Honor
Location: Unused store room/prison cell
Time: Late morning on Day 19, Month 6, Turn 2
Players: Ashwin and Roa
Scene: The morning after Luren's murder and Ashwin's subsequent arrest, Roa pays him a visit. They each have very different opinions on what to do next.
Mid-morning, and the noise of breakfast has died down to the hum of quiet industry. In a back hallway, a stocky guard by the name of Heller is just slipping out through a stout door, and pulling it shut behind him. He pauses to mutter something to whoever's inside, and then the door clicks shut. He's snickering as he sinks down onto the stool that waits for him.
She's fairly certain she's got the directions right. She's seen this doorway before, just never realized what it was used for. Never thought she'd...shoulders squaring, Roa moves through the hallway, the sounds of bustling perhaps hiding her footfalls. Less so Tannum's who clumps along behind her, keeping his own expression neutral. She moves up the the doorway, the stool, the guard seated atop it. "Good morning," Roa begins in her most formal and brisk 'weyrwoman' voice. "I'd like to see him, please."
Heller looks up to watch her approaching, and as her identity registers, he comes politely to his feet. His glance, however, flickers past Roa to Tannum. He must get some sort of confirmation there, for he leans forward to get his head past the edge of his alcove, turns it first one way and then the other, and deeming the coast clear, obliges wordlessly. The door cannot be opened from the inside, and just now it is not locked from the outside. So a turn of the handle and a push does the job. Inside, Ashwin is not immediately visible, but he will be upon entry. He's seated against the far wall, legs stretched out in front of him, shuffling a pack of cards.
And in Roa goes, tugging the door shut, lock and all, before leaning up against it, watching him, silent for a moment. The shadows under her eyes are still there and this is a bit harder than when they met in the little guest room the past few nights. She could call up smiles easily then, for him, to keep it running. Now it's a struggle, but finally she manages, "I'll bet you know twenty different sorts of Solitaire."
Ashwin doesn't look up from his cards, continuing to shuffle, although he must have registered the presence of another person. It's only when he hears her voice that his hands still. His head stays down when he replies, quiet. "Thought you were Heller." Very neutral, that greeting.
"Heller's taller." The room isn't very big so it only takes the Telgari a few steps before she's standing in front of Ashwin, her toes near his outstretched feet. She lowers herself into a sitting position as well, cross-legged, skirt fanning out around her legs. "They say it must have happened in the middle of the night." Like him, her voice is bland.
Ashwin pulls his legs up to make more room, bending them at the knee. It's as he makes this movement that an unpleasant truth is revealed, for moving his feet means he's dragging with him the rope that runs from a leather cuff around one ankle to a bracket in the wall. There's no comment on this, however. Just a quiet response, addressed to his knees. "They say."
Oh. Her eyes fall to that rope and Roa is quiet a long while as her gaze just traces it up and down. End to end. Her jaw works, clenching tightly, throat moving as she swallows slowly. She drags in a long breath and lifts her head, forcing her gaze away from the cuff and onto Ashwin's face. "Tell them," she says simply. "Or I will."
That brings his gaze up. Ashwin's head comes up sharply, pale eyes fixing on her face. The room is dark, just one glow uncovered - enough to see his cards by - but he's watching her through the shadows. "You will not," he returns, still quiet. But it's as close to an order as anything he's ever said to her.
"And what?" Roa demands softly, one hand lifting, fingers spreading wide. "You let them sentence you? Send you to the mines or worse for *nothing*? You think I'm going to let that happen?" There is something steely in her expression, in her eyes, that he likely hasn't seen before. The iron hidden beneath the lace.
"It's not going to happen," Ashwin replies, taking in her face, her eyes. Then his head goes down again, and he returns to shuffling his cards. He's fast at it - it's something he's done a lot of. "You think I'm here because the Captain knows I did it?"
"I think," and a weak and bitter laugh escapes Roa's lips before she can continue, "that Jen is not exactly the most clear headed when it comes to looking after those folks he consider his. Among which you are included. I don't know what he'll do. It'll be spectacular, I suppose. And quite possibly idiotic. Ash. Please." Her eyes close slowly but something snaps them open again. "Please. There's an easy out here. Take it. Please."
Shuffle, shuffle. "Prefer if you didn't speak about the Captain that way," Ashwin contributes, very quietly. One might almost think for a moment he agreed with the methods that have led him to this position. "This is what we're doing, now. We can't step back from it. It's gone on long enough, and if this'll relax whoever we're after long enough to flush him, or her, so be it."
"Don't think, please, that I don't respect J-...the Captain. But I know his strengths." The rest, the implication that this may not be one of them, goes unsaid. "You already did this once. Now it's got you here. Stepping back is just letting her do what she's doing. I don't--" Roa closes her mouth, again drawing in a slow breath. "You can find some other way to flush her out. Not at the risk of your life."
"This is what I'm doing." Again, that new note of command in Ashwin's tone, something more stubborn from this man who has always quietly yielded, played his part as a member of her detail perfectly. "You shouldn't have come here, you know better."
"And you know better than to think I wouldn't. Or to think I'm bluffing." So. There. The gauntlet has been thrown down even as Roa draws up her knees and wraps her arms tightly around them. "I'm not sitting back and watching this unfold. I won't."
Ashwin closes his eyes slowly, and lets his head fall back until it hits the wall lightly. There he lets it rest, exhaling long and slow. "I'm asking you not to."
"Why?" There is a sort of strangled frustration to the word. A stretched and knotted desperation. Roa could fix this. In an instant. "I don't understand, Ash. *Why*?"
"Because I'm asking you to," Ashwin replies quietly, failing to elaborate for some time afterwards. Eventually, however, he presses on - unlikely to offer much satisfaction. "Do I ask, often?"
Roa's shoulders bow, head lowering so that she can hide her face in her knees. "If it was switched," she asks, words muffled by the cloth of her skirt, "and I was sitting there shuffling cards. And I asked the same thing of you. Would you?"
Ashwin's fingers still, as though he's only just become aware he's still shuffling. "You're not, and you won't be. No point in a question like that." As her head goes down, Ashwin's comes up so he can watch her there. "Look at you. You shouldn't be in this."
"You're in it. I'm in it," come the flat and muffled words. Roa's head lifts, resting her chin on her knees. "Are you joking, I won't be? You know what I want to do. I sure as shells could end up in here, and my point is if you're asking me to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself."
"I know you are, but you shouldn't be. This is why..." Ashwin shakes his head briefly, looking over to her. "You should have stuck to a bronzerider, this isn't where you belong." He knows what sort of reception that will garner, for he presses on without pause. "I don't want to have a debate about what we'd do if. Got enough problems, without making up more in my head."
Eyes narrow just slightly as he starts in on bronzeriders. "You want me with a bronzerider?" Roa growls, "Then get your ass on the sands and impress bronze. Otherwise. Don't. Start." She snorts softly. "I swear...what I'm trying to say," she tries again, "is that there is a way, an easy way, out of this problem. I need you to explain to me why I shouldn't take it. So it makes sense. Or I'm going to."
That growl draws a reaction from Ashwin, eyes widening faintly - it's gratifying, maybe, from the woman who's pushed away his declarations of affection more than once. "No, thank you." But for all that quiet response, he straightens up a little, reaching for one of her hands. "You know I can't stop you, if you decide to."
Roa is, perhaps, a little oblivious to exactly what she's offered there, but her hand does curl around Ashwin's. As if it could do otherwise. "I know. But you want me to. And I want to understand why."
"This is what my Captain has chosen," Ashwin mutters, tipping his head back so he addresses the ceiling. "I'm sworn, and this is what he's chosen, and this is what we're doing. My word and my loyalty are what I have, Roa. I'm asking you not to deny me the chance to show him they're good."
Roa's forehead falls back against her knees with a small groan. She stays like that, face buries, arm outstretched, fingers curled in his, for a long moment. Then, slowly, she looks up again. "I want you to give *me* your word on something."
Ashwin tightens his fingers around hers during that silence, as though encouraging a reaction he wants to hear - he is studying the ceiling, although after a minute his eyes close. "On what?" Faint wariness in his tone.
"This gets any worse, we *we* fix it. You don't shut me out. You don't try to. The Captain doesn't want you condemned. I know him. Your oath has you pointed towards Crom, he'd expect you to break it, much as I would. So," Roa's fingers fidget in his,"Your word that this is the last passive step. No further."
That request draws a long silence, and Ashwin sets the cards down by his side so he can reach up to fold a second hand over hers, thumbs shifting gently over her knuckles, urging her to calm. "Captain won't let me go there. This is the last step."
"That," Roa begins softly, "Is not the same as giving me your word. The Captain doesn't control the whole world. Might be this is spinning a little wilder than he thought. I don't know. I'm planning on talking to him next." Her fingers stay in his, squeeze his once, but remain restless.
"Captain's got my word," Ashwin agrees. "My old Captain at Tillek had it, Harley. I gave it to Jensen." The first time he's spoken the other man's name in company? Perhaps. "It has to mean something, sometime."
Roa lowers her eyes and looks away with a small shake of her head. This is, it seems, not quite the answer she'd hoped for. "He doesn't want this from you, Ash," she murmurs. "Word or no. That's not the way he works." A small slow sigh. "But. It's the way you work." And her hand tries to squirm free from his so both can rub at her face. A mannerism she's acquired from him.
"It's the way I work," Ashwin agrees, releasing her hands and dropping his own to his lap. He watches her, grimacing for a moment. "I'm fine here. I'm not playing solitaire, I'm making up for lost wages by winning Heller's off him. Don't get caught up in some idea that I'm suffering, right?"
"Right." But the word is flat and Roa isn't looking at him so much as at the wall behind him. "Well." Another sharp swallow. "Guess I'd better leave you to your comfort, then. Before anyone starts wondering what I have to say that's taking so long."
"They know what you have to say," Ashwin replies, quietly, tired suddenly. "I'm sorry, Roa. I am. I wish you weren't anywhere near this. I should have gone home."
"You would have been safer at home," Roa whispers. "It was my fault you stayed, anyhow. You're here because of that. And now you won't even let me..." Another one of those careful swallows. "Frustrating, is all." Just, perhaps, a bit of an understatement.
"I never thought it would be so long until I saw Tillek again," Ashwin returns, nearly down to a whisper himself. "This place is unlucky, for everyone." He clears his throat and raises his voice, then his eyes to rest on her. "Nobody's going to Crom, Captain'll see to that."
"Well," Roa begins, "for some of us, it's the only sort of home we've got. Unlucky and all." the weyrwoman's legs gather under her, readying to stand. "No," she says with a heavy sigh. "You're right. He won't."
"I know," Ashwin replies. "And I'm here, doing my best for it. Your home kicks back, though." He watches as she prepares to rise, but makes no move to join her - it would play up a restraint they're both ignoring.
She doesn't need to push off with her hands, anymore. Ashwin's training has seen to that. Roa just glides upwards from her crouch, taking a moment to smooth her skirts. "Wish it didn't," she murmurs softly. "Wish you were safe at your home, instead of tangled up in mine."
Ashwin tips his head back further to watch her as she rises, abandoning his poker face for a moment for an expression that's wry. "I'm tangled up in you and yours. It's what I want."
"Except for Tia. When she peeked." A tiny smile that doesn't much make it past Roa's lips. "Don't spend all those marks you're winning off of Heller at once, huh?" And though these seem to be parting teases, she's making no move to leave.
Ashwin's lips twist in a return sort of smile, no more genuine. "Tell her she can peek, if she wants. While this is sorted out. If it'll keep you at a safe distance."
"It won't. Peeks are for her. Not for me. I-" And then Roa moves a step so she's next to him instead of in front of him and she's sinking down to curl up against his side, press her head under his chin, twine her arms around him. "Don't you dare be lying to me about things turning out right," she whispers. "Don't you dare."
Something in that has caught him, finally, for his eyes close, one hand coming up to rest on her arm, fingers splaying slowly. "I wouldn't dare." His whisper is hoarse. "You're getting too good at your drills, you might make me sorry. Keep on every day, right?"
"No. I'll be awful. I'll botch every routine and I'll turn my right foot out during all the lunges," Roa threatens against his chest. "Get out of here and make sure I do it proper."
Ashwin's arms come up to squeeze her in against him, the strength he's usually careful to keep in check unleashed for a moment in a tight hug. "Go." The word is short, abrupt, and it's a moment before he's able to release her so she can obey that instruction. "Tell her to peek and tell. Don't come."
Roa slides away reluctantly as he lets go, her fingers brushing Ashwin's cheek as she rises. She makes no agreement either way, but her gaze settles on his and then slides over him. Seeking. Memorizing. Then, before she changes her mind, the weyrwoman forcibly turns on her heels and heads to the door, rap-rap-raping to let Heller know she's ready to be let out.
He doesn't speak as she looks him over, but he mouths a pair of words in silence: I'm sorry. As the door opens to allow her out, he's watching in silence, one hand going out to the side to feel around for his pack of cards.
Time: Late morning on Day 19, Month 6, Turn 2
Players: Ashwin and Roa
Scene: The morning after Luren's murder and Ashwin's subsequent arrest, Roa pays him a visit. They each have very different opinions on what to do next.
Mid-morning, and the noise of breakfast has died down to the hum of quiet industry. In a back hallway, a stocky guard by the name of Heller is just slipping out through a stout door, and pulling it shut behind him. He pauses to mutter something to whoever's inside, and then the door clicks shut. He's snickering as he sinks down onto the stool that waits for him.
She's fairly certain she's got the directions right. She's seen this doorway before, just never realized what it was used for. Never thought she'd...shoulders squaring, Roa moves through the hallway, the sounds of bustling perhaps hiding her footfalls. Less so Tannum's who clumps along behind her, keeping his own expression neutral. She moves up the the doorway, the stool, the guard seated atop it. "Good morning," Roa begins in her most formal and brisk 'weyrwoman' voice. "I'd like to see him, please."
Heller looks up to watch her approaching, and as her identity registers, he comes politely to his feet. His glance, however, flickers past Roa to Tannum. He must get some sort of confirmation there, for he leans forward to get his head past the edge of his alcove, turns it first one way and then the other, and deeming the coast clear, obliges wordlessly. The door cannot be opened from the inside, and just now it is not locked from the outside. So a turn of the handle and a push does the job. Inside, Ashwin is not immediately visible, but he will be upon entry. He's seated against the far wall, legs stretched out in front of him, shuffling a pack of cards.
And in Roa goes, tugging the door shut, lock and all, before leaning up against it, watching him, silent for a moment. The shadows under her eyes are still there and this is a bit harder than when they met in the little guest room the past few nights. She could call up smiles easily then, for him, to keep it running. Now it's a struggle, but finally she manages, "I'll bet you know twenty different sorts of Solitaire."
Ashwin doesn't look up from his cards, continuing to shuffle, although he must have registered the presence of another person. It's only when he hears her voice that his hands still. His head stays down when he replies, quiet. "Thought you were Heller." Very neutral, that greeting.
"Heller's taller." The room isn't very big so it only takes the Telgari a few steps before she's standing in front of Ashwin, her toes near his outstretched feet. She lowers herself into a sitting position as well, cross-legged, skirt fanning out around her legs. "They say it must have happened in the middle of the night." Like him, her voice is bland.
Ashwin pulls his legs up to make more room, bending them at the knee. It's as he makes this movement that an unpleasant truth is revealed, for moving his feet means he's dragging with him the rope that runs from a leather cuff around one ankle to a bracket in the wall. There's no comment on this, however. Just a quiet response, addressed to his knees. "They say."
Oh. Her eyes fall to that rope and Roa is quiet a long while as her gaze just traces it up and down. End to end. Her jaw works, clenching tightly, throat moving as she swallows slowly. She drags in a long breath and lifts her head, forcing her gaze away from the cuff and onto Ashwin's face. "Tell them," she says simply. "Or I will."
That brings his gaze up. Ashwin's head comes up sharply, pale eyes fixing on her face. The room is dark, just one glow uncovered - enough to see his cards by - but he's watching her through the shadows. "You will not," he returns, still quiet. But it's as close to an order as anything he's ever said to her.
"And what?" Roa demands softly, one hand lifting, fingers spreading wide. "You let them sentence you? Send you to the mines or worse for *nothing*? You think I'm going to let that happen?" There is something steely in her expression, in her eyes, that he likely hasn't seen before. The iron hidden beneath the lace.
"It's not going to happen," Ashwin replies, taking in her face, her eyes. Then his head goes down again, and he returns to shuffling his cards. He's fast at it - it's something he's done a lot of. "You think I'm here because the Captain knows I did it?"
"I think," and a weak and bitter laugh escapes Roa's lips before she can continue, "that Jen is not exactly the most clear headed when it comes to looking after those folks he consider his. Among which you are included. I don't know what he'll do. It'll be spectacular, I suppose. And quite possibly idiotic. Ash. Please." Her eyes close slowly but something snaps them open again. "Please. There's an easy out here. Take it. Please."
Shuffle, shuffle. "Prefer if you didn't speak about the Captain that way," Ashwin contributes, very quietly. One might almost think for a moment he agreed with the methods that have led him to this position. "This is what we're doing, now. We can't step back from it. It's gone on long enough, and if this'll relax whoever we're after long enough to flush him, or her, so be it."
"Don't think, please, that I don't respect J-...the Captain. But I know his strengths." The rest, the implication that this may not be one of them, goes unsaid. "You already did this once. Now it's got you here. Stepping back is just letting her do what she's doing. I don't--" Roa closes her mouth, again drawing in a slow breath. "You can find some other way to flush her out. Not at the risk of your life."
"This is what I'm doing." Again, that new note of command in Ashwin's tone, something more stubborn from this man who has always quietly yielded, played his part as a member of her detail perfectly. "You shouldn't have come here, you know better."
"And you know better than to think I wouldn't. Or to think I'm bluffing." So. There. The gauntlet has been thrown down even as Roa draws up her knees and wraps her arms tightly around them. "I'm not sitting back and watching this unfold. I won't."
Ashwin closes his eyes slowly, and lets his head fall back until it hits the wall lightly. There he lets it rest, exhaling long and slow. "I'm asking you not to."
"Why?" There is a sort of strangled frustration to the word. A stretched and knotted desperation. Roa could fix this. In an instant. "I don't understand, Ash. *Why*?"
"Because I'm asking you to," Ashwin replies quietly, failing to elaborate for some time afterwards. Eventually, however, he presses on - unlikely to offer much satisfaction. "Do I ask, often?"
Roa's shoulders bow, head lowering so that she can hide her face in her knees. "If it was switched," she asks, words muffled by the cloth of her skirt, "and I was sitting there shuffling cards. And I asked the same thing of you. Would you?"
Ashwin's fingers still, as though he's only just become aware he's still shuffling. "You're not, and you won't be. No point in a question like that." As her head goes down, Ashwin's comes up so he can watch her there. "Look at you. You shouldn't be in this."
"You're in it. I'm in it," come the flat and muffled words. Roa's head lifts, resting her chin on her knees. "Are you joking, I won't be? You know what I want to do. I sure as shells could end up in here, and my point is if you're asking me to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself."
"I know you are, but you shouldn't be. This is why..." Ashwin shakes his head briefly, looking over to her. "You should have stuck to a bronzerider, this isn't where you belong." He knows what sort of reception that will garner, for he presses on without pause. "I don't want to have a debate about what we'd do if. Got enough problems, without making up more in my head."
Eyes narrow just slightly as he starts in on bronzeriders. "You want me with a bronzerider?" Roa growls, "Then get your ass on the sands and impress bronze. Otherwise. Don't. Start." She snorts softly. "I swear...what I'm trying to say," she tries again, "is that there is a way, an easy way, out of this problem. I need you to explain to me why I shouldn't take it. So it makes sense. Or I'm going to."
That growl draws a reaction from Ashwin, eyes widening faintly - it's gratifying, maybe, from the woman who's pushed away his declarations of affection more than once. "No, thank you." But for all that quiet response, he straightens up a little, reaching for one of her hands. "You know I can't stop you, if you decide to."
Roa is, perhaps, a little oblivious to exactly what she's offered there, but her hand does curl around Ashwin's. As if it could do otherwise. "I know. But you want me to. And I want to understand why."
"This is what my Captain has chosen," Ashwin mutters, tipping his head back so he addresses the ceiling. "I'm sworn, and this is what he's chosen, and this is what we're doing. My word and my loyalty are what I have, Roa. I'm asking you not to deny me the chance to show him they're good."
Roa's forehead falls back against her knees with a small groan. She stays like that, face buries, arm outstretched, fingers curled in his, for a long moment. Then, slowly, she looks up again. "I want you to give *me* your word on something."
Ashwin tightens his fingers around hers during that silence, as though encouraging a reaction he wants to hear - he is studying the ceiling, although after a minute his eyes close. "On what?" Faint wariness in his tone.
"This gets any worse, we *we* fix it. You don't shut me out. You don't try to. The Captain doesn't want you condemned. I know him. Your oath has you pointed towards Crom, he'd expect you to break it, much as I would. So," Roa's fingers fidget in his,"Your word that this is the last passive step. No further."
That request draws a long silence, and Ashwin sets the cards down by his side so he can reach up to fold a second hand over hers, thumbs shifting gently over her knuckles, urging her to calm. "Captain won't let me go there. This is the last step."
"That," Roa begins softly, "Is not the same as giving me your word. The Captain doesn't control the whole world. Might be this is spinning a little wilder than he thought. I don't know. I'm planning on talking to him next." Her fingers stay in his, squeeze his once, but remain restless.
"Captain's got my word," Ashwin agrees. "My old Captain at Tillek had it, Harley. I gave it to Jensen." The first time he's spoken the other man's name in company? Perhaps. "It has to mean something, sometime."
Roa lowers her eyes and looks away with a small shake of her head. This is, it seems, not quite the answer she'd hoped for. "He doesn't want this from you, Ash," she murmurs. "Word or no. That's not the way he works." A small slow sigh. "But. It's the way you work." And her hand tries to squirm free from his so both can rub at her face. A mannerism she's acquired from him.
"It's the way I work," Ashwin agrees, releasing her hands and dropping his own to his lap. He watches her, grimacing for a moment. "I'm fine here. I'm not playing solitaire, I'm making up for lost wages by winning Heller's off him. Don't get caught up in some idea that I'm suffering, right?"
"Right." But the word is flat and Roa isn't looking at him so much as at the wall behind him. "Well." Another sharp swallow. "Guess I'd better leave you to your comfort, then. Before anyone starts wondering what I have to say that's taking so long."
"They know what you have to say," Ashwin replies, quietly, tired suddenly. "I'm sorry, Roa. I am. I wish you weren't anywhere near this. I should have gone home."
"You would have been safer at home," Roa whispers. "It was my fault you stayed, anyhow. You're here because of that. And now you won't even let me..." Another one of those careful swallows. "Frustrating, is all." Just, perhaps, a bit of an understatement.
"I never thought it would be so long until I saw Tillek again," Ashwin returns, nearly down to a whisper himself. "This place is unlucky, for everyone." He clears his throat and raises his voice, then his eyes to rest on her. "Nobody's going to Crom, Captain'll see to that."
"Well," Roa begins, "for some of us, it's the only sort of home we've got. Unlucky and all." the weyrwoman's legs gather under her, readying to stand. "No," she says with a heavy sigh. "You're right. He won't."
"I know," Ashwin replies. "And I'm here, doing my best for it. Your home kicks back, though." He watches as she prepares to rise, but makes no move to join her - it would play up a restraint they're both ignoring.
She doesn't need to push off with her hands, anymore. Ashwin's training has seen to that. Roa just glides upwards from her crouch, taking a moment to smooth her skirts. "Wish it didn't," she murmurs softly. "Wish you were safe at your home, instead of tangled up in mine."
Ashwin tips his head back further to watch her as she rises, abandoning his poker face for a moment for an expression that's wry. "I'm tangled up in you and yours. It's what I want."
"Except for Tia. When she peeked." A tiny smile that doesn't much make it past Roa's lips. "Don't spend all those marks you're winning off of Heller at once, huh?" And though these seem to be parting teases, she's making no move to leave.
Ashwin's lips twist in a return sort of smile, no more genuine. "Tell her she can peek, if she wants. While this is sorted out. If it'll keep you at a safe distance."
"It won't. Peeks are for her. Not for me. I-" And then Roa moves a step so she's next to him instead of in front of him and she's sinking down to curl up against his side, press her head under his chin, twine her arms around him. "Don't you dare be lying to me about things turning out right," she whispers. "Don't you dare."
Something in that has caught him, finally, for his eyes close, one hand coming up to rest on her arm, fingers splaying slowly. "I wouldn't dare." His whisper is hoarse. "You're getting too good at your drills, you might make me sorry. Keep on every day, right?"
"No. I'll be awful. I'll botch every routine and I'll turn my right foot out during all the lunges," Roa threatens against his chest. "Get out of here and make sure I do it proper."
Ashwin's arms come up to squeeze her in against him, the strength he's usually careful to keep in check unleashed for a moment in a tight hug. "Go." The word is short, abrupt, and it's a moment before he's able to release her so she can obey that instruction. "Tell her to peek and tell. Don't come."
Roa slides away reluctantly as he lets go, her fingers brushing Ashwin's cheek as she rises. She makes no agreement either way, but her gaze settles on his and then slides over him. Seeking. Memorizing. Then, before she changes her mind, the weyrwoman forcibly turns on her heels and heads to the door, rap-rap-raping to let Heller know she's ready to be let out.
He doesn't speak as she looks him over, but he mouths a pair of words in silence: I'm sorry. As the door opens to allow her out, he's watching in silence, one hand going out to the side to feel around for his pack of cards.