Island River is a small place, but a busy port: sailors come in and out with regularity enough to rate the Seacraft to hold an actual office building here, manned by an elderly Master with rank enough to keep the seacrafters themselves to a dull roar, and sense enough to have suggested the layout of all-but-brothel to the north, and a comfortably well-appointed inn to the south for more notable guests and ship passengers. Inn on the Docks is the nicer of the two, and hosting a sight that is slightly surprising: a redheaded weyrwoman from the weyr farther South sits at the bar, drinking fruity cocktails that she normally disparages, flirting shamelessly with the bartender. He's a pretty man, who has taken to the wildling style of kohled eyes: his laugh is deep for a man so slim, in reaction to a joke issued just a moment prior by Bailey.

Happenstance has brought Sammael to a place along the shores of an idyllic little seaside village, placing his path orthoganal to one of Southern Weyr's junior weyrwoman, though the man does not yet know. The former convict has taken to traveling on rest days, fleeing the confining presence of the weyr that holds no bars, and yet feels like a prison if not left from time to time. The brilliant light of a beautiful autumn day sparkles on too-blue waters before the heavy thud of footfalls press a man's rage into the dimmer confines of the Inn-On-The-Docks, aptly named. Surprise only momentarily falters the surety of steps of a man who's occupation matches that of the deep-bellied laugh man across from Bailey. Brows lift, though the confidence felt in each step that consumes the space of a path well chosen, and as he slides into a seat next to Bailey, manages to murmur in textured baritone, "Fruity drinks, eh?"

It is lovely outside, giving a certain curiosity to a goldrider spending her time indoors — even at such a charming place as Inn-On-The-Docks. For once, Bailey's hair isn't harshly braided back, and it curls about her shoulders, falling down her back. She turns slightly as Sammael picks his path to sit next to her, and her grey eyes glint briefly as she takes his measure before turning back to her little mini-umbrella'd drink without so much as a hello: she eats a piece of pineapple off of it, the action of which requires her to slide the entirety of the umbrella's stick into her mouth, her eyes turned towards the bartender… on duty. The kohl-eyed man makes an outraged noise deep in his throat and turns to Sammael with a friendly smile and a, "Wot can I get you, mate? Sorry, she's a mess." He thumb-jerks towards Bailey, having no clue that the party he's speaking to knows her quite a bit better, at least fundamentally, than the bartender does himself.

"Brandy," Sammael orders, watching Bailey suck the pineapple off the stick of her umbrella, the blue of his eyes hooded by pale lashes. The eyes roll in their sockets towards the bartender, a brow lifting when the man starts making noises. "Is she? She doesn't seem like such a mess," the textured baritone holds something that could be shaded in the word of amusement. "But then, you are the bartender," a private joke unfurled, "and I am merely a man. So I'll take that brandy." Settling in more comfortably, the former convict rests his forearms on the scarred bar, fingers lacing together and only the subtle tension of the muscles that cord up his arms hints that he might have thoughts outside of what's expressed. He dares to lean closer to the woman, one eye on the bartender on duty. Maybe he tests the other man. "What's your poison of choice, ma'am?"

Bailey is generally stoic to Sammael's attention, her eyes following the Inn's bartender with a type of deliberation that perhaps underlines the point that she is deliberately avoiding looking back at Sammael. The bartender serves the brandy with a laugh and a glance to Bailey without actually replying to the ex-con. He'll leave Sammael to his inquiry of Bailey, forced now because of a group of sailors carrousing in with cries of, "Ale!" and "Beer!" and "Whiskey, man!"; probably for the best, even though Bailey apparently has decided to run with this, arching a single eyebrow towards Sammael for his question. "Today? I believe he called this a pina colada. Would you like to try it?" She extends the glass, and the straw within, towards Sammael with just a hint of dangerous amusement sliding around her face.

The fortuitous timing of the sailors arrival has Sammael watching the bartender wander off before he settles the weight of his gaze on Bailey. His rage is arrested, cooled to a collection of hard features that yields little in the way of emotion. A dangerous line is being toed here, underscoring something else that brews beneath the surface of his attention. With deliberate slowness, the man reaches for the glass without ever taking his eyes off of Bailey's grey gaze. It is the way of two predators, this behavior; in this place, at least, they stand as equals. Slowly, he tips the glass to his lips, the straw coming to rest on the apple of his cheek as he takes a long drink. "Not too shabby," he comments, handing the glass back to her, eyes burning with blue fire. An act that prompts Sammael to reach for his glass and toss back the entire contents in one go. Mayhap the man needs the fire of brandy fortification for what comes next. "Bailey," her name is a low sound, pitted between two people on a murmured sussuration, "Do you," a pause, then a path diverted for what is asked next is not what was initially intended, "come here often?"

The sailors, unsurprisingly, maintain most of the attention of the bartender — it leaves Bailey and Sammael unmolested by outward interference, if one considers a flirtatious bartender a social molester, that is. Bailey is the mirror of Sammael for a moment, watching him as he takes that glass — take that drink — but there is full deliberation on the way her eyes go back towards roaming the backdrop behind the bar. It is subtle, a comfortable dismissal of aloof standing, no matter the peerage of the moment: a predator announcing her apex status, showing her proverbial back, unconcerned as to the harm the other could do in the absence of watchfulness. It's meant to sting, and yet there is a many-layered undercurrent. She trusts him — to be him. "Every now and again," is what she says, her eyes finally returning to Sammael's. Her own expression is ambiguous, her smile even more enigmatic, but broadening with a peculiar slowness to the lush curve of her lower lip. "And you, Sammael? Do you find yourself ordering whiskey here frequently?" She doesn't quite turn on her stool, but her attention is finally given entirely to the blonde-haired man.

In a life - and world - far removed from this one, Sammael would have tooth and claw of ones who bear two shapes in a world shaped by only one: mankind. That is not the here and now, and so the coiled tension in the man's muscle is potent and yet somehow easy. As if, when she attempts to sting him, this act falls into the natural lines of life. For Bailey to not bite in some fashion would be as foreign as Rukbat falling into the eastern ocean at the end of the day, rather than the western. Were he an ordinary man with an ordinary life, that sting might have penetrated the soft meats that most people carry within, but Sammael's life has taken a harsh turn at a young age and left the proverbial skin around the heated fire of emotion as touch as steel. What he does, though, is to keep a constant eye on the bar itself, and in that, he is predictable himself. "First time here," he comments, neutrally. Almost too neutrally, the red flag of warning rising to hint at secrets held within such three little words. Something in what she says - a small detail nuanced to such a degree that pinpointing what causes the reaction is impossible - briefly pulls the man's eyes from the bartender to the woman, eyes coming to rest first on the lush curve of her lower lip before fitting to the grey expanse of her eyes. Poised. "Felt it was time to see beyond the boundaries."

She can only follow her own nature, Bailey, it goes almost without needing to be said. Elegant fingers toy with that umbrella, before she swirls the rest of her drink with her straw. Her gaze has shifted past Sammael's shoulder, likely to where the sailors have congregated. "Hmmm. Well, it isn't bad, though the beer is slop. Don't tell Farlo I said that." Maybe that's why she's here drinking a very rummy beverage: quality (or lack thereof) in the rest of the things she typically imbibes. "Beyond the boundaries," she repeats, the words uttered in a thoughtful manner. "Do try not to get yourself killed," her eyes are as colorless as rain in how they shift back to Sammael, "Or locked in the brig, hmm?" Perhaps she needles the bruise to see if it still hurts.

(Or perhaps she's just a bitch. Anyone's guess, really.)

"Don't worry," the pull of a smile to the side of bearded lips carries a certain near-boyishness as amusement momentarily eclipses the internal rage that lies banked only skin deep, "I am not in the habit of telling anyone what is told to me." Sammael pushes the empty glass across the counter so that it's out of his way, his attention ostensibly wholly and completely on the woman that is both boss and Other. "Tell me you'd care," the tease carries the bladed edge of a razor, intent to draw blood, "and I will try not to." The expectation of what the woman might say is not shown in his features, the blue eyes dropping to find interest in what she's doing with the little umbrella. "I have learned my lesson." Quietly spoken is this; the words carrying an almost low contemplation that is at odds with the stone-shield of expression that cloaks much. A breath is drawn in, pulling his chest outward and filling the space around him with the boiling heat of intent. He half-turns, presenting the nondescript cream-shirted shoulder to the goldrider while his attention drifts. "See something you want, Bailey?" Her name carries a particular weight; a weight that slides through the chunks of darkness that flame the rage within.

"Except for Ulrik, of course," Bailey responds to his vow of confidentiality, her voice light, the comment airy. Her brow quirks again, less animated this time, as if she's heard something particular but can't quite put a finger on why it's interesting. "Mmmm," the noise rises from her throat, fondly amused in the same manner of Sammael's razor-edged words: her grey eyes turn to him with a familiarity to the set of her face that could be startling, the affectation of affection. There are many ways to rattle a man, and perhaps Bailey's just trying the latest one in her repertoire. She leans in, her lips toying over the straw of her drink. "Perhaps I do," she stage-whispers at his request for a statement of caring. She leans back, her expression breaking into a more realistic arrangement of sardony. "There's always a new lesson to learn." Her voice is heavily dry, though it goes unsaid if it is deliberately a crack about Sammael finding something new to get in trouble with, or a greater statement about herself. "Just another drink," is what she says about her current wants and desires, craning back to try to catch a glimpse of Farlo. Maybe he's gone to the latrines.

"Ulrik is like a brother to me, but if there was one worthy of vow-keeping that asked me for confidence, I am capable of not telling him." Sammael's tone hints that this idea would be a rarity, and gives no indication that there is someone would hold such vaunted position within the man's life. Nor that anyone would. "Silky liar," the rumble of his voice could almost be a purr but for the sour note of disbelief woven through it. All men have weaknesses and while this is but mere chink in a tough armor, it sits parallel to a possibly larger chink - though that that could be and which direction its held is unclear. "And what lesson," the press into her personal space only comes to the fringes, pushing that heat of charged electrons of two living creatures to a point that presence is felt but not so far into her personal arena as to be called invasion, "should I learn next?" The blue fire meets cool, chilling grey until she cranes back to seek out Farlo. "Silky liar," he reiterates, but with the fires of rage heating within, the man flashes what could only be called a reckless smile. Shared with a woman that's his boss, as he hauls himself across the bar to drop heavily onto booted feet on the other side. The metallic clang shatters the air between them where the metal disc hits the metal piping edging the inside of the bar. It is clear: Sammael is going to fetch Bailey a drink.

"Then don't presume to speak on secret-keeping if you are incapable of it," Bailey murmurs with just a hint of asperity showing as a low-toned malice, insufferably sweet: her voice trails out with a lingering, "Or unwilling." She eyes his hair, of all things, noting with just a lick of dismissiveness, "Well, I certainly am the silky one here." It's a calm statement of her excellence in hair smoothness, maybe. He makes inroads on her space, and both of her eyebrows go up at him: the barest warning, the thinnest veneer of a smile. "Hmm, I'm sure there are many lessons you could… benefit from, Sammael." A flicker does cross her face when he launches himself behind the bar, though, and a moment's consternation: "You don't have to do that." It's perhaps Farlo's feelings she's more concerned about, and not the effort put forth by Sammael himself.

The look Sammael gives Bailey is bare down to the flame-fueled soul: a warning himself to be careful in handling the rage that boils within, "If I say I will keep your confidence, I will." It is a leaden statement full of intent best left unstated for there is little about Sammael that is silken-tongued. He lets that settle before he bends and begins fiddling under the counter. It buys him precious moments to get the temper under control lest poor Farlo return and get himself beaten even for Sammael being the one in the wrong. Re-emerging, the shuttered look he wears carries a hint of humor. "I'm sure there are many lessons that I've yet to learn, but I've learned the big ones. Too many times to count." Leaning across the counter, he quirks a smile. "To what would be your pleasure? Another fruited concoction?" A chin-nod to her pina colada. That he doesn't have to do this goes without remark.

"But do you, Sammael? Truthfully." Bailey leans forwards, now: there's calculation to it, a shameless usage of the creamy swell of her cleavage that sway forwards with the motion, the angle of her sitting giving a far better view than just, say, sitting beside her. Her eyes track his, lips curving: it is a test, but which reaction is the correct path? Her voice, lower, more thickly amused: "Do you truthfully mean to say you would put my secrets in front of your… brotherly bond?" Her lip curls: "Or was it chain bond? Perhaps there's more to it than just chains. Do you love him, then?" There's a lazy calculation to her eyes, and a cruel deftness to her words: it goes without saying that she works angles methodically, pushing at things to see what answers they provoke. To the last, her voice throaty: "Surprise me." In terms of liquid satisfaction, that is to say.

There is not a man alive that would not let his eyes fall to the creamy swell of cleavage, the blue eyes heated for an entirely different reason than the rage that boils within. The caress of that stilled vision across the nature curves of her chest accompanies the subtlest tension that tightens and cords the muscles of his arms. "Bailey," the soft rumble of baritone drifts between them, thicker for the view she's provided, but at the same time there is dark, writhing betrayal that cries at the edges of the razor-blade laden voice that brings his eyes to her face. The dead eyes that are the true windows of the soul find hers, and holds her gaze without blinking. "If I say I will, then I will. I am not a silky throated liar." The thick twine of betrayal is wound through this moment, though the originating point is hard to define except that it is not attached to the question she poses to him. For it is the mere idea of 'loving' Ulrik that brings a rough laugh out of Sammael. "I do not like dick, if that is what you are asking." It breaks the spell and dispels the miasma of pain. "I have been studying." A simple statement that has the glossy ring of truth as fragile as a snowflake. Presumably, he has been studying mixed drinks for he gets to work making something entirely elaborate.

"You'd know little on how silky my throat is," Bailey returns, her lips twisting into another smile - this one perhaps including a flash of victory among the outrageous innuendo. She's never refrained from throwing herself wholly in this seemingly-eternal battle between them, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt; this is just a new tactic, or one used before and re-imagined. The moment is broken when he laughs roughly; Bailey settles back, adjusting her shirt to a more modest setting, lifting her nearly-gone drink to her lips. She waits an unimaginable amount of time, watching him as he starts mixing, considering the ring of truth in his admission of studying. Only then, once she is sure he's well engaged in his mixolody, does she needle him yet again. "Pity," she states around the glass; "Dick is one of the greater pleasures of life, if you can find someone who knows at all what they're doing with it. But that Ulrik of yours looks as if he'd fuck like he's hunting a wild animal — all power, no finesse."

Sammael only gives the woman a glance or two while he’s mixing brightly colored juices with the deeper tones of schnapps and the crystalline clarity of vodka. A subtle shift to his expression when she is no longer using her body to distract the eyes, but the moment is fleeting as the man gives the tumbler a good shake, the ice inside clattering. This Inn has purchased a day’s worth of ice, and while this would normally be a commodity available at the highest of costs, Sammael has purloined the entire thing for Bailey. “Heh heh heh,” the man’s laugh once again emerges, rusty from disuse as the barbs she tries to levy on him falling to the tough hide of well-barbed flesh. “Isn’t Ulrik more your friend’s than he is mine?” He pauses to look at her from the shelf of pale brows. “I imagine,” dry is the tone that escapes, amusement filtered through the texture of his baritone, “that anyone worth their salt knows what to do with it.” With flourish, he pours the drink and pushes it towards her. “Sex on the beach.” A challenge.

Bailey will have to go get Farlo ice after this, won't she. Those grey eyes assess the drink he's producing - and the usage of so much ice, as if calculating exactly how much this is going to cost if she doesn't want to take the laborous trip down to the Hold. For all of it, she doesn't seem to be too concerned with Sammael's lack of reaction to her pointed remarks: if she truthfully wanted to rile him, she wouldn't bother with these petty discussions… but they make a diverting pasttime. The look she shoots him for his commentary on what-to-do-with-certain-equipment is probably stingingly dubious; no doubt she is thinking on his time spent in the mines, and the time required for a skill to… rust. But she accepts the drink with an airy inclination of her chin, lifting it up to sniff delicately at the concoction's wafting scent.

Bailey said to surprise her and so this is Sammael surprising her. His eyes drift from the drink to the woman as if waiting on her reaction, but thinks better of it. With another powerful lift of his body with the flex of arms, the ex-convict is across the counter with a heavy flourish, landing on his feet a few inches away from the stool. Adjusting the seat, he falls back onto it and affects a look of innocence. For the unspoken challenge, his expression darkens to sardonic before running his hands through the short-cropped straw-colored hair. It is, notably, fluffy and clean and thus a much brighter shade of blond now that the man keeps himself clean. He can keep silent and so silent he stays, though he is once more close enough to linger at the edge of her space. Where presence can almost be felt.

She makes him wait. It isn't as though Bailey's frequently seen making things in the kitchens, but it has been known to happen, and she mixes drinks about the same rate as any standard backup to the Kitten would: she knows that thrill of completion when someone's tried the finish product. So, because she's a bitch, she makes him wait. The goldrider dawdles, draining the very last of her first drink and settling it to a side, glancing over to the knot of sailors still explaining a very convoluted fishing story to Farlo. Her eyes slowly slide back to the pressing presence, skirting mildly over Sammael's features, then back to the drink before her: it's been long enough for the glass itself to start sweating in the Southern heat. She lifts it to her lips, narrow-eyed, and tests it: her expression goes mildly surprised, and she takes a longer sip without comment.

Here is exposed a rare gem: the lightest touch of pleasure to the man’s blue eyes whose fires dim just long enough to show this simple pleasure. It takes turns off of the visible age of his features to render him youthful in a way the former convict could never have been described as. “I tweaked the recipe a little.” This comment is almost too nonchalantly stated, and it comes with the way he turns his face away from Bailey, giving the sailors intent study. Not an entirely friendly study, neither. The wait has been felt up to this point in the way his body was previously shifting with a hum of activity more akin to the buzz of pollinators, and so when she finally exhibits her elements of surprise, Sammael leans back in his chair, satisfaction curving his lips into a smile.

For her credit, Bailey sips slow and drinks unhurried, enjoying the drink — and perhaps enjoying the quiet. Farlo is starting to cast desperate glances back towards the bar, but Bailey for one will not be anxious to get the kohl-eyed bartender back. It's nicer — for the moment. Her mute continuation of the drink's enjoyment may be the closest she's ever come in a momentary truce for this… whatever it is that they keep retracing the steps of. This personal striving, this private war fought with words aglitter and the sweetly cruel bite of fingernails into skin. "Well," she states, after a moment. "I do believe I am going for some air." The goldrider steps with just a bit of a sway, up to her feet, counting out a generous amount of markings for her drinks — likely including the one made by Sammael himself. (And that ice. Oy vey the ice.)

Silence is a gift and not one that Sammael squanders either. For the silence allows the man to slip into his own thoughts and provide a slip of guards that softens the features usually held to a harsh hardness. Running the nail of his thumb between the gathering of brows in an itch that needs to be scratched, the former convict is pulled from his thoughts when Bailey sways. He hesitates, something undefinable coming to play in the burning fire of blue eyes. Concern? Defiance? Fear? The exact emotion is hard to place, but the tingling of a sudden alertness limns Sammael’s body and has him rising from his seat. “You need help home.” It is not posed as a question, though Bailey is not a force to tangle with, either, should she desire no help.

There's a peculiar expression for Sammael, a nose-scrunched eyebrow twitch: it manages to look both distasteful and curious all at the same time. "I'm not going home," she states, "Not yet." Slip-sliding past his - inquiry? assertion? - the young woman flickers her fingers in a wriggled wave to the bartender yet still hopelessly entrenched by seacrafters, and slips outside to the sunlight, the door highlighting the ruddy brilliance of her hair before she closes it behind her. (The place should feel a sigh of relief with her now departed.)

Sammael’s move is arrested, the man poised on a decision that could unravel that which he has come to expect as firmament, but that action is left to be wondered just what it may have been for he finds himself staring after a woman that bought his drink. Half-turning away, the profile given to the sharp sunlight, the young man glances over at the bartender, but then he is pushing away, but not towards the exit. Nay, he slips towards the darkness of the furthers and most private of booths. And this would be the point in which the former convict sits and waits for whomever he came to meet in this most auspicious Inn-on-the-Docks. Trouble still furrows his brow, but it is for another day.