So...Now What?

[roatelgari]

Location: Guest Weyr
Time: Afternoon on Day 2, Month 1, Turn 3 (right after Tialith's flight).
Players: Roa and R'vain
Scene: So. He's Weyrleader. She's Weyrwoman. Yep. How about that.



Her first act of independence, as the link settles into the natural ebb and pull that it takes at any time other than a flight, is to swallow. Once. Roa keeps still, though one by one, limbs shift just faintly, allowing the Weyrwoman to divine where, exactly, they are and what, exactly, they have been doing. Then she becomes aware of her partner, his breath on her shoulder, and his trembling above and against her. She cannot quite turn her head (that would brush her lips against his cheek, he is so close), but she waits for a little more of the residual tension to seep out of him before, slowly and carefully, unwinding her legs from around his hips. "I'm..." she must clear her throat and swallow again, "I'm all right." The tone of her words hovers somewhere between assurance and query. She is...isn't she? "You?" This, at least, is asked with a bit more confidence.

Her first assurance gives him the chance to draw a deeper, better breath, and in doing so his head sinks farther. The brush of his mouth against her shoulder could not quite be considered a kiss; the movement lacks purpose, and his lips don't purse or even move. And in a split-second he raises his head, slipping down his paws from behind her so he can overturn them and flatten his palms against the bedding. R'vain can thus straighten his arms and allow some space to form between himself and she, space that curls down between them and loosens the snug of his hips against hers. "Yeah," he says, staring at her. His voice is a mess, striving in one syllable to be ragged and apologetic and shamed and not-dammit-anything-else-because-that-much-is-quite-enough all at once; his expression matches. "I'll move." Warning, maybe. Or the only thing he can think of to do-- to shift his hips back and start to straighten, to set her free from his shadow over her.

She lies still, blinking back up at him, her arms still linked around his neck until he speaks and begins to shift. One hand uncurls from the other and both hands, clenched so tightly for so long, are achy as they open and close, falling to her sides. Roa nods and swallows and clears her throat. "Okay." And she waits until R'vain has slid away before attempting to sit up and...do...something.

So he slides away, and rather than try the somewhat daring maneuver it might take to get his shaking legs straight enough that he could land feet on the floor, crawls one knee first and then the other out from over her thighs, onto the bed beside her. He stays there on all fours for a moment, head hung, staring at the coverlet. "Cold in here," R'vain notes in a moment, his voice no better than it had been a few seconds prior. "I'll put on a fire in a sec."

She scoots a bit, finally pulling back the covers they've settled on top of to slip beneath them, drawing them up to her chin as she studies his hands on the blanket. "You don't have to..." Roa begins, but shakes her head slightly and tries again. "It wasn't..." No good, either. Finally, with a soft sigh, "She flew. He caught. The rest followed because it had to."

He turns his head toward her, lifting it a little. Moreso than ever he seems some great animal, there on all fours beside her, searching for what's left of her to see with his hunter's emerald stare. "I didn't want t'hurt you," he says through a throat full of gravel. "Or scare you. Or piss you off. Or anything. I'd've-- " His face changes, and because she didn't cause the change, R'vain turns that changing face away from her, swinging his gaze away to squint at the hearth he's promised to tend. "Y'don't have t'teach me." In this there's some hint of himself, at last, some threat of a smile he's hidden from her. It's in his voice, barely, alongside the ache. "I know. Y'know I know. I just can't stand y'flinchin' from me." And that said he tries a leg down off the bed, swinging the foot toward the floor, knee unbending experimentally.

Roa draws her knees up, making a little tent out of the covers. Her arms wraps around them and her chin settles on the top. "You didn't hurt me, or scare me," she offers quietly. Her tongue peeps out to lick experimentally at her lower lip. "Lip's bleeding, but I'm pretty sure I did that myself." There is a weak quiver at the corner of her mouth for R'vain's semi-scold, some relative of a smile, and she notes, "I wasn't teaching. Just reminding. I don't...see how this situation could manage to not be awkward. I'm trying." Her eyes close as she murmurs, "I can't remember if I flinched."

"I can't either." He swings his head back toward her on that, and lets her have a glimpse of the smile that bent the chastisement he tossed at her a moment before. It's just that, a smile. Well, a weak one, a shaky one, a twitching one. Blame that on the flight and its obligations, please. "I just know y'always have, and I-- " Another change of expression, this one a cloud. Again, it's not Roa's to bear; R'vain turns his head away and busies himself trying a little weight into his foot. It holds. "I tried," he says, getting up off the bed. Once he's up he twitches his feet out of his trousers and shrugs the remains of his shirt off of his shoulders, pawing open the rest of the buttons; better really naked than ridiculously partly so.

Well, if he is not going to use it...Roa leans over to snatch up the discarded shirt which is, at least, warmer and closer than her own sleeveless Bollian wear. While his back is still to her, she pulls it on and buttons up what buttons remain. The thing is huge on her, of course. It makes her look smaller yet, and she takes the time to roll, roll, roll, each sleeve up enough that her hands can poke out the ends before she says, only, "I know you did. Thank you."

He's barely released the shirt when she takes it, so the movement has no chance of him missing it, and R'vain just turns and stares outright while she appropriates his shirt and /puts it on./ Nothing in his face registers complaint, to be certain. Very little registers, in fact, at all. "I'd've given that t'you," he points out, dumbly, and then turns around to work on shoving away shock so that he can tend a fire without, please, falling into it.

"Oh," Roa laughs weakly, "You know me. Bad at asking. Better at stealing." Her knees come up again, and her arms hug them again, and as he goes about starting a fire while naked the only other thing she can think to say is, "How's your hand?"

"I didn't mean y'had t'ask. I meant if I had th'least inkling you'd want it I'd've handed it over." He crouches by the hearth and hands over-- with the wounded paw, the only part now still 'dressed'-- a log, a few smaller sticks, and some twigs from the woodpiles into the fireplace. "S'a'right. Shaped funny. Scar's kinda bad. Ain't like score, but bad." R'vain pauses, the better hand slinging out for the tinder kit, his head turning back toward the bed. "Y'have a good holiday?"

This, at least, is something she can focus on. "Did you ever see a healer? There's salves that can soften scar tissue, keep it from becoming restrictive. You could lose mobility if it's very bad." Roa's head tips downward, lips buried in her knees. Good vacation? "Well," she says, the words muffled against the shirt, "it worked."

"Don't like healers." R'vain looks up then, because her second answer is more to him than his own stubbornness could be; because what she's said rings around a little too easily inside his skull and knocks stuff down off the walls in there. One eye twitches narrow, and the flint lazes in his fingers, unstruck. "Y'went t'try t'coax 'er up." Beat. "Thought y'might've thrown th'game. Surprised me. Think y'pissed D'ven right off." And a sour sort of half-grin twists his mouth on that and, shaking his head, he turns to the fire again. A few chippy strikes and he has an ember, which he works into the twigs, and waits for flame, keeping the rest of his thoughts for that moment to himself.

Roa lifts her chin, so her mouth is no longer obscured. "You don't have to like them. You just have to let them do their job. See Neiran. He'll tell you what's wrong, fix it, and send you off. No liking required." Roa waits then, as R'vain pieces it together and her brows lift slightly as D'ven is mentioned. "What, leaving? Oh." And then, for his presumption, a small nod and a quiet, "Yes."

"He might be less pissed, we tell him that, then." R'vain keeps his eyes on the little flame he's coaxing into life, though his paws hang well back from the fireplace. "I think he figured y'threw th'game too. And w'out tellin' him." If the new Weyrleader feels any such bitterness, it's perfectly disguised. He shakes his head, but that bemusement must not relate to the fire because as it starts to crackle with some ferocity among the twigs, he gets to his feet again and turns toward her. "I wanted t'ask y'something."

The 'we' causes Roa's brows to lift and then her throat bobs in another swallow. We. Weyrleader and Weyrwoman. Her fingers curl into the cloth around her knees and squeeze. "I'll talk to him, tomorrow," she offers before adding, "Well. Nice to know you both had that sort of faith in me." Her tone is a little wry, lips quirking and falling. Another swallow, before, "Ask, then."

"Roa." Betrayed-- and reproachful. Franker than he's usually been, with her. His paws curl and fit against his hips and buck naked he stands there looking at her, mouth twisted in neither grin nor sneer. "It ain't lack of faith. If y'went y'had good reason. Decided y'could do more th'way it was. Dunno. Ain't lack of faith. Just lack of understanding." His tongue moves under his lip but makes no sound, and when it slips back into the mouth a little bit of a smile's left behind. "Let me get a blanket." There's a trunk at the foot of the bed. There would have to be; actual 'guests' sometimes stay in these weyrs. He goes there, and while he's working the trunk open and picking out a heavy throw from within, he asks-- without looking up-- his question. "Why didn't he go with you?"

She only stays as she is, resting, mouth again hidden as she listens to R'vain speak. The question, though, has her brows lifting and then her head. "Because he's more than just..." but that line of thought, wherever it led, is broken off. "Because he had duties and couldn't leave them. Because I didn't know how long it would be. Because he would have hated it. Why do you ask that?"

He shakes out the throw, then walks up along the side of the bed she's laying in. His arms span, angled toward the bed, and the blanket trails along like a wing-- or like, simply, a blanket, and as he walks his hands lower until the thick wool covering's spread out over the part of the bed in which Roa /would/ be laying, if she was laying down. Then he drops the topmost edge of the blanket over her kneecaps and withdraws his paws, tidy, polite. "He could leave 'em f'a'seven. Or shit, an overnight or two. I ain't sayin' he's just your whatever. I met him, I know better." Pause, and again his loose-curled fists come to rest on his hips. One of his favorite positions, one he's not aware of the effect of, so very mother-hen. He frowns, not unkindly, but thoughtfully. Stern. "Didn't know he'd hate it," he allows. "I asked because I wouldn't've pegged him unwilling t'follow you anywhere, at least f'a'visit. So I wondered if he was doin' somethin' while you were gone."

"He tried to visit, but F'sair's off day ended up conflicting with the guards' schedule and he couldn't change it without messing someone up. So. He stayed." The blanket is studied and osmosed into her curl, pulling it up a little further over her knees. "Haven't seen him, yet. And no. That would be another thing I don't plan on asking of him."

"What'll y'do when he volunteers?" This question posed-- gently, in that not-a-whisper he uses when he's trying to be softspoken-- R'vain turns away and prowls down to the end of the bed, where-- since she's not using this quarter of the mattress anyway-- he makes himself welcome to sit down.

"I don't know," she says softly. "I'll figure it out if it happens. Shouldn't we be talking about something else?" Roa watches as she sits. Balled up as she is, there is very little space that she's taking up, but there is not, just yet, any invitation for him to come closer.

"Something else." It's not a question. It's a topical statement, the header in an essay. R'vain's mouth twists and his jaw squirms around while he thinks. He drapes his paws over his thighs and lets his shoulders and arms go slack, and fills in, "Probably could stand t'get dressed and out've here before we start hacking away at th'wings or policy, 'less you got something urgent. Could stand t'move some of my stuff, and appoint an interim for th'weyrlings, before we get into anything wider than th'Weyr itself. So." He turns his head and sports for her a wry little grin, disarmed and maybe, a little bit, disarming. "I ain't gonna getcha alone f'long, am I? D'rather form some kind of foundation here than start in on th'yellin' matches right away. F'you don't mind."

"I suppose I should..." Roa just swallows again, "anyhow, yes. All right. Good idea. I..." beneath the blanket, her toes fidget and cause little bumps and ripples. "One question, then. If that's all right. The fighting we can save for later."

When /he/ announced he had a question to ask, she swallowed. /She/ makes the counterpoint announcement and R'vain replies with a low, soft chuckle, just a couple of notes, and a shake of his head. Or maybe that was for her last remark, about the fighting. "Shoot," he sends over to her, and puts his knees wide, and bends over, leaning his elbows onto them, head turned so he has a view of her there tucked into the bedcovers.

"So," she begins with a small nod. "I am. And you are." Roa's head cants to the side a little as she peers over at his curved self. "What about the third part?"

His brows furrow lightly, a crease that might not have been there before he lost some fifteen percent of his original weight forming in his forehead-- perplexed. He looks at her like that for a split-second, nonplussed, and then it hits him, and R'vain looks away at hands that, between widespread knees, suddenly tremble. He frowns and laces them, putting his legs a little closer to do it. "I'll do my best," he says in a bit, letting the words out one at a time so his brogue can't mangle them. A little silence, and then with a sick smile he skates a snuck glance over at her again. "Keep a water-bucket 'round," he advises. "I'll try not t'earn it." Black humor, but humor.

She offers, for that humor, a weak little half-smile. "That's not the way I handle things," Roa says quietly. "We're going to have to figure out some other things you can do, when it gets hard." There's that 'we' again. "And as I can't much crawl into your head, that means you're going to have to tell me. When it does. Okay?"

"Try it once," retorts R'vain, the humor sliding away to leave only the dark that was behind it. He's staring at his hands again while she goes on talking, but he seems to know when she's warming up to demand his cooperation and her efforts see him shoving up straight, standing up from the bed, prowling around its foot on a path roughly aimed for the heap of his trousers on the other side. "I can tell you," he offers, along the way. "But why? Y'ain't meant t'be my keeper. Ain't your job t'keep me from getting-- " And then he stops, staring down at the leather piled before his bare and freckled toes, halted by an echo in his head.

"I'm not your keeper. I'm your Weyrwoman," Roa smoothes her blanket along her knees unnecessarily, "and I'm asking because it matters to me. It matters to the weyr. Bad enough to have a Weyrlingmaster that nearly kills himself once or twice a turn. This place needs to be able to breathe again, and it can't if we're biting our cheeks and waiting to see what'll do it -this- time." She quiets, but only so she can draw breath and continue. "I don't presume that you do it because it's fun. It helps you cope, but it does so badly. I'm not trying it once. I don't want it to get so far that I'd have to."

R'vain is quiet for a while. He does bend to pick up the trousers, but he must not be too bent on leaving after all because all he does is shake them out straight and then sling them over the trunk at the foot of the bed. "Hurt," he mumbles, which is in no way any kind of answer to anything she said. As if she hadn't spoken at all, really. He looks over at her. Then looks at the fire. It's as good as anything, something to do with his hands, so he approaches and takes up the poker to nudge the log a little aside so the flames trying to consume the sticks can get a little air. "So what d'you do," he says, to the hearth.

Roa chews her lower lip and considers that. "It depends on why it hurts, I guess. I cry sometimes, go flying sometimes. Doesn't always work. There are a couple folks I talk to, I really have to, and they listen and I sort of get the feeling when I say idiot things, it's still okay. And just being there and knowing that, even before I open my mouth. It helps."

R'vain withdraws the poker from the fire and replaces it in its stand. "I got someone kinda like that, I s'pose. Be nice if I had someone wasn't on th'clock." He stares into the fire with a twisted, difficult smirk, head shaking. What he's done has had the desired effect, though, and he has no excuse to stay there in front of the flames and roast his shins and knees in the process, so he turns away again and prowls over to the bed, the side she's not using this time. "Look. I don't mind y'tryin' t'look out f'me." He bends, sits, twisted so he can face her; one leg comes up to cross the other ankle to knee, forming a wide triangle on which he can lean an elbow. "But if you do I want th'same privilege, long as I'm above water, anyway. If you're my Weyrwoman then I'm your Weyrleader. Is that gonna work?" Oh, he meant it to be a hard question. A deal to strike, or a challenge. But all of the doubts and the turns of waiting creep in instead, and the tone he asks it with winds up being more like wonder, like awe-- 'is this real?'

She twists to watch him as he sits, still naked. There is a long moment of study, so perhaps Roa is quite seriously considering the question. "Sometimes, I go to Ash," she says, soft and simple. "Sometimes hearing him, specifically, is what I need. The other times...all right. Yeah." A little nod punctuates her decision. "That's what we'll do."

If she cares that he's naked, she'd be the only one, evidently. He's as natural thus as he has ever been dressed, maybe more so-- deprived of the bulk of his leathers and the way they tend to make him walk, he's a little more ordinary, if one looks past the freckles and hair. "I like him," R'vain says, after a long enough time that it would have to be assumed he accepted her agreement to his terms.

A slow blink and then another of her small nods. "I could see how you might," she concedes with a faint chuckle. "I have no idea if that's going to make my life harder or easier, but I guess we'll just see." There is a moment of idle consideration before she adds, "You know, you ever want to seem a bit less...looming...ditch the leather pants."

"I ain't thinkin' about how it'll make your life, but frankly, if we get on I can't see it'd make it harder." But R'vain's eyes narrow and he bends over his crossed legs and props the other elbow and starts to get on a bit of a grin-- just a satisfied one, no teeth except when he talks through it. "Not in any big deal kinda way anyway." Just in the amusing, these guys know you, and might talk about you, and now there is exactly jack you can do about it, way. He shakes his head and shakes off the grin while doing so, and because she mentions his pants he looks over at them. When he looks back his eyes are wide. "That's what I wear." Duh, woman!

"Oh," Roa's head shakes and her eyes roll, "I can." Imagine ways in which this will make her life harder. As far as the leather pants and the wearing of them, her eyes wander over to where those pants lie in a heap. "And yet, apparently, they do come off," she offers, solemn and scientific. Save for a quick bit of brightness in her gaze.

R'vain's gaze chases hers, such that they're both for a moment looking at the pants-- and then he looks back at her, to stare for what she's just said-- and to catch that quick brilliance. His jaw pops open, and then shuts again. And he grins, wide and toothful, but also openly-- and honest grin, not an eating one. He shakes his head just once, like he's impressed. "They do," he allows, grinning still. "Now y'know."

"Now I know," Roa agrees with a little nod. "I hear that cloth can also be worn. As pants. Sometimes." She shrugs once, and the subject is allowed to slip away. She's pointed it out, and of all the things they will do battle over, what he chooses to gird his loins with shall not be one of them. At least, not just now. She draws in a slow breath and there's another one of those nods. Internal affirmation of her thoughts. "I think, maybe, we can actually do this."

"Y'think so?" His grin increases a bit, pleased-- clearly, obviously pleased, maybe even flattered a bit. "I hope." His flattery, for her, in turn; or lack of confidence for himself; but he sounds jovial enough. R'vain gets up from the bed then, beginning to move with an efficiency that suggests dressing /is/ on the agenda, soon. But he doesn't go for the pants, yet. He sets out across the room instead. "You seen me wear cloth. As pants. Twice." A little defiant there. "Maybe three times," he adds then, remembering the incident of non-leather trousers that was not pyjama-related; and if she didn't catch sight of him that time, maybe that's just as well.

There is a bit of consideration, because Roa can recall two instances where pyjamas were worn, but the third one...nope. "Three times? Are you sure?" Now she is moving as well, pushing the blanket away so that she can stand and scoop up her sleeveless top and sari skirt. There is a small glance towards the curtain that will lead out into the cold and snow, but, R'vain's shirt serving as a shield of sorts, she slips on her underpants and her wrap that serves as a skirt.

R'vain turns only his head when she asks if he's sure, so he can send back, "Yep." But then he watches a little too long. There's nothing leering about the watching, wonder of wonders. It's academic, like he's making a study of her underpants (underpants. Novel concept) as she slips into them. And then he realizes, and grins harmlessly, and shakes his head, and turns away to face the wall, all in silence; if she didn't notice, he won't let her, and if she did, he'll make nothing of it. Not today. "Ain't anything t'drink in here," he notes. "Y'should take my jacket. And th'blanket, too. An' we can get juice'r somethin' th'way through... shit."

The skirt is fastened and if she noticed him watching, Roa is just as happy as the new Weyrleader to play it off that she did not. She must turn her back to him for the next part. His shirt is peeled off and her little tank top pulled back on. "I'll take a blanket," she agrees, "but you'd better keep your jacket and your shirt...." But then she quiets, brows lifting, waiting for an explanation about his expletive.

"It'll be dinner," R'vain explains, when she falls silent. He's staring up at shelves that would, in a warmer season, offer pitchers with water, juice, maybe wine. Right now the shelf is empty but for some dusty glasses, as stuff like water and juice and maybe wine would freeze if left in an unheated weyr at night, and the Reaches was not expecting 'guests.' "Ain't up t'goin' through that yet. You? -- And I don't need th'jacket. Gettin' warm with th'fire. Be fine with th'shirt for just a walk."

"I can't take the jacket, R'vain," Roa says, soft and slow, as if he is meant to understand something by this gentle repetition. "But thank you." She does reach down to haul the blanket over her shoulders. "I don't..." her lips thin as the idea of trudging through snow and also, possibly, crowds of people, is wholly unappealing. "Not particularly. But I should get back."

"You-- " The careful nature of her words has him turning around, frowning, trying to make sense of what she's getting at. If he does make sense of it, it doesn't show, but he gives up the pressuring with a single nod; maybe the blanket wins his approval. "I got a mind t'just walk up th'steps f'now. And if /you/ did you could get clothes." Because what she's got on under the blanket does not apparently qualify as clothes. Not here. There's no disapproval in R'vain's voice, just a suggestion, almost as gentle (if ever so much more gruff) as her words about the jacket had been. "You goin' for th'night? Don't mind. Y'probably want t'see him. But-- " Shrug. He starts back over, toward the bed, toward the trunk, toward his pants.

There is another small nod, the blanket tucked more tightly around herself. "I'm going for the night," Roa agrees quietly, "I want to see him." Her head cants to the side, though, a lock of dark hair tipping forward and falling across one eye. "But?" she asks. Bare feet on stone is no good, but at least now the little Weyrwoman has the good sense to inch over and onto a rug.

R'vain looks down to sight the line and paws up his pants from the trunk. He's working on getting them on as she sidesteps, and glances down again. "You can't barefoot-- " But she has already barefooted it, this far, and he quells the urge to tell her otherwise, mouth twisting against the impulse. "I don't want th'weyrlings going unsorted tomorrow morning," he says instead, stepping into and pulling up his trousers, leather sliding with some protest across his skin. "Want someone t'be ready t'work 'em. I got a name. It's th'-- " He stops, and looks up, one hand holding the buttons of his fly closed-- decently closed, just not fastened. That will wait for him to focus on this other thing. On forming this word that's now his to own. "It's th'Weyrleader's prerogative. But I wanted t'clear it with you."

Her feet twist a bit so the front bottom part of one curls over the front top part of the other. Small and skinny, Roa's extremities get cold so easily. But, at the hint that R'vain might insist she do something about the state of said feet before she returns to her weyr, her chin lifts a bit, shoulders squaring, in preparation for the argument that...doesn't come. What does come has her brows hitching upwards again, a flicker of surprise darting across her features. "Thank you," she says. "I'm listening."

"S'D'ven." He looks away, at nothing really. Anything. The drape that separates them from the outside; it's safe. "You figured he was good 'nough f'Weyrleader, if I understand right." Even looking away she'll see the grin start to take his mouth, the flicker of smirk and smug. But there's no self-satisfaction in it; just satisfaction, the simple kind, clean, or as clean as anything he feels will be. He looks down, and buttons his pants. "And I already planned on him doin' it. So if you approve, it'd be-- nice."

"Mmm," comes the faint murmur from the diminutive girl in the blanket. "I guess Tialith figured otherwise," she muses idly, but then another one of those little decisive nods. "I think he's a good pick. I think he'll do right by them. And," a small pause, "I gather you've been setting him up to take your place, anyhow." Roa's gaze drops, and her curled toes are studied. "I had an idea. About the weyrlings. I'd like to talk about it later. In a couple days maybe, when things are calmed a bit."

"Y'don't have t'gather. I'd've told you. I just did." R'vain turns back to look at her, only to find her looking at her feet. He drops his hands from his now-buttoned fly with a jerky, near-shrugging motion. "A'right. But D'ven's got his own ideas, y'know. And I'd never've thought his and yours might match up. You sure I can put 'im in?"

"I don't think there's anyone you could post as Weyrlingmaster whose ideas would match up with mine. But he'll want what's best for them, and I can talk to him. I know, when I do, he thinks about what I say, even if he might ultimately discard it." Roa blinks down at her toes. They curl and then straighten again. "I'm sure."

"I'll do then. Ain't impossible t'take him out you decide later it's a mistake. S'just I've given him my word once, and I wouldn't want t'give it twice before I go back on it." Strange honor, and R'vain recognizes it, if the bent tone to his voice is any indication. He prowls over to the bed where his shirt remains, 'her' side of the bed, where she left it. He stares down at it rather than pick it up too quick. "Can't take my jacket," he observes, very quietly, a little rough. "Socks got worn maybe twenty minutes. Clean enough f'snow, and thick. You could toss 'em before y'see him. Yours if you want 'em. Not if you don't."

"No point in tossing good socks. I made it through once just fine. I'll make through again, and there's a hot bath on the other end, anyhow." Roa steals a glance up and over, and now the small smile is apparent and, unlike the rest of the smiles that have come and gone, this one stays. "You fret over weyrlings like this?" It's part tease, part genuine interest.

His head jerks up, and he looks at her with an expression half-offended, half-flattered. A boy, called out on something clever he does, but would prefer not to be known for doing. R'vain reaches down for the shirt when the grin starts up. But he does not quite gloat. "Sorta," he allows, shaking the shirt out so he can stretch a paw (the wounded one first) into a sleeve. "I'd order a weyrling what I wanted them t'wear in th'snow. You, all I guess I can do is shake my head and if you ain't fast enough t'not get frostburnt I tell Ashwin I tried."

"He won't ask you," she says with a chuckle. "Make you a deal, though. I take your socks, you give me your word you'll see Neiran about your hand. Tomorrow." Roa arches one brow, watching the weyrleader fully, and she waits.

R'vain grunts, head shaking, as his reply to whether Ashwin would ask him; maybe he has his own perspective on that at the moment. But he doesn't think to defy her in her estimation of her weyrmate. Instead he shoves the other arm through its sleeve and drapes the shirt up over his shoulders, tucking the few remaining buttons back together. "Deal," he says, instead of anything else at all. "After classes're out. Oh. Hey." He looks up, and this grin is almost like one she's used to, although it's so lazy in its formation it would be hard to take from it any personal threat. He's just too amused not to show teeth. "You gonna stay in, or you done?"

Roa's mouth is open, perhaps to agree to something or debate something. Clearly, she intends to say something, only that last question seems to catch her off guard and leaves her standing, for a moment, with her lips parted and no sound coming out at all. "I..." A slow blink and she shakes her head. "...think I'm done. I was barely staying afloat before, and now..." Yes. Now. Now, suddenly, Roa backs up to the bed to just sink down, sit, and stare blankly ahead.

"Jus' barely?" R'vain stares, the grin vanishing as she backs up to the bed and sinks down onto it. Slowly, with footsteps softer than he could manage in boots-- and soft enough that he must be making some effort even in bare feet-- he slinks around the bed again, coming to the side she sits on. Slowly. Mustn't spook her. "I'd've figured you for one of th'better ones." A couple feet from her, by the foot of the bed and the trunk there, he pauses, looking down at her. He takes note of the blank stare. "I can have somethin' sent up t'you, y'want," and here his voice is ragged again, but gently so. "Dinner. Hot cider, or a nightcap. Y'... y'don't have t'do it alone, y'know."

"Five hours of hidework, four hours of classes, three hours of homework, three or four more of infirmary shifts. And that's not even counting side projects or extra assignments..." This is all listed rather blankly and then, very slowly, Roa leans forward until her forehead settles against her knees. "Sure," comes the muffled murmur after R'vain stops speaking. "I know. In my head. Head's not working so well, just now."

"No homework. No classes." The tone swings back and forth between suggestion and command, settling on a rough effort at being comforting, and then R'vain sits down on the edge of the bed beside her. Not too close, not forcing any sort of likely touch, but close enough that the mattress will sink beneath them both. "Y'want t'go on there I think y'ought t'do it in private. Lessons. Whatever. But not with th'classes. Because it'd change what Caucus does. And I think that ain't even th'change you'd want t'make." A beat, and a grin, and he looks down at his knees. "Tell me, f'I'm wrong."

"No homework," Roa agrees from her curled position, "no classes." She straightens slowly, drawing in a careful breath and nudging whatever that was away and to the back of her head for now. "I think I want to go back to the weyr. Take a bath. Go to bed. Worry about packing up and everything else in the morning." A smile appears as she tosses a sidelong glance towards R'vain. "Think you can keep the place in once piece til then?" It's a tease. A tease all the way.

"Planning on it. From m'old weyr, even. I ain't got help moving til morning, my guess anything like right." He splits a grin, of course, and casts it over to her, sly. This is the sly of something friends share, though. Not a threat, or a suggestion. An intimacy, a glimpse into him, how he sees himself, his life-- an offering. So naturally offered that it's entirely uncalculated, and as such comes off as awkward. R'vain doesn't bear up under awkward well so he gets up from the bed, prowling off to the place where his jacket lies in a heap. "Socks'll be in th'boots," he notes. "Grab 'em and go. I'll be a few minutes. You-- want t'set a time t'... " His turn to stop a moment and let it sink in a little deeper. And swallow. "...t'start?"

Carefully she stands, and slowly she moves to the boots in question to bend down and pull the socks free. The blanket falls away so that Roa can balance oddly on one foot while she slips the borrowed footwear onto the other. "No," she says quietly. "Sleep in. Have Ruvoth tell Tialith when you're ready." One foot lowers and the other one lifts. "It's not like they'll have a tough time finding one another." If once, such words might have been grudging or resigned, now they are simply fact. "Then we'll start."

"Sleep in," repeats R'vain, voice low and rattling, a chuckle threatened. It becomes real while he bends for his jacket, squished a bit for the motion but a chuckle just the same, low and rumbling and pleased. No simple-fact-stating here, and no grudge either; for the dragons, at least, the Weyrleader seems truly glad. "No. It won't. Wonder if they can even sleep th'night all th'nights they spent not sleepin'?" Casual, he throws on his jacket, ripples his shoulders to let it settle on him, looks down to the side and considers for a moment the knot-- the Weyrlingmaster's-- that resides there. He grins again, and shakes his head. "Rest well, Weyrwoman."

"Suppose we're about to find out," Roa considers lightly. About not sleeping or sleeping. She's regained the blanket and inched over to the curtain that keeps the cold out, fingers curling around it. At the title, of course, she looks back over her shoulder. "Yeah. You too. Weyrleader." Then she sucks in a sharp breath, jerks back the curtain, and dashes out into the darkness and the snow. It is a bit easier to feel the chill when one is not dragon-drunk.

As soon as she's gone, R'vain gives up on fiddling with his jacket and leaps with swift, lupine strides toward the drape. He stands there, inexplicably breathless, and counts. One one thousand. Two. He pulls back the drape and squints into the frigid air and the deepening dim of early twilight, his narrow emerald gaze picking out a tiny figure flying through the cold. He watches until she's safe inside, squinting hard to make her out through the falling snow.