This storm brings strange loyalties (Isori)

[Avu]

He was actually trying to fill Kyrahth in on who she was supposed to know, but it was proving considerably more difficult than A’emi had anticipated, namely because she didn’t believe anything he said. It would’ve been offensive if he didn’t remember quite clearly trying to tell her she’d been fond of Elysia and Onyth, but really, he’d think that Kyrahth would be better at figuring out when he was actually telling the truth. Because he was, sort of, even if he kind of juxtaposed his own opinions over her old ones. What of it? It wasn’t like his opinions didn’t matter.

“You liked Castidenloth,” he repeated stubbornly, tapping his fingers restlessly against his arm. “Castidenloth and K’thay, okay? We flew with them at Fort. You trusted him. Castidenloth was nice to you, which, let me tell you, takes a lot of fucking work. And you didn’t snap at him and you’d talk to him. And you wouldn’t complain about him. You were friends.”

You’re lying. Stop lying.

A’emi rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. “I’m not lying!”

Please, Kyrahth said, a long drawl.

“You did like him! Okay? You did. And you liked Pettahth, do you remember him? He used to call you—I don’t even know, Lady? Lady Kyrahth. You were stupid smug about it, too.” A’emi scowled faintly at Kyrahth, who blinked steadily at him, clearly unimpressed, and flicked her tail dismissively. “What?” he demanded, a little too aggressively for the situation. “Why don’t you think you’re capable of liking people? Dragons? Do you want a list? Futh, Castidenloth, Pettahth, Inocenth to some extent, I don’t know. I’m not lying!”

I don’t /care/, A’emi, Kyrahth answered impatiently. It doesn’t matter at all who I used to hate and who I used to tolerate. I don’t anymore.

“I give up,” A’emi huffed indignantly, and spun away from her to march out of his weyr and down the hallway. He wasn’t usually quite so snappish with Kyrahth; the green was usually the one creature who got the most genuine patience and physical affection from him—but he was itching to get out of the empty, hollow corridors already and he’d only even been there for what, less than a day? Regardless, he missed being able to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. Had to give that to the hobos; it was almost worth the bug bites and general misery.

And he couldn’t figure out how to actually get outside in this stupid Weyr.

“Hey!” he barked, catching sight of some girl turning a corner up ahead of him. “Hey, hold up—hey.” He quickened his pace to catch up with her, praying she wasn’t someone embarrassingly important or something, “Hey—how do I get out of here?”

[dragon]

The problem with being a Weyrling; there were too many stupid rules to follow. And unfortunately, breaking them was quite fun. Also unfortunately, getting reprimanded for breaking them wasn't so much fun. Stuck with a few extra chores, Isori hadn't bothered to argue about it too much ... mostly because so far only about half of her transgressions had been discovered. So really, she was still coming out on top! Yay!

Only... these people really needed to do their own laundry. Ugh. At least today she was moving clean towels. Her arms stacked all the way to her chin, Isori padded along the hallway one foot before the other, obliviously lost in her own little world with a small smile playing upon her lips.

All the crystals of her imagination were rudely smashed, though, when someone yelled at her. And ... proceeded to keep yelling when she kept walking. Finally resigning herself to being caught by yet another bossy individual, she slowed her walk and canted her eyes over since she couldn't actually turn her head for her load. Couldn't he see she was already tasked will all-important duties and couldn't possibly carry anything el-

What?

"Get out?" Isori asked, startled by the question. It certainly hadn't been what she had expected him to say. In that short blip where most people would consider her to be giving him a rather dumb stare, her mind was actually a whirl at a hundred miles to the hour. She didn't recognize him at all, and couldn't place him either. It didn't stop her from trying, however. In the end, she resigned to giving the effort up in lieu of actually saying something else to him. "I suppose that would involve setting one foot before the other, occasionally requiring a few twists in the ankles to effect a few turns, and then maybe eventually discerning what exactly you are classifying as 'here'. Because you know, 'here' could be this hall, the entire cavern network, or maybe even the whole Weyr, or the valley, or the ... well, you get the idea." She flashed him a brilliant smile, to let him know she was deliberately yanking his leg over it. She did have a rather playful streak, after all.

"Hmmm. I suppose I could answer your question more directly if you told me where you wanted to go?" Isori asked, all the while never having really stopped walking. She did have places to go after all. With a load at that. But she was walking more slowly, to be conducive to actually talking to someone. "What's your name? I can't say I recognize you."

[Avu]

It occurred to A’emi, slightly to his disgruntlement, that the girl he’d essentially been yelling at was actually very pretty, if not smoking hot like Els, and wasn’t that just his luck? If she’d been ugly he wouldn’t have to be nice to her but pretty automatically engaged at least a basic level of politeness, seeing how she wasn’t actively attempting to kill him or anything dubious like that. He sighed inwardly, lengthening his strides to close the gap between them, raising his eyebrows at her facetious comment, even if, okay, that was fair enough, since he really hadn’t specified. He’d been used to Kyrahth and Darkling being able to read his mind—never really required explanations. It had been nice.

This was considerably less convenient. “A’emi,” he said, in lieu of being upset at her lack of inter-human telepathic abilities. “Of Kyrahth,” he added, less because he thought she’d care and more to reorient himself to saying it. “We met up with Els a little while ago, got here like…maybe six hours ago? Something. I don’t know.” He glanced at the girl and her armful of towels, briefly intrigued as to why anybody would wander around clinging to a stack of towels before dismissing it as unimportant. She was potential information source and maybe future flirtation, but he was in too sour a mood right now to consider that.

“Outside. I’m trying to get like—out, entirely. I promise I’m not running away, if it helps, but honestly I’m like…five minutes from jumping off a weyrledge and hoping for a soft landing.” He paused, reconsidered, and tacked on helpfully, “In an entirely not-suicidal way, I mean.”

It was tempting to suggest she ditch the towels () and just go with him for whatever reason—not that he was really looking to get laid but mostly because it was as reflexive as blinking—but A’emi doubted the whole alone time would have quite the effect he desired if he wasn’t, you know, alone. And Kyrahth would never let him hear the end of it, either.

“I don’t know your name,” A’emi added after a blank moment, during which he tried to apply the term ‘girl’ to her with moderate success, and then ‘woman’ with less. “Sorry. Should I?”

Not that she seemed like a big council buff or anything. Too young for that—he thought, anyway, who knew how old the council was averaging these days—and too playful. Or just a freak. He was fairly sure that freaks could make it onto the council just as well as sane people, but he also suspected that Council people would not be carrying around towels because what? Where was the dignity in that?

[dragon]

Isori smiled when he introduced himself so very politely, despite all the stomping she'd just done all over whatever he'd said previously. Somehow, despite walking and carrying an enormous stack of towels tucked under her chin, Isori managed to effect what was pretty much a curtsy. Without the grabbing of skirts of course. "Charmed! I suppose that's why I don't know you then, if you just got here! How are you liking the accommodations so far? I guess not terribly well if you're already looking to get outside, huh." Isori said, more or less answering her own question. But then she grinned again and offered him a wink. "Don't worry, we'll get it in ship shape soon enough, just needs some TLC after all the time the place spent abandoned, you know." She prattled.

"Outside. Well ... that's easy enough. I suppose. But getting lost irreversibly is even easier, I am glad you asked. Why would you be wanting to run away though? You just got here, and I am sure that if you wanted to just leave, the easier thing to do would be to just fly away, am I wrong?" Isori queried, before effecting a shrug. "Follow me, I'll show you the way out. I sort of have to go that way anyway, so it's no bother!" She offered helpfully. "Inside does get dreary after awhile, doesn't it? Where did you meet Els?" No, she surely hadn't missed that mention.

She couldn't help but laugh though, at his mention of non-suicidal. "I didn't think you were going to jump to kill yourself ... not when the urge to get outside is so very clearly in an effort to preserve your sanity. Why preserve your sanity if all you are going to do is suicide? That would tend to indicate you've no sanity left to preserve, now wouldn't it?" Isori teased, weaving word-traps around him again with the things he said.

"Oh, goodness me. I apparently put my manners down when I picked up these towels, I do apologize!" Isori started, when he asked what her name was. "I'm Isori ... just plain old Isori, really. Aikelyth doesn't follow me around anymore, now that she's big enough to not fit in the hallways. Doesn't mean she doesn't still want to, what with the cavern monsters milling around and all that fun stuff." Isori shrugged slightly, careful to not dislodge her stack. "But no, I see no reason why you should know me ... I after all had no idea who you were either!"

[Avu]

She was quite talkative, wasn’t she?

Not, strictly speaking, that A’emi wasn’t, but since the girl was conveniently doing most of the talking on his behalf, that was perfectly fine with him. (He had a theory that most people talked because if they stopped their brains would start working and the prospect subconsciously terrified them, but it didn’t seem like the most prudent thing to say ever, especially considering the girl in question had the ability to cheerfully misdirect him in any number of ways.) He smiled affably instead, tucking his thumbs into his pockets as he measured his steps to hers, tilting his head coyly at the one question that was actually not rhetorical or answered.

“Oh, y’know, around. Not quite sure myself, I’m kind of awful at geography.” Besides, A’emi didn’t even know if Elysia was supposed to be randomly hanging out in the forest at all, and he didn’t intend to get her in trouble when she’d gotten him here. And honestly, he didn’t know anyway. He and Kyrahth had just been aimlessly drifting around and bickering when they’d spotted Els.

His smile widened pleasantly at her introduction, and he sketched out a quick bow, made awkward by the fact that he didn’t actually stop walking. Whatever—it still matched her curtsey, and that was the entire point. “Honored, though I’ve gotta say, ‘plain’ is definitely not applicable here.” The flirtation wasn’t entirely in earnest; A’emi still primarily just wanted to get outside, and his tone was decidedly playful. “And, just so you know, should I ever decide to commit suicide, I plan to be entirely sane doing it, if only to be an exception to you.”

What are you even talking about? Stop it, Kyrahth interjected, disapprovingly. Don’t make me—

The threat was effectively ignored, however, as Darkling stole that precise second to arrive from between, bright-eyed and sleek, chirruping eagerly at A’emi before she immediately dove for Isori and shamelessly curled around the girl’s neck, humming cheerfully and blatantly demanding attention.

“That’s Darkling,” A’emi said helpfully, since the firelizard seemed unlikely to pause in her affections anytime soon. “She’s sort of spoiled. I can take those towels for you if you’d like.”

[dragon]

Awful at geography. It was amazing he ever knew where he was, then. But that sort of did explain how he got lost in the halls to begin with. Isori only smiled at him for the comment, not able to think of anything to say to that, that wasn't downright rude. Teasing she liked to be .... rude not so much. "I guess it's a good thing you're not lost anymore then." Isori answered finally, entirely oblivious to whether or not he'd actually been lost or not before he'd purportedly run into Elysia. However that happened.

Isori did laugh at his attempt at a bow, understanding it to be what it was. Which entirely tickled her. Someone with a sense of humor! She also couldn't help but smile when he attested to contradict her own statements. "Ah, well. You know how it goes." she answered, though it did please her to know that someone might think that. It was almost horrible how well she tended to take to flattery. She did, however, give him a rather strange look for his comment on suicide.

"The very nature of suicide tends to imply that you're no longer capable of rational decisions, and thus are not sane." Isori reminded with a smile. "I am not sure if I should be touched or not that you would be thinking about me and what I think when you are contemplating your own demise. That's a bit freaky, you know. Mildly disturbing."

But, it took all kinds she supposed.

Her step hesitated for a moment when a flitter appeared out of nowhere - quite litterally - and promptly attached itself to her. Around her neck, more pointedly. But at least it was being a nice flitter. For the moment anyway. Isori laughed as she walked, but shook her head. "That was new! I don't have a flitter." She admitted, tilting her chin upward slightly as the little creature loved all over her. "D'awwwww! Darkling, huh? Why did you name her that, if you don't mind my asking? She sure is sweet! Oh, would you? You don't have to take them all, but about half would be so helpful." Isori admitted, realizing that in lifting her chin, her stack had started to wobble away from her. "Uhhoh." She reached out with the bottom of the stack to try and rebalance it before it all tumbled to the floor into an unfolded mess that would need washed again.

[Avu]

“Take it as a compliment,” A’emi suggested complacently, unperturbed by how downright strange he sounded, “And anyway, you don’t have to be insane to kill yourself, I think it’s just usually called ‘stupidity’.” More to the point, he also figured that most of the people—dragonless aside; that was an entirely different ball game—that did commit suicide did it because they finally got the fact that there were way more cons to living than there were pros, which was true and perfectly sane. Not that everyone who figured that out died, but whatever. Again: Stupidity. And utterly beside the point anyway.

He reached out to snag half the wobbling pile of towels obediently, tucking them under his arm against his ribs and resettling the smaller pile back against Isori, thumb brushing against her wrist in the process, and tilted his head to grin at girl and flit. Darkling was humming, practically preening at the compliments, fluttering her wings proudly and nudging her head against Isori’s jaw in an appalling display of absolute shamelessness. A’emi wrinkled his nose in dismay at her before he quirked a light smile at Isori. “You know, Darkling, like, ‘there trembled through his happy good night air some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware’? Darkling thrush. Like a bird,” he added, as if that might clue Isori in to obscurity of his reading tastes.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Feed her and she’ll love you forever, let her scare you once and she’ll stalk you forever.”

Darkling chirruped, clearly disapproving, at him, and looped her tail and wings loosely around Isori’s neck, licking the girl’s cheek cheerfully. A’emi rolled his eyes, shifting the pile of towels under his arm. “What’s with the towels, by the way? Hobo fashion statement or what? Not that I’m judging. Towels can be cool.”

Actually, towels beat some of the stuff he’d dragged around with him for a while, so yeah. Towels were civilized. If confusing. What, was there going to be a hobo pool party?

[dragon]

"Oh I will. Tomorrow maybe." Isori answered with a laugh. Just to be obstinate. But then she took a moment to think about what he was saying about killing one's self. With half her towels gone, she shifted the remainder to under one arm, propped on one hip. "Thank you!" For the moment she decided to ignore what could have been happenstance, or could have been a decided effort to flirt. A turn ago she might have explored that, but now? Not a chance.

Holding up a finger on her freed hand, she interjected. "Ah, but there's a hole in your logic there. The very nature of suicide deems that you weren't just killing yourself, but doing it intentionally, as an end result. Just simply getting yourself killed out of sheer stupidity is, most assuredly, not intended suicide. It's a ... natural thing. Inherent, if you will. Survival of the fittest rather rules out the ... uh ... stupid ones." She offered.

Reaching up to rub Darkling's head and neck with her fingertips, Isori listened to A'emi's explanation of his flitter's name with interest. Before she added her own bit. " 'At once a voice arose among the bleak twigs overhead in a full-hearted evensong of joy unlimited.' Can you sing, Darkling? I bet you have a lovely voice, don't you just?" She cooed to the adorably affectionate creature. "Ohhh, you make me wish I had one just like you!" She grinned at A'emi again. "You're lucky to have such a nice flitter. I've seen some that were downright mean." Of course, she was neglecting rather intentionally to factor in what he'd said about her being insufferable if she figured out she could scare someone.

"Towels?" Isori asked, rerouting her thought process. "Oh, they're just the last load of laundry that I helped to fold is all. One of the ladies is real particular about sorting the laundry before it's washed. This color with that, this weight with that, this type with that ... so I ended up with a load of nothing but towels to fold. Silly thing is, in her obsessive nature she actually gets some things wrong. Like ... yeah, these are all towels. But the colors are all wrong." She pointed at them. "You don't wash these colors together, they'll bleed." She knew laundry rather well, from having grown up in the textile craft. But try telling an older individual anything when they already thought they knew it all .... yeah, it didn't usually work so well. "But ... I actually like your idea better. Fashion statements are always fun! Let's see ... I can wrap the orange one around your head, and fold it so ..." she started, gesticulating with her free hand a bit before returning it to stroking Darkling's thrumming self. Of course, she was just teasing, but ... not everyone caught on so quick.

"Or hey, we could just gather up a bunch of people and go to the river for a swim. I'd have to ask where it is, though. The only time I went I was given a ride adragonback." Isori added.

[Avu]

“Okay,” A’emi agreed, amused by Isori’s argument. “Fair enough. Ill-advised feats of heroism, then? Sometimes it’s quite intentional and romantic, isn’t it, the self-sacrifice and all the glory that comes with it, except that you’re, you know, sort of dead.” It was a dangerous subject, and he knew that, and maybe that was why he kept pressing and pressing, mapping out the boundaries; with the War death of all kinds was disturbingly close, maybe too close to be joked about so casually, but so far Isori hadn’t been offended and he was honestly intrigued by that. Hadn’t she ever had anyone die on her?

To be fair, he’d probably had more experience with the wars than her simply by dint of her dragon evidently being a weyrling and Kyrahth edging into nine years old, and he could count the number of people who had died on him that he’d actually cared about on one hand, but still.

Both eyebrows arched at her almost-immediate response to his quote, and a split second later, A’emi grinned, bright and almost childishly pleased, and he said in a fascinated mixture of awe and teasing test, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me.” Entirely a different poem, but A’emi rarely made logical jumps in conversation, and he was even less prone to making sense when he was this entertained; he’d never actually met anybody who recognized the obsolete references he did.

Darkling, fluttering her wings proudly under Isori’s affections, chose to underscore A’emi’s comment with a melodic trill, leaning her entire body against Isori’s hand and half-closing her eyes pleasantly. The firelizard’s tail traced lightly over the nape of Isori’s neck, and she added another warble to the repertoire of the happy sounds she was making.

A’emi rolled his eyes in exasperated affection at Darkling, but commented only an indulgent “huh” at the towel explanation—along with the small rant that accompanied it. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said bemusedly at length, and ducked her fashion-statement gestures playfully, wrinkling his nose. He declined to respond to the idea of gathering a group of people, his already-mercurial mood shifting into an awkward sulkiness; of course a young girl would prefer people’s company—Isori did seem cheerful enough to be a people person.

“Yeah?” he answered absently, casually evasive, “Which dragon? Kyr could get the coordinates from them probably.” Not that he was exactly offering to take her, and he was even further from offering a gaggle of her friends a ride too, but still, the between coordinates to the river might be nice.

[dragon]

Isori's mannerisms came to a halt for a moment as she thought on what he said. She merely walked, balancing the towels with one hand and idly rubbing Darkling with the other. "I ... don't think that quite ... qualifies ... either?" She asked, uncertainly. "You know, to be honest, I've never really debated the finer nuances of suicide before. It's not exactly a dinner topic." She admitted. "As grand as all that sounds, I am pretty sure that even idiotic heroism doesn't quite qualify. Not any more than martyrdom, though that comes closer. Suicide is purely selfish I think. Heroism and martyrdom aren't. Other than that, I have to honestly say that there really are some things worth dying for." Isori finished with a firm nod. "Or at least risking personal death to defend."

She laughed though, when he went on to quote again. My, but was this a test? She considered answering him flat outright, as if he was merely speaking his mind. In which case he was crazy. After all ... there was no such thing as mer maids, and if he'd heard them singing at all, were they not singing for him to hear? But no, instead she played along still yet. Mostly because this was proving quite entertaining if nothing else. "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach." She answered, with a grin. Though if anyone at all was listening to them, she rather sounded like she'd lost her little marbles, too. For it hardly sounded like it had anything to do with anything he'd said.

Pursing her lips she whistled softly, almost too softly to be heard. But in perfect mimickery of Darkling's melody ... if ever so slightly embellished just a shred. Some flitter notes were hard to hit, after all. Especially quietly. But her whistling came to an abrupt end when she thought about what A'emi was saying. Which dragon? Oh, that was easy. She remembered the trip well ... it was the trip in which she'd gotten her Runner. M'kai had been oh so tolerant of her hare-brained idea to bring him back home. "Only the nicest Blue to ever crack shell. That was Futh ... though I dunno if you know him yet. He's terribly sweet. He was very good about helping me get my stallion home, too." Isori answered blithely. After all ... who wouldn't want to meet a dragon so nice as Futh was?

[Avu]

“It really just depends on how stupid you think people are in general.” He wasn’t exactly agreeing with her, but that was mostly because he considered heroism quite suicidal, thank you; he didn’t think he was stupid enough to give a damn what other people thought of him as long as he was alive, because no matter what you decided to die for, worthy or otherwise, in the end you were still dead and unable to reap the benefits of your own sacrifice. A’emi just wasn’t that magnanimous, but whatever—at least he was (reasonably) upfront about it, he thought. But the general idea of suicide failed to hold his interest too terribly long; he smiled at Isori in an abrupt change of mood at her quoting.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed, red and brown,” he said gravely, and reached out to run his fingers lightly down Darkling’s spine, the firelizard whistling softly, “Till the human voices wake us, and we drown.” Still the same poem, dissolving into another one, “So let us melt, and make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, you’re the first person who’s actually know any of that. I’m impressed.”

He dropped his hand from his firelizard, who twined sinuously around Isori’s neck, squirming into her touch, humming her pleasure at the low whistled mimicry. Darkling added another trilling note when Isori cut off her whistling, eyes bright blues of approval, fluttering her wings lightly. She went quiet a second later, though, a falter in the hum, before she picked up the notes again easily, as if nothing had ever happened—the only physical manifestation of A’emi’s surprise. The greenrider in question flicked the firelizard a mild, shuttered look—such an inconvenient conduit, she was.

“Futh?” A’emi echoed, and brushed lightly against Kyrahth’s mind. Pay attention, remember this for me. “That’s M’kai’s dragon, right? He’s still around?” That was…interesting. He hadn’t seen M’kai for…what, over a year? Two? A long time, anyway. He wrinkled his nose, adding, “You’re keeping a runner? Why?” She’d just been talking about her dragon, Aikelyth or whatever, not to mention that keeping livestock like that, the Council letting her keep that livestock—it felt like a sign of permanent residency. You didn’t pack up and fly a runner back to Selenitas like you did a dragon, or firelizards even.

Stop it, Kyrahth sighed into his mind, distracting and depressing all in one. I don’t want to hear about any stupid blue. I don’t want to hear about runners or girls or towels or poems, and I certainly don’t want to /remember/ it for you.

It could be important.

The green dragon emitted a brief wave of irritation, the mental equivalent of an eye-roll or an indignant huff, but she listened anyway, her consciousness coiling to the forefront of A’emi’s mind in a perverse reluctant curiosity.

[dragon]

Isori smiled. She liked impressing people ... in good ways anyway. It always made a body feel good, after all. Sure, she knew she was good, but to have others acknowledge that? That was special. "You do have a rather dark take on life, don't you?" She asked, not bothering to answer his lines with more lines. Mostly because she was starting to notice the drift of the ones he selected to reiterate. Yes, quite dark, melancholy. Fatalistic, almost.

It didn't go without noticing when A'emi had a glitch in his otherwise fluid and borderline flirtatious mannerisms happened almost at the same time that Darkling hiccuped in her song. Isori didn't comment on it directly, though it did pique her curiosity. Something she had said, maybe? Though it was possible that it was caused by input from an outside source. His dragon, maybe. She continued to rub Darkling gently, though she stopped whistling as she watched A'emi.

Ah, so that was it. Though she was surprised to know that he actually knew Futh ... and who his Rider was on top of that. But maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. After all, all Burimyuan Riders had started out Selenitas Riders... barring the weyrling class of course. It wasn't too much of a stretch, she supposed. M'kai had been a weyrling master over there. "You know them?" She asked anyway, even though the answer was obvious. It was just a human thing to do. "Yeah, he's around. He's the Candidate master about these parts."

"Why not? I like my runner. He's mine." Isori countered. Several times already people had told her it was a foolish thing to do, to try and tame a wild runner, much less a stallion. Add on top of that Impressing a dragon ... yeah, people were telling her to let him go. But she wasn't going to do it. He was her wild runner stallion ... who, for her at least, was getting not so wild. She could work with him, after all. Get him to do things. Things that not even Aikelyth could yet do.

Somehow, given the shift of mannerisms, Isori got the impression that she was now being probed for information. Which made her rather clam up more than a bit. Given how he was new ... from where? And that Burimyu's only lifeline was the fact that it was hidden... yeah, she was being twitchy now.

[Avu]

What?

He didn’t respond, more because the comment had genuinely blindsided him than because he felt it was unnecessary; it honestly had never occurred to him to analyze that lines appealed to him and which did not. And it kind of felt stupidly obvious. Wow. Had to fix that sometime. Kyrahth should’ve said something about that sooner, he thought, mildly indignant—and yes, he was deliberately ignoring the fact that he well knew Kyrahth had exactly 0 interest in poetry of any kind and made it clear she was tuning him out whenever he started on it. Whatever. Anyway, that wasn’t as important as M’kai was (if M’kai was important—A’emi wasn’t really sure anymore?).

“Candidatemaster,” he echoed, mildly surprised. “Huh. Look who’s going up in the world.” The statement was utterly bland, the sarcasm dry to nonexistence. Why M’kai was interested in teaching positions at all was utterly beyond A’emi, but each to his own, he supposed; he didn’t even fully know what Els did these days and the very fact that she had been out and about already appealed to him more than being penned up with a bunch of kids did—although he didn’t suppose they had many Candidates or Lessons, given their lack of a clutching dragon, so why even a Candidatemaster? For the Candidates for the nonexistent future clutches?

To Isori, A’emi raised an eyebrow at her defiance. “Given that my question was entirely innocent, I think you can probably come up with plenty of reasons why not on your own,” he pointed out dryly. “But sure, runners can be useful.” Could be, if you didn’t already have a dragon who could not only mindlessly lug things around but also communicate across miles. “Anyway, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could find your Candidatemaster, would you? Or a chess board?” He absently touched the belt knife at his hip—he could always carve his own pieces but it just wasn’t practical if there was a better set already available.

Darkling whistled quietly, the green firelizard slanting a decidedly curious glance at A’emi, her head tilted sideways, eyes bright. She braced a paw lightly against Isori’s wrist, purring softly as she butted her head demandingly against the girl’s hand—the loudness of her affections had decidedly faded, though, in recognition of the change in mood. Her tail swished idly over Isori’s shoulders before settling insecurely around the girl’s neck.

[dragon]

"Going up?" Isori asked, mystified. "He used to be Weyrling Master back in Selenitas. Seems to be a step down to me." She pointed out. Though his fiddling with his knife was starting to make her slightly more nervous than before, when he'd only been asking rather probing questions. Was he even half as friendly as he had initially seemed to be?

"Find him? I have absolutely no idea at all. If I were to look for him, I would ask Futh. I imagine you could do the same." She answered. It would also give M'kai a head's up if this ... person ... proved to be hostile. Though why he was taking an interest in M'kai, she really couldn't fathom. "As for a chessboard ... I can't say as any exist about these parts. If they do, no one has mentioned them to me." Which really wasn't surprising - she didn't talk to terribly a whole lot of people after all. Came from staying busy most of the time.

At the insisting bumps and nudges from Darkling, Isori resumed stroking the 'lizard, smoothing her fingers over the flitter's hide gently before rubbing her eyeridges with her fingertips. "Why do you want to find M'kai? Do you know him?" She asked, while debating whether or not to ask her green to ask Futh if M'kai knew this person. Because this was taking a rather alarming turn, especially for the setting of a Weyr in hiding ... with a stranger in their midst. She wasn't at all sure she should be talking to him at all...

[Avu]

“It’s sort of a net gain,” A’emi answered vaguely, tilting his head to glance at Isori curiously. She seemed awfully closed off—which didn’t strike him necessarily as surprising so much as it surprised him that it was just now happening. Security was kind of lax around here, wasn’t it? “I mean, start as a Weyrling with a dragon that got lucky and cut out all the stuff in the middle and Candidatemaster’s still halfway decent. Or going from hobo to hobo Candidatemaster. That’s still going up.” Or, at least, A’emi suspected that to most people it would be going up; personally he imagined it was hard to get much closer to hell if you tried. Not that he was judging. Respect. Or something close to it, anyway.

One eyebrow quirked at the girl, A’emi hovering indecisively a moment between irritation and frank fascination and settling, eventually, somewhere in the middle. She really hadn’t a clue where the Candidatemaster would be, ever? If that wasn’t a sign that they didn’t need a Candidatemaster at all, then A’emi didn’t know what was—or she was lying, because the Candidatemaster wasn’t exactly supposed to be a complete recluse. “Right,” he said, drawling out the word, “While Futh is, I’m sure, still sweet, I’m also pretty sure that asking him to keep a secret isn’t going to work, am I right?”

(He didn’t actually remember Futh very well at all—only remembered that Kyrahth had reluctantly tolerated him at first and had gradually gotten around to liking him to some extent. And she’d thought he was very childish.)

As for her questions…“I want to see him because it’s been over a year since I have and I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of ‘friendship’ before, the really epic ones tend to transcend time, I’ve heard. And yeah, I know him, but if you’re really after specifics you should probably ask him about that, because I don’t think we’ve quite agreed on what constitutes as propriety yet.” While it was kind of tempting to tell Isori exactly how well he knew M’kai, A’emi figured that some things were probably best kept quiet—at least, around some girl he didn’t even know, quiet. If it was Els, then maybe not; if it was K’thay, then definitely not—but around Isori, who, for all her affections to Darkling, seemed paranoid of him, yes.

He blinked at Isori serenely, asked, because clearly subtlety was not in the cards here, “Are you scared of me, by the way?”