Places
Location: Weyrleaders' Office
Time: Early morning on Day 26, Month 2, Turn 3
Players: R'vain and Roa
Scene: Roa gets the weyrleader up to speed on exiled greenriders and clandestine meetings.
It is that early hour of morning when on any given day, certain things might occur among the people who inhabit the weyrleaders' complex. Typically R'vain is up long before now, prowling the caverns-- to find Ashwin's training space and pester him for perspectives on guardship; to find klah and cinnamon, the Weyrleader's wince-inducing substitute for wine in the morning; to bathe Ruvoth in quiet and peace; to spy on weyrlings and 'master; maybe to corner a girl who's in for a very long day and make it a little longer. Typically he'd be coming back to the office, ready to start the day's work, to prepare for drills, even to take a nap if 'fall is expected later in the day. Today he's planned to meet the Weyrwoman, to discuss flight formations of greater complexity and options for sub-squadrons out of the wings; but today he trods out of his own weyr to do so rather than clomping up the steps outside or even rushing through the tight quarters of the long passage that leads around from the upper caverns.
He stops just inside the office to stretch, the back of one paw held against a yawn. His jacket's over one arm, his shirt half-open from the neck, and he stalks instinctively toward the table and chairs, raking thick fingers through indifferent hair. "Goin' t'start havin' a pot sent up maybe," he announces by way of good-morning, even if the announcement greets an empty room.
The room is not empty, although it may appear that way at first. Roa is small, and when seated in one of the high-backed chairs, knees up, not moving, she can be thought to be a bit of the upholstery at first. Her own morning so far has consisted of breakfast, a bit of training on her own while Ashwin does his own routines in the guards' cavern, and checking over the ledgers to balance them for the seven and make sure what's being ordered continues to match what the weyr actually needs. Just now, her chin is on her knees, arms around her legs, gaze directed downward, but too distant to actually be observing the hide of numbers laid out before her. She blinks and peers upwards, as the yawning weyrleader arrives. "No reason why you shouldn't," Roa offers quietly. Then, after drawing in a small breath, "I need to talk to you."
R'vain replies a query by means of a little mumbly grunt that lilts up at the end, 'huhm?' and stuffs the yawn-blocking paw into his trouser pocket, something he hardly ever does because those pockets are so close-fit. "S'what I'm here for," he rumbles as he plucks out a single button, white and shiny, mother-of-pearl; he looks down as he flattens his palm beneath it and blinks at it once, lets out a little grunted 'huh' and a shrug. He skulks over to the table, but doesn't put down a paw to claim a chair just yet; he's fussed with getting the button into a safe inner pocket of the jacket, then dropping the jacket over the back of the chair. "Something's wrong," he notes, master of intuition that he is, and finally sits down to look a level gaze over at her.
"Almost always," Roa agrees with a weak attempt at a smile. Her attention moves, momentarily, to the button, watching as it's found, studied, and tucked away again. "It goes to your suit jacket," she informs him softly. "Cuff. Speaking of which...easy bit first. It'll be just you and I going to Benden for the wedding. Well, unless you're bring somebody, of course."
"If you're not," R'vain replies, voice a little muffled from twisting in his chair to stuff a paw into his jacket and try to get the button back out, "I'm not. Wouldn't be right. Just us. Y'think Sinopa's invited?"
"I'm not sure. I haven't asked her and Reyce didn't offer one way or the other. It's unlikely. Courtesy would dictate inviting the leading pair, but not necessarily all the goldriders. If you invite all the queenriders why not the wingleaders? And if the wingleaders, why not the wingseconds...I doubt Benden is interested in having all that many from High Reaches there. More from Benden weyr, I should think." The weyrwoman falls silent, ducking her head down so her mouth is hidden in her knees. Her next words, then, are muffled. "I have to go to the island."
R'vain lets out a little snorty laugh for the dozen-plus possible entourage of Reachian riders that could get invited in such a scheme, and shakes his head. The button in his hand he considers another time, then leans forward to set it down on the table, presumably more likely to remember to do something with it if it's in plain sight. He's still a little leaned forward when she makes her muffled confession, so he just stays like that, his paw overturning so it can rest with false comfort on the table's edge. His gaze creeps up, though his head doesn't lift. "Y'/have/ t'go why?"
"The greenrider held at Telgar. We've got something arranged, tentatively, for six days from now at a small place in High Reaches territory. We're even going to have an escort from Telgar bring her to and from. The Masterharper will be there and a second harper. A couple healers. You and me. Or. That's the plan. It's safest, but Cassiel's balking." Roa lets her gaze fall again onto the button. It is stared at for a long while. "So. I have to go."
"An escort from Telgar," grates R'vain, drawing back his paw and his spine, leaning into the chair and folding his arms tight over his chest, eyes dark. "And th'greenrider's balking." His nostrils flare, and in his next sentence each word grows incrementally louder, never approaching a yell-- but then, R'vain doesn't have to yell to roar. "F'some reason I don't find that surprising."
"Yes, I know, but it makes the most sense." Roa's eyes close, the button ignored now as she makes herself just a bit smaller. "If Telgar participates, it's the weyr dealing with its own internal problem, and us assisting. If they don't, it's us sticking our noses into Telgari affairs. It also means that Cassiel was invited to the mainland, rather than coming on her own. And it means that two weyrs, not just one, supported her arrival."
"So. Cassiel. Escort from Telgar: who? How many? Two harpers, two healers, and us." R'vain's arms tighten harder, his paws curling into fists in the corners of his elbows, and his eyes narrow a dark, burning green on the woman not looking at him or, now, anything else but the insides of her eyelids. "Eight people. Where's this safe place?" She said small. He says safe. There's emphasis on the change.
"Eight people," Roa agrees, her eyes still closed. "B'sano. Former weyrleader. I trust him, and he'll do it." One eye peeps open. "Miniyal's mother's family's cothold. It's out of the way and the cotholder, Clery, says he'll allow it. Only Cassiel wants me, two healers, the Masterharper. No one else. Which might seem better on the surface, but ultimately is less secure for everyone."
"I know who B'sano is," snaps R'vain. But aside from the snapping, he seems somewhat resigned now, soothed ever so slightly by his Weyrwoman's plans, and he lets her explain the rest of them before speaking again. Though his brows remain drawn and his jaw stiff, he's a little gentler in the voice, gruff and low, when he speaks again. "So you got t'see her in person t'try t'bring 'er 'round."
A small sigh, defeated and resigned, as Roa lets her eyes close again. Throughout the discussion, the rest of her body, even her hands, have remained stubbornly still. "Yes."
R'vain stares at her still, as if he could will her eyelids apart, force her gaze to meet his. "Who's going with you?"
But the question has the opposite effect. Roa's head tips down, her face fully hidden in her knees. "Issa."
She won't know, then, how his stare does not vary, how his face doesn't change. "Does Cassiel trust her?"
The response comes, muffled and maybe just a little bemused, from Roa's knees. "I don't think Cassiel trusts anybody."
"Then it won't hurt a damn thing if I go with you instead," replies R'vain, his tone gentler than it had been before. "C'mout here and stop tryin' t'stick your head up your skirts, won'tcha? Makes it hard t'have a conversation."
Her head tips up just slightly, so blue eyes can peer over at green. They narrow just a little bit. "Absolutely not," she informs him succinctly.
"Way I figure it part of her problem's got t'be with people she don't know, maybe men," retorts R'vain, voice rough. "You goin' t'get her over that y'self?"
"She thinks enough of me that she'll let me be there. It's a place to start. I don't know that she'd appreciate my bringing someone she's said she wouldn't see. Besides which," Roa draws in a careful breath, "if anything is going to go wrong, Reaches can't afford to lose all of its leadership at once. One of us has to stay. Can't be me."
This consideration causes R'vain to suck in a breath, too, and his eyes narrow to near-slits; it seems unlikely that he can really focus on her through such small windows on the world. "Could be," he corrects, quiet for him. "But she asked f'you. Shit, Roa. You need better guard than Issa."
"I'll tell you when I'm going. We won't take more than an hour. We do, you can come looking. You'll know where I'll be, and the island's crawling with dragons. Someone will know what's happened." Roa's shoulders lift and fall. "Probably, nothing will happen. Issa's done it often enough. We'll be fine."
"Don't know how t'get there," R'vain remarks, quieter still, for him. And his tongue goes up over his teeth, bulging his upper lip and displaying a glimpse of its streaked underside between his lips before it slips silently back into his mouth where it belongs.
A small nod accepts that. "Then before we go," Roa says, quiet and calm, "Tialith will show Ruvoth."
"Want you t'have a plan," says R'vain next, arms still crossed though less tightly knotted across his chest; and at least now his chest rises and falls beneath that knot with ready, steady breath. "How y'goin' t'see her, and not have everyone on that island know you're there. Specially some one everyone. T'whom I'm afraid y'might be a bit too tempting t'let go twice." Again with the tongue after that, and a raise of his chin, tiny challenge proffered.
The weyrwoman only snorts softly. "Trust me, that won't be a problem. Plan is to meet where Issa's been meeting the day after tomorrow. It's a couple islands over, away from the main. Oshisyth sends out a call to Chiavelth and Nenuith. We meet. We talk. We leave. Four days later, we meet at the cothold with whatever of the seven that Cassiel will allow."
"Where she's been meeting all 'long," rumbles R'vain, rich and cold with disapproval. "With whom?"
The disapproval is ignored or, at least, not acknowledged. "Diya, mostly," Roa murmurs, before her eyes close again. "J'lor, sometimes. Cassiel, the once."
R'vain unfolds his arms and shoves back his chair. "Subtle." He leans forward after that and heaves himself up, not to depart but to pace a few steps behind the back of his chair, back and forth. "Tialith's not going." His assumption, almost rhetorical-- but not quite.
Roa blinks. "Yes, she is. We've a seven, yet, before she can't between."
"No," replies R'vain, stopping his pacing to look along the sightline of one broad shoulder down at the Weyrwoman. "She's not. Too risky. Too obvious. Leave 'er here."
"To do what?" Roa inquires, quiet and calm. Her stillness is a counter to R'vain's restless pacing. "Agitate herself? To wait behind if I'm hurt? You think she'll stay here, if anything goes wrong?"
"No. I think she'll come t'your side, and I'll have a perfect warning system," grates R'vain. "And if y'don't have her /with/ you there's a better chance nothing goes wrong in th'first place. No obvious gold wings popping into th'sky, no gravid queen's mind there f'some Instigator's dragon t'trip over." A little fire flares now in those emerald eyes; at least it warms them. "I don't want her going. An hour. She'll be fine. Ruvoth can keep 'er company."
"Not so sure -I'll- be fine," is muttered into Roa's knees. "We've never...he..." She presses her lips into a thin little line and draws a shaking breath in through her nose. "Fine," comes the flat and dulled agreement.
"He," nudges R'vain, turning now, coming to the stand behind his chair. He rests a paw atop the jacket draped over the seatback, then crouches halfway so he's at seating-height without bending from the waist. Real quiet, for the Weyrleader. Real gentle, a little ragged. "He?"
"It's nothing," the weyrwoman insists, knees pressing tighter against her chest. But she has been partnered with R'vain long enough now to know that response will not be acceptable. "He might be there, is all. I don't want to see him. And now Tia's staying behind." She shakes her head. "It's fine. Forget it."
"He," R'vain repeats again. "J'lor."
Her shoulders lift and fall, the lower half of her face hidden again. Shrug.
"Roa." He pushes the chair aside, straightens, steps forward, grabs the chair back, sinks into it, leans deeply forward over the table with his elbows up on it, staring with all his emerald intensity and feline curiosity and Weyrlingmaster's worry at that half-hidden face. "He ain't a bad fellow. What're you 'fraid of?"
"He ain't..." Roa's head lifts and her eyes widen before she chokes off a funny noise. A sort of strangled laugh. "What do you know about what he is and isn't?" she asks her knees. "I can't talk about this. I'll go. She'll stay. What else do you need before you're all right with this?"
"Well, I'm workin' from Ruvoth's opinion, and that's out of Vellath, so I guess I don't know no more'n that, but I don't got a complete lack of good gut instinct," replies R'vain in a rough tumble of low words, unhurt, unhurried. "And I /am/ a'right, Weyrwoman. I just don't like t'see you curled up tryin' t'disappear, and I-- " His tongue slips just barely between his teeth, just barely distorts his lips and then even that sign of it disappears; after that he just stares at her, malcontent and concerned. "Take Ashwin."
"No!" And that is quite a snap indeed. Roa scowls, again, down at those poor knees. They seem to hold a great many things the weyrwoman finds upsetting just now. "Me and Issa. That's it. Just...please. That's it. If something goes wrong, you can bring whoever you like."
"A'right!" R'vain straightens in his chair, turning over his paws, palms-up, no-harm, no-foul. "Roa, I'm just tryin' t'make this less bad, because you seem t'be convinced it /is/ bad, and I wish it weren't. I'm sorry."
"I appreciate that," Roa sighs, attempting to sit a bit straighter. "I do. But you can't. It's just a mess in my own head. More there, probably, than it really is, and I can't...I just can't. I'm sorry." She draws in another breath and puffs out her cheeks as she exhales. "I think that's everything I had to tell you."
R'vain looks on his Weyrwoman for a long time after that with the brows-drawn, open expression of frank concern. But in a time he rolls his lips and looks down at the table, then up again. "Let's look at th'first flight," he rumbles, softly, pushing his chair back so he can get up and find hides related to this topic, the one he's offering for them to take refuge in, far from fathers and exiles. "I want t'talk about how th'first wing's 'seconds might function a little different, here on."
Time: Early morning on Day 26, Month 2, Turn 3
Players: R'vain and Roa
Scene: Roa gets the weyrleader up to speed on exiled greenriders and clandestine meetings.
It is that early hour of morning when on any given day, certain things might occur among the people who inhabit the weyrleaders' complex. Typically R'vain is up long before now, prowling the caverns-- to find Ashwin's training space and pester him for perspectives on guardship; to find klah and cinnamon, the Weyrleader's wince-inducing substitute for wine in the morning; to bathe Ruvoth in quiet and peace; to spy on weyrlings and 'master; maybe to corner a girl who's in for a very long day and make it a little longer. Typically he'd be coming back to the office, ready to start the day's work, to prepare for drills, even to take a nap if 'fall is expected later in the day. Today he's planned to meet the Weyrwoman, to discuss flight formations of greater complexity and options for sub-squadrons out of the wings; but today he trods out of his own weyr to do so rather than clomping up the steps outside or even rushing through the tight quarters of the long passage that leads around from the upper caverns.
He stops just inside the office to stretch, the back of one paw held against a yawn. His jacket's over one arm, his shirt half-open from the neck, and he stalks instinctively toward the table and chairs, raking thick fingers through indifferent hair. "Goin' t'start havin' a pot sent up maybe," he announces by way of good-morning, even if the announcement greets an empty room.
The room is not empty, although it may appear that way at first. Roa is small, and when seated in one of the high-backed chairs, knees up, not moving, she can be thought to be a bit of the upholstery at first. Her own morning so far has consisted of breakfast, a bit of training on her own while Ashwin does his own routines in the guards' cavern, and checking over the ledgers to balance them for the seven and make sure what's being ordered continues to match what the weyr actually needs. Just now, her chin is on her knees, arms around her legs, gaze directed downward, but too distant to actually be observing the hide of numbers laid out before her. She blinks and peers upwards, as the yawning weyrleader arrives. "No reason why you shouldn't," Roa offers quietly. Then, after drawing in a small breath, "I need to talk to you."
R'vain replies a query by means of a little mumbly grunt that lilts up at the end, 'huhm?' and stuffs the yawn-blocking paw into his trouser pocket, something he hardly ever does because those pockets are so close-fit. "S'what I'm here for," he rumbles as he plucks out a single button, white and shiny, mother-of-pearl; he looks down as he flattens his palm beneath it and blinks at it once, lets out a little grunted 'huh' and a shrug. He skulks over to the table, but doesn't put down a paw to claim a chair just yet; he's fussed with getting the button into a safe inner pocket of the jacket, then dropping the jacket over the back of the chair. "Something's wrong," he notes, master of intuition that he is, and finally sits down to look a level gaze over at her.
"Almost always," Roa agrees with a weak attempt at a smile. Her attention moves, momentarily, to the button, watching as it's found, studied, and tucked away again. "It goes to your suit jacket," she informs him softly. "Cuff. Speaking of which...easy bit first. It'll be just you and I going to Benden for the wedding. Well, unless you're bring somebody, of course."
"If you're not," R'vain replies, voice a little muffled from twisting in his chair to stuff a paw into his jacket and try to get the button back out, "I'm not. Wouldn't be right. Just us. Y'think Sinopa's invited?"
"I'm not sure. I haven't asked her and Reyce didn't offer one way or the other. It's unlikely. Courtesy would dictate inviting the leading pair, but not necessarily all the goldriders. If you invite all the queenriders why not the wingleaders? And if the wingleaders, why not the wingseconds...I doubt Benden is interested in having all that many from High Reaches there. More from Benden weyr, I should think." The weyrwoman falls silent, ducking her head down so her mouth is hidden in her knees. Her next words, then, are muffled. "I have to go to the island."
R'vain lets out a little snorty laugh for the dozen-plus possible entourage of Reachian riders that could get invited in such a scheme, and shakes his head. The button in his hand he considers another time, then leans forward to set it down on the table, presumably more likely to remember to do something with it if it's in plain sight. He's still a little leaned forward when she makes her muffled confession, so he just stays like that, his paw overturning so it can rest with false comfort on the table's edge. His gaze creeps up, though his head doesn't lift. "Y'/have/ t'go why?"
"The greenrider held at Telgar. We've got something arranged, tentatively, for six days from now at a small place in High Reaches territory. We're even going to have an escort from Telgar bring her to and from. The Masterharper will be there and a second harper. A couple healers. You and me. Or. That's the plan. It's safest, but Cassiel's balking." Roa lets her gaze fall again onto the button. It is stared at for a long while. "So. I have to go."
"An escort from Telgar," grates R'vain, drawing back his paw and his spine, leaning into the chair and folding his arms tight over his chest, eyes dark. "And th'greenrider's balking." His nostrils flare, and in his next sentence each word grows incrementally louder, never approaching a yell-- but then, R'vain doesn't have to yell to roar. "F'some reason I don't find that surprising."
"Yes, I know, but it makes the most sense." Roa's eyes close, the button ignored now as she makes herself just a bit smaller. "If Telgar participates, it's the weyr dealing with its own internal problem, and us assisting. If they don't, it's us sticking our noses into Telgari affairs. It also means that Cassiel was invited to the mainland, rather than coming on her own. And it means that two weyrs, not just one, supported her arrival."
"So. Cassiel. Escort from Telgar: who? How many? Two harpers, two healers, and us." R'vain's arms tighten harder, his paws curling into fists in the corners of his elbows, and his eyes narrow a dark, burning green on the woman not looking at him or, now, anything else but the insides of her eyelids. "Eight people. Where's this safe place?" She said small. He says safe. There's emphasis on the change.
"Eight people," Roa agrees, her eyes still closed. "B'sano. Former weyrleader. I trust him, and he'll do it." One eye peeps open. "Miniyal's mother's family's cothold. It's out of the way and the cotholder, Clery, says he'll allow it. Only Cassiel wants me, two healers, the Masterharper. No one else. Which might seem better on the surface, but ultimately is less secure for everyone."
"I know who B'sano is," snaps R'vain. But aside from the snapping, he seems somewhat resigned now, soothed ever so slightly by his Weyrwoman's plans, and he lets her explain the rest of them before speaking again. Though his brows remain drawn and his jaw stiff, he's a little gentler in the voice, gruff and low, when he speaks again. "So you got t'see her in person t'try t'bring 'er 'round."
A small sigh, defeated and resigned, as Roa lets her eyes close again. Throughout the discussion, the rest of her body, even her hands, have remained stubbornly still. "Yes."
R'vain stares at her still, as if he could will her eyelids apart, force her gaze to meet his. "Who's going with you?"
But the question has the opposite effect. Roa's head tips down, her face fully hidden in her knees. "Issa."
She won't know, then, how his stare does not vary, how his face doesn't change. "Does Cassiel trust her?"
The response comes, muffled and maybe just a little bemused, from Roa's knees. "I don't think Cassiel trusts anybody."
"Then it won't hurt a damn thing if I go with you instead," replies R'vain, his tone gentler than it had been before. "C'mout here and stop tryin' t'stick your head up your skirts, won'tcha? Makes it hard t'have a conversation."
Her head tips up just slightly, so blue eyes can peer over at green. They narrow just a little bit. "Absolutely not," she informs him succinctly.
"Way I figure it part of her problem's got t'be with people she don't know, maybe men," retorts R'vain, voice rough. "You goin' t'get her over that y'self?"
"She thinks enough of me that she'll let me be there. It's a place to start. I don't know that she'd appreciate my bringing someone she's said she wouldn't see. Besides which," Roa draws in a careful breath, "if anything is going to go wrong, Reaches can't afford to lose all of its leadership at once. One of us has to stay. Can't be me."
This consideration causes R'vain to suck in a breath, too, and his eyes narrow to near-slits; it seems unlikely that he can really focus on her through such small windows on the world. "Could be," he corrects, quiet for him. "But she asked f'you. Shit, Roa. You need better guard than Issa."
"I'll tell you when I'm going. We won't take more than an hour. We do, you can come looking. You'll know where I'll be, and the island's crawling with dragons. Someone will know what's happened." Roa's shoulders lift and fall. "Probably, nothing will happen. Issa's done it often enough. We'll be fine."
"Don't know how t'get there," R'vain remarks, quieter still, for him. And his tongue goes up over his teeth, bulging his upper lip and displaying a glimpse of its streaked underside between his lips before it slips silently back into his mouth where it belongs.
A small nod accepts that. "Then before we go," Roa says, quiet and calm, "Tialith will show Ruvoth."
"Want you t'have a plan," says R'vain next, arms still crossed though less tightly knotted across his chest; and at least now his chest rises and falls beneath that knot with ready, steady breath. "How y'goin' t'see her, and not have everyone on that island know you're there. Specially some one everyone. T'whom I'm afraid y'might be a bit too tempting t'let go twice." Again with the tongue after that, and a raise of his chin, tiny challenge proffered.
The weyrwoman only snorts softly. "Trust me, that won't be a problem. Plan is to meet where Issa's been meeting the day after tomorrow. It's a couple islands over, away from the main. Oshisyth sends out a call to Chiavelth and Nenuith. We meet. We talk. We leave. Four days later, we meet at the cothold with whatever of the seven that Cassiel will allow."
"Where she's been meeting all 'long," rumbles R'vain, rich and cold with disapproval. "With whom?"
The disapproval is ignored or, at least, not acknowledged. "Diya, mostly," Roa murmurs, before her eyes close again. "J'lor, sometimes. Cassiel, the once."
R'vain unfolds his arms and shoves back his chair. "Subtle." He leans forward after that and heaves himself up, not to depart but to pace a few steps behind the back of his chair, back and forth. "Tialith's not going." His assumption, almost rhetorical-- but not quite.
Roa blinks. "Yes, she is. We've a seven, yet, before she can't between."
"No," replies R'vain, stopping his pacing to look along the sightline of one broad shoulder down at the Weyrwoman. "She's not. Too risky. Too obvious. Leave 'er here."
"To do what?" Roa inquires, quiet and calm. Her stillness is a counter to R'vain's restless pacing. "Agitate herself? To wait behind if I'm hurt? You think she'll stay here, if anything goes wrong?"
"No. I think she'll come t'your side, and I'll have a perfect warning system," grates R'vain. "And if y'don't have her /with/ you there's a better chance nothing goes wrong in th'first place. No obvious gold wings popping into th'sky, no gravid queen's mind there f'some Instigator's dragon t'trip over." A little fire flares now in those emerald eyes; at least it warms them. "I don't want her going. An hour. She'll be fine. Ruvoth can keep 'er company."
"Not so sure -I'll- be fine," is muttered into Roa's knees. "We've never...he..." She presses her lips into a thin little line and draws a shaking breath in through her nose. "Fine," comes the flat and dulled agreement.
"He," nudges R'vain, turning now, coming to the stand behind his chair. He rests a paw atop the jacket draped over the seatback, then crouches halfway so he's at seating-height without bending from the waist. Real quiet, for the Weyrleader. Real gentle, a little ragged. "He?"
"It's nothing," the weyrwoman insists, knees pressing tighter against her chest. But she has been partnered with R'vain long enough now to know that response will not be acceptable. "He might be there, is all. I don't want to see him. And now Tia's staying behind." She shakes her head. "It's fine. Forget it."
"He," R'vain repeats again. "J'lor."
Her shoulders lift and fall, the lower half of her face hidden again. Shrug.
"Roa." He pushes the chair aside, straightens, steps forward, grabs the chair back, sinks into it, leans deeply forward over the table with his elbows up on it, staring with all his emerald intensity and feline curiosity and Weyrlingmaster's worry at that half-hidden face. "He ain't a bad fellow. What're you 'fraid of?"
"He ain't..." Roa's head lifts and her eyes widen before she chokes off a funny noise. A sort of strangled laugh. "What do you know about what he is and isn't?" she asks her knees. "I can't talk about this. I'll go. She'll stay. What else do you need before you're all right with this?"
"Well, I'm workin' from Ruvoth's opinion, and that's out of Vellath, so I guess I don't know no more'n that, but I don't got a complete lack of good gut instinct," replies R'vain in a rough tumble of low words, unhurt, unhurried. "And I /am/ a'right, Weyrwoman. I just don't like t'see you curled up tryin' t'disappear, and I-- " His tongue slips just barely between his teeth, just barely distorts his lips and then even that sign of it disappears; after that he just stares at her, malcontent and concerned. "Take Ashwin."
"No!" And that is quite a snap indeed. Roa scowls, again, down at those poor knees. They seem to hold a great many things the weyrwoman finds upsetting just now. "Me and Issa. That's it. Just...please. That's it. If something goes wrong, you can bring whoever you like."
"A'right!" R'vain straightens in his chair, turning over his paws, palms-up, no-harm, no-foul. "Roa, I'm just tryin' t'make this less bad, because you seem t'be convinced it /is/ bad, and I wish it weren't. I'm sorry."
"I appreciate that," Roa sighs, attempting to sit a bit straighter. "I do. But you can't. It's just a mess in my own head. More there, probably, than it really is, and I can't...I just can't. I'm sorry." She draws in another breath and puffs out her cheeks as she exhales. "I think that's everything I had to tell you."
R'vain looks on his Weyrwoman for a long time after that with the brows-drawn, open expression of frank concern. But in a time he rolls his lips and looks down at the table, then up again. "Let's look at th'first flight," he rumbles, softly, pushing his chair back so he can get up and find hides related to this topic, the one he's offering for them to take refuge in, far from fathers and exiles. "I want t'talk about how th'first wing's 'seconds might function a little different, here on."