State of the Reaches
Location: Small island away from the main encampment
Time: Morning on Day 24, Month 6, Turn 2 (Exile Time)
Players: Diya, J'lor, Issa, Vellath, Oshisyth, Nenuith
Scene: The morning after a trio of unexpected arrivals there is one more. Plans are set into motion and a secret is leaked.
As a party concludes quite a distance away in an awe-inspiring fiasco, a green's arrival and subsequent urgent call to the exile's lone queen is responded to with an alacrity that belies the lazy somnolence cloudy skies bring. An image is cast to green and a less well-known blue, of an island fifty or so dragonlengths northeasterly, where the prominent landscape to focus on is the S-shaped curve of a creek that halves it distinctly from a birds eye view. The exile's arrival is just a touch belated, presumably the difficulties of slipping away unnoticed, but when there, the more familiar of the two, Diya, slides down her dragon's side with little care for safety as Nenuith's not -quite- landed yet. Thump. "Issa?" That her normally calm alto contains in it a slight shrillness only speaks further of the goldrider's unnerved state.
The advantage to being thought wayward and quixotic is that if you are, one moment sitting on the beach and the next, hopping up and scrambling onto your dragon, no one thinks much of it. So blue Vellath wings his way to the meeting point, swinging in to land near the meadow beside the curving creek and settling. Not quite as daring as the weyrwoman, the long, lean rider hops off his blue only after he comes to a standstill. There is energy barely contained in this tall and rangy man as he moves towards the other riders: one known, one not. "It is a day for new arrivals," is murmured under the man's breath.
Issa's own state of unnerve is far more evident. She tracks back and forth through the knee-high tropical grass, quite an odd sight gussied up as she is. There's a striking lack of concern for the way the skirt of her gown trails along the damp ground and her hair, while showing signs that it was once immaculate, has tumbled into a frizzy disarray. She carries her arms crossed in front of her, hugging tightly to herself that cast on her right wrist. Oshisyth has curled into a little cove around her pacing rider, her normally vibrant hide dulled while her eyes wheel brightly with alarming yellows and reds as she turns her eyes up to the sky to herald the arrival of others. Issa's circuit comes to an abrupt halt as the gold and blue land, her left hand springing to shade her eyes as she waits only long enough for them to dismount. "Diya," she says in return, not so much a greeting as a plea. She lifts the skirt slightly, with a passing air of frustration for the inconvenience, and strides toward the goldrider, sparing no more than a passing glance for the strange bluerider with her. "You have to come back."
"She's /not/ a new arrival," is Diya's quick assertion, vehement as a -look- is cast J'lor's way, prompt in its explanation that Issa will not be staying long. The shock of her landing catches up with her, and for a split second, the goldrider stops abruptly before motion is picked up again, a bit more oddly for the out of place halt, wheeling around Nenuith's large frame and then intent on the greenrider. Pausing again, apparently that dress wasn't what she'd expected, the goldrider's dark eyes flick quickly to seek out Oshisyth and then alight onto Issa again. /That/ certainly wasn't a statement she expected, and gathering what little poise she has left, Diya begins with a headshake that's soon vocalized lowly, "I can't. You know that."
Maternal disapproval slips lightly like a pillow cover of Nenuith's clear thoughts. She does not care for your hide well? Never mind the greyed state of her own hide months previous. A pause allows the lingering bells to fade off into nothing before the once Reachian queen reaches out again with sleeves of warmed sunlight and soft velvet to cradle the green's mind.
The man falls a few steps behind Diya and then, on a clearer view of the greenrider, simply stops. It's the finery that does it, draws his eyes, more to the gown than to the distraught woman's face. He stares, certainly, though he stares as one might at a particularly exquisite item in a museum collection. A strange and inexplicable thing of bygone days. He falls silent for now as Vellath lowers into a crouch perhaps a dozen feet behind him.
"No. No, you /have/ to." Issa's insistent tone carries a distraught edge, a rigid stress that's mirrored on her features, her jaw clenched, eyes thrown wide. As she nears, her skirt is abandoned as she crosses her arms again, swirling back down to the ground and further dirtying its hem. "Diya," and she pauses for a significant flick of her eyes for J'lor before they return, brimming, to her former weyrwoman, "Yevide is dead."
Completion of gaping the distance between her and Issa takes a couple steps backwards, literally, and instead of drawing up closer to the exquisitely dressed greenrider, Diya backs up within arms length of her cream-touched queen. With fingers that trace delicately across Nenuith's hide, her negation is followed by pale shock which is then complemented by a troubled furrow of her brow. "J'lor," is what her thin alto relates absently. "J'lor, Vellath's rider. Roa-," a beat that results in a funny twitch touching Diya's nose ensues, and what she means to say is cut of. Dodging any recognition of Yevide's death, other than her pale face, she instead replies, "We flew here straight," which isn't unheard of given the short distance, but is soon added to with, "Nenuith can no longer between anywhere."
Echoes of keening surface as Oshisyth settles against the warmth provided by the queen. Wordless agitation surges forward like the breaking of a weary tide, an explanation for the greyed appearance.
Yevide? Was that not the name of a goldrider? The one who now leads the Reaches. And she is...oh. One can just see the pieces click into place as dark brows draw down into a quiet and brooding concern. His eyes snap to Diya as that second name mentioned. Roa, but as she breaks off the word, he looks back to the greenrider. "Well met, Issa," is the low, tenor greeting. They have not really. Met. But that seems to be of little import just now. "An accident?"
It's the time and distance that have rendered Nenuith unable to vocally mourn this death, however the echoes are relayed, though sympathy rises in the queen's mental touch. The lingering effects of Oshisyth's sorrow is joined by a mildly distressed song that complements the green's. You have flown well here. Unspoken but -felt- is the respect for the younger dragon's ability to discern and between even in such a situation. We cannot return, is spoken in chime with her rider's statement to Issa, but in the dragon's speech silence is broken by a promising, Yet.
Issa exhales a shuddering breath, shoulders caving forward as she looks to the gravid queen next to her, blinking slowly as the pieces in her own head arrange themselves. Her arms squeeze tighter around her as J'lor's introductory words remind her that there's still things to be done. "J'lor," she greets, lips twitching in what must be an intended smile as she shoots Diya a glance for the omission. "Um. No, not likely," she manages to put forth, eyes falling to scan the ground as she summons the energy to proceed. "Healers looked worried. Mutterings of poison." She shakes her head, another curl tumbling from the pinned arrangement on top of her head as she lifts her gaze, switching it between Diya and J'lor.
Though she's absently introduced him and glared at him earlier, only after Issa's look does the lanky woman rouse herself from her thought-dwelling stupor to study J'lor. Inscrutable, those eyes that fix onto the bluerider, and though she doesn't complete her thought, Diya does add a wry, "I would trust him with my life," to shed more light onto the bluerider's presence. "He is," a beat, a slow look for the wiry man, and then a chin lift is accompanied by the breathy hint of a fond smile, "The leader." More news on Yevide, however, kills any of the goldrider's bemusement and renews her steps towards Issa, "Do you, I know... I mean. There's no news of who might have caused it if it was poisoning?"
More long quiet from the Instigator as Issa speaks and then Diya. Her words evoke a strange smile, almost a little pained. "In a better and bygone day," J'lor amends gently at the statement that he is a leader here. "Someone has...poisoned a Weyrwoman?" the words are incredulous. Even his people never dared something like that. But as Diya asks the question *he* would also pose, the bluerider only nods his head once. Who?
One facet of Issa's disquiet settles with Diya's reassurances about this bluerider, and she favors J'lor with a slower nod, a more sure slip of a smile to answer his clarification. "A Weyrwoman," she confirms, voice heavy with a sinking disbelief of her own, but one that can't deny the truth of what she says. Shoulders hint at a shrug, but never quite complete the gesture. "E'sere was on her arm," and though she continues, where her suspicions lie is quite clear, "and so was R'vain. It was... a party, though. So many people." That would explain the dress, at least. "Shards," is then raggedly whispered, exhaled on a torn breath. Stronger then, "Shards, Diya, we could have done this." It's almost an accusation, one she can't deliver while looking at the goldrider. Instead she focuses on some distant tree, eyes filling, wavering under the threat of tears that she still manages to hold back. "The /right/ way. Now..." Well, here they are, the three of them. She sniffs loudly, sighing and drawing her shoulders back as she looks fleetingly at Diya and quickly changes her gaze to take in J'lor and his blue. "Now we have to make other plans, I suppose," she recovers with her last shred of decorum, blinking away what emotion threatened to overtake her.
"Bygone days do not have to remain such," replies the goldrider with an odd graveness imbued in her voice. Though, perhaps it's not quite so odd given the situation, and what paleness lingers blanches even further at the insinuation of all of Issa's statements: starting with E'sere, though there's a glimmer, confirmation of some inner feeling, and continuing to the end. Silent, she's unable to help the guilt rising quick to her eyes, but has the presence of mind to fix those wrecked gaze onto the greenrider, wherever else her once protégée might be looking. Quietness breaks silence, and slowly, softly, she states, rather than inquires: "You think I could have fixed this somehow. That it wouldn't have happened."
The expression on J'lor's face comes and goes. A tightening of his features at the implication that his presence, his peoples' presence are an unwanted confusion to something that should have been simple. That they are secondhand alternatives. There is a shake of his head at names. "I am going to need a primer, Diya," the bluerider notes. "Who is who, if the state of High Reaches Weyr is to become of pressing import. I don't know any of them anymore."
"It wouldn't have." Issa's certainty in this fact is quiet but unshakable, even in her current state, pale eyes meeting Diya's with a lingering look of regret for those words even as they're being said. Then she prompts, forcing the focus away from what-ifs, "It will become pressing soon enough. Tell him." Her hand lifts to straighten her strap, fallen dangerously low on her arm, before it retreats to its curled position about her midsection and she listens, gaze finding the ground.
Diya holds the gaze as long as Issa sustains it, and even after the greenrider moves on to other topics, the goldrider's dark blue eyes remained fastened to the other woman. It's as if she doesn't hear J'lor's comment, or what topic Issa moves on towards, lost in glazed thought. But soon, the semblance of unhearing is broken when the ruddy-haired woman stirs herself from her reverie. "Yevide, a goldrider from Igen became the Weyrwoman at High Reaches due to a transfer that was accomplished without my knowledge while I was acting in Lexine's place. Her flight was subsequently won by an Igenite bronzerider, an occurrence which I am certain Ganathon did not plan for. The lover was betrayed by his little snake." Succinctly spoken, she spares J'lor the most fleeting of glances before plowing ahead in a steady, almost monotonous fashion. "Left out of the day to day leadership triumvirate of our once, fearless leader and two interlopers, I left." It's simple like that, really. "And now- now..., all of our traitorous once Weyrleader's pretty plans have come to a head." A beat to catch her breath also allows Diya to, well, become Diya and suddenly discerning eyes plant back onto Issa. "Who leads High Reaches right now?"
Lexine, at least, sparks some note of recognition and J'lor nods slowly as to the rest though his countenance becomes more and more furrowed as the explanation continues. "Then there were those who did not agree with her transfer rather strongly." There is a long stretch of quiet before he adds, "Katric and Donavon came from High Reaches. And Katric seemed partial to spouting the many ways in which he and his have gone about restoring High Reaches to its rightful leaders. Could this same faction have gone a step further?" There is that unhappy smile, this time directed towards Issa. "And all of this was supposed to end when we were sent away," he murmurs.
Issa shakes her head, still absorbed in her glassy-eyed survey of the ground. "Sinopa, I assume," she says, darkly, evenly. "And J'cor. The Igenite bronzerider," she adds for J'lor's benefit. "At least until Citalth flies next. But I left before... anything was said." There's a rueful touch in the hesitation of those last words, an apology for not thinking more clearly in that glance she directs toward Diya. "It didn't," she pronounces heavily, still hugging her arms tightly to her as she pivots her torso to fully face the bluerider. Those moments spared by Diya offered her blunt summary have been taken advantage of, it would seem, for when she speaks again, the subject has switched to something quite different. "Do you and your riders fight Thread here on the islands," and there's half a beat, just long enough for her to dismiss the use of any title, "J'lor?"
"For a time," Diya accords to the bluerider, "It did. For a decade. There was peace, no killing, peace. No bloodshed, and that-... I couldn't let that go on." Troubled, the weyrwoman's expression wavers between crumpling to trying to stay strong and instead, the struggle results in laughter - the hysteric kind if only she'd let that final degree of control go. "Oh, how inappropriate," she finally exhales, choking back what else might come out of her mouth forcibly. "Sinopa? And you think E'sere-... Poor J'cor." For what rancor the weyrwoman has for her self-pitying betrayal by friends, the new Weyrleader, oddly, does not receive a part of it now, and laughter, however inappropriate, has allowed the goldrider to shed at least pieces of her shock. "Wingleader," sudden, the correction is not without reproof, with a telling gleam that surfaces bright in Diya's gaze. "In most respects, J'lor leads the wings here."
"Of course we fly thread," are the first words that come next from the bluerider. "With minimal numbers and substandard firestone, we fly thread. We have done since it began falling," though the term wingleader is only given a wry shake of his head. "I do what I can. We all do. It doesn't need a name." If J'lor has noticed that this new topic deviates somewhat from murdered weyrwomen, he doesn't ask.
Issa exhales a sigh, much steadier than the ones that came before it. "Good." And it's that single word that will have to suffice as Issa sinks into silence for a long moment, head tilted forward, her eyes again directed downward. "Well, Wingleader J'lor," she begins again, words muffled only slightly as they fall to the ground, "how would you like to increase your coverage?" In lighter times, her voice might carry a tone of playful mirth or easy banter; for now, it's constrained to a tight evenness with little room for rounded intonation.
Two heartbeats and Diya's quick to assume, and in her assumption darkens her gaze. "There's trouble with High Reaches' wings that they cannot cover their territory themselves?" Her hands lack for things to do, and again, the weyrwoman reaches back for the strength of Nenuith's hide even going so far as to lean a shoulder into the shadows of her lifemate. "Or do you lack faith in Sinopa and J'cor's ability to work... together?"
"No," Issa answers Diya, an unceremonious syllable that rights her gaze again as she watches them both intermittently. "The problem isn't with the wings. And it isn't with Sinopa." Though her tone adds and unspoken 'yet' to that mild reassurance. The weariness in her voice is inescapable, but she struggles through it to make herself clear. "Nabol still has no coverage, a fact recently brought to my attention again by... Roa." There's a significant glance for Diya, hesitant over the utterance of that name in light of her recent omission.
Issa's weariness elicits a surge forward of Diya's shoulders, stayed by force of will rather than her instinctive desire to comfort the greenrider. There's business to be discussed and the weyrwoman in Diya is compelled to fill that position. But one word, exhaled, carries in it the last vestige of regret for now, but no further information: "Roa." Always known for being a quick thinker, the mistakenly pieced together bits of news and knowledge shatter and merge together in a decidedly different fashion, and the goldrider's mouth parts, her breath audible. Softly, lacking rich depth in her intonation, she begins, "J'lor-, with Nenuith here, it would be possible to attempt," the last word stressed lightly, "To mask a return and /help/. No bloodshed. To help."
There's that name again, and J'lor focuses on it with pointed precision when it comes from Issa's lips. "Roa," he breathes out the two syllables as if to say them any louder might cause them to shatter. "She...came to you with this? She asked you to bring this idea to us?" Then he's turning to look at Diya. "Nabol has no coverage," he repeats slowly. "Only perhaps it does now. Perhaps..." and he's laughing, brown eyes dancing, head shaking slowly from side to side. "Faranth, they'll tear their hair out. Half of them will want us gone all over again. But the other half...why doesn't Nabol have coverage?"
Issa subtly watches her once mentor's reaction to that simple name, and even looks as if she might say something before she's interrupted by the softness of Diya's words. She then turns to nod quietly over J'lor's questions, straightening to give a halfhearted tug to her skirt before hunching back over crossed arms again. The weightier questions, she leaves for the goldrider to answer.
What her rider does not tell, finds ill ease on Nenuith's growing frame, even frustration for the secrecy of it all, and to her daughter, the gravid queen tattle tales. He is Roa's sire.
Dawning realization comes, unfolding like a dark downy blanket to soothe the confusion leaking over from her rider. Oh? the word forms against Oshisyth's mind and then reiterates. Oh.
Weightier, harder, it's all the same when a look of pain is fleeting across Diya's face, then buries beneath a calmer exterior. "Nabol desired to uproot tradition and requested support of Fort Weyr. Kalinda declined only after High Reaches had let Nabol do as they wished. Lord Odern is a difficult man." Still leaned against Nenuith, the statuesque woman unfolds herself genteelly, standing straight and takes a step away from her dragon and forward to complete the trio of riders. A slim hand extends to Issa, a second to J'lor, palms up in offering. "I have made many mistakes in my past doing what I thought best. It's not only Nenuith that keeps me here, dear," the title, fondly spoken, is joined by a look requesting understanding that is cast Issa. "Tell Roa," a beat, "Tell Roa that we accept - you can procure for us Fall maps of the area, yes?"
"From wingleader to wingrider so quickly," muses J'lor with a smirk as Diya steps forward, with her egg-heavy queen, to accept for him and his riders this task. "You see now, Issa, why I am not keen on titles." He is smiling, but the smile dims a little as he notes to the goldrider, even as his hand settles in Diya, "I'm going to have to explain it to him, you realize. And he may not like it."
The granting of that understanding seems doubtful at first, Issa's brows falling into a weak frown and her eyes dropping away. But her left hand lifts from her self-embrace to slip into Diya's waiting palm, and she lifts her eyes to find the goldrider's gaze, mouth thinning, spreading into something akin to a smile. And it's this half smile she turns on J'lor then for his lightheartedness, newly studying his face while she tries to match it. Diya's hand finds itself briefly squeezed as the greenrider says, softly, "I think I know where to find maps." Then there's a slight, "Oh, and..." trailing off into nothing just as her hand trails away from Diya's. Oshisyth shifts, however, her hide showing signs of improvement for the tropical sun and soothing presence of Nenuith as she unwinds herself and picks a path to just beside her rider. The green's muzzle butts against the chest of her dam, physical contact sought, while her rider busies herself fishing through the sacks attached to her straps, leaving the island dwellers to talk business in her moment of distraction.
There's a brief instant of chagrin that finds J'lor, and fades at his smirk and the hand that finds her own. "Habit-," is her excuse, not apology, which doesn't change anything, least of all the more immediate and distant past. Briefly, dark eyes ruminate over the bluerider before being drawn back to Issa to capture the thin near-smile and the hand that holds the greenrider's contains a light squeeze for the other woman's. But Issa's hand slips away too quickly, and while her own drops in response, Diya's fingers linger in J'lor's a beat, a light squeeze for him as well, if belated, before that too reluctantly is extricated. With Issa distracted, the goldrider's low spoken words barely move her mouth in a succinct response for the bluerider's concerns, "Screw him." Draping her neck easily over the smaller dragon's neck, Nenuith's head bends, caressing along the side of Oshisyth's neck and exhaling warm breath over the green's hide. Perhaps it's like a kiss, the way the dragon's mouth line pauses on its upward track to the top of Oshisyth's head or simple comfort.
Issa is, for the moment, left to her searching as J'lor watches Diya. Those two words call forth a little half smile, but he shakes his head. "In politics you outshine me any day, my dear, but even I know it's not that simple. Not with Derek. He has no qualms using others...any others...to maintain his hold. To take the entire wing off the island without his knowledge will exact something terrible. Diya..." the bluerider exhales slowly, "there was a reason he allowed you to have a child on your lap, that first dinner on the island."
That casted hand briefly smoothes down the back of her dress as Issa lowers herself back onto her heels, bringing away from her search a small glass vial and a leather pouch, clutched in her left hand. She meanders slowly back over to the other two riders, skirt rustling against the broad leaves of the grass as she pushes her way through it. Oshisyth whumps down behind her, content to stay there, curled under the queen's caresses, until stirred by some cue to leave. And so the greenrider drifts back into conversational range, what she's retrieved still cradled in the confining cage of her fingers. She doesn't contribute, merely listens neutrally to snippets of children and first dinners.
"Oh?" It's a question long gone unanswered, and the sudden unease of Diya's expression rests on J'lor expectantly.
"Oh," is all J'lor says, but he gives no further answer than that. Instead the man turns to Issa and to her strange offering. "What have you got there?"
"Oh," Issa utters absently, surprised by the sudden turn of the conversation to her. Her hand brings up the clasped treasures for view and she looks at them as if even she'd forgotten for a moment. But then she answers, "Analgesics. Pain medicine. The healers, they're quite lenient with attack victims." What dour tones are present in her voice are counteracted by that small glimmer of a smile, as she sheds a hesitant glance in Diya's direction. "I was able to... fudge my dosage a bit. Take one or two pills out of what they gave me." She reaches out with the leather satchel, which carries these pilfered pills, little white round things that jumble around in mostly empty space as she hands it to J'lor. "And this," she says as she transfers the little bottle, a more plentiful supply of the things, to the awkward grip of her right hand, "is what I have left. I thought you could use it."
The non-answer elicits a thinness to Diya's lips, and while the exchange of goods occurs between green and bluerider, she watches J'lor steadily. Her head drops, then lifts in conjunction with a light clearing of her throat, to spy out the white pills and, more intently, the little bottle. For now, though, the weyrwoman is silent, deferring the once exile leader. Instead, a hand finds her hip, the other raking through her ruddy hair.
"Thank you," J'lor reaches up to relieve Issa of her awkward grip on the items, drawing them into his own hands to examine them briefly before, of course, handing them over to Diya to inspect. She has a healer's knowledge, after all. "Such things will always be of use here, you're kind to think of us." There is a pause before once more returning to the other topic at hand, "How long, do you know, until fall is due over Nabol?"
The diplomatic words gain the bluerider nothing more than another stiff smile, too strained to let pass the normal niceties. "I... a couple of sevenday, probably," Issa answers. Her hand, now free of the little containers, suddenly flies to slap lightly at a spot on her upper arm, some pestering insect surely escaping unscathed to find a different meal. "Three at the most."
Her hand drops from her hip to reach out and accept the pills and bottle, fingers rolling reflexively over the vial's curves in a very cursory inspection. "We'll have maps within a day, a few days." In her reassurance to J'lor, Diya also tests the limits of what Issa would be prepared to do with a questing voice, and lifted brow. The alto that rises is quiet, accompanied by eyes that still divert to J'lor every so often, before eyes of dark sapphire find rest in the vision the greenrider makes, arm slapping and all, in her party gown.
"Three at the most," J'lor repeats, and then nods slightly at Diya's words, saying to Issa. "We'll be ready, but I'll need a precise time, obviously. As precise as we can. I think, this first time, we'll do best to arrive, do our duty, and simply leave again. Leave the speculating to those on the ground. Open the door a little." He looks to Diya, brows lifted in a question. She's better at this sort of thing than he is.
"A few days," Issa confirms for that questing voice, then adds, "As soon as I can. And I'll bring with them a time, a location." She nods over these duties she's taking on as she lists them out, gaze drifting ground-wards again as her voice tilts into self-admonishment for not having these things now. She stares for a while, sinking into her own thoughts before she draws herself up again and glances at the sun. "I should go," is muttered, though she doesn't move. Instead, she just looks at Diya.
"A ground crew, too. One we've worked with before they will not be expecti-." She pauses and shakes her head lightly, dismissal of business for now. "We," emphasis for the joint venture, "Will plan this if you give us the opening, my Issa." Juggling the bottle beneath her arm and the pills in a hand, her free arm reaches across to try and smooth the greenrider's hair down, curling fingers as the back of her hand falls to graze against her cheek. A look, emotion withheld after the emotional roller coaster just moments earlier, studies every line of the greenrider's face, drinking the younger woman in. "I'm glad you're well. I'd heard-... I'm glad you're alive." A pause is joined quickly by a ruefully crooked slant of her lips. "And kicking, it would seem. Go home, sweetheart, sleep."
"I look forward to seeing you again, Issa. If I may. A ground crew.." that last has J'lor frowning as he thinks. "This first time? Do you think it wise?" But he lifts a hand, waves it away. "Later, later. We can talk of all of it later. I should go as well. I have guests that need seeing to." Another one of his small smiles. He will wait, of course, until Issa is on her way before he turns to Vellath to depart.
Issa can't help but fall under that caress and, after a moment, she rustles forward, skirt dragging, for a quick hug, nose buried into the goldrider's shoulder as she squeezes gently. All she can afford right now. Tears have been threatened too long and they finally spill, seeping out silently by ones and twos before they're swiped away by a harsh sweep of the back of her hand. "Sleep," she scoffs thickly. And a full smile returns to her face, though it only fleetingly shows. With a brisk clearing of her throat, she steadies her voice and says as she backs away, "I'll be back in a few days." Oshisyth stirs from underneath Nenuith, that awaited cue, indeed, coming, and Issa gathers her skirts to lift them a few inches from the ground, picking her way awkwardly back to her dragon.
For Issa's tears, Diya struggles to withhold her own, maintaining that semblance of strong and steady. Her arm loops comfortingly in that quick hug, the squeeze more gentle than fervent, and with the tears in her shoulder, she's quick to cant her head down to inhale the greenrider's scent before she moves away. "Sleep," she repeats, gently, eyes damp though no tears fall, and kind. Nenuith relinquishes her daughter, her neck drawing up again and away, though not with one last nuzzle of her nose. From the ground, the goldrider watches, her stance aligning lanky frame by lanky frame, and as the other woman makes preparations to return to the Reaches, Diya spares J'lor one last look and a quiet promise beneath her breath, "A drink later, on our return, together? After."
J'lor keeps out of it. This is a moment between two close friends and he has no part in it. Hands find pockets as he reclines against blue Vellath until Issa moves off and Diya comes closer to murmur her offer. "After," is his quiet agreement. "This evening perhaps. I would like that."
Time: Morning on Day 24, Month 6, Turn 2 (Exile Time)
Players: Diya, J'lor, Issa, Vellath, Oshisyth, Nenuith
Scene: The morning after a trio of unexpected arrivals there is one more. Plans are set into motion and a secret is leaked.
As a party concludes quite a distance away in an awe-inspiring fiasco, a green's arrival and subsequent urgent call to the exile's lone queen is responded to with an alacrity that belies the lazy somnolence cloudy skies bring. An image is cast to green and a less well-known blue, of an island fifty or so dragonlengths northeasterly, where the prominent landscape to focus on is the S-shaped curve of a creek that halves it distinctly from a birds eye view. The exile's arrival is just a touch belated, presumably the difficulties of slipping away unnoticed, but when there, the more familiar of the two, Diya, slides down her dragon's side with little care for safety as Nenuith's not -quite- landed yet. Thump. "Issa?" That her normally calm alto contains in it a slight shrillness only speaks further of the goldrider's unnerved state.
The advantage to being thought wayward and quixotic is that if you are, one moment sitting on the beach and the next, hopping up and scrambling onto your dragon, no one thinks much of it. So blue Vellath wings his way to the meeting point, swinging in to land near the meadow beside the curving creek and settling. Not quite as daring as the weyrwoman, the long, lean rider hops off his blue only after he comes to a standstill. There is energy barely contained in this tall and rangy man as he moves towards the other riders: one known, one not. "It is a day for new arrivals," is murmured under the man's breath.
Issa's own state of unnerve is far more evident. She tracks back and forth through the knee-high tropical grass, quite an odd sight gussied up as she is. There's a striking lack of concern for the way the skirt of her gown trails along the damp ground and her hair, while showing signs that it was once immaculate, has tumbled into a frizzy disarray. She carries her arms crossed in front of her, hugging tightly to herself that cast on her right wrist. Oshisyth has curled into a little cove around her pacing rider, her normally vibrant hide dulled while her eyes wheel brightly with alarming yellows and reds as she turns her eyes up to the sky to herald the arrival of others. Issa's circuit comes to an abrupt halt as the gold and blue land, her left hand springing to shade her eyes as she waits only long enough for them to dismount. "Diya," she says in return, not so much a greeting as a plea. She lifts the skirt slightly, with a passing air of frustration for the inconvenience, and strides toward the goldrider, sparing no more than a passing glance for the strange bluerider with her. "You have to come back."
"She's /not/ a new arrival," is Diya's quick assertion, vehement as a -look- is cast J'lor's way, prompt in its explanation that Issa will not be staying long. The shock of her landing catches up with her, and for a split second, the goldrider stops abruptly before motion is picked up again, a bit more oddly for the out of place halt, wheeling around Nenuith's large frame and then intent on the greenrider. Pausing again, apparently that dress wasn't what she'd expected, the goldrider's dark eyes flick quickly to seek out Oshisyth and then alight onto Issa again. /That/ certainly wasn't a statement she expected, and gathering what little poise she has left, Diya begins with a headshake that's soon vocalized lowly, "I can't. You know that."
Maternal disapproval slips lightly like a pillow cover of Nenuith's clear thoughts. She does not care for your hide well? Never mind the greyed state of her own hide months previous. A pause allows the lingering bells to fade off into nothing before the once Reachian queen reaches out again with sleeves of warmed sunlight and soft velvet to cradle the green's mind.
The man falls a few steps behind Diya and then, on a clearer view of the greenrider, simply stops. It's the finery that does it, draws his eyes, more to the gown than to the distraught woman's face. He stares, certainly, though he stares as one might at a particularly exquisite item in a museum collection. A strange and inexplicable thing of bygone days. He falls silent for now as Vellath lowers into a crouch perhaps a dozen feet behind him.
"No. No, you /have/ to." Issa's insistent tone carries a distraught edge, a rigid stress that's mirrored on her features, her jaw clenched, eyes thrown wide. As she nears, her skirt is abandoned as she crosses her arms again, swirling back down to the ground and further dirtying its hem. "Diya," and she pauses for a significant flick of her eyes for J'lor before they return, brimming, to her former weyrwoman, "Yevide is dead."
Completion of gaping the distance between her and Issa takes a couple steps backwards, literally, and instead of drawing up closer to the exquisitely dressed greenrider, Diya backs up within arms length of her cream-touched queen. With fingers that trace delicately across Nenuith's hide, her negation is followed by pale shock which is then complemented by a troubled furrow of her brow. "J'lor," is what her thin alto relates absently. "J'lor, Vellath's rider. Roa-," a beat that results in a funny twitch touching Diya's nose ensues, and what she means to say is cut of. Dodging any recognition of Yevide's death, other than her pale face, she instead replies, "We flew here straight," which isn't unheard of given the short distance, but is soon added to with, "Nenuith can no longer between anywhere."
Echoes of keening surface as Oshisyth settles against the warmth provided by the queen. Wordless agitation surges forward like the breaking of a weary tide, an explanation for the greyed appearance.
Yevide? Was that not the name of a goldrider? The one who now leads the Reaches. And she is...oh. One can just see the pieces click into place as dark brows draw down into a quiet and brooding concern. His eyes snap to Diya as that second name mentioned. Roa, but as she breaks off the word, he looks back to the greenrider. "Well met, Issa," is the low, tenor greeting. They have not really. Met. But that seems to be of little import just now. "An accident?"
It's the time and distance that have rendered Nenuith unable to vocally mourn this death, however the echoes are relayed, though sympathy rises in the queen's mental touch. The lingering effects of Oshisyth's sorrow is joined by a mildly distressed song that complements the green's. You have flown well here. Unspoken but -felt- is the respect for the younger dragon's ability to discern and between even in such a situation. We cannot return, is spoken in chime with her rider's statement to Issa, but in the dragon's speech silence is broken by a promising, Yet.
Issa exhales a shuddering breath, shoulders caving forward as she looks to the gravid queen next to her, blinking slowly as the pieces in her own head arrange themselves. Her arms squeeze tighter around her as J'lor's introductory words remind her that there's still things to be done. "J'lor," she greets, lips twitching in what must be an intended smile as she shoots Diya a glance for the omission. "Um. No, not likely," she manages to put forth, eyes falling to scan the ground as she summons the energy to proceed. "Healers looked worried. Mutterings of poison." She shakes her head, another curl tumbling from the pinned arrangement on top of her head as she lifts her gaze, switching it between Diya and J'lor.
Though she's absently introduced him and glared at him earlier, only after Issa's look does the lanky woman rouse herself from her thought-dwelling stupor to study J'lor. Inscrutable, those eyes that fix onto the bluerider, and though she doesn't complete her thought, Diya does add a wry, "I would trust him with my life," to shed more light onto the bluerider's presence. "He is," a beat, a slow look for the wiry man, and then a chin lift is accompanied by the breathy hint of a fond smile, "The leader." More news on Yevide, however, kills any of the goldrider's bemusement and renews her steps towards Issa, "Do you, I know... I mean. There's no news of who might have caused it if it was poisoning?"
More long quiet from the Instigator as Issa speaks and then Diya. Her words evoke a strange smile, almost a little pained. "In a better and bygone day," J'lor amends gently at the statement that he is a leader here. "Someone has...poisoned a Weyrwoman?" the words are incredulous. Even his people never dared something like that. But as Diya asks the question *he* would also pose, the bluerider only nods his head once. Who?
One facet of Issa's disquiet settles with Diya's reassurances about this bluerider, and she favors J'lor with a slower nod, a more sure slip of a smile to answer his clarification. "A Weyrwoman," she confirms, voice heavy with a sinking disbelief of her own, but one that can't deny the truth of what she says. Shoulders hint at a shrug, but never quite complete the gesture. "E'sere was on her arm," and though she continues, where her suspicions lie is quite clear, "and so was R'vain. It was... a party, though. So many people." That would explain the dress, at least. "Shards," is then raggedly whispered, exhaled on a torn breath. Stronger then, "Shards, Diya, we could have done this." It's almost an accusation, one she can't deliver while looking at the goldrider. Instead she focuses on some distant tree, eyes filling, wavering under the threat of tears that she still manages to hold back. "The /right/ way. Now..." Well, here they are, the three of them. She sniffs loudly, sighing and drawing her shoulders back as she looks fleetingly at Diya and quickly changes her gaze to take in J'lor and his blue. "Now we have to make other plans, I suppose," she recovers with her last shred of decorum, blinking away what emotion threatened to overtake her.
"Bygone days do not have to remain such," replies the goldrider with an odd graveness imbued in her voice. Though, perhaps it's not quite so odd given the situation, and what paleness lingers blanches even further at the insinuation of all of Issa's statements: starting with E'sere, though there's a glimmer, confirmation of some inner feeling, and continuing to the end. Silent, she's unable to help the guilt rising quick to her eyes, but has the presence of mind to fix those wrecked gaze onto the greenrider, wherever else her once protégée might be looking. Quietness breaks silence, and slowly, softly, she states, rather than inquires: "You think I could have fixed this somehow. That it wouldn't have happened."
The expression on J'lor's face comes and goes. A tightening of his features at the implication that his presence, his peoples' presence are an unwanted confusion to something that should have been simple. That they are secondhand alternatives. There is a shake of his head at names. "I am going to need a primer, Diya," the bluerider notes. "Who is who, if the state of High Reaches Weyr is to become of pressing import. I don't know any of them anymore."
"It wouldn't have." Issa's certainty in this fact is quiet but unshakable, even in her current state, pale eyes meeting Diya's with a lingering look of regret for those words even as they're being said. Then she prompts, forcing the focus away from what-ifs, "It will become pressing soon enough. Tell him." Her hand lifts to straighten her strap, fallen dangerously low on her arm, before it retreats to its curled position about her midsection and she listens, gaze finding the ground.
Diya holds the gaze as long as Issa sustains it, and even after the greenrider moves on to other topics, the goldrider's dark blue eyes remained fastened to the other woman. It's as if she doesn't hear J'lor's comment, or what topic Issa moves on towards, lost in glazed thought. But soon, the semblance of unhearing is broken when the ruddy-haired woman stirs herself from her reverie. "Yevide, a goldrider from Igen became the Weyrwoman at High Reaches due to a transfer that was accomplished without my knowledge while I was acting in Lexine's place. Her flight was subsequently won by an Igenite bronzerider, an occurrence which I am certain Ganathon did not plan for. The lover was betrayed by his little snake." Succinctly spoken, she spares J'lor the most fleeting of glances before plowing ahead in a steady, almost monotonous fashion. "Left out of the day to day leadership triumvirate of our once, fearless leader and two interlopers, I left." It's simple like that, really. "And now- now..., all of our traitorous once Weyrleader's pretty plans have come to a head." A beat to catch her breath also allows Diya to, well, become Diya and suddenly discerning eyes plant back onto Issa. "Who leads High Reaches right now?"
Lexine, at least, sparks some note of recognition and J'lor nods slowly as to the rest though his countenance becomes more and more furrowed as the explanation continues. "Then there were those who did not agree with her transfer rather strongly." There is a long stretch of quiet before he adds, "Katric and Donavon came from High Reaches. And Katric seemed partial to spouting the many ways in which he and his have gone about restoring High Reaches to its rightful leaders. Could this same faction have gone a step further?" There is that unhappy smile, this time directed towards Issa. "And all of this was supposed to end when we were sent away," he murmurs.
Issa shakes her head, still absorbed in her glassy-eyed survey of the ground. "Sinopa, I assume," she says, darkly, evenly. "And J'cor. The Igenite bronzerider," she adds for J'lor's benefit. "At least until Citalth flies next. But I left before... anything was said." There's a rueful touch in the hesitation of those last words, an apology for not thinking more clearly in that glance she directs toward Diya. "It didn't," she pronounces heavily, still hugging her arms tightly to her as she pivots her torso to fully face the bluerider. Those moments spared by Diya offered her blunt summary have been taken advantage of, it would seem, for when she speaks again, the subject has switched to something quite different. "Do you and your riders fight Thread here on the islands," and there's half a beat, just long enough for her to dismiss the use of any title, "J'lor?"
"For a time," Diya accords to the bluerider, "It did. For a decade. There was peace, no killing, peace. No bloodshed, and that-... I couldn't let that go on." Troubled, the weyrwoman's expression wavers between crumpling to trying to stay strong and instead, the struggle results in laughter - the hysteric kind if only she'd let that final degree of control go. "Oh, how inappropriate," she finally exhales, choking back what else might come out of her mouth forcibly. "Sinopa? And you think E'sere-... Poor J'cor." For what rancor the weyrwoman has for her self-pitying betrayal by friends, the new Weyrleader, oddly, does not receive a part of it now, and laughter, however inappropriate, has allowed the goldrider to shed at least pieces of her shock. "Wingleader," sudden, the correction is not without reproof, with a telling gleam that surfaces bright in Diya's gaze. "In most respects, J'lor leads the wings here."
"Of course we fly thread," are the first words that come next from the bluerider. "With minimal numbers and substandard firestone, we fly thread. We have done since it began falling," though the term wingleader is only given a wry shake of his head. "I do what I can. We all do. It doesn't need a name." If J'lor has noticed that this new topic deviates somewhat from murdered weyrwomen, he doesn't ask.
Issa exhales a sigh, much steadier than the ones that came before it. "Good." And it's that single word that will have to suffice as Issa sinks into silence for a long moment, head tilted forward, her eyes again directed downward. "Well, Wingleader J'lor," she begins again, words muffled only slightly as they fall to the ground, "how would you like to increase your coverage?" In lighter times, her voice might carry a tone of playful mirth or easy banter; for now, it's constrained to a tight evenness with little room for rounded intonation.
Two heartbeats and Diya's quick to assume, and in her assumption darkens her gaze. "There's trouble with High Reaches' wings that they cannot cover their territory themselves?" Her hands lack for things to do, and again, the weyrwoman reaches back for the strength of Nenuith's hide even going so far as to lean a shoulder into the shadows of her lifemate. "Or do you lack faith in Sinopa and J'cor's ability to work... together?"
"No," Issa answers Diya, an unceremonious syllable that rights her gaze again as she watches them both intermittently. "The problem isn't with the wings. And it isn't with Sinopa." Though her tone adds and unspoken 'yet' to that mild reassurance. The weariness in her voice is inescapable, but she struggles through it to make herself clear. "Nabol still has no coverage, a fact recently brought to my attention again by... Roa." There's a significant glance for Diya, hesitant over the utterance of that name in light of her recent omission.
Issa's weariness elicits a surge forward of Diya's shoulders, stayed by force of will rather than her instinctive desire to comfort the greenrider. There's business to be discussed and the weyrwoman in Diya is compelled to fill that position. But one word, exhaled, carries in it the last vestige of regret for now, but no further information: "Roa." Always known for being a quick thinker, the mistakenly pieced together bits of news and knowledge shatter and merge together in a decidedly different fashion, and the goldrider's mouth parts, her breath audible. Softly, lacking rich depth in her intonation, she begins, "J'lor-, with Nenuith here, it would be possible to attempt," the last word stressed lightly, "To mask a return and /help/. No bloodshed. To help."
There's that name again, and J'lor focuses on it with pointed precision when it comes from Issa's lips. "Roa," he breathes out the two syllables as if to say them any louder might cause them to shatter. "She...came to you with this? She asked you to bring this idea to us?" Then he's turning to look at Diya. "Nabol has no coverage," he repeats slowly. "Only perhaps it does now. Perhaps..." and he's laughing, brown eyes dancing, head shaking slowly from side to side. "Faranth, they'll tear their hair out. Half of them will want us gone all over again. But the other half...why doesn't Nabol have coverage?"
Issa subtly watches her once mentor's reaction to that simple name, and even looks as if she might say something before she's interrupted by the softness of Diya's words. She then turns to nod quietly over J'lor's questions, straightening to give a halfhearted tug to her skirt before hunching back over crossed arms again. The weightier questions, she leaves for the goldrider to answer.
What her rider does not tell, finds ill ease on Nenuith's growing frame, even frustration for the secrecy of it all, and to her daughter, the gravid queen tattle tales. He is Roa's sire.
Dawning realization comes, unfolding like a dark downy blanket to soothe the confusion leaking over from her rider. Oh? the word forms against Oshisyth's mind and then reiterates. Oh.
Weightier, harder, it's all the same when a look of pain is fleeting across Diya's face, then buries beneath a calmer exterior. "Nabol desired to uproot tradition and requested support of Fort Weyr. Kalinda declined only after High Reaches had let Nabol do as they wished. Lord Odern is a difficult man." Still leaned against Nenuith, the statuesque woman unfolds herself genteelly, standing straight and takes a step away from her dragon and forward to complete the trio of riders. A slim hand extends to Issa, a second to J'lor, palms up in offering. "I have made many mistakes in my past doing what I thought best. It's not only Nenuith that keeps me here, dear," the title, fondly spoken, is joined by a look requesting understanding that is cast Issa. "Tell Roa," a beat, "Tell Roa that we accept - you can procure for us Fall maps of the area, yes?"
"From wingleader to wingrider so quickly," muses J'lor with a smirk as Diya steps forward, with her egg-heavy queen, to accept for him and his riders this task. "You see now, Issa, why I am not keen on titles." He is smiling, but the smile dims a little as he notes to the goldrider, even as his hand settles in Diya, "I'm going to have to explain it to him, you realize. And he may not like it."
The granting of that understanding seems doubtful at first, Issa's brows falling into a weak frown and her eyes dropping away. But her left hand lifts from her self-embrace to slip into Diya's waiting palm, and she lifts her eyes to find the goldrider's gaze, mouth thinning, spreading into something akin to a smile. And it's this half smile she turns on J'lor then for his lightheartedness, newly studying his face while she tries to match it. Diya's hand finds itself briefly squeezed as the greenrider says, softly, "I think I know where to find maps." Then there's a slight, "Oh, and..." trailing off into nothing just as her hand trails away from Diya's. Oshisyth shifts, however, her hide showing signs of improvement for the tropical sun and soothing presence of Nenuith as she unwinds herself and picks a path to just beside her rider. The green's muzzle butts against the chest of her dam, physical contact sought, while her rider busies herself fishing through the sacks attached to her straps, leaving the island dwellers to talk business in her moment of distraction.
There's a brief instant of chagrin that finds J'lor, and fades at his smirk and the hand that finds her own. "Habit-," is her excuse, not apology, which doesn't change anything, least of all the more immediate and distant past. Briefly, dark eyes ruminate over the bluerider before being drawn back to Issa to capture the thin near-smile and the hand that holds the greenrider's contains a light squeeze for the other woman's. But Issa's hand slips away too quickly, and while her own drops in response, Diya's fingers linger in J'lor's a beat, a light squeeze for him as well, if belated, before that too reluctantly is extricated. With Issa distracted, the goldrider's low spoken words barely move her mouth in a succinct response for the bluerider's concerns, "Screw him." Draping her neck easily over the smaller dragon's neck, Nenuith's head bends, caressing along the side of Oshisyth's neck and exhaling warm breath over the green's hide. Perhaps it's like a kiss, the way the dragon's mouth line pauses on its upward track to the top of Oshisyth's head or simple comfort.
Issa is, for the moment, left to her searching as J'lor watches Diya. Those two words call forth a little half smile, but he shakes his head. "In politics you outshine me any day, my dear, but even I know it's not that simple. Not with Derek. He has no qualms using others...any others...to maintain his hold. To take the entire wing off the island without his knowledge will exact something terrible. Diya..." the bluerider exhales slowly, "there was a reason he allowed you to have a child on your lap, that first dinner on the island."
That casted hand briefly smoothes down the back of her dress as Issa lowers herself back onto her heels, bringing away from her search a small glass vial and a leather pouch, clutched in her left hand. She meanders slowly back over to the other two riders, skirt rustling against the broad leaves of the grass as she pushes her way through it. Oshisyth whumps down behind her, content to stay there, curled under the queen's caresses, until stirred by some cue to leave. And so the greenrider drifts back into conversational range, what she's retrieved still cradled in the confining cage of her fingers. She doesn't contribute, merely listens neutrally to snippets of children and first dinners.
"Oh?" It's a question long gone unanswered, and the sudden unease of Diya's expression rests on J'lor expectantly.
"Oh," is all J'lor says, but he gives no further answer than that. Instead the man turns to Issa and to her strange offering. "What have you got there?"
"Oh," Issa utters absently, surprised by the sudden turn of the conversation to her. Her hand brings up the clasped treasures for view and she looks at them as if even she'd forgotten for a moment. But then she answers, "Analgesics. Pain medicine. The healers, they're quite lenient with attack victims." What dour tones are present in her voice are counteracted by that small glimmer of a smile, as she sheds a hesitant glance in Diya's direction. "I was able to... fudge my dosage a bit. Take one or two pills out of what they gave me." She reaches out with the leather satchel, which carries these pilfered pills, little white round things that jumble around in mostly empty space as she hands it to J'lor. "And this," she says as she transfers the little bottle, a more plentiful supply of the things, to the awkward grip of her right hand, "is what I have left. I thought you could use it."
The non-answer elicits a thinness to Diya's lips, and while the exchange of goods occurs between green and bluerider, she watches J'lor steadily. Her head drops, then lifts in conjunction with a light clearing of her throat, to spy out the white pills and, more intently, the little bottle. For now, though, the weyrwoman is silent, deferring the once exile leader. Instead, a hand finds her hip, the other raking through her ruddy hair.
"Thank you," J'lor reaches up to relieve Issa of her awkward grip on the items, drawing them into his own hands to examine them briefly before, of course, handing them over to Diya to inspect. She has a healer's knowledge, after all. "Such things will always be of use here, you're kind to think of us." There is a pause before once more returning to the other topic at hand, "How long, do you know, until fall is due over Nabol?"
The diplomatic words gain the bluerider nothing more than another stiff smile, too strained to let pass the normal niceties. "I... a couple of sevenday, probably," Issa answers. Her hand, now free of the little containers, suddenly flies to slap lightly at a spot on her upper arm, some pestering insect surely escaping unscathed to find a different meal. "Three at the most."
Her hand drops from her hip to reach out and accept the pills and bottle, fingers rolling reflexively over the vial's curves in a very cursory inspection. "We'll have maps within a day, a few days." In her reassurance to J'lor, Diya also tests the limits of what Issa would be prepared to do with a questing voice, and lifted brow. The alto that rises is quiet, accompanied by eyes that still divert to J'lor every so often, before eyes of dark sapphire find rest in the vision the greenrider makes, arm slapping and all, in her party gown.
"Three at the most," J'lor repeats, and then nods slightly at Diya's words, saying to Issa. "We'll be ready, but I'll need a precise time, obviously. As precise as we can. I think, this first time, we'll do best to arrive, do our duty, and simply leave again. Leave the speculating to those on the ground. Open the door a little." He looks to Diya, brows lifted in a question. She's better at this sort of thing than he is.
"A few days," Issa confirms for that questing voice, then adds, "As soon as I can. And I'll bring with them a time, a location." She nods over these duties she's taking on as she lists them out, gaze drifting ground-wards again as her voice tilts into self-admonishment for not having these things now. She stares for a while, sinking into her own thoughts before she draws herself up again and glances at the sun. "I should go," is muttered, though she doesn't move. Instead, she just looks at Diya.
"A ground crew, too. One we've worked with before they will not be expecti-." She pauses and shakes her head lightly, dismissal of business for now. "We," emphasis for the joint venture, "Will plan this if you give us the opening, my Issa." Juggling the bottle beneath her arm and the pills in a hand, her free arm reaches across to try and smooth the greenrider's hair down, curling fingers as the back of her hand falls to graze against her cheek. A look, emotion withheld after the emotional roller coaster just moments earlier, studies every line of the greenrider's face, drinking the younger woman in. "I'm glad you're well. I'd heard-... I'm glad you're alive." A pause is joined quickly by a ruefully crooked slant of her lips. "And kicking, it would seem. Go home, sweetheart, sleep."
"I look forward to seeing you again, Issa. If I may. A ground crew.." that last has J'lor frowning as he thinks. "This first time? Do you think it wise?" But he lifts a hand, waves it away. "Later, later. We can talk of all of it later. I should go as well. I have guests that need seeing to." Another one of his small smiles. He will wait, of course, until Issa is on her way before he turns to Vellath to depart.
Issa can't help but fall under that caress and, after a moment, she rustles forward, skirt dragging, for a quick hug, nose buried into the goldrider's shoulder as she squeezes gently. All she can afford right now. Tears have been threatened too long and they finally spill, seeping out silently by ones and twos before they're swiped away by a harsh sweep of the back of her hand. "Sleep," she scoffs thickly. And a full smile returns to her face, though it only fleetingly shows. With a brisk clearing of her throat, she steadies her voice and says as she backs away, "I'll be back in a few days." Oshisyth stirs from underneath Nenuith, that awaited cue, indeed, coming, and Issa gathers her skirts to lift them a few inches from the ground, picking her way awkwardly back to her dragon.
For Issa's tears, Diya struggles to withhold her own, maintaining that semblance of strong and steady. Her arm loops comfortingly in that quick hug, the squeeze more gentle than fervent, and with the tears in her shoulder, she's quick to cant her head down to inhale the greenrider's scent before she moves away. "Sleep," she repeats, gently, eyes damp though no tears fall, and kind. Nenuith relinquishes her daughter, her neck drawing up again and away, though not with one last nuzzle of her nose. From the ground, the goldrider watches, her stance aligning lanky frame by lanky frame, and as the other woman makes preparations to return to the Reaches, Diya spares J'lor one last look and a quiet promise beneath her breath, "A drink later, on our return, together? After."
J'lor keeps out of it. This is a moment between two close friends and he has no part in it. Hands find pockets as he reclines against blue Vellath until Issa moves off and Diya comes closer to murmur her offer. "After," is his quiet agreement. "This evening perhaps. I would like that."