Men Who Keep Promises And Other Concerns
Location: North Weyr
Time: Late evening on Day 12, Month 11, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Issa
Scene: Issa drops by for a visit. They discuss various topics including dead ex-weyrleaders, mysterious packages and who sent them, unhappy bronzeriding weyrlings, and the men responsible for the bumps.
Later evening sometimes has Roa working, and sometimes, these days, it has her napping. This evening, she's just pacing with a small redfruit cradled in her hands. It's not being eaten, but used in a game of catch. The fruit is tossed up and ahead, the weyrwoman inches forward a couple of paces, and she catches it. Exciting, exciting. Tialith seems utterly enthralled. If by 'enthralled' one means 'asleep on her couch'.
If the slow-paced, heavy steps on the way up don't announce that Issa's here for their 'appointment' for a relaxing chat, the short series of raps at the door should do the trick. She doesn't wait around to see if they did, however, pushing wider the crack left open and peeking her head through briefly. "Hello, Weyrwoman," comes the greeting, more lighthearted tease than any show of respect. "How's the belly?" In pokes her own expanded waistline, nudged in as she steps into the room and shuts the door behind her.
Glancing over as the redfruit is caught a final time, Roa groans and rolls her eyes at the new arrival's question. "Ugh. Don't ask. How's yours? Are you in the I-need-to-sit-down-all-the-time stage, the she-won't-stop-kicking-me stage or the my-lungs feel-smaller-and-I-can't-breathe stage?"
A smile flattens Issa's lips as she answers simply, "Kicking." A hand is laid somewhat subconsciously alongside her stomach as she makes her way over to the couch. Apparently having to sit down all the time isn't too foreign a stage either. On her way there, as she passes Roa, an arched eyebrow accompanies the simple, quietly amused inquiry, "She?" She sinks down at the edge of the couch without waiting for an answer, though, letting herself fall heavily against the cushions and expelling a huff of breath.
"Well, or he. I switch back and forth. It feels more appropriate than saying 'it'." Roa shrugs and tosses the redfruit again. "Anything to eat or drink. Sitting's kinda awful for me right now. I hope you don't mind if I stand." She pauses, smiling faintly. "You have a preference? Boy or girl?"
"I'll take one of those," Issa answers, one eye squinting shut while she aims the other at the redfruit the goldrider holds, a single finger held up to indicate it as well, "if you have another. Oh, and some tea," she drags as if just realizing her own desire for such. She pauses over her answer to the next question, though, her eyes dropping idly to consider the swell of her belly. "No," she says easily then, lifting her gaze to subtly compare her size with the weyrwoman's. "Not really. It's not going to matter much, I don't think. A baby's a baby," she finishes with a shrug, her shoulders dug even deeper into the cushions afterward.
"Mmm," is Roa's vague agreement. Her own belly is further along than Issa's. It's beginning to reach that point where it's pretty much taken over her profile. There's the bump...and this small woman that seems to be attached to it. "Here. Catch." She pitches the redfruit towards the greenrider before moving to get the hot water from over the fire and steep two cups of tea. "How're they holding up?" she asks, shifting from foot to foot. "How're you?"
Issa stretches her legs out further, spread out without an ounce of care for decorum, though she'll most definitely push herself a bit straighter when Roa returns with the tea. "Oh, I'm fine," she begins, her gaze thrown briefly towards the ceiling while her smile slides into a slight wry tilt. "Stressed, but that's nothing new. At least everyone in the barracks seems to be progressing well. Hm, well, except for Miniyal. I can never really tell how she's doing. Especially now."
"She's a mess, I think," Roa sighs as the tea is handed off and she leans against the arm of the couch nearest to Issa, "but she won't admit it even to herself so it'll be a bit before she shatters. Just...keep an eye out, I think. Let me know, if you need anything." The weyrwoman frowns into her tea. "She sent you a package, she says. Have you read through it?"
Issa nods over the advice as she subtly adjusts to Roa's new position, edging sideways so she can face her easily. The tea is simply cradled between her palms as it gradually cools, her chin tucked down so she can idly follow the drift of those steam curls. When a package is mentioned, her eyes dart up seconds before the rest of her remembers to respond. "That?" she questions blankly first, only to be followed by, a lower, "She sent me that?" She blinks heavily and shakes her head likely, looking away as a soft frown forms on her forehead. "Yeah. Yeah, I read it."
"Yeh," Roa sighs. "I just found out. You, H'kon, Ginella. Faranth knows who's next. I swear..." She turns the mug slowly. "At least it wasn't anything you didn't know, but those were the documents."
"No, no, nothing I didn't know," Issa repeats on the edge of a humorless breath, a definite touch of sarcasm weighting her words. She pauses to bring up her tea, her words continuing from behind it after she sends a gentle, cooling blow across its surface. "Just the transcripts, manifestos, and an explanation about how Diya was the one to betray the Instigators to the rest of the world." She flicks a significant glance up at Roa, then lets her eyes drop down to watching her tea again, deemed still too hot, it seems, to be sipped from.
"Well, okay, so you hadn't read them, given," Roa says with a small nod, "but you knew the gist of most everything didn't you? I mean I thought you did. I-" the weyrwoman falls silent, her mouth still open, as her eyes widen a little. "There wasn't anything on Diya in Ginella's collection. You...there was...you hadn't known that?"
An eyebrow lifts higher as Issa directs her gaze up at Roa again. Then all she does is give a slow shake of her head before pursing her lips into a testing sip of her tea.
"Oh," the goldrider's voice has become rather small and flat. "I...I'm sorry. I had thought..." Roa bites on her bottom lip, "shit."
After her tea is swallowed down, Issa sucks in a soft breath that's expelled along with a calm, "Don't worry. I know now. Thanks to Miniyal." The name is treated to a darker tone, but she moves quickly past it, letting her voice lift to a more casual cadence. "She must have had her reasons, doesn't she always? Really better I know anyway." She doesn't sound convinced, but she doesn't linger over it, letting her words slip to silence along with a deeper drink from her tea.
"Oh, she always has her reasons. Which are, naturally, far superior to anybody else's." Roa snorts softly. "And she said once she was surprised that she impressed a queen." The tea is blown on and sipped. "Plus we're all out to get her. Hate her. Think she's worthless. It's the only possible reason anyone has to criticize." Her nose wrinkles. "Ugh. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Issa says firmly, sounding far more confident in that assertion this time. After a break for another swallow, she look up at the goldrider again. "So how have you been this week, after the..." A hand waves away from her cup to indicate the unspoken occurrence to which she refers, then it digs into her curls to support her head as she plants her elbow into the cushion on the back of the couch.
"I've been better, but all right. Everyone has questions. Is it true? Is there proof? How was it done? Mostly, we don't know. Except...the true part is looking, uhm, really likely." Roa worries her bottom lip again. "I know I was in the minority, thinking he was a good person but I...I did. I feel like, I don't know. Let down, I guess. Hurt. Tired. How about you?"
Issa's lips simply rest against the edge of her mug as she listens to Roa, a convenient position for her to tip out the occasional small sip. "I... I knew he was gone," she admits gently, "but I didn't think he was gone that far. You didn't know him very well before he lost Hirth, did you?"
"No," Roa admits softly. "I'd only really met him once, before Hirth passed. And that was a really long time ago. Was he very different, before?"
"Not obviously, no," Issa explains, "but enough so that I could notice that it was gone sometimes, afterward. The way he changed." Her cup is lowered and she takes a moment to make sure the mug gets properly balanced on her thigh before she continues. "I think that he tried very hard to hoard whatever normalcy he had, but..." A sigh lets Roa know just how successful Issa thought him to be. "I doubt any of us would fare much better, though."
"Yeah. I couldn't imagine what...I mean. I guess I thought he was okay, because I wanted to believe that someone -could- be okay, even after losing their dragon. But I guess." Roa turns her mug slowly, watching as the cup moves but her reflection remains the same. "I guess that's impossible."
"Apparently," Issa responds quietly, her gaze drifting from her mug to the redfruit in her lap. Her hand drops from propping her head and she fidgets by swiping her thumb across its skin. "I think it probably happened for the better actually, that he died before all of this could come out."
"Yeah. Maybe," Roa says. "Better that than, what? A trial and exile, I guess. Or staking." She sniffs and has a larger gulp of tea. "When it rains, it pours. Hey you haven't talked to R'en at all recently, have you?"
Enough fidgeting, the redfruit is finally hefted up to mouth-level, and as she lets out a knowing, "Mmm," for agreement, she tears off a tiny bite. It's with a full mouth she fields the question that introduces a welcome change of subject, then, and she holds up the rest of the fruit to stall while she clears her mouth to answer. "Not anything more than the occasional order or question, no. Why?"
"He's having a hard time and he's pretty pissed at me right now, and I'm worried..." So much lip biting! It is the bad habit Roa is left since it's hard to set her hands in her lap and pacing has a new and different purpose. "Think you could keep a bit of an eye on him?"
"Yeah," Issa agrees quickly, "of course. I've been wondering about him, recently, actually. He doesn't seem like the kind to let us know if he was having any difficulties, even if he was." Her hands switch, the redfruit lowered again just as she brings her mug up and draws in a hefty swallow. "There any reason I should know about for his being pissed?" And to judge from her tone, there isn't much that counts as something she shouldn't know.
"Yeah," Roa echoes Issa's word. "I sent his sister to Five Mines. He found out about it."
"Mmm," Issa hums idly into her tea, caught in the middle of stealing another sip while Roa talked. It takes her several seconds after that sip's ended however, to come back with a much more concerned, "Oh. Wait, I didn't even think of... Roa, why'd you send her, then?" There's hardly time for the weyrwoman to answer, though, for there's an urgency creeping in under the greenrider's tone, pushing her words out faster. "He's got a connection to them, to one of the most dangerous of them to judge by the trials I read. What if something slips while she's there? I could have given you... two names off the top of my head of riders that would have worked just as well." But now she waits, actually curious to hear the reasoning behind the decision and thankfully much less irate about the whole thing than R'en must have been.
"Because she asked," are Roa's first words, and this time her gaze is lifted so that she can observe the assistant weyrlingmaster. "Because she's smart and brave and resourceful and she keeps her head under pressure. She's been told to say nothing about the Weyr. Nothing. She's a good pick and she volunteered. So, I said it would be all right." She sighs, eyes closing slowly. "I should have just told him. I just...you have to keep an eye on him. He has this habit of trying to sacrifice himself to save all the rest of us from...whatever. I think he might be planning to, uhm, to go there."
"Alright," Issa echoes Roa's pronouncement, her tone grown musing if not completely approving. It's probably a good sign that she has no more protests to share when she crunches into her redfruit again, busying her mouth while she mulls over the rest of what the weyrwoman has to say. That little eyebrow tilts up again when she shares her prediction of R'en's actions, soon to be joined by its partner as the wingsecond absorbs it. "That's just what we need," she comments, tongue twisting back briefly to get at a piece stuck in her teeth, "is to have a bronzeriding weyrling go missing." A soft snort, half-amused, shoots out. "Just like any other bronzerider, D'ven said." Another snort. "I'll watch him. And if I think we need it, I'll ask you to have Tialith," the sleeping gold gets a brief nod, "to restrict Sehkrath. And maybe a pair of cuffs from Ashwin." This trails into lighter territory, her smile teasing higher along with her voice. "You think he'd lock up his old captain?" she asks, hiding her amusement at the thought behind the bend of her fruit that she bites off seconds later.
The weyrwoman glances over at the sleeping gold, frowning a little bit, though she says nothing. At least, not until Ashwin is brought into it. Roa attempts a smile, but there no bemusement behind it. "No," she disagrees quietly, "I don't think so. Jensen was his Captain, and I think in some ways he always will be. Ashwin's...if you have his word or his oath, you have it for good. I, uhm, I think he's more likely to help R'en if he asks, than he is to lock him up. He compromised his honour for him. Went to jail for him. Went into exile for him. So."
"So he's likely to go against his pregnant weyrmate's wishes for him?" Issa finishes for her, but after there's a slip of a smile and a shrug to go with her lightly teasing tone. She really was just kidding anyway. "I doubt it'll come down to any of that, don't worry. I have my ways, you know." Another slight lift in her smile and she does away with the rest of the tea in her mug in one swift swallow, leaning awkwardly to the side to place her empty mug on the floor.
"It wouldn't exactly be the first time, except for the pregnant bit. He...he just keeps his word. That's something I've understood for a long while, now. It's just part of the package. But I would really really..." Roa closes her eyes slowly and exhales, "rather the issue never came up. Just, if you talk to R'en, he pushes and he's surly, but it's like a test. Like, if he can push you away with it he's proven you didn't really want to help him anyhow. Just slog through it. Keep calm. You argue, he argues back, it gets bad fast."
Issa attends the advice with intent eyes, even the chewing of her fruit slowing while she listens. But at the end, she simply gives a brighter smile and swallows to say, "Oh, Roa, I can get through bad," with a wry sort of confidence. "I think I might just call it my specialty. Don't worry," she repeats again, as if it would do any good.
That does call up a faint but genuine smile from the weyrwoman. "Yeah," she says with a small laugh, "I imagine you can. Or we would have heard a scream and a splat from your weyr ledge long before now."
"Will do. I honestly don't know...I mean there's someone worthwhile in there but he goes through a whole lot of trouble to bury him up." The weyrwoman sighs softly. "What made you able to find him under all of that?"
"Lots of digging," Issa responds, her smile betraying her serious tone, though with the thoughtful bite she takes even that clue to her double-meaning is taken away. She shrugs as the pause lingers long enough for her to finish, then says in her own time, "You just have to keep at it until you get a reaction out of him, then be able to handle it if it's the wrong kind. Without any bullshitting or bluffing." Not that much different from the advice about R'en. "And I think the sex helps a bit, too." Okay, except for that part.
"Oh yeah?" Roa laughs. "I'll keep that in mind, I ever need to negotiate with Reyce. If you talk to him, could you let me know how it went?" 'Him', presumably, is not Reyce.
Issa gives her a mock glare, going all squinty-eyed for just a few seconds before she drops it in favor of a small huff of a laugh. Once it's died and she's offered a reassuring, "I will," she gnaws off a sliver of redfruit and chews it. "So," she transitions oh-so-smoothly into a new subject, "How much longer until..." It's rare for Issa to actually break off mid-sentence for the distraction of dragon-speak, but that's what she does now, her eyes looking through Roa for a split second instead of at her. "Sorry," she immediately says when her attention returns, "D'ven wants to see me about something before I head up. I told him he can't pull me out of my weyr at nights until I'm skinny again." With evident amusement, she pats her bulge casually. "I think you have the right idea," she comments as she pushes herself forward on the couch cushions and goes about that awkward hefting process involved in getting herself upright again, belly going first then bending up after it, "just stay standing and you never have to get up." She makes it up on her own, though, a grunt sounding both discomfort and triumph.
The weyrwoman laughs softly. "Go, go. Can't keep a Weyrlingmaster waiting. It's not...just wait. You'll get these awful cramps and tingles in your legs. The only way I can keep them away is by moving around. Standing. I sit down, it's all over." Roa moves towards the door to open it. "Thank you. For coming by."
"I can't. Wait," Issa stresses, all enthusiasm drained from the words that should be brimming with it. But she smiles one last time, and brightly so, for Roa as she turns to give a friendly, and slightly laughing, "Bye." Then she slips out the door and bustles, as much as bustling is possible, down the stairs.
Time: Late evening on Day 12, Month 11, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Issa
Scene: Issa drops by for a visit. They discuss various topics including dead ex-weyrleaders, mysterious packages and who sent them, unhappy bronzeriding weyrlings, and the men responsible for the bumps.
Later evening sometimes has Roa working, and sometimes, these days, it has her napping. This evening, she's just pacing with a small redfruit cradled in her hands. It's not being eaten, but used in a game of catch. The fruit is tossed up and ahead, the weyrwoman inches forward a couple of paces, and she catches it. Exciting, exciting. Tialith seems utterly enthralled. If by 'enthralled' one means 'asleep on her couch'.
If the slow-paced, heavy steps on the way up don't announce that Issa's here for their 'appointment' for a relaxing chat, the short series of raps at the door should do the trick. She doesn't wait around to see if they did, however, pushing wider the crack left open and peeking her head through briefly. "Hello, Weyrwoman," comes the greeting, more lighthearted tease than any show of respect. "How's the belly?" In pokes her own expanded waistline, nudged in as she steps into the room and shuts the door behind her.
Glancing over as the redfruit is caught a final time, Roa groans and rolls her eyes at the new arrival's question. "Ugh. Don't ask. How's yours? Are you in the I-need-to-sit-down-all-the-time stage, the she-won't-stop-kicking-me stage or the my-lungs feel-smaller-and-I-can't-breathe stage?"
A smile flattens Issa's lips as she answers simply, "Kicking." A hand is laid somewhat subconsciously alongside her stomach as she makes her way over to the couch. Apparently having to sit down all the time isn't too foreign a stage either. On her way there, as she passes Roa, an arched eyebrow accompanies the simple, quietly amused inquiry, "She?" She sinks down at the edge of the couch without waiting for an answer, though, letting herself fall heavily against the cushions and expelling a huff of breath.
"Well, or he. I switch back and forth. It feels more appropriate than saying 'it'." Roa shrugs and tosses the redfruit again. "Anything to eat or drink. Sitting's kinda awful for me right now. I hope you don't mind if I stand." She pauses, smiling faintly. "You have a preference? Boy or girl?"
"I'll take one of those," Issa answers, one eye squinting shut while she aims the other at the redfruit the goldrider holds, a single finger held up to indicate it as well, "if you have another. Oh, and some tea," she drags as if just realizing her own desire for such. She pauses over her answer to the next question, though, her eyes dropping idly to consider the swell of her belly. "No," she says easily then, lifting her gaze to subtly compare her size with the weyrwoman's. "Not really. It's not going to matter much, I don't think. A baby's a baby," she finishes with a shrug, her shoulders dug even deeper into the cushions afterward.
"Mmm," is Roa's vague agreement. Her own belly is further along than Issa's. It's beginning to reach that point where it's pretty much taken over her profile. There's the bump...and this small woman that seems to be attached to it. "Here. Catch." She pitches the redfruit towards the greenrider before moving to get the hot water from over the fire and steep two cups of tea. "How're they holding up?" she asks, shifting from foot to foot. "How're you?"
Issa stretches her legs out further, spread out without an ounce of care for decorum, though she'll most definitely push herself a bit straighter when Roa returns with the tea. "Oh, I'm fine," she begins, her gaze thrown briefly towards the ceiling while her smile slides into a slight wry tilt. "Stressed, but that's nothing new. At least everyone in the barracks seems to be progressing well. Hm, well, except for Miniyal. I can never really tell how she's doing. Especially now."
"She's a mess, I think," Roa sighs as the tea is handed off and she leans against the arm of the couch nearest to Issa, "but she won't admit it even to herself so it'll be a bit before she shatters. Just...keep an eye out, I think. Let me know, if you need anything." The weyrwoman frowns into her tea. "She sent you a package, she says. Have you read through it?"
Issa nods over the advice as she subtly adjusts to Roa's new position, edging sideways so she can face her easily. The tea is simply cradled between her palms as it gradually cools, her chin tucked down so she can idly follow the drift of those steam curls. When a package is mentioned, her eyes dart up seconds before the rest of her remembers to respond. "That?" she questions blankly first, only to be followed by, a lower, "She sent me that?" She blinks heavily and shakes her head likely, looking away as a soft frown forms on her forehead. "Yeah. Yeah, I read it."
"Yeh," Roa sighs. "I just found out. You, H'kon, Ginella. Faranth knows who's next. I swear..." She turns the mug slowly. "At least it wasn't anything you didn't know, but those were the documents."
"No, no, nothing I didn't know," Issa repeats on the edge of a humorless breath, a definite touch of sarcasm weighting her words. She pauses to bring up her tea, her words continuing from behind it after she sends a gentle, cooling blow across its surface. "Just the transcripts, manifestos, and an explanation about how Diya was the one to betray the Instigators to the rest of the world." She flicks a significant glance up at Roa, then lets her eyes drop down to watching her tea again, deemed still too hot, it seems, to be sipped from.
"Well, okay, so you hadn't read them, given," Roa says with a small nod, "but you knew the gist of most everything didn't you? I mean I thought you did. I-" the weyrwoman falls silent, her mouth still open, as her eyes widen a little. "There wasn't anything on Diya in Ginella's collection. You...there was...you hadn't known that?"
An eyebrow lifts higher as Issa directs her gaze up at Roa again. Then all she does is give a slow shake of her head before pursing her lips into a testing sip of her tea.
"Oh," the goldrider's voice has become rather small and flat. "I...I'm sorry. I had thought..." Roa bites on her bottom lip, "shit."
After her tea is swallowed down, Issa sucks in a soft breath that's expelled along with a calm, "Don't worry. I know now. Thanks to Miniyal." The name is treated to a darker tone, but she moves quickly past it, letting her voice lift to a more casual cadence. "She must have had her reasons, doesn't she always? Really better I know anyway." She doesn't sound convinced, but she doesn't linger over it, letting her words slip to silence along with a deeper drink from her tea.
"Oh, she always has her reasons. Which are, naturally, far superior to anybody else's." Roa snorts softly. "And she said once she was surprised that she impressed a queen." The tea is blown on and sipped. "Plus we're all out to get her. Hate her. Think she's worthless. It's the only possible reason anyone has to criticize." Her nose wrinkles. "Ugh. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Issa says firmly, sounding far more confident in that assertion this time. After a break for another swallow, she look up at the goldrider again. "So how have you been this week, after the..." A hand waves away from her cup to indicate the unspoken occurrence to which she refers, then it digs into her curls to support her head as she plants her elbow into the cushion on the back of the couch.
"I've been better, but all right. Everyone has questions. Is it true? Is there proof? How was it done? Mostly, we don't know. Except...the true part is looking, uhm, really likely." Roa worries her bottom lip again. "I know I was in the minority, thinking he was a good person but I...I did. I feel like, I don't know. Let down, I guess. Hurt. Tired. How about you?"
Issa's lips simply rest against the edge of her mug as she listens to Roa, a convenient position for her to tip out the occasional small sip. "I... I knew he was gone," she admits gently, "but I didn't think he was gone that far. You didn't know him very well before he lost Hirth, did you?"
"No," Roa admits softly. "I'd only really met him once, before Hirth passed. And that was a really long time ago. Was he very different, before?"
"Not obviously, no," Issa explains, "but enough so that I could notice that it was gone sometimes, afterward. The way he changed." Her cup is lowered and she takes a moment to make sure the mug gets properly balanced on her thigh before she continues. "I think that he tried very hard to hoard whatever normalcy he had, but..." A sigh lets Roa know just how successful Issa thought him to be. "I doubt any of us would fare much better, though."
"Yeah. I couldn't imagine what...I mean. I guess I thought he was okay, because I wanted to believe that someone -could- be okay, even after losing their dragon. But I guess." Roa turns her mug slowly, watching as the cup moves but her reflection remains the same. "I guess that's impossible."
"Apparently," Issa responds quietly, her gaze drifting from her mug to the redfruit in her lap. Her hand drops from propping her head and she fidgets by swiping her thumb across its skin. "I think it probably happened for the better actually, that he died before all of this could come out."
"Yeah. Maybe," Roa says. "Better that than, what? A trial and exile, I guess. Or staking." She sniffs and has a larger gulp of tea. "When it rains, it pours. Hey you haven't talked to R'en at all recently, have you?"
Enough fidgeting, the redfruit is finally hefted up to mouth-level, and as she lets out a knowing, "Mmm," for agreement, she tears off a tiny bite. It's with a full mouth she fields the question that introduces a welcome change of subject, then, and she holds up the rest of the fruit to stall while she clears her mouth to answer. "Not anything more than the occasional order or question, no. Why?"
"He's having a hard time and he's pretty pissed at me right now, and I'm worried..." So much lip biting! It is the bad habit Roa is left since it's hard to set her hands in her lap and pacing has a new and different purpose. "Think you could keep a bit of an eye on him?"
"Yeah," Issa agrees quickly, "of course. I've been wondering about him, recently, actually. He doesn't seem like the kind to let us know if he was having any difficulties, even if he was." Her hands switch, the redfruit lowered again just as she brings her mug up and draws in a hefty swallow. "There any reason I should know about for his being pissed?" And to judge from her tone, there isn't much that counts as something she shouldn't know.
"Yeah," Roa echoes Issa's word. "I sent his sister to Five Mines. He found out about it."
"Mmm," Issa hums idly into her tea, caught in the middle of stealing another sip while Roa talked. It takes her several seconds after that sip's ended however, to come back with a much more concerned, "Oh. Wait, I didn't even think of... Roa, why'd you send her, then?" There's hardly time for the weyrwoman to answer, though, for there's an urgency creeping in under the greenrider's tone, pushing her words out faster. "He's got a connection to them, to one of the most dangerous of them to judge by the trials I read. What if something slips while she's there? I could have given you... two names off the top of my head of riders that would have worked just as well." But now she waits, actually curious to hear the reasoning behind the decision and thankfully much less irate about the whole thing than R'en must have been.
"Because she asked," are Roa's first words, and this time her gaze is lifted so that she can observe the assistant weyrlingmaster. "Because she's smart and brave and resourceful and she keeps her head under pressure. She's been told to say nothing about the Weyr. Nothing. She's a good pick and she volunteered. So, I said it would be all right." She sighs, eyes closing slowly. "I should have just told him. I just...you have to keep an eye on him. He has this habit of trying to sacrifice himself to save all the rest of us from...whatever. I think he might be planning to, uhm, to go there."
"Alright," Issa echoes Roa's pronouncement, her tone grown musing if not completely approving. It's probably a good sign that she has no more protests to share when she crunches into her redfruit again, busying her mouth while she mulls over the rest of what the weyrwoman has to say. That little eyebrow tilts up again when she shares her prediction of R'en's actions, soon to be joined by its partner as the wingsecond absorbs it. "That's just what we need," she comments, tongue twisting back briefly to get at a piece stuck in her teeth, "is to have a bronzeriding weyrling go missing." A soft snort, half-amused, shoots out. "Just like any other bronzerider, D'ven said." Another snort. "I'll watch him. And if I think we need it, I'll ask you to have Tialith," the sleeping gold gets a brief nod, "to restrict Sehkrath. And maybe a pair of cuffs from Ashwin." This trails into lighter territory, her smile teasing higher along with her voice. "You think he'd lock up his old captain?" she asks, hiding her amusement at the thought behind the bend of her fruit that she bites off seconds later.
The weyrwoman glances over at the sleeping gold, frowning a little bit, though she says nothing. At least, not until Ashwin is brought into it. Roa attempts a smile, but there no bemusement behind it. "No," she disagrees quietly, "I don't think so. Jensen was his Captain, and I think in some ways he always will be. Ashwin's...if you have his word or his oath, you have it for good. I, uhm, I think he's more likely to help R'en if he asks, than he is to lock him up. He compromised his honour for him. Went to jail for him. Went into exile for him. So."
"So he's likely to go against his pregnant weyrmate's wishes for him?" Issa finishes for her, but after there's a slip of a smile and a shrug to go with her lightly teasing tone. She really was just kidding anyway. "I doubt it'll come down to any of that, don't worry. I have my ways, you know." Another slight lift in her smile and she does away with the rest of the tea in her mug in one swift swallow, leaning awkwardly to the side to place her empty mug on the floor.
"It wouldn't exactly be the first time, except for the pregnant bit. He...he just keeps his word. That's something I've understood for a long while, now. It's just part of the package. But I would really really..." Roa closes her eyes slowly and exhales, "rather the issue never came up. Just, if you talk to R'en, he pushes and he's surly, but it's like a test. Like, if he can push you away with it he's proven you didn't really want to help him anyhow. Just slog through it. Keep calm. You argue, he argues back, it gets bad fast."
Issa attends the advice with intent eyes, even the chewing of her fruit slowing while she listens. But at the end, she simply gives a brighter smile and swallows to say, "Oh, Roa, I can get through bad," with a wry sort of confidence. "I think I might just call it my specialty. Don't worry," she repeats again, as if it would do any good.
That does call up a faint but genuine smile from the weyrwoman. "Yeah," she says with a small laugh, "I imagine you can. Or we would have heard a scream and a splat from your weyr ledge long before now."
"Will do. I honestly don't know...I mean there's someone worthwhile in there but he goes through a whole lot of trouble to bury him up." The weyrwoman sighs softly. "What made you able to find him under all of that?"
"Lots of digging," Issa responds, her smile betraying her serious tone, though with the thoughtful bite she takes even that clue to her double-meaning is taken away. She shrugs as the pause lingers long enough for her to finish, then says in her own time, "You just have to keep at it until you get a reaction out of him, then be able to handle it if it's the wrong kind. Without any bullshitting or bluffing." Not that much different from the advice about R'en. "And I think the sex helps a bit, too." Okay, except for that part.
"Oh yeah?" Roa laughs. "I'll keep that in mind, I ever need to negotiate with Reyce. If you talk to him, could you let me know how it went?" 'Him', presumably, is not Reyce.
Issa gives her a mock glare, going all squinty-eyed for just a few seconds before she drops it in favor of a small huff of a laugh. Once it's died and she's offered a reassuring, "I will," she gnaws off a sliver of redfruit and chews it. "So," she transitions oh-so-smoothly into a new subject, "How much longer until..." It's rare for Issa to actually break off mid-sentence for the distraction of dragon-speak, but that's what she does now, her eyes looking through Roa for a split second instead of at her. "Sorry," she immediately says when her attention returns, "D'ven wants to see me about something before I head up. I told him he can't pull me out of my weyr at nights until I'm skinny again." With evident amusement, she pats her bulge casually. "I think you have the right idea," she comments as she pushes herself forward on the couch cushions and goes about that awkward hefting process involved in getting herself upright again, belly going first then bending up after it, "just stay standing and you never have to get up." She makes it up on her own, though, a grunt sounding both discomfort and triumph.
The weyrwoman laughs softly. "Go, go. Can't keep a Weyrlingmaster waiting. It's not...just wait. You'll get these awful cramps and tingles in your legs. The only way I can keep them away is by moving around. Standing. I sit down, it's all over." Roa moves towards the door to open it. "Thank you. For coming by."
"I can't. Wait," Issa stresses, all enthusiasm drained from the words that should be brimming with it. But she smiles one last time, and brightly so, for Roa as she turns to give a friendly, and slightly laughing, "Bye." Then she slips out the door and bustles, as much as bustling is possible, down the stairs.