Lounging, brooding...waiting

N'set lounged with all the careless elegance he did so many things, leaning back on his elbows, eyes on the shining length of Tsaveth, ensuring he hadn't missed anything even as he looked utterly relaxed.

The Weyrleader was meeting with all those Easterners. 'Old guard' he'd heard them call themselves, as though they were anything but beggars fleeing some tragedy they'd brought upon themselves. He'd never have let them in - some were all right, sure, but what was the precedent? Had any of them thrown themselves down to stop the White Lightning exile?

So why should they stretch their already thin resources to take in idiots who couldn't have cared any less about them? N'set scowled, tilted his head back toward the sun and closed his eyes.

So. The Easterners were here. But that didn't mean they had to stay.

Casriel caught sight of the young and gleaming cobalt as she came around the corner to the bathing pools. This was the place where she could wash her frustrations away as well as the dust of the day. Tsaveth, Casriel knew him instantly. She knew every shade of every dragon sired by her Maraxith. Tsaveth had hatched first? Perhaps, yet maybe it could have been Fillioth. It mattered little to Casriel; this was a cobalt of her own cobalt's bloodline. It coated the Wingleader with pride and pleasure; a smile like the breath of spring rose to her pink links.

"Good day, N'set!" Casriel hailed Tsaveth's rider with warmth in her voice. He was easy on the eyes, dark hair and darker eyes. Casriel appraised him smoothly.

'Very nice.' she mussed to herself.

"Tsaveth is a handsome one, I must say. One of the finest cobalts from Maraxith's breeding of Parazath." she purred.

"You won't find me arguing, Wingleader," N'set replied, a hint of a smile as he tilted his head back up and opened his eyes to focus on the blond woman. "Nor him."

Then, as it so often did, his expression darkened again despite the beautiful woman in front of him. "Plenty of other things we could argue about, Tsaveth and I, but not Maraxith's quality or his own."

He sat up, leveraging off his elbows, but didn't bother to reach for the shirt behind him. Gesturing for her to sit and join him, if she chose, he briefly glared in the direction of the mess hall, where those Easterners were meeting with the Weyrleader, and likely spitting in the face of the undeserved hospitality they'd received.

"What are you talking about, N'set?" Cosenne asked, her voice light and flippant as usual. "You're nearly always arguing. Greetings, Wingleader. Might I join you two and we'll make this a convocation of cobalts?"

With hair as dark as as the wingleader's was fair, Cosenne had always thought that she and Casriel appeared to be polar opposites. Interesting, then, that they'd both Impressed cobalt. N'set, of course, was closer to Cosenne's heart than anyone save Fillioth, but Casriel was...

Risky. And Cosenne had always adored risk.

Casriel nodded and allowed herself the pleasure of ease and joined him. She sat comfortably, close but not too close. Casriel did not make a habit of cozying up to people in public outside of what happened in a mating flight. Too often, though she longed to indulge herself, she thought it might look like favoritism to others. A female Wingleader had to accord herself well or risk being made a mockery of. She did smile at him; he was worth looking at. Possibly more.

"I heard that Sidran was interviewing our new arrivals." Casriel remarked dryly. J'ril was likely grinding his teeth to dust in frustration. Casriel smile like a feline with a chick; it could have only had been sweeter if Cas herself was Weyrleader. It killed him to know that Maraxith had sired his dear brown Treyath.

The Cosenne arrived and Casriel caught her breath. "By all means, Cosenne. Please do."

"Convocation?" N'set asked, something in him (as always) easing at the sight of one of his oldest friends, "is that what a group of cobalts would be? Not a brood?" Almost unheard of, for N'set to make fun of himself in mixed company. But this was hardly mixed - Casriel, though he of course didn't know her nearly as well as he did Cosenne, rode Maraxith, one of the first two cobalts, sire of his own, and she was not one to suffer fools who maligned the new colors.

That, and he was more than rather out of sorts about the Easterners arrival, and was mostly thinking about Sidran chasing J'ril out of the canyon, where he would be well-positioned to punch the brownrider square his smug face before letting them be kicked out.

A man could dream.

"A Brood of Cobalts sounds lovely as well. Although Fillioth is far more prone to action than brooding. We shall have to think of a better collective noun," Cosenne had grown up surrounded by Harpers at Cove Hold. She'd been playing word games for as long as she could speak. "Perhaps... a 'brawl'? Don't you think, N'set?" she asked her old lover archly. Then she threw him a wink, and a blown kiss.

And then angled her body for Casriel's benefit as she began to strip off her leathers prior to entering the water.

"I'd sign off on that. A brawl of cobalts it is." N'set watched her motions, but with a practiced air that very few could pull off, in the face of Cosenne's curves. "Fitting," he added, a hint of a tease, even as his attention shifted back to the canyon wall.

"N'set likes to sucker punch loudmouthed so-called 'old-guard' riders, you see, Wingleader," Cosenne added for Casriel's benefit as she slid into the water up to her waist. She let out a contented sigh as the welcome heat started to seep through the cold that high-altitude flying always seemed to leave behind. "Of course, in his defense, J'ril was being an ass. I imagine they didn't have any choice, but I confess I rather liked it when they weren't here," she added as she tilted her head back to wet her hair.

Up until this point, Casriel had sat beside the bathing pool. A slim dress of smoky grey clothed her closely and shimmered lightly as she stood. She slipped the strapped over her shoulders and allowed the cloth to fall. She bent to pick it up and fold it, setting it in a high, dry place. Then eased herself, one smooth leg and then another, into the water. Reaching back, Casriel pulled the brand of her high ponytail and her light gold hair fell around her shoulders in loose curls.

"Oh, some of them aren't that bad. T'kal, for example, is generous and...shall we say eager to please? Now I welcome you to give J'ril a once over and Sh'lor if he intervenes in the lesson at hand. My spoiled little brother never knows when to shut up. He should damn well be grateful; if not for Maraxith he would not have his dear Treyath." Casriel said, too pleased by half to rub salt in that wound. She couldn't wait to slap J'ril in the face with that fact again.

"T'kal's a harper, though. Everyone likes a harper," Cosenne said, tilting her head back to let her hair fan out in the water behind her. "But I'm certain N'set appreciates your permission, Wingleader," she added.

Then she let out a long sigh. "This really is beautiful country out here," she said.

Casriel smiled but said nothing of permission or otherwise. Her rank fell over her Wing and nothing more, at present. Time would heal that nagging wound, she would make sure of it.

"True. Everyone adores a Harper and the Weyr will need music to boost its moral. Neither one of you was slated to my wing. How unfortunate though I suppose it does give me leave to enjoy such leisure as this. How are you settling in?"

"I love it here," Cosenne said simply, and sincerity rang through her words. "Something about the savagery of this country speaks to me. It resonates within my wild soul." She gave N'set a smile that hinted at a private reference, and then sat up again. She pushed her glossy, wet black hair back against her skull, which made her cheekbones stand out and her large violet eyes look all the more stark.

"Fillioth loves it too. We flew a sweep just now, about two hours south and back, just following the river. You can't believe the colors and the stark, almost alien looking landscape through there. It's beautiful and haunting and very... Real. Hard. Something. I don't really know the word for it, but it suits my cobalt, and it suits me. I don't know that all of our new arrivals feel the same, but I suppose that's their loss, hmm?"

A quick sneer crossed N'set's face (not for the cobaltriders in front of him, but the riders tucked away with Sidran currently) - it was no secret he thought the latest Eastern riders had no right to anything here, canyon, scenery, resources, caves. No right to anything but a firm helping hand right back out again.

"They have more than a little to be grateful for all in," he said, still leaning comfortably back, able to relax in this company, at least. "And I don't mind being sure they know it." The sucker punch comment he felt no need to address - everyone knew to see him coming, as he was much more a brawler than a sneaky slider. And he minded that not at all, as well.

Having shoved past the others still waiting to speak with the cobaltrider currently claiming the title of Weyrleader, J'ril left the mess hall with the intent of getting to Treyath and finding someplace else to be.  They could both use a nice long flight away-- him to clear his head, and his brown to relieve the stress of the past few days.

Not that Treyath would admit it-- his dragon was mostly enjoying the company of his former classmates, those they hadn't seen since the mutants had been sent here to this sharding canyon.  Of course, J'ril would prefer he have nothing to do with them, but he wasn't going to deny Treyath something that made him happy, not after how much they'd recently lost.

That didn't mean he wouldn't tempt his brown with the thought of a free afternoon flight, however, to get him away.  Hopefully Treyath wouldn't come up with the idea of  inviting one of the others along in the meantime...

Pushing that thought aside, J'ril's steps slowed as he took a moment to get his bearings, reorient himself within the walls of his new home.  His gaze scanned the space around him, stopping when he spotted the trio of cobaltriders nearby.

Had they been any others, he likely wouldn't have reacted as strongly.  But these were his sister and his former classmates, and there was no keeping the sneer off his face, the contempt and disgust from his narrowed hazel eyes.  All that he hadn't been able to show the Weyrleader a few moments before.

But he wasn't going to grace them with any words, not these three.  They didn't deserve any of his time or consideration, such as it was.  He had better things to do than waste it trading insults with them.

"Not even a thank you for taking you in?" N'set said, his drawl pitched to carry - the cobaltrider never did passive aggressive, as aggressive aggressive remained so much more satisfying. "I suppose there's nothing in the world that can humble someone so wrong-headed as the one who can't admit the thing he hates is all that saved his sorry life."

There was no mocking grin to accompany the words - in this, as most things, N'set was intently and intensely serious.

"More than that, N'set." Casriel's voice carried and her eyes flamed as her voice sent icy cold. "Hating all that gave him his life."

Casriel's beryl colored eyes fell on J'rils, knowing he would know of what she spoke.

' My cobalt sired your brown and without Maraxith, you would have never been a dragonrider. How grateful you should be that I even allowed you to Stand for any clutch my dragon sired.' she thought with acid. Her mouth was a tight, straight line and heedless of her nakedness, she sat up rod straight to stare at the brown rider.

"Now think, J'ril. Think of how a Wingrider is reprimanded when he disrespects a Wingleader. Think of that, before you sling barbs at me. Sidran won't always be Weyrleader, so you have a care about how you talk to cobalt riders. You may be staring down your future Weyrleader at any point that you seek to quarrel with a cobalt." Casriel said.

"If could go badly for you, having nothing but hold bound Watch Duty or placed on a low altitude wing as if you were no better than a child heavy greenrider." she added.

J'ril's lip curled further at N'set's words.  Taking him in?  Saving his life?  As if it had been their doing.  As if they'd pulled some heroic stunt that kept himself and Treyath out of danger.  Just who did they think they were?

He stopped walking and opened his mouth to refute the cobaltrider's words, but Casriel beat him to the punch.

The brownrider's shoulders stiffened; his eyes narrowed further.  His fists clenched tightly at his sides, the short nails digging furrows into his palms.

Abuse.  Casriel would abuse her power simply for the sake of keeping him quiet.  The same way she would have been abusing her power had she actually barred him from Standing for her cobalt's clutch.  Now, she was threatening him with the potential of pulling him from a useful position in a wing, simply to make sure he said nothing in response to the insults being hurled at his head when he'd been ready to walk past without saying a word?

"I have slung nothing," he spat.  "But you would keep an able-bodied dragon and rider out of the wings when every one is needed, against Thread."  It was unfortunate there were no other witnesses to her words.  He would get no help from N'set or Cosenne, were he to report them.  "Let the rest of the Weyr be thankful to you when you take me off duty."

J'ril well knew many of them would prefer he met a terrible fate in Threadfall.  The feeling was mutual for some, of course, but no one could deny how desperately they needed every dragonpair to fight their airborne adversary.  Not even him.