We should leave
Dinner was delayed by about half an hour because Reyce didn't turn up. After harassing Issa for the past sevenday not to neglect her meals, he's the one who almost missed one today; when he did remember, he showed up smelling of alcohol and vomit. He was not much inclined to talk, beyond what it took to answer her questions, if she herself could be budged out of her stupor to ask any. The rest of the weyr has moved on, more concerned with the presence of Instigators at High Reaches, but Diya's death still hangs over their little family. Asha was the one who finally called it quits, without knowing she did so, by bursting into nigh-inconsolable tears and refusing to take the breast that was offered to her. Since nobody seemed to have an appetite, dinner was called off early, and now the whole set of them returns to the weyr grumpy and morose. Reyce is the last one off Oshisyth, waiting for Issa to get away with Asha (now hushed, but not happy) before he attempts an unsteady dismount and scuffs his way onto the couch.
At the dinner that didn't happen, Issa's questions were few, stopping after she'd ascertained where he'd been, that he had in fact, as her suspicious little sniff told her, been drinking. Her own words were as spare as his, after that, and her silence grown more tense in the time it took for them to give up on eating. She all but ignores him now as she walks into the weyr, sliding Asha out of her harness and earning a fussy whine for her troubles. Cradling her tightly, Issa drapes the leather thing over the back of the rocking chair and leans in to snag a forgotten rattle from it's seat, requesting Asha's attention with a quick shake. Her attention is not so easily won, however, and it takes Issa a couple of minutes of slow pacing to cheer her, during which Oshisyth takes up her coiled position on her couch, lids lowered lazily in the relative heat provided by the fire that's still going strong from its stoking before dinner. Finally, Asha is convinced to grasp at the ball of the rattle, bringing it to her mouth an laying a line of drool along it's top, and Issa comes to a stop near where he's flopped his feet. "So is this how bad it's gotten with us, then?" she demands, her voice subdued but edged with a coolness that's too familiar for comfort these days, her eyes unwavering as they stare down at his face. "That you have to go off and drink alone now? Show up drunk to dinner?"
Reyce has stretched himself out on the couch, opting to hang his feet over the edge rather than use the armrest to support his head. He's also lifted his shirt so the fire's heat warms his belly directly, while an arm slung over his eyes prevents any of its light from disturbing him. Quite comfortable, then, while Issa looks to the baby. When she comes up near the couch and addresses him, Reyce lifts that arm out of the way and fixes his pink, bleary gaze on her sharpened stare. After a beat, he breathes, "Yes," unable to come up with a better answer (or, for that matter, a worse one). His arm falls down again, but this time it's crossing his chest; it makes little difference since his eyes close.
A heavy breath seeps out of Issa for his answer, but her stiff presence doesn't move for another minute more. Meanwhile, Asha lets out a slow coo of something bordering on contentment while she explores the rounded surface of that rattle. With a sharp sniff, she pivots and drops to sit on the arm of the couch, his feet nudged back so she can take possession of the outside edge. While she shakes her head to unspoken questions, Asha releases the rattle, following it with her eyes as her mother gives it a listless rattle.
Reyce's feet move off when nudged, but the rest of him stays put, and he doesn't look at her. The silence is broken only by Asha's rattle until he suddenly pops out with, "We should leave." His eyes are open again, still reddened but no longer unfocused since they're fixed pretty solidly on her.
The rattling stops at the first sound of his voice, and Asha's hands wave up to catch at it again. Issa's face angles to him to listen, but her eyes don't dart up to him again until what he's said has been given a moment to sink in. "Leave," she repeats, requesting clarification and embellishment in the quiet heaviness of her tone. Asha begins another bleat, but though a swift twitch of the rattle quiets her again, Issa turns down to look at her.
Reyce's nostrils flare when she answers him, but he gives a short nod to confirm it. He regrets that gesture quickly, his eyes squinting down while he waits off the pain that's begun to sunk in as the alcohol fades in his system. "She shouldn't be here," he says once he's ready, indicating Asha with a glance. "Not safe," he continues, his voice automatically lowering while he watches his daughter, though his eyes turn to Issa afterwards.
Issa continues to watch her daughter as she's distracting her, considering the little girl's face as she's informed that it's not safe. A succinct, restrained nod agrees with that statement; she wasn't at all happy on seeing the exile's erupt into the sky over the Weyr or with the things that came from it, but she's been unusually tight-lipped about the events that followed so closely on the heels of Diya's death. "And go where?" she asks him while tilting a glance back in his direction, the residue of her snapping tone lurking subtly under the words.
The nod he received for bringing in Asha surprised Reyce, but the tone he picks up in her words makes him tighten his jaw. "Benden." No big surprise, but he lets it sit with her half a beat before he continues. "M'arik's solid, keeps a good eye on his weyr. Could get work there in storerooms or something, what I'm supposed to be trained for. Otherwise, can't be steward now but I'll get something under it, work at the hold but I get days off and I spend my evenings with you. Have ideas," he tells her, somewhat defensive about it.
Issa absorbs his suggestions in silence, looking away from both him and Asha to focus on a green whorl on the carpet, her expression as blank as her stare. A moment after he’s finished, she finally responds with, “I don’t know.” There’s not a shred of that irritated undertone left now, or even any outright rejection, just a quiet helplessness for the situation. She shifts uncomfortably on her improvised seat, then just stands altogether, switching her seat to one on the floor, in front of the couch’s middle cushion. She slides down with Asha curled close to her chest and the rattle dangling from her fingers gives up a little clatter as she bumps down. “I don’t know,” she mumbles again, more thoughtfully, as she bends her knees and rearranges her daughter over her angled thighs.
Reyce's eyes track her silently, not leaving even when he has to drag in his chin for a quick belch that's suppressed in his cheeks. When she picks a new seat in front of his couch, he turns toward her, flopping onto his side and wincing slightly as the motion jars his head. "Can't stay here," he answers softly, holding his gaze on her for a few more seconds - in the hopes of making eye contact - before he drops it to Asha and the rattle. Watching her makes a thin frown appear on his forehead.
Issa's eye contact, however, is reserved for her daughter, a tiny, transient smile appearing as Asha unknowingly hits her hand against the rattle and sparks a sound that causes a gurgle from her in return. "Can't just leave, either," she tells him quietly. "I have to be transferred. Even if I stepped down as wingsecond, I'm still a rider. And... you should hear them talk... there weren't that many that wanted them before Five Mines, and now... The Weyr can't handle that many riders leaving, not without more coming in." She takes a deep breath, a hand pushing heavily through her uncooperative curls, and, softly, she boils it all down to, "There's a chance I may not be able to leave."
"She owes you," Reyce murmurs, his gaze shooting straight back to Issa. Dropping his arm over the edge of the couch, he pushes his fingers into the rug and pulls himself forward. "Weyrwoman. Went with messages for her, didn't you?" Reaching the end of the cushions, he melts off them entirely, pouring himself into the floor space between her and the couch. Getting upright takes a bit more effort, his jaw clenching down as he struggles for balance. "You went," he reiterates, letting out a breath still heavy with wine. "Got to do this now, and she owes you." Catching a belch in his cheeks, he pulls his chin down and squints.
Issa slides her gaze over to watch him as he begins to drop off the couch, a small frown already tugging at her brows. Her eyes flick a swift study over his face, then meet his bleary gaze silently for several seconds more. "I'll talk to her," she finally says, but by then she's already looking away, back down to Asha, who's settled and uninterested now in the rattle still being dangled near her hands. So Issa drops it to the ground and presses both of her forearms in at Asha's sides, cupping her tiny head in her hands. That's as much of a decision as she's going to make tonight, it seems, for when she speaks again a moment later, she just advises inconsequentially, "You should drink some water," and lets her gaze wander across the rug and up to the rest of the room.
Reyce's nostrils flare when she comes to that decision, sensing immediately that note of finality, but he doesn't offer an objection and merely puffs a breath out as he relaxes his nose. Like Issa, he lets his attention wander back to Asha, but his hands stay in place, pushing down into the rug. "Nn," he answers indistinctly when she suggests water, but a moment later he's again making the effort to move, using the couch to pull himself up so he can go fetch an ordinary waterskin from Issa's own, untouched, wine collection.
With Asha nestled comfortably in between her arms, Issa leans back against the couch, her head tipping back onto the cushions so her eyes are able to trace the far away ceiling as if she were leaving it forever the next day. "My," she begins, but has to clear her throat against a bit of tightness stuck in it. When she starts again, her voice is bare, simple. "My mother told me yesterday that she thinks that she's going to be leaving soon. Thinks it's likely they'll pull her back to the Hall, reassign her."
Reyce still has the waterskin lifted up in front of his face, draining down the last drops, but when it moves away, his eyes are on Issa already. Taking advantage of her preoccupation with the ceiling, he swings a careful study over her features, stoppering the waterskin and setting it aside before he goes after another one. "She want to go?" He focuses on the cap as he unscrews it, then closes his eyes completely as he starts to down more water.
"She will now, I suppose," Issa comments, a bit dryly, as her eyes drop back to him briefly before returning to their wandering. "I was pretty much the only reason she stayed in the first place." Her position is maintained, but her hands begin to move in small, gentle caresses along the top of Asha's head.
The second waterskin defeats him, and Reyce only gets in a few mouthfuls before he has to take a break. Stuffing the cap back in place, he takes it with him back to the hearth where he plants himself on the trunk, behind Issa. Leaning down, and unwittingly bringing the scent of booze with him, he grabs his own foot and hauls it up onto his knee, anchoring it there while he tugs at his boot laces. "Loves you," he comments simply. One hand, as it's untying, lifts far enough away to touch the back of her neck, where it lingers for a half-beat before necessity silently recalls it to the boot.
Issa lifts her head when he comes back, changing her staring to straight ahead rather than straight up. Neither his comment nor his touch, while it lingers, gain a reaction, but after his fingers leave she lets her chin drop to her chest so that if she's watching Asha at all, she's watching her feet. The baby meanwhile sticks her knuckles into her mouth, blinking up at her mother's face and searching out her father's. "Reyce," Issa pipes up hesitantly a few moments later from that bowed position, "I know I haven't been... very..." A puff of breath is all that finishes that sentence and, to fill the silence with something even if it's only fidgeting, she slowly brings her finger to Asha's hand to watch the girl clutch at it tightly.
Reyce does not catch Asha's stare immediately, but he never goes too long without glancing at his daughter, and when the next periodic glance catches her eye he stops to look back at her. He's beginning to lean forward, a hand uncurling beyond Issa's shoulder, when a word from the latter arrests the motion and he stops, withdraws, leaving Asha to suck on her knuckles in peace until Issa's finger distracts her. "'S fine," he answers, turning to his boot. Smelly feet gets added to the list of odors Reyce brings with him at this moment, and he's probably aware of it, since he grabs his foot and wraps it in both hands as though this could help suppress it. This is what he chooses to stare at after offering his brief reassurance.
Issa drops a brief glance back at him and the foot he holds, but gives no other indication that she notices the smells he gives off. She just goes back to idly entertaining Asha, sliding her finger away only to bring it within grasping range again a few seconds later. His reassurance has ample time to sink in and then she continues despite it. "I don't mean... I don't want to push you out." Then, a beat later she adds in a near whisper, "I'm gonna try to be better."
Issa goes on playing with Asha, and Reyce goes on cupping his foot after she's turned away. Her addition does at least get him to watch her (the back of her head, really), but his next move comes with a rustle of clothing as he bends down to switch in the other foot. Laces zip against each other as he deftly pulls them free, more skilled in this habit when not distracted by his libido. "Okay," is his response, the vowels thick with an exhalation. "Don't want to be pushed out." Faster with this one, he gets the boot untied and pushes it off, once again squeezing his foot up to try harnessing the smell.
The back of Issa's head is really all he'll be getting still, for his response settles into a space of motionless silence from her. Only Asha breaks it, feet kicking aimlessly at her mother’s belly while her head turns back and forth. Slowly, then, Issa peels her finger away from the baby's tight grip and slips her hand along the floor until it comes up against Reyce's foot. Though her face angles closer to him, her eyes are still elusively turned down while her touch curls around his ankle, creeping onto bare skin where it lingers quietly for a moment, thumb stroking down. Her fingers tighten in a faint squeeze and she pulls back to tend to Asha; instead of asking him to take her, like she normally might, she lifts her against one shoulder and holds her steady with one curled arm while she uses the other to help her stand again.
In return, the only sound from Reyce is that of his breathing. When Issa lifts the baby to her shoulder, though, he leans forward to stare at the little thing, who's peering at him curiously. "Ahhh," she bleats out merrily, one hand clutching the neck of Issa's shirt while she's being lifted off the ground. Reyce rises after her, keeping close to Issa's back so he can keep bothering his daughter, swiping a finger along her chubby cheek and provoking another squeal as Asha flails her arms, tugging Issa's collar around her neck.
Issa turns toward Asha when she blurts out her excitement, but the sideways look lasts only long enough for her to note Reyce's presence, then she just continues on her way with him following. He'll have to peel away soon, though, because she slides herself into the rocking chair, the motive for her move becoming evident. The rocking chair's begun to work like a charm at night when putting Asha to sleep and only a few minutes of the repetitious back and forth has the power to reduce her to yawns. Asha's dropped back into cradling arms again as soon as Issa's settled, and she stares down at the girl's face though she's still searching for the entertaining presense of her father.
Her father has exhausted his ability to be entertaining, although he sits close by, having returned to the couch. This time he's on Issa's side of it, leaning into the arm with a hand supporting his chin. Although he watched Asha initially, his attention has since shifted to the hearth, its flames still burning high and casting a flickering light over the area. Reyce seems to have zoned out while he watches it, moving only once to take drink from the waterskin.
Asha gives up searching soon enough; her mother's slow rocking and tiny caresses are too much to resist and her eyes drop down sleepily. Soon enough, those drooping eyes close completely and Issa carefully transports her to the nearby crib, hovering over her for a moment more to insure her comfort before she steps away. She heads back over to Reyce and plants a knee next to his leg on the couch; she stops short of climbing into his lap, though, leaving one foot rooted to the ground as she leans over him, a bracing hand placed on the cushion near his shoulder. With the other hand she captures his chin and lifts it. "I'll take care of her tonight," she tells him, and a note of subtle insistence makes it far from an offer.
Reyce's attention has been reclaimed from the moment she stuck her knee down on the couch, but he lets his chin be pulled up anyway. "Yeah," he answers, dropping his eyes to the side. Stable as he's had time to become, still better he not put his alcohol tolerance to the test with Asha. Still keeping away eye contact, he leans his cheek into her cupped palm, his eyes going almost closed. "'m sorry." Just visible in the slim space left open between his lids, his eyes turn back towards her face.
While her thumb strokes lightly from his nose down onto his cheek, Issa puts more of her weight onto that knee, leaning down closer to press a short kiss in the middle of his forehead. "I love you," she murmurs with the same tone he uses with his usual, dismissive, 'doesn't matter,' eye contact steady. Her hand drops away from his face as if pulled by gravity alone, but when it reaches his collar she curls her fingers tightly around it. "Don't make it a habit, she adds more firmly, though the corners of her lip tug upward immediately after. After crinkling his shirt in her grip for a second, it's released and smoothed down again, her hand sweeping all the way to his waist.
Reyce's eyes close the rest of the way when he gets that answer, his cheek still leaning on her palm. Till she takes it away, anyhow; then his eyes open again and he straightens with a sinus clearing sniff. "Already was a habit," he answers, his own hand skimming up till it finds hers and can trap it to his side. "Once." While she's partially pinned, he stretches his other hand out to find her collar - as it happens, just like Asha - and start pulling it towards him.
Issa sinks all the way onto the couch under the influence of his hand, eventually leaning off of her knee so that she's sitting beside him, leaning against his side and her other leg draped across his lap. "I mean the hiding," she murmurs as she settles her head in closer, inching up to press her nose against his jaw in a subdued nuzzle. "If you're going to get drunk, get drunk where I can make fun of you." And though she jokes, her tone is dry, lacking the normal, rounded amusement.
As soon as his suggestion nets response, Reyce releases Issa's collar and plops that hand into his lap to wait for her. Sure enough, her leg takes up a spot there pretty soon, and he slips his hand over her thigh and tugs it in securely. "Did too," he answers simply, lifting his chin to give her more room to nuzzle in. Her dry tone keeps him on his guard, however, and while he helps her settle, he becomes alert, his eyes staring off over her head. His remaining arm wraps up her shoulders, giving her a rub to keep her distracted.
Issa heaves a big breath and gives one final shift before the tension drains out of her and she's heavy against his side, her eyes cast towards the crib. Moments later she speaks again, voice still hushed and careful around the sleeping baby. "Feel like I'm abandoning. Everyone," she admits.
With his normal speaking voice set just a whisper, Reyce doesn't need to lower his voice around sleeping Asha, but he never can help picking up on Issa's hushed tones and doing it anyway. If she weren't nuzzled up right next to him, his extra-softened murmur would be almost inaudible as he says, "Not her." Turning his mouth down to the top of her head, he gives her a gentle nudge. "Not me. Not Oshisyth. Need you. Me," he adds, in the interest of total honesty. Although it's not really a stretch to suppose, he can't /really/ speak for the other two, and it is after all his appeal.
“I know,” Issa answers when he brings up Asha, and it’s likely, as she’s been staring toward the crib, that it was already on her mind. “I know,” she repeats again after he’s done, fingernails curling into his side, she presses so hard. “Me too,” she mumbles into his shirt, her face turned against him, burrowed into a fold of his shirt. Seconds pass before she adds, “That’s why I’m going,” a subtle decisiveness that wasn’t there before creeping up in her voice. “Doesn’t mean I don’t feel horrible,” she adds, her mouth angled outward for speaking ease though her eyes remain hidden. “I wanted this. Not like it turned out, but I did. And when it turns into this mess, I’m not trying to fix it; I’m just leaving.”
Reyce twists towards her, running his arm up the length of her leg until it, too, reaches around her back. "Yeah," he admits. "How it is." His hands climb further around, trying to gather her up completely in a closer hold. "Glad you are, though. I am." This time it's not for identification, but for insistence that he adds that last sentence. His gladness carries through into a kiss, pressed firmly to the top of her head before he has to break the moment, pop her hair out of his lips and scrub his cheek on her to pull away the lingering tendrils. "Be with you and I'll help, whatever you need, help you live there." He keeps his mouth pointed away from her hair while he speaks, his eyes traveling over the wall of the weyr he's encouraging her to leave.
Issa's face remains snugly pressed against his shoulder, but she nods faintly, agreement or appreciation or both as she listens silently to what he says. "If I can't," she says a moment later, voice dropped to a rougher murmur. "Can't transfer. You should take her." She breaks, a short pause for another nod to emphasize what she's suggesting. "Oshisyth and I can always go where you are," she adds, softer still.
Reyce pauses, his chin lifting off the top of her head. His breath shortens itself into quick, audible puffs, but as she goes on with her new thought his eyes begin to slide closed. "Nabol," he responds, decisive in the face of her growing softness. Concern for Asha's sleep must have slipped his mind, for his voice even goes a step louder than usual. "Stay in the territory, and you won't - easier to get out there. Issa." He arches back from her, hands slipping forward to pin her cheeks and hold her face steady when he removes the shoulder she's been hiding in. "It gets like Five Mines, it even starts to, want you to leave." His eyes search hers very slowly. "You have to be weyrless it doesn't matter, you leave."
Issa meets his eye, but her gaze remains a bit thoughtfully vacant, brows taut with the thought of being separated from the both of them. "R'vain is having them watched now," she reminds him, blinking away most of that distraction, "that's not going to change if they try anything. He's a lot of things, he's not stupid. But I will. I will," she adds quietly, as if the agreement part had simply slipped her mind before. Her head tilts to the side, the weight of it dropped against just one of his hands. "It's just in case, though. I think Roa will help."
A thumb lifts out of the cup he's provided for her, tracing the line of her cheekbone. "This is just in case, too," Reyce informs her, dropping his voice back to a murmur. "Won't take any risks with you." He holds still for a beat longer, keeping both hands framed around her face, but eventually drops his face away so he can give out a puff of laughter, humorless in addition to its typical soundlessness. His thumb strokes her cheek again, an idle distraction for them both.
Issa lets him retreat, but only for a short moment; a curled finger catches him beneath his chin, guides him back to her for a simple kiss and holds him there for a few seconds after as she makes an attempt at a smile. The one she manages is a trifle thin, but it lasts until her gaze drops away from his, until she begins to move. After a soft nudge of her nose against his, she pulls back from his hands, only to toss both of her feet onto the couch and slide down to place her head in his lap. She lets out a heavy sigh as she settles, her shoulder shoved against the side of his leg along with her hands, and there starts her staring anew, eyelids drooping lower after a few moments.
Reyce lets his face be guided back around, exhaling a sigh over her nose and mouth when the kiss has been dealt. He studies that smile, gaze swinging back and forth like a pendulum till her tugs it back up to meet hers, not long before it drops away. The hand that was holding her face up converts her withdrawal into a caress as it follows her cheek, moving off to the arm of the couch when it does let her go. While she gets settled, he simply watches, though he twists around looking for her white blanket once he realizes she's lying down. Finding it out of reach, he stiffens his arms over her, hands braced on his knees to create a protective framework somewhat like the poles of a tent.
Issa reaches up and removes the nearest hand he sets down in front of her, fingers drifting from that hasty hold on his wrist to a more stable handhold. She deals out another quick kiss, this time to his once-injured knuckle, before tucking their joined hands against her chest, leaving him to rest his elbow along her arm. Her eyes slip closed eventually, but it's not sleep that grabs ahold of her; she proves that many minutes later when she suddenly mumbles something about bed and, her hand never leaving his, proceeds to drag him quietly around the sleeping Asha and through the small curtain.
At the dinner that didn't happen, Issa's questions were few, stopping after she'd ascertained where he'd been, that he had in fact, as her suspicious little sniff told her, been drinking. Her own words were as spare as his, after that, and her silence grown more tense in the time it took for them to give up on eating. She all but ignores him now as she walks into the weyr, sliding Asha out of her harness and earning a fussy whine for her troubles. Cradling her tightly, Issa drapes the leather thing over the back of the rocking chair and leans in to snag a forgotten rattle from it's seat, requesting Asha's attention with a quick shake. Her attention is not so easily won, however, and it takes Issa a couple of minutes of slow pacing to cheer her, during which Oshisyth takes up her coiled position on her couch, lids lowered lazily in the relative heat provided by the fire that's still going strong from its stoking before dinner. Finally, Asha is convinced to grasp at the ball of the rattle, bringing it to her mouth an laying a line of drool along it's top, and Issa comes to a stop near where he's flopped his feet. "So is this how bad it's gotten with us, then?" she demands, her voice subdued but edged with a coolness that's too familiar for comfort these days, her eyes unwavering as they stare down at his face. "That you have to go off and drink alone now? Show up drunk to dinner?"
Reyce has stretched himself out on the couch, opting to hang his feet over the edge rather than use the armrest to support his head. He's also lifted his shirt so the fire's heat warms his belly directly, while an arm slung over his eyes prevents any of its light from disturbing him. Quite comfortable, then, while Issa looks to the baby. When she comes up near the couch and addresses him, Reyce lifts that arm out of the way and fixes his pink, bleary gaze on her sharpened stare. After a beat, he breathes, "Yes," unable to come up with a better answer (or, for that matter, a worse one). His arm falls down again, but this time it's crossing his chest; it makes little difference since his eyes close.
A heavy breath seeps out of Issa for his answer, but her stiff presence doesn't move for another minute more. Meanwhile, Asha lets out a slow coo of something bordering on contentment while she explores the rounded surface of that rattle. With a sharp sniff, she pivots and drops to sit on the arm of the couch, his feet nudged back so she can take possession of the outside edge. While she shakes her head to unspoken questions, Asha releases the rattle, following it with her eyes as her mother gives it a listless rattle.
Reyce's feet move off when nudged, but the rest of him stays put, and he doesn't look at her. The silence is broken only by Asha's rattle until he suddenly pops out with, "We should leave." His eyes are open again, still reddened but no longer unfocused since they're fixed pretty solidly on her.
The rattling stops at the first sound of his voice, and Asha's hands wave up to catch at it again. Issa's face angles to him to listen, but her eyes don't dart up to him again until what he's said has been given a moment to sink in. "Leave," she repeats, requesting clarification and embellishment in the quiet heaviness of her tone. Asha begins another bleat, but though a swift twitch of the rattle quiets her again, Issa turns down to look at her.
Reyce's nostrils flare when she answers him, but he gives a short nod to confirm it. He regrets that gesture quickly, his eyes squinting down while he waits off the pain that's begun to sunk in as the alcohol fades in his system. "She shouldn't be here," he says once he's ready, indicating Asha with a glance. "Not safe," he continues, his voice automatically lowering while he watches his daughter, though his eyes turn to Issa afterwards.
Issa continues to watch her daughter as she's distracting her, considering the little girl's face as she's informed that it's not safe. A succinct, restrained nod agrees with that statement; she wasn't at all happy on seeing the exile's erupt into the sky over the Weyr or with the things that came from it, but she's been unusually tight-lipped about the events that followed so closely on the heels of Diya's death. "And go where?" she asks him while tilting a glance back in his direction, the residue of her snapping tone lurking subtly under the words.
The nod he received for bringing in Asha surprised Reyce, but the tone he picks up in her words makes him tighten his jaw. "Benden." No big surprise, but he lets it sit with her half a beat before he continues. "M'arik's solid, keeps a good eye on his weyr. Could get work there in storerooms or something, what I'm supposed to be trained for. Otherwise, can't be steward now but I'll get something under it, work at the hold but I get days off and I spend my evenings with you. Have ideas," he tells her, somewhat defensive about it.
Issa absorbs his suggestions in silence, looking away from both him and Asha to focus on a green whorl on the carpet, her expression as blank as her stare. A moment after he’s finished, she finally responds with, “I don’t know.” There’s not a shred of that irritated undertone left now, or even any outright rejection, just a quiet helplessness for the situation. She shifts uncomfortably on her improvised seat, then just stands altogether, switching her seat to one on the floor, in front of the couch’s middle cushion. She slides down with Asha curled close to her chest and the rattle dangling from her fingers gives up a little clatter as she bumps down. “I don’t know,” she mumbles again, more thoughtfully, as she bends her knees and rearranges her daughter over her angled thighs.
Reyce's eyes track her silently, not leaving even when he has to drag in his chin for a quick belch that's suppressed in his cheeks. When she picks a new seat in front of his couch, he turns toward her, flopping onto his side and wincing slightly as the motion jars his head. "Can't stay here," he answers softly, holding his gaze on her for a few more seconds - in the hopes of making eye contact - before he drops it to Asha and the rattle. Watching her makes a thin frown appear on his forehead.
Issa's eye contact, however, is reserved for her daughter, a tiny, transient smile appearing as Asha unknowingly hits her hand against the rattle and sparks a sound that causes a gurgle from her in return. "Can't just leave, either," she tells him quietly. "I have to be transferred. Even if I stepped down as wingsecond, I'm still a rider. And... you should hear them talk... there weren't that many that wanted them before Five Mines, and now... The Weyr can't handle that many riders leaving, not without more coming in." She takes a deep breath, a hand pushing heavily through her uncooperative curls, and, softly, she boils it all down to, "There's a chance I may not be able to leave."
"She owes you," Reyce murmurs, his gaze shooting straight back to Issa. Dropping his arm over the edge of the couch, he pushes his fingers into the rug and pulls himself forward. "Weyrwoman. Went with messages for her, didn't you?" Reaching the end of the cushions, he melts off them entirely, pouring himself into the floor space between her and the couch. Getting upright takes a bit more effort, his jaw clenching down as he struggles for balance. "You went," he reiterates, letting out a breath still heavy with wine. "Got to do this now, and she owes you." Catching a belch in his cheeks, he pulls his chin down and squints.
Issa slides her gaze over to watch him as he begins to drop off the couch, a small frown already tugging at her brows. Her eyes flick a swift study over his face, then meet his bleary gaze silently for several seconds more. "I'll talk to her," she finally says, but by then she's already looking away, back down to Asha, who's settled and uninterested now in the rattle still being dangled near her hands. So Issa drops it to the ground and presses both of her forearms in at Asha's sides, cupping her tiny head in her hands. That's as much of a decision as she's going to make tonight, it seems, for when she speaks again a moment later, she just advises inconsequentially, "You should drink some water," and lets her gaze wander across the rug and up to the rest of the room.
Reyce's nostrils flare when she comes to that decision, sensing immediately that note of finality, but he doesn't offer an objection and merely puffs a breath out as he relaxes his nose. Like Issa, he lets his attention wander back to Asha, but his hands stay in place, pushing down into the rug. "Nn," he answers indistinctly when she suggests water, but a moment later he's again making the effort to move, using the couch to pull himself up so he can go fetch an ordinary waterskin from Issa's own, untouched, wine collection.
With Asha nestled comfortably in between her arms, Issa leans back against the couch, her head tipping back onto the cushions so her eyes are able to trace the far away ceiling as if she were leaving it forever the next day. "My," she begins, but has to clear her throat against a bit of tightness stuck in it. When she starts again, her voice is bare, simple. "My mother told me yesterday that she thinks that she's going to be leaving soon. Thinks it's likely they'll pull her back to the Hall, reassign her."
Reyce still has the waterskin lifted up in front of his face, draining down the last drops, but when it moves away, his eyes are on Issa already. Taking advantage of her preoccupation with the ceiling, he swings a careful study over her features, stoppering the waterskin and setting it aside before he goes after another one. "She want to go?" He focuses on the cap as he unscrews it, then closes his eyes completely as he starts to down more water.
"She will now, I suppose," Issa comments, a bit dryly, as her eyes drop back to him briefly before returning to their wandering. "I was pretty much the only reason she stayed in the first place." Her position is maintained, but her hands begin to move in small, gentle caresses along the top of Asha's head.
The second waterskin defeats him, and Reyce only gets in a few mouthfuls before he has to take a break. Stuffing the cap back in place, he takes it with him back to the hearth where he plants himself on the trunk, behind Issa. Leaning down, and unwittingly bringing the scent of booze with him, he grabs his own foot and hauls it up onto his knee, anchoring it there while he tugs at his boot laces. "Loves you," he comments simply. One hand, as it's untying, lifts far enough away to touch the back of her neck, where it lingers for a half-beat before necessity silently recalls it to the boot.
Issa lifts her head when he comes back, changing her staring to straight ahead rather than straight up. Neither his comment nor his touch, while it lingers, gain a reaction, but after his fingers leave she lets her chin drop to her chest so that if she's watching Asha at all, she's watching her feet. The baby meanwhile sticks her knuckles into her mouth, blinking up at her mother's face and searching out her father's. "Reyce," Issa pipes up hesitantly a few moments later from that bowed position, "I know I haven't been... very..." A puff of breath is all that finishes that sentence and, to fill the silence with something even if it's only fidgeting, she slowly brings her finger to Asha's hand to watch the girl clutch at it tightly.
Reyce does not catch Asha's stare immediately, but he never goes too long without glancing at his daughter, and when the next periodic glance catches her eye he stops to look back at her. He's beginning to lean forward, a hand uncurling beyond Issa's shoulder, when a word from the latter arrests the motion and he stops, withdraws, leaving Asha to suck on her knuckles in peace until Issa's finger distracts her. "'S fine," he answers, turning to his boot. Smelly feet gets added to the list of odors Reyce brings with him at this moment, and he's probably aware of it, since he grabs his foot and wraps it in both hands as though this could help suppress it. This is what he chooses to stare at after offering his brief reassurance.
Issa drops a brief glance back at him and the foot he holds, but gives no other indication that she notices the smells he gives off. She just goes back to idly entertaining Asha, sliding her finger away only to bring it within grasping range again a few seconds later. His reassurance has ample time to sink in and then she continues despite it. "I don't mean... I don't want to push you out." Then, a beat later she adds in a near whisper, "I'm gonna try to be better."
Issa goes on playing with Asha, and Reyce goes on cupping his foot after she's turned away. Her addition does at least get him to watch her (the back of her head, really), but his next move comes with a rustle of clothing as he bends down to switch in the other foot. Laces zip against each other as he deftly pulls them free, more skilled in this habit when not distracted by his libido. "Okay," is his response, the vowels thick with an exhalation. "Don't want to be pushed out." Faster with this one, he gets the boot untied and pushes it off, once again squeezing his foot up to try harnessing the smell.
The back of Issa's head is really all he'll be getting still, for his response settles into a space of motionless silence from her. Only Asha breaks it, feet kicking aimlessly at her mother’s belly while her head turns back and forth. Slowly, then, Issa peels her finger away from the baby's tight grip and slips her hand along the floor until it comes up against Reyce's foot. Though her face angles closer to him, her eyes are still elusively turned down while her touch curls around his ankle, creeping onto bare skin where it lingers quietly for a moment, thumb stroking down. Her fingers tighten in a faint squeeze and she pulls back to tend to Asha; instead of asking him to take her, like she normally might, she lifts her against one shoulder and holds her steady with one curled arm while she uses the other to help her stand again.
In return, the only sound from Reyce is that of his breathing. When Issa lifts the baby to her shoulder, though, he leans forward to stare at the little thing, who's peering at him curiously. "Ahhh," she bleats out merrily, one hand clutching the neck of Issa's shirt while she's being lifted off the ground. Reyce rises after her, keeping close to Issa's back so he can keep bothering his daughter, swiping a finger along her chubby cheek and provoking another squeal as Asha flails her arms, tugging Issa's collar around her neck.
Issa turns toward Asha when she blurts out her excitement, but the sideways look lasts only long enough for her to note Reyce's presence, then she just continues on her way with him following. He'll have to peel away soon, though, because she slides herself into the rocking chair, the motive for her move becoming evident. The rocking chair's begun to work like a charm at night when putting Asha to sleep and only a few minutes of the repetitious back and forth has the power to reduce her to yawns. Asha's dropped back into cradling arms again as soon as Issa's settled, and she stares down at the girl's face though she's still searching for the entertaining presense of her father.
Her father has exhausted his ability to be entertaining, although he sits close by, having returned to the couch. This time he's on Issa's side of it, leaning into the arm with a hand supporting his chin. Although he watched Asha initially, his attention has since shifted to the hearth, its flames still burning high and casting a flickering light over the area. Reyce seems to have zoned out while he watches it, moving only once to take drink from the waterskin.
Asha gives up searching soon enough; her mother's slow rocking and tiny caresses are too much to resist and her eyes drop down sleepily. Soon enough, those drooping eyes close completely and Issa carefully transports her to the nearby crib, hovering over her for a moment more to insure her comfort before she steps away. She heads back over to Reyce and plants a knee next to his leg on the couch; she stops short of climbing into his lap, though, leaving one foot rooted to the ground as she leans over him, a bracing hand placed on the cushion near his shoulder. With the other hand she captures his chin and lifts it. "I'll take care of her tonight," she tells him, and a note of subtle insistence makes it far from an offer.
Reyce's attention has been reclaimed from the moment she stuck her knee down on the couch, but he lets his chin be pulled up anyway. "Yeah," he answers, dropping his eyes to the side. Stable as he's had time to become, still better he not put his alcohol tolerance to the test with Asha. Still keeping away eye contact, he leans his cheek into her cupped palm, his eyes going almost closed. "'m sorry." Just visible in the slim space left open between his lids, his eyes turn back towards her face.
While her thumb strokes lightly from his nose down onto his cheek, Issa puts more of her weight onto that knee, leaning down closer to press a short kiss in the middle of his forehead. "I love you," she murmurs with the same tone he uses with his usual, dismissive, 'doesn't matter,' eye contact steady. Her hand drops away from his face as if pulled by gravity alone, but when it reaches his collar she curls her fingers tightly around it. "Don't make it a habit, she adds more firmly, though the corners of her lip tug upward immediately after. After crinkling his shirt in her grip for a second, it's released and smoothed down again, her hand sweeping all the way to his waist.
Reyce's eyes close the rest of the way when he gets that answer, his cheek still leaning on her palm. Till she takes it away, anyhow; then his eyes open again and he straightens with a sinus clearing sniff. "Already was a habit," he answers, his own hand skimming up till it finds hers and can trap it to his side. "Once." While she's partially pinned, he stretches his other hand out to find her collar - as it happens, just like Asha - and start pulling it towards him.
Issa sinks all the way onto the couch under the influence of his hand, eventually leaning off of her knee so that she's sitting beside him, leaning against his side and her other leg draped across his lap. "I mean the hiding," she murmurs as she settles her head in closer, inching up to press her nose against his jaw in a subdued nuzzle. "If you're going to get drunk, get drunk where I can make fun of you." And though she jokes, her tone is dry, lacking the normal, rounded amusement.
As soon as his suggestion nets response, Reyce releases Issa's collar and plops that hand into his lap to wait for her. Sure enough, her leg takes up a spot there pretty soon, and he slips his hand over her thigh and tugs it in securely. "Did too," he answers simply, lifting his chin to give her more room to nuzzle in. Her dry tone keeps him on his guard, however, and while he helps her settle, he becomes alert, his eyes staring off over her head. His remaining arm wraps up her shoulders, giving her a rub to keep her distracted.
Issa heaves a big breath and gives one final shift before the tension drains out of her and she's heavy against his side, her eyes cast towards the crib. Moments later she speaks again, voice still hushed and careful around the sleeping baby. "Feel like I'm abandoning. Everyone," she admits.
With his normal speaking voice set just a whisper, Reyce doesn't need to lower his voice around sleeping Asha, but he never can help picking up on Issa's hushed tones and doing it anyway. If she weren't nuzzled up right next to him, his extra-softened murmur would be almost inaudible as he says, "Not her." Turning his mouth down to the top of her head, he gives her a gentle nudge. "Not me. Not Oshisyth. Need you. Me," he adds, in the interest of total honesty. Although it's not really a stretch to suppose, he can't /really/ speak for the other two, and it is after all his appeal.
“I know,” Issa answers when he brings up Asha, and it’s likely, as she’s been staring toward the crib, that it was already on her mind. “I know,” she repeats again after he’s done, fingernails curling into his side, she presses so hard. “Me too,” she mumbles into his shirt, her face turned against him, burrowed into a fold of his shirt. Seconds pass before she adds, “That’s why I’m going,” a subtle decisiveness that wasn’t there before creeping up in her voice. “Doesn’t mean I don’t feel horrible,” she adds, her mouth angled outward for speaking ease though her eyes remain hidden. “I wanted this. Not like it turned out, but I did. And when it turns into this mess, I’m not trying to fix it; I’m just leaving.”
Reyce twists towards her, running his arm up the length of her leg until it, too, reaches around her back. "Yeah," he admits. "How it is." His hands climb further around, trying to gather her up completely in a closer hold. "Glad you are, though. I am." This time it's not for identification, but for insistence that he adds that last sentence. His gladness carries through into a kiss, pressed firmly to the top of her head before he has to break the moment, pop her hair out of his lips and scrub his cheek on her to pull away the lingering tendrils. "Be with you and I'll help, whatever you need, help you live there." He keeps his mouth pointed away from her hair while he speaks, his eyes traveling over the wall of the weyr he's encouraging her to leave.
Issa's face remains snugly pressed against his shoulder, but she nods faintly, agreement or appreciation or both as she listens silently to what he says. "If I can't," she says a moment later, voice dropped to a rougher murmur. "Can't transfer. You should take her." She breaks, a short pause for another nod to emphasize what she's suggesting. "Oshisyth and I can always go where you are," she adds, softer still.
Reyce pauses, his chin lifting off the top of her head. His breath shortens itself into quick, audible puffs, but as she goes on with her new thought his eyes begin to slide closed. "Nabol," he responds, decisive in the face of her growing softness. Concern for Asha's sleep must have slipped his mind, for his voice even goes a step louder than usual. "Stay in the territory, and you won't - easier to get out there. Issa." He arches back from her, hands slipping forward to pin her cheeks and hold her face steady when he removes the shoulder she's been hiding in. "It gets like Five Mines, it even starts to, want you to leave." His eyes search hers very slowly. "You have to be weyrless it doesn't matter, you leave."
Issa meets his eye, but her gaze remains a bit thoughtfully vacant, brows taut with the thought of being separated from the both of them. "R'vain is having them watched now," she reminds him, blinking away most of that distraction, "that's not going to change if they try anything. He's a lot of things, he's not stupid. But I will. I will," she adds quietly, as if the agreement part had simply slipped her mind before. Her head tilts to the side, the weight of it dropped against just one of his hands. "It's just in case, though. I think Roa will help."
A thumb lifts out of the cup he's provided for her, tracing the line of her cheekbone. "This is just in case, too," Reyce informs her, dropping his voice back to a murmur. "Won't take any risks with you." He holds still for a beat longer, keeping both hands framed around her face, but eventually drops his face away so he can give out a puff of laughter, humorless in addition to its typical soundlessness. His thumb strokes her cheek again, an idle distraction for them both.
Issa lets him retreat, but only for a short moment; a curled finger catches him beneath his chin, guides him back to her for a simple kiss and holds him there for a few seconds after as she makes an attempt at a smile. The one she manages is a trifle thin, but it lasts until her gaze drops away from his, until she begins to move. After a soft nudge of her nose against his, she pulls back from his hands, only to toss both of her feet onto the couch and slide down to place her head in his lap. She lets out a heavy sigh as she settles, her shoulder shoved against the side of his leg along with her hands, and there starts her staring anew, eyelids drooping lower after a few moments.
Reyce lets his face be guided back around, exhaling a sigh over her nose and mouth when the kiss has been dealt. He studies that smile, gaze swinging back and forth like a pendulum till her tugs it back up to meet hers, not long before it drops away. The hand that was holding her face up converts her withdrawal into a caress as it follows her cheek, moving off to the arm of the couch when it does let her go. While she gets settled, he simply watches, though he twists around looking for her white blanket once he realizes she's lying down. Finding it out of reach, he stiffens his arms over her, hands braced on his knees to create a protective framework somewhat like the poles of a tent.
Issa reaches up and removes the nearest hand he sets down in front of her, fingers drifting from that hasty hold on his wrist to a more stable handhold. She deals out another quick kiss, this time to his once-injured knuckle, before tucking their joined hands against her chest, leaving him to rest his elbow along her arm. Her eyes slip closed eventually, but it's not sleep that grabs ahold of her; she proves that many minutes later when she suddenly mumbles something about bed and, her hand never leaving his, proceeds to drag him quietly around the sleeping Asha and through the small curtain.