==== December 14th, 2013
==== Kyara, N'cal
==== N'cal attempts to lure Kyara to Arroyo. Kyara doesn't find the idea all that tempting.

Oasis Inn
Tucked into a small fold of foothills along the road leading from the Weyr to the Central Pass, this inn truly is just what its name implies - an oasis for travelers coming from either direction. Stabling and board are available - though the boarding comes at a price, since there isn’t much of it. The most well known part of the Inn is the tavern - a rustic bar built of solid skybroom and furnished in dark, oiled wood, leather, metal, and glass. Though well used and sometimes abused, the furniture is also well cared for and maintained, and the food and drink draw many a rider in alongside the travelers. The décor is eclectic, consisting in hangings, rugs, carvings, and other things from every region of Pern, bestowed upon the owner in barter for lodging. The atmosphere isn’t one of a dive; it’s cozier and cleaner than that, though there is just a touch of harmless “shady” to be found - particularly in the evenings.

It’s a bit after sunset, the sky glowing subtly orange with Rukbat’s rays upon high clouds and the lower haze of still-settling sand. The Oasis Inn has its doors and windows flung wide to allow the breeze of the mountain pass through the building, cooling it to pleasant mildness. Kyara doesn’t come here much (having only recently discovered it and having so little time since), but the solitude and distance from the Weyr are welcome for the moment. Sienna is out of the infirmary, K’ane seems in full working order again, and the greenrider’s own aches and bruises are largely ignorable now. Her research is ongoing, and the prisoners are almost at a point where she’ll be allowed in to speak with them alone…but for this dinner hour, she just wants some distance from all that. For a candlemark or two. Then she’ll get back to it.

In contrast, N’cal has made the Oasis Inn one of his favorite haunts since coming to Igen. The familiarity of ground zero has its draw - as do the drinks and food. He’s come for his own meal this evening, though he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry…particularly when he spots the copper-haired greenrider sitting alone at a table well across the room. He ponders a moment, trying to sort along the lists he and Trek have gone through of possible recruits for their chromatic-dominated wing. There aren’t that many female greenriders at Igen. He’s still guessing as he saunters forward a little more, and then he notices the discordant bruise sprawled across the woman’s cheek and has his answer. Those involved in the incident at the oasis aren’t a secret, and since he’s met Sienna and knows this isn’t her, there’s only one other possibility. He paces across to her table easily, hands clasped at his back. “Lovely evening for a change of pace,” he comments nonchalantly, a smile giving a gentle curve to thin lips. “Which is only an assumption on my part, given that I haven’t seen you here before. I’m N’cal. Blue Iolarth’s, from Arroyo.”

Kyara gives a slight start at the voice that suddenly sounds beside her, though she looks up and smiles back all the same. “You assume correctly,” she returns. “I don’t come here much, it’s true. Kyara, green Liareth’s. Whirlwind.” She’s not so much for being alone at the moment that she’ll refuse a chance to get to know someone new and gestures to the chair across from her. “You’re welcome to join me, if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Nor would I,” the tall bluerider says, giving Kyara a wink followed by a well-used (though genuine) grin as he sits down and summons the bartender their way. “Well met, Kyara. I must say, I’ve been hoping to meet you at some point. You’ve quite a reputation preceding you.” From the newly-arrived bartender, N’cal orders a glass of Benden red and then glances at his new dinner partner. “And for you? If you’ll allow me, that is?”

The wink and grin sent her way have Kyara raising an eyebrow, a lopsided smile drawing her lips sideways as she considers the bluerider. He’s easy enough on the eyes - she’ll give him that. Especially when he grins. And he’s adept with his words. She could have a bit of fun here…but simply doesn’t feel up to trying much, at the moment. She settles for her typical slight blush and the returned smile, accepting his offer of a drink with gratitude. “There’s a chilled fruit wine here I would love right about now; thank you,” she answers. Then she leans back, draping an arm over the back of her chair as she gazes at N’cal. “My reputation, hmm? That could be taken a few different ways, you know.”

With a chuckle, N’cal stretches his legs beneath the table, mirroring her near-indolence. “By and large a good one, I assure you,” he counters. “Not without some colorful embellishments by some, strictly based on you being what you are. Those said by the same who have their own ideas about blueriders, male and female.” He says this matter-of-factly, though the flick of his hands upward and the droll expression on his face shows just how weary he is of all that. “None of that interests me, of course. It’s who you are that comprises the part of that reputation I’m most keen on coming to know.” Drinks are quickly forthcoming, though N’cal doesn’t sip yet. He simply slants another smile at the greenrider across from him, blue-green eyes dancing lightly.

Kyara rests her other elbow on the table, setting her chin atop curled knuckles as she just surveys N’cal intently. His mention of embellishments hardens her gaze a little, though the way he finishes that statement earns the slightest of smirks as she decides he isn’t testing her sensitivity to that particular issue. The smirk broadens even as her gaze shows no signs of softening. Curious, this one. “Oh, really? And just who have you heard I am, to make you so incredibly keen on getting to know me?” Where she might normally be rather intrigued by all this…the greenrider finds herself unaccountably irritated. “You presume a lot, wingsecond.” Ah, yes - she did notice his knot. Yet in this instance, she didn’t feel he’d be much for acknowledging the salute. “Are you always so forward in your want to get to know someone? I sense an ulterior motive, I think.” She sips at her wine, her eyes never leaving his.

The laughter around N’cal’s eyes gradually deepens as he lets himself get scrutinized both visually and verbally. He finally does sip his own drink - the only time he lets his gaze leave hers - before folding his hands across his torso. “Ah. Forgive me,” he says, the hint of a chuckle underlying his Fortian baritone. “You wouldn’t be entirely wrong. I’d just as soon get the ulterior motive out of the way, as I do wish to get acquainted regardless. I’d have started much more subtly otherwise.” Then he smiles again. “At least I can judge for myself that you are…an intuitive woman. I hope you won’t be too put out by my manners.”

Kyara is also a readily forgiving woman, as evidenced by the softening of her expression and the sigh that accompanies a shake of her head. That, and Liareth seems to have decided she likes N’cal’s lifemate quite well, which brings on some gentle mental persuasion toward forgiveness of its own. “I’ll let it slide,” she concedes, pulling more upright in her seat and folding her arms on the table. “Sorry. It’s my mindset lately. Recent events have…made me question more, I think. Though I’m not going to let you get away with stalling an explanation of that ulterior motive.” This said with a slow jab of her finger in his direction and another smirk. “Let me guess,” she remarks before another sip. “A recruiting attempt? I’ve seen the influx of riders into Arroyo.” She noticed that long before the recent excitement. “A chromatic-led wing. Bit of a tempting prospect.” Who’s baiting whom, here?

“Not much escapes you, I see,” N’cal comments, hoisting his glass slightly in her direction and studying her face again after her last comment. He senses that she is baiting him a bit…though perhaps only by rising to what they’ve both cast out to each other will they learn what they’re each about in this matter. “And does it tempt you?” he questions, an eyebrow quirking upward slightly.

Kyara’s eyebrow mirrors his. “Possibly,” she replies. “I’m not without ambition, especially after having had a taste of leadership before. But I’d be a fool to think I’d be able to handle something like that as I am now, and blind to believe that going after rank - or a position in another wing to prove a point - would be helpful in any way right now. Power shifts within the Weyr enough between flights. In the face of a Pass, the wings need to stabilize, not slip into upheaval.” If it wasn’t clear where her priorities were before…they ought to be now. Perhaps not so obvious? The jab she’s directing at N’cal - the product of her suspicion over the circumstances surrounding Arroyo’s overhaul.

That jab is not so subtle as Kyara might think; N’cal is fully aware of it, shifting in his seat but not flinching a whit. The fact is: he’s rather impressed with this greenrider’s attention to the situation. “What is happening in our wing is simply another one of those shifts in power you speak of, nothing more,” he says evenly. “Ambition isn’t what is driving the change. Innovation to prove the effectiveness of chromatic riders, particularly female riders, is.”

The Whirlie greenrider isn’t buying it so easily…though her expression becomes troubled as N’cal makes his last point. “Ambition in some form, in some amount, always accompanies a shift in power,” Kyara asserts quietly, giving a tiny headshake as she studies her glass. “N’cal…I don’t disagree that colorism is a problem here, and that it’s something our Weyrleader is guilty of. Of course I see it. And I certainly don’t think it’s healthy for Igen. Faranth, I agree with the aim you just mentioned. I just…am not sure I’m at ease with how you, Trek, and the other riders that’ve joined Arroyo have handled implementing changes toward altering that viewpoint.”

There’s a slight, curious narrowing of N’cal eyes at that…and a brief spark of suspicion that this woman, somehow, might have learned something. “And just how do you think we’ve been going about implementing those changes?”

Kyara, while suspicious, isn’t sure what Trek - someone she doesn’t know well at all - could have done to cause such an upheaval in the chromatic-heavy wing. N’cal’s response to her bait (“you, Trek, and the other riders”) certainly confirms his added influence, in her mind…but she still can’t come up with what they might have done. She steeples her fingers, amber gaze steady upon the bluerider. “Our Weyrleader is a stubborn man.” Stating the obvious here. “Not easily swayed in his opinions, and certainly not in the way he believes Igen will best function. As a rider in his wing, I’m pretty sure I have a better grasp of this than you. Maybe there’s an extent to which I’m excited to see what’s happening with Arroyo. But even so, for W’rin to allow a change in leadership like that in one of the wings, going against a belief I know he has… Something incredible had to have happened for him to suddenly let it happen. Volatile as he may be, he’s also predictable in that, and this was unexpected. So it unsettles me. I don’t know what you did, but it was drastic, so you’ll forgive my wariness.”

The corners of N’cal’s eyes crinkle with inward laughter. “You were a Harper in a past life, weren’t you?” he says - less a question and more a statement as he makes the deduction. But the cautionary mask that his own past life allowed him to perfect has been fully donned, and he laces his fingers together on the tabletop, leaning a bit in Kyara’s direction as his words wax earnest. “Change seldom comes easily, as I’m sure you know. Believe what you will of Trek and me, Kyara of Liareth, but know this: our aim is not to tear down the wing structure of Igen or to undermine the determined, dutiful man who is our Weyrleader, but to bolster it, and to increase his confidence in the riders he leads. Regardless of the circumstances of our start, Arroyo will flourish, and Igen will be seen as formidable because of these changes.” He does believe every word he’s just said…but he hasn’t exactly confirmed the gravity of what Kyara suspects was done.

And that isn’t lost on the greenrider, who smirks at N’cal’s deduction and spreads her hands before her in a “caught” sort of gesture. “I was,” she confirms before going silent to listen to the rest of what he has to say. The mask does indeed elude her, apart from a nagging at the back of her mind that she just ignores as part of the general unrest she’s been feeling lately, and she finally sighs. “I believe you,” she says, “but I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you just now.” Just because the tension is getting to be a bit much, she adds, “Which might be further than you’d think, actually.”

“I’m sure,” N’cal answers with a chuckle, tilting another bit of a toast her way. “I was expecting you to say something like that. But at least I seem to have convinced you of our sincerity.” After another long moment, he gives a sigh of his own. “Are you sure you won’t consider a spot on Arroyo? You may be inexperienced yet, but you and Liareth-”

“Are very happy on Whirlwind, thank you.” Kyara’s tone brooks no argument now. However, it takes an interesting turn after a beat or two. “Has it occurred to you that the reason I want to stay on Whirlwind isn’t so different from why you and Trek want to overhaul Arroyo?”

Now that does make N’cal pause. “How so?” he inquires, blinking a bit. “You’d willingly put up with W’rin’s colorist prejudices while sitting at the bottom of the pole in Whirlwind?”

“Yes.” Kyara nearly scowls at his bluntness, but resists, keeping her tone even and factual. “And I do, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t accept those prejudices, but I also see that W’rin more often sees able riders than he sees men, women, chromatic, metallic. He sees the intelligence of his riders, the abilities of the dragons and their lifemates, and it’s long-established tradition that hobbles him into ineffectual viewpoints. That’s what I’ve concluded. Maybe that’ll change; I don’t know. But I want to stay…to be - possibly - a constant reminder that’s right in front of his face. I am his young, inexperienced, Oldtimer, greenriding female wingrider. And I am right there.” She’s certainly hoping that his trusting her with this investigation is some sort of proof that her view is paying off. “You want to change perspectives. So do I.”

N’cal fingers his chin, his expression waxing somewhat amazed as he listens to the greenrider. “Interesting,” he murmurs, a smirk encroaching on the right corner of his mouth. “It seems a rather…passive route to travel, but to each their own. I do see your point. And I will respect it, and leave you to it. However,” he adds quickly, smiling, “know that you will be readily welcomed into Arroyo, should you change your mind.”

"Drummer and conductor both keep the beat, but the former is felt while the latter is seen." It's an old saying, but it leaps quickly to the former Harper's mind in this instance. "I've always preferred the subtler approach to instigating a change." Nevermind that she can be forceful when pressed…but she'll leave that out for now. Kyara gives a nod, relaxing a fraction and taking a long sip of her wine - nearly inducing a brain-freeze in the process, but not quite. “I appreciate that,” she says, gracefully evading the discomfort as she rises. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Liareth tells me I’m needed back at the Weyr. More to do with our oasis incident, it seems. Clear skies, wingsecond N’cal. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” With that, the greenrider salutes and is striding quickly away, the urgency of the summons genuine.

"So have I," N'cal chuckles after her little proverb and addendum. “So have I. Clear skies, greenrider Kyara.” Abruptly left alone at the table, N’cal’s veneer of calm drops away, and he sighs, a bit of inner turmoil incited by the encounter with the young woman evident in the furrow of his brow. Perhaps she’s made him think a little. If nothing else, she unwittingly brought a bit of his initial fear and doubt back to the surface. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that not everything about this is going to go smoothly. However, he quickly and gently sets all that aside once more. The ball is still rolling, the candle still burning. Yet there is still a moment to just let that fact simply be…over a simple glass of wine at a quiet inn tucked into a mountain pass a few leagues from the Weyr.

And so he lets it be.