so heavily from her lips, but she pairs it with a querying lift of her brows.
"That action," Diya repeats quietly, unable to move towards, despite her defense of the greenrider, to help thaw the younger woman further physically. She listens, aiming to exchange a glance with J'lor that's fleeting as she turns to catch sight of her little vtol, the profile her slanted gaze allows and then to find the paleness of Issa's eyes. A long moment of silence is filled with a firming of her look, a lift of her chin: "They are out of the Weyr Council's jurisdiction now." There's no confirmation of the presence of Aivey and E'sere either in demeanor or in the simply phrased wording of her response. "Is that why you have come? To warn us? Or...?"
The hands in his pockets are outlined in sharp relief as J'lor shoves them deeper. "What action was sanctioned, then? If not that one?" His eyes are again on Issa. Sharp. Alert, now that it sounds, to his ears, as if she already knows the answer to her own question.
"The formation of the Weyr Council. That's all." Issa answers J'lor's prodding questions with a grounded patience, soft steel firming her words as she angles her face to look his way again. "So far. I came to bring news, to warn you," and as she borrows Diya's words, she gives the goldrider a slight nod, "of further action that's sure to come. Though it seems I'm too late. What happened at Telgar?" Strange, that she should beg information of the mainland from them, but she asks again without any hint that she recognizes the incongruity. Expectantly, she tosses her gaze between the two of them, silent so the way is paved for either to respond.
This time, Diya has a response ready, and comfort in spades that reaches out to place a gentle hand on first Issa's shoulder. It surely is at odds with the ready answer as it falls off her lips succinctly, terribly. "Torture."
J'lor adds on to that single word. A piece of him, perhaps, has been burning to do so since Oshisyth announced her arrival. "Two sevens. They questioned her Chiavelth and then he kept her for two sevens." His face twists into something awful, and the bluerider turns away sharply to hide it. To glare at the ground. "S'lien. Telgar's Weyrleader. Ordered it all."
Issa's shoulder slowly stiffens under Diya's comforting hand as J'lor expounds upon her one-word answer, her eyes, too, swinging downward to peer into the foliage at their feet. She swallows heavily and mutters a whispered word beneath her breath, a tattling snick at the tail end of it reporting that it's probably the kind of curse she was instructed, long ago, to never utter in diplomatic situations, even ones as casual as these. There's only silence from her for a long moment. Then, without lifting her gaze, she asks heavily, "Is she okay?"
The kind answer might be the truth: that she was healing. However, Diya lifts her hand away after a light squeeze, holding the loosely held wrist up with fingers that half-curl. "Irreparable." Behind the trio, Nenuith's back haunches ripple with the discernible effort to keep still, and her large head swings low to regard Oshisyth with large, unblinking eyes - sad. "Do you know what further action will come? Will they use those who have fled the island against us? Tactically."
J'lor's answer is far less graceful. "No she's not okay," he snaps, eyes again turning sharply to pin Issa. "She was tortured for two sevens! We could not, at first, divine a way that she might lie down without it hurting! She was...she saw no healer. They..." He grits his teeth, exhaling air sharply out from between them. "Telgar was my home. It was supposed to be Roa's safe haven. How could...nobody knew? Nobody did anything?!"
Oshisyth shows the agitation that Issa won't let surface herself, eyes whirling a wild yellow-orange as she pauses in her attentive listening to return the queen's gaze, her mindtouch brushing into contact and helplessly offering dulled hints of cold, pristine snow as wordless comfort. Issa is much more stoic, her expression a tight mask of pained neutrality. "I can't imagine they won't think to at least ask what they've seen," she answers Diya first, finally turning up her eyes. "But there's no telling what they'll do. Just that they'll do something." Slowly, following a mild shrug, her eyes track across to J'lor, and she replies with a patience that forms an almost maddening counterpoint to his vehemence. "Eleven turns," she notes quietly. "Eleven turns of changes." Her voice, until then characterized by a vacant, thoughtful emptiness, stirs into its full form again, rich tones providing emphasis to what she tells him. "I'm not the one who tortured her, J'lor," she begins, with a rare and familiar use of his name. "And I don't like being generalized any more than the Instigators do." The term, spawned in the mouths of those like S'lien, is purposeful here, lightly stressed with a dark implication that he's falling victim to the same restricting modes of thought so prevalent on the mainland. "If I'd known sooner, so would you."
As if the thought's just occured to her now, after Issa's brought it to light, only then does Diya turn a studious look onto J'lor, narrowed eyes masking any bafflement there might be. Instead, dark glints of blue latch onto the bluerider, and the goldrider's lips press down, but whatever she might say further of Cassiel and the mainland's torture of the greenrider is cast aside in favor of cool words that while directed to Oshisyth's rider, elicits no direct glance. "Eleven turns of changes, and yet there is no end in sight. You will tell the little trundlebug of what Telgar has accomplished. Of what High Reaches' treachery has spawned throughout Pern." A beat, and then a thoughtful little twist emerges on her lips. "Such little stones cast by Ganathon and Yevide, rippling the ocean endlessly."
The bluerider is again staring downwards, one bare foot digging at the earth with his toes. It is very offensive, that dirt, because J'lor cannot seem to stop glaring at it. "I know," he manages. "I'm sorry. I know. I just can't..." A tuft of hapless grass is given a kick which likely ends up causing more discomfort to toes than to grass. "I fail to see how Yevide plays into this..." His head lifts suddenly and he says, to both of them really, "He tells me he thinks she's S'lien and Lexine's pawn. Roa. That she's too inexperienced to be anything but led. Is it...do you know her? Is she?"
Issa's replies are simpler now, on both fronts. For Diya, she offers a nod, curls bouncing with her agreement as her lips press together tightly. J'lor's question is considered for a moment, his face watched carefully, then she responds with a simple, "No," that's elaborated with confidence after another rounded pause. "She's not. Her thoughts are her own." That's all the reassurance she offers him, however, tripping instead into a tangent, turning to stare at that hapless tuft that got the brunt of J'lor's attack vacantly. "Roa... she doesn't think I should come any more. It's gotten tenser. Disappearing for a few hours has become harder," she says, perhaps to excuse that long interval that separated her visits. She doesn't offer what she thinks, however, and keeps her attention on the ground.
"A private joke," is all Diya says in response to J'lor's questioning, a simple shrug accompanying her words, but Issa's statement garners most of her attention, a brow lifting at the negation of Roa being a pawn. "And you believe otherwise, despite the tension," says the goldrider of what she presumes to glean from the greenrider's attention to the ground. "Then you should do what you believe, but recognize the consequences that may result. As always," the coolness of her low alto relents, curbed gently by an instinctive fondness for this girl, "I trust in you and your counsel, Skelissa. I would stay longer, to talk, to catch up." While she gives no reason, her movements already speak of readying to return dragon back to the main island, but not before stopping in front of Issa to lean down to try and press one cheek to the other in a pseudo kiss.
J'lor keeps his own counsel as Issa speaks, and then as Diya makes her farewell. He waits until the two riders separate to note, "If you do so, do it safety. We already know what some will resort to, if they find you traffic with us." His grass-kicking foot has stilled and settled, and he dares another glance upward as his composure is slowly restored.
"What I believe may change," Issa warns Diya softly, falling under that kiss without an ounce of resistance and offering a reluctant lift of her lips (it can hardly be called a smile), meeting her eye as they separate. "I... I need to go," she mutters with a slight shake of her head. "Threadfall tomorrow." Her only explanation. For J'lor, some of that earlier tension resurfaces, hidden beneath a shaky politeness. "I will be, as always, discreet. I will come when I can, but you'll understand if you see less of me." Perhaps it's a plea for restraint from other such misunderstandings. She moves, unwrapping her arms and already beginning to slide the sleeves back into their position. She turns to the straps, retrieving her gear, tossing out over her shoulder as she does so a simple, "Give my regards to E'sere and Aivey," apparently assuming that lack of confirmation is as good as confirmation itself.
"Then you do what you must and what you believe." Diya's response in return punctuates her vault up to her dragon, watchful as Issa and her green leave.
J'lor says nothing more. He is, perhaps, all talked out just now. Instead he returns to Vellath who waits, crouched and impatient, as his rider scrambles aboard. They're launching up and back to the island proper, even before J'lor can secure his straps.