Silence Mortal [ Emoyan ]

[rii]

Hungryhungryhungry.

F'lix expression twitched, the scowl deepening as he stalked down the hallway. Pinched between forefinger and thumb he held the chanting blue salamandyr. It was early morning and even though F'lix knew quite well that his two small mindmates were capable of – not only finding food – but feeding themselves, Simper had decided he wanted attention. No amount of disdainful thoughts could silence the nuisance, and even Lilitu had let the behavior persist. Why? Because it annoyed him, she allowed it to continue because it was an inconvenience to him and thus her amusement for the day.

After disentangling himself from his weyrmate (a term rather unusual for him) he had scrambled after the peculiar blue while spouting off death curses. The whole time Simper had sung about his unfulfilled appetite. Hair in disheveled state, F'lix stalked into the dining hall in little more than the dark cloth pants he had slept in. No, he was not quite awake. His movements spurred on purely by his flaring temper.

Grabbing a bowl of diced meat, F'lix shoved Simper unceremoniously into the raw bits. "There. Now will you shut up." The blue wormed himself to the top of the mess, seizing one of the pieces between his mismatched claws. He crooned excitedly at the vehement bluerider. Loveyou, Loveyou.

[dragon]

Mine! Skink insisted, trying to guard the entire open space of the bowl of bits of meat from Rascal, who was just sitting on the table looking down at her. It was rather ridiculous, really. As a brown flitter, he by far outsized the small bowl that held their collective breakfast. But even so, Skink couldn't hope to cover a third of the surface area with her sprawled out body, glaring up at the brown that she normally adored. Patiently, Rascal just sat there and watched, knowing that she couldn't possibly eat much of it at all... maybe a piece or two, max. And once she fell asleep, he could eat all the rest. Simple enough. Getting this idea across to Skink, however, was not easy. She usually ate her fill, slept, and then woke up in a licked-clean bowl thinking she'd been the one that ate it all. Bad flitter! Mine! No have! Mine! she ranted, more or less ignored by the flitter and the man seated right there at the same spot in the table.

Emoyan knew as well as Rascal did that the daily-run issue would pass. Well dressed and eating a normal breakfast in preparation of rousing Candidates from their own slumbers and making sure they all got to lessons, Emoyan was quite accustomed to being around at the hour. He didn't tend to pay much mind to what was going on around him in the messhall, though, as it was hardly a casual meal. Not rushed, but certainly not casual. So it was with some surprise when Skink's usual grouchy breakfast-hoarding suddenly changed from the normal routine to a vicious hiss and a loud mental scream.

FLITTER KILLER!!!! She shrieked, upon spotting F'lix past Rascal's side. Hopping up out of the bowl, she clambered up on top of Rascal's head and frilled as massively as she could manage. Which wasn't much, considering she was only a few inches long.

"By the first egg." Emoyan grumbled, casting a quick look around the room before snatching Skink up off the equally bewildered flitter's head and cramming her into a pocket. Unfortunately, this was not at all sufficient to silence a mandyr.

MURDER! MURDER! MURDERER! BAD! DIE DIE DIE!!! KILL! TAIL THIEF!!! she raged, audibly, from his pocket, still hissing and trembling, trying to claw her way back out of the pocket.

Unfortunately, Emoyan hadn't the slightest notion what she was going on about, but got the idea that breakfast was best had later - since he couldn't silence her, he needed to get her out of the messhall. So to his feet his climbed, reaching for Rascal as well. Only by that point, Rascal had also spotted the individual that had so offended Skink. With a horrid screech that was not at all pleasant, the flitter vanished between, only to reappear near the ceiling and scold loudly at the shirtless bluerider that had just arrived.

Which made it all too apparent to Emoyan who was upsetting his pets. He fixed his gaze on F'lix, but said not a word.

[rii]

Setting the food down, F'lix scanned over the rest of the morning's rations. He might as well eat, or at least take something back for F'ur. Alas, it had been too hopeful of a thought to think he could whisk back to his weyr. F'lix felt his shoulders tensing, the temper flaring again as his glare narrowed further on nothing in particular. He had gotten rid of one singing voice only have have a screaming one take it's place. The bluerider didn't even register the words, his thoughts clouding over with an undeniable annoyance.

Loveyou. Love you not. Love you. Love you not. Simper quietly hummed to himself while gazing over in Skink's direction. He felt as if he knew her–something about playing with shells–but no, his own thoughts got overpowered by Lilitu's dark ones. That one had gotten into their weyr. The near-black green did not like to have other salamandyrs in her territory without permission. Simper crooned to his bit of meat. Why was Lililove, F'lixhers and the screaming green getting so upset about–and now the brown firelizard. Chirping uncertainly at the scolding, Simper crammed the meat into his mouth, glided over to land lightly against F'lix shoulder. He hopped onto the mess of black hair masking Lilitu and trilled up at the spitting lizard. Love bite?

F'lix eyes traced over one of the forks lying on the counter. Whatever thought may have passed through his mind, he quickly dismissed it. Not like it would do any good, the lizard would go between before it could be hit. He edged the bowl of meat closer to himself and went about collecting a small breakfast to snack on away from the annoying pests.

"They should make a habit out of poisoning the river more often if it gets rid of pests such as yourself," He directed a nasty smile up at the brown fire lizard. Die. Die. Die.

[dragon]

There wasn't any reaction at all from the person his pets seemed so infuriated by. Not really sure what was going on, Emoyan dug Skink out of his pocket and called Rascal back to him. He gave the screaming mandyr to the flitter, and told him to take her away ... far away. The last thing he needed was to have her suddenly attack someone... or have Rascal attack someone. Skink was just a nuisance, but he was pretty sure Rascal could do some damage. The brown took the pale green mandyr in hand and blinked between, restoring the messhall to some semblance to silence on the mental bandwidths.

Stepping away from his seat, Emoyan made his way around the table and over to where F'lix was standing. He'd seen the murderous glance thrown, and knew that there had to be something up, here. What, he didn't know. But he knew his pets didn't normally act like that. In fact, they never had acted like that before in their entire lives. "Excuse me." He began, coming to a halt a few paces away from where F'lix stood. "What was that all about? What did you do to upset them so badly?" Of course, he could have asked Skink and Rascal, but getting a coherent answer out of two hysterical pets was not always possible. Answers, sure ... but coherent? Not likely.

[rii]

By the time Emoyan came over F'lix had his hands full between the small plate of breakfast foods and the bowl of diced meat for salamandyrs. The bluerider didn't turn around right away, instead letting his eyes close, his chin lift slightly and his shoulders drop. Whatever Emoyan wanted, it wasn't important enough to bother F'lix with.

Sadly, they were the only two on that side of the feasting hall so F'lix couldn't opt to pretend he didn't hear Emoyan, or play off the man had been talking to someone else. Golden eyes slitted open, and F'lix turned his head enough – to the left – so he peered at the older man from the scarred half of his face. It matched the array of red scars littering the rest of his torso. Jutting just up past his hip bone were the black snaking lines of his tattoo etched in a curving design of black ink. He made an interesting piece of art.

"As if I know or can comprehend the simplicity behind such creatures," His voice was soft, but F'lix did nothing to hide the condescending sneer to the words. Clucking his tongue lightly against teeth, F'lix did well to note the distance the Fortian kept – the accent hard to miss after being around F'ur for so long. It made F'lix let his own come out nice and thick to complete his bristling demeanor and heavy go away vibe. "It could have been something as meaningless as picking up a piece of silverware they fancied to be theirs."

Turning on heel, F'lix stalked toward the harper in a path set to go just past him. Those golden slits remained centered on the man the entire time. "A better question would have been do I care?" That answer, too, should have been obvious.

[dragon]

"You obviously don't care, so that would be a pointless question on my part." Emoyan responded. "But I do care. They do not go around accusing people of killing, in fact they've never done it before in their entire lives. This concerns me a bit." And maybe more than a bit, but he wasn't going to jump to conclusions yet. It was a long swim back.

Plainly F'lix had awakened on the wrong side of the bed, if not the wrong side of the room. Emoyan preferred to assume that the man wasn't that irritable as a normal state of being. If things got nastier, he'd simply leave the man alone ... it wasn't worth provoking a fight over. He was just rather concerned about what had gotten his pets so excited. They'd never reacted that strongly to anything ever before ... especially not Rascal. The brown flitter was the most stable brown Emoyan could attest to having ever dealt with.

"I would appreciate cooperation on your part." He added, mildly.

[rii]

F'lix eyebrow arched at Emoyan's returning comment. For a step the bluerider considered what would be more pointless, stating the pointlessness of answering a rhetorical question, or pointing out the pointlessness of mentioning it was pointless. F'lix refrained from commenting, gathering that it would turn into a further, and much more needless exchange of words with the possibility of running a muck.

Faranth, what did the man want that he insisted on speaking. F'lix slowed, weight swaying over one foot as he came to a full stop beside Emoyan, keeping the two bowls of food between them. Apparently being accused of murder was a cause for concern. F'lix knew he had not murdered anyone, had not even threaten a life because any of his socializing involved F'ur. The bruise on his jaw, and the littering of scars across his body spoke a story of violence, but F'lix knew better than to murder someone.

Cooperation, F'lix disdainfully clucked his tongue a second time as his golden eyes flicked up to the ceiling in a silent gesture of inner thought. It was more typical of the bluerider to not bother giving other people the time of day, nor humor questions or conversations he deemed unnecessary. Feigning even the slightest bit of concern over the weyr's on going infestation of parasites fell neatly into that category. He flicked through his memories until he could form an understanding – F'lix was by no means stupid, he honestly just refused to give thought to the topic unless it was a conversation that actually perked his interest.

"Ah," F'lix head tilted to the side, eyes dropping back down to meet the harper's insistent gaze. "You must be the owner of other green pest to make war on my room. Their reaction to me must have to do with their fallen companion." F'lix let the words hang in the air, silently wondering if this man expected an apology. Hn.

[dragon]

People were difficult. That's simply how they were. Each in their own way, of course. Northern people were difficult in any snarky way they could manage. It was the society that bred that into them, it seemed. And Southerners were difficult in their laid back, placid, and willfully ignorant mannerisms. So it was no surprise at all to Emoyan when at first it seemed the rider before him was not going to cooperate in the least. But ... maybe not? He waited patiently, silently, as F'lix seemed to actually try to put some thought to the matter.

Maybe there was hope for the human race after all.

But what eventually came out of the rider's mouth made Emoyan's eyes narrow and a frown crease his features. He had hoped this had not been what his pets had meant, dearly hoped. But apparently it was not to be. "You killed Voyager." Emoyan stated. It was hard to not get angry... he had dearly loved the bronze as much as either of the other two. The loss of the bronze was more acutely felt due to its proximity to the loss of his dragon. Thankfully, it had occurred far enough back in time that the wound was not as raw to his soul as it might have been. Allowing him to keep his wits, and act in a rational manner.

"I hope you are aware that salamandyrs are simply just that way. There is no controlling them short of jarring them in vinegar. Why did you kill Voyager?" Emoyan asked, partly out of genuine curiosity, and partly to see just how this fellow ticked. People just didn't go around murdering flitters and mandyrs. It just wasn't done. On top of that ... Skink was the offending one, why had the placid, if explorative, bronze been the one slain? Granted, he recalled quite clearly that Skink had been missing her tail that day.

It made the Candidate Master quite wary of having any pet anywhere near the man - the slaughter of one pet and the mutilation of another. Did he have no restraint in his body at all, to get that out of control in reacting to pets?

[rii]

F'lix waited patiently as well, but he anticipated Emoyan erupting in anger at the memory of his fallen fire lizard. The bluerider didn't know whether to be relieved, or disappointed when all the revelation earned was a narrowed gaze. An obvious statement, and F'lix inclined his chin slightly while biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep snapping out a snide comment. He, put bluntly, didn't have the patience for these sort of matters.

Shifting the bowls to one arm, F'lix dug out Simper – currently tailless – from the bits of meat. He shifted the blue pest to sit in his palm and held him out for Emoyan's viewing. "For someone that hails from Fort you don't seem to see exactly what this is." Golden eyes were narrowed and focused intently on the harper's face. Simper, in his carefree nature, chirped cheerfully at Emoyan. "As smart as they think they are, arrogance makes any being blind. What these are, are a weakness."

F'lix fisted Simper, in a very even tone he continued. "An external vital point that, in clear lack of better judgment, people allow to roam freely with the silly notion that everyone will smile and laugh at their antics – as they tear up their personal belongings and scream obscenities into their minds." Calmly F'lix deposited the blue onto his shoulder. "I want to say it's a southern thing, to blissfully think no true harm will ever occur. But," Loftily he shrugged. "You don't have that particular excuse for stupidity."

Not allowing for interruption, F'lix continued on in his quiet, firm tone. "I know very well the depth of the bonds they form, so it surprises me that an owner – a northern man bonded to such destructive pest so intent on angering people, would trust strangers to not respond in temper to their ways. You failed to instill any discipline into your pet, yet you feel wronged that her antics earned her more than a feeble slap on the wrists. They might not know any better, but you do. It's a responsibility for you to ensure that no true harm is done. Even children are taught discipline and learn not to do something that could endanger their lives – and the reality of the matter is that those that want to arrogantly risk their own lives tend to die more often than not."

F'lix ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing the disheaveled strands back into some form of order. "I did not kill your salamandyr. I trapped her in hopes the idiot owner of the pest would come fetch her so I could direct my irritation at the true source. Why I killed your fire lizard, I have no reason, with it clawing at my face.. I had hoped it would have a sudden dawning realization that it was putting itself into a dangerous situation." The bluerider let out a hollow bark of a laugh. "I meant to scare it away, but to prove me wrong – in hopes of being it remotely intelligent – the sharding thing move right into the path of my blade."

Was he sorry? No. He had not meant to kill it, but he was not going to stand there and possible hear about how he should have allowed two salamandyrs do as they pleased without repercussions of their actions. It did not make any thread of sense in F'lix's mind. If people wanted to let their little life-lines dart so precariously underneath everyone's feet, they shouldn't be so surprised when their hearts get stepped on.

[dragon]

Emoyan shook his head, slightly. "You do not have to lecture me on the ins and outs of Salamandyrs or other pets." He did, after all, spent an inordinate amount of time giving those very lectures to children of all ages. He probably knew more about them than most people did. Most, but not all. There was still a few things he was learning, but then that was true of any piece of knowledge. No one person could know all there was to know about any one given thing.

However, he could understand what F'lix said ... knowing how Voyager was, how fearless he tended to be ... it could very well have been just that. An accident. It was understandable ... these things happened. But it did annoy him a bit that F'lix had even bothered to feint with a knife if he didn't mean to kill. Knives were not toys, and F'lix was old enough to know that ... doubly so since he was Northern. It didn't take a leap to figure out he was Benden, either ... between his inflections and Emoyan not knowing him from Fort ...

"Next time, don't use a blade." Emoyan suggested. "Use a stick instead. It's less lethal." Not non-lethal, but it was a whole lot harder to kill with a stick than a knife. "And I would have gladly come and got her. She is not supposed to be doing those things, ever." Too many times she'd done something just like that, and brought all sorts of unhappy riders down on Emoyan's head. But he couldn't do anything about it short of keeping her in a jar. And that wasn't tolerated either. Not to mention it would make her so unhappy it would permanently ruin Emoyan's ability to interact with anyone at all.

Mandyrs were awful close to the soul ... especially that soul had been raw from a larger loss.

Emoyan nodded at the bowls of food that F'lix was moving. "That's an awful lot of food for one mandyr." he commented, remembering that F'lix had apparently owned one, too. And he hadn't seen any flitters about the man's person, either. Emoyan liked to think that most people ate their meat cooked... it would be rather disturbing if that was F'lix's breakfast.

[Requiem]

Bedwarmer gone. To be fair, he'd noticed the absence much sooner, but hadn't really cared. F'ur might be a lot of things, but clingy wasn't one of them. He'd merely curled up and gone back to dozing for a little while longer. Of course, doze over, he found that F'lix was still gone and his stomach was protesting, so naturally he located clothing and fished Terror out of the blue's wall chink (the safest place at night, apparently, given that F'ur did move some in his sleep) and made the trek to the Main Hall. Padding along barefooted, in that happy just woken up fuzz that makes the world look sparkly - or was that just the dustmotes near the glowbaskets? - he slid through the door into the dining hall and blinked at the two men.

It was an Emoyan and a F'lix. Well, well. He wouldn't say either looked particularly ecstatic in their present company, but considering both were grown men and could easily rid themselves of said company should they desire, a rescue hardly seemed necessary. All he caught of the conversation was the last of Emoyan's words - something about using a stick instead of a knife, and who was 'she' supposed to be? - as he padded past on his way to the kitchens, and F'ur abruptly changed course.

Shirtless F'lix provided a small amount of distraction, but not a ton as he placed his chin on Emoyan's shoulder and draped an arm over the other from behind. A finger traced lightly up the man's chest. "I never needed a knife," he commented sleepily, with some amusement. "Or a stick, for that matter." Not sure what this was about, but given the topic of discussion, F'ur wasn't so positive leaving F'lix alone was a good idea. He smirked at his weyrmate from Emoyan's shoulder, before his gaze fell to the bowls. "Simper could swim in that. Probably would like it, too, if it got Lilitu to take a bite out of him." F'ur wrinkled his nose, deftly pocketing the knife he'd lifted from Emoyan's belt.

Not that Emoyan was likely to do something that stupid - or violent. Kindrith had always been the more aggressive of the pair. Still, best to remove temptations. His little mission complete, he planted one on Emoyan's jaw, just to make him twitch, then strode with his own peculiar swagger for the kitchens.

In a matter of moments the normal sounds of things being prepared for breakfast shifted to a more chaotic chorus of protests and laughing that was clearly good-natured, despite some of the not so nice curses flying around. What would the drudges ever do without him to liven up their droll days, after all? It was a public service!

[rii]

F'lix quickly returned to silence once the length of words had escaped past his lips. A light scowl marred his features and he kept his golden eyes evenly on Emoyan's face. The bluerider did not make a habit of speaking up more than what was necessary. Only after the whole matter did he realize he had been venting, however calmly, at the dragonless rider. The entire ordeal with the salamandyrs and flitters had bothered him, on some level; he just couldn't see much of the way the rest of the weyr did and more than half expected an unnecessary ordeal over the death of a fire lizard. He hailed from Benden and such behaviors were not tolerated in people, let alone creatures as insignificant as fire lizards and salamandyrs..

His narrowed gaze swept over Emoyan's face, golden eyes flashing with emotion. Use a stick instead. It's less lethal. He.. doubted this man before him realized the implications behind those words. F'lix wasn't cruel, but he wasn't about to delve into a conversation concerning ethics – what would be better, to give a creature a clean, painless death.. or beat it with a stick, leave it broken and in pain - not to mention the memories and fear it could develop from such a treatment. At least the bronze flitter had died fearless (needlessly, even foolishly, but at least it had not had it's spirit broken). F'lix lightly shook the thoughts from his head.

"Did she at least learn something from it?"

Out of habit, F'lix glanced down at the mentioned bowl as if considering Emoyan's words. When his gaze came back up, however, he almost blinked owlishly at the sight of F'ur draped over the harper. F'lix shifted those slitted eyes onto his weyrmate, clearly questioning the man – even if it looked little more than a deeper scowl due to the third party interruption. His head canted faintly to one side, privately wondering, but otherwise remaining quiet.

Simper was actually listening to the spoken words – unlike his puzzled rider – and he crooned at Fur's words. Oh yes! Much good, very good, best good. Terror's Savior say well. With a small agreeing chirp the blue salamandyr wormed down a bit before jumping off F'lix's shoulder and landing with a wet splat into the raw chunks of meat. He rolled around in the juices before pulling himself up against the lip of the bowl. Green cresenting eyes peering up at the two humans still present. Tell Terror not eat. Bite good. Lililove not eat.

Still at something a loss, F'lix shifted his weight to his other foot, none the wiser to the stolen weapon (but he was suspiciously wondering about F'ur's brief visit). Hn, with a slight frown, F'lix looked at the plate of food he held. No point in bringing it back to the weyr if F'ur wasn't there to eat it. The bluerider held back a soft sigh. "I have two pests, and a feline." His growing army to keep other parasites out of his weyr – or so he told himself.

Arching a brow, F'lix glanced off toward the door leading into the kitchens; where F'ur had gone. The rising commotion heard loud and clear. A look that was a cross between judgmental and curiosity settled on Emoyan. "A friend of yours?"

[dragon]

Emoyan's eyes slid over to the side when a shirtless body leaned on his shoulder. When he saw it was just F'ur, he smirked just a bit. And of course, comment required comment - he couldn't resist poking at the bluerider when the opportunity arose. "Of course you don't. All you have to do is stare at things, and they have heart attacks." He commented, blatantly exaggerating and possibly stroking the man's ego at the same time - or stabbing it, who knew which. The smooch was summarily ignored; Emoyan knew better than to react to things like that, especially when it came from F'ur. The weirdo.

He never noticed when F'ur swiped his knife. It would probably take him until he needed it again to notice, since it was sitting out in the open in a sheath on his hip. Not that being without one would particularly disturb Emoyan - the only thing he used it for was his dinner and some occasional wood carving when he had spare time. Which meant it spent most of its time rather dull. However, as F'ur left, swaggering off to the kitchens, Emoyan considered lobbing a meatroll at the back of the bluerider's head. He restrained himself, if only barely, but the thought still made him grin just a bit.

"Learn from it? Oh sure. Madyrs are always learning things. Unfortunately, not always what they should have learned from any given incident. All she learned was to be fast, and not get caught." Emoyan answered, before shrugging slightly. "Rascal tries to keep her under control, but occasionally that doesn't work. Especially if her twin is involved."

Two? That was interesting. That didn't happen very often. "How did you end up with two?" He asked, simply curious. Maybe it took a certain personality quirk to do that. It was a hunt for knowledge, really. What made some people end up with two, when most only had one ... whether they wanted them or not? "And I don't mean impression, that's obvious. From what I have been able to determine, salamandyrs are quite possessive, disliking flitters, much less other mandyrs." He clarified, quite interested. Maybe F"lix could provide something useful, maybe not. Either way, nothing for the loss in asking.

He glanced over his shoulder at the racket coming from the kitchens, again, at F'lix's question, though. "Friend? I wouldn't go that far." Emoyan shrugged, returning his gaze to F'lix. "Acquaintance, former comrade in arms, things of that nature." Applying the term 'friend' to F'ur was a good way to get hurt, in Emoyan's estimation. "He seems to like to pick on me, and I pick on him in return." A carefree shrug was added, as Emoyan tended to simply roll with the blows.

[rii]

So, F'lix thought idly to himself as Emoyan talked, the firelizard had learned from death of his companion, but the salamandyr had circled around in it's own arrogance. It was a general assumption that salamandyrs were smarter than fire lizards, but with intelligence came a price; in the way it created a high runner on which to proudly perch. The fire lizard seemed simple enough in ways to at least have the basic animalistic nature and sense to stay away from something dangerous.

Stuck, that was how F'lix currently felt. His head turned to the side, away in a sign of disinterest as Emoyan question him about his two salamandyrs. The original plan had been to whisk off back to the weyr with the food for F'ur. Now he just felt awkward standing there barefoot and shirtless with the plate and bowl filling his hands. Enduring small talk as well, F'lix lips twitched – torn between sneering and frowning.

In the end, F'lix noncommittally shrugged a shoulder at the matter and latched onto the subject that interested him a great deal more than the talk of pesky mindmates. He was northern and tried to claim flat out ignorance toward the subject of salamandyrs. Besides, discussing how Lilitu saw Simper as her own personal slave.. and how she was intent on collecting a harem of males.. not exactly information he was going to openly share.

There also was the matter that a large part of himself found it odd the man still wanted to talk to him, considering he had killed the man's bronze flitter. That was ground enough to hate an individual. So why was Emoyan still attempting to converse as if on a companionable level..

"Seems a.. friendly.. fellow." Again that eyebrow rose, questioning as he surveyed Emoyan's expression. Lightly he continued, "He lives in the weyr next to me. Should I be worried?"

[dragon]

No answer. Hnnn. Okay. Either F'lix had simply gotten up at the wrong hour, on the wrong side of the room, or he was just simply not a personable person. Standoffish was putting it mildly. Emoyan was tempted to just turn and walk off, leave the grumpy fellow to be grumpy by himself. The only thing that stopped him was a last minute comment.

Ah. Something non-grumpy. Maybe there was hope for the man yet. "Seems is a tricky thing." Emoyan commented. There was a whole lot that could go wrong on a surface impression. "But I wouldn't be worried, no. Just so long as you don't bug him." Emoyan answered, a little curious now himself.

Why was F'lix asking after F'ur like that? Surely on a basic level F'lix knew who F'ur was... all Benden and Fort riders knew of F'ur. He was rather ... infamous. What made it even more confusing was the rest of the encounter... it had seemed there for a bit like F'lix not only knew F'ur very well, but was borderline jealous on F'ur's actions. It seemed all quite contradictory, leading Emoyan to one conclusion; for some reason or other, F'lix was feeling him out. Which was rather very odd.

"What made you ask that?" Surely if something was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Riders weren't usually that paranoid. Familiarity bred contempt, after all. Not ... more paranoia. Not that F'lix had a single line about him that spoke of any level of paranoia when it came to F'ur.

Very ... odd ...