Sunset and the sand and stone outside continues to bake and radiate heat despite the lowering sun and lengthening shadows. Welcome to the desert in summer! And the Guardhouse is no exception; it’s on the stuffier side within, thanks to minimal airflow. No doubt the brig doesn’t fair any better, but those held in those cells have little reason to bitch and moan about being hot! A few are the usual regulars that are routinely dragged in by Igen’s Guard and a few Parhelion riders while on patrol. There is one miserable soul, however, who sits on his own in the farthest cell of the brig. With his knees drawn up and his head resting on them, it’s difficult to make out features beyond the fact that he’s young. Too young, perhaps? At the entrance desk, almost a world away to those currently locked up, Divale stands by the polished edge, one hand idly resting on the top of a fresh report. Tap, tap, tap. Is the Parhelion Wingsecond waiting? Or is she merely too uncomfortable to actually sit?

Some may think the extreme heat would lead to lethargy in the case of most of the current 'residents' of Igen's brig and well, that'd be true for most, but not for ol' Pirlan. In addition to his normal past time of smelling like he fell into an entire cask of the cheapest wine, the weyr drunkard has smelled fresh meat and practically cackles at glee as he awakes to find the new kid Divale's dragged in. The man lets out a rather piercing whistle through the missing front tooth towards the kid. "Whatccha she got you for?" He doesn't even bother waiting for any answer or even making a hypothesis of crime before jumping straight to, "Bet your gonna go to the mines for sure!!!" And cue maniacal cackling now.

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! There is no hue and cry to the entrance of a familiar silhouette passing the threshold between the outlaw bazaar and the slightly more orderly crime of the guardhouse itself. Keen-eyed focus, crisp suit, and a 5 o'clock shadow bears witness to the presence of Asher, son of Igen but prodigal in the most heinous ways: his flat refusal to pay homage to the political mire. Igen River cannot claim sole provenance of Igen's swamps, sulphuric as they may be. It shows in his unbent bearing, the masculine arrogance that lifts his clefted chin. Without prejudice, he ignores Pirlan and focuses instead on the dark-haired Parhelion officer. His appraisal of Divale is swift and uncensored, from toes to tits (oh wait) to face and back down. "Wingsecond." His voice is rusty from sandstorms and overtalking, yet still powerful with a bone-deep charisma suppressed to standard-issue moderation. "Did they bring the boy in yet?" Still light-blinded from the dying brillance of Rukbat's last rays, he shades his attention deeper still into the guardhouse. Give Asher your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Igen. Justice's eternity embeds in potential the quill-roughened calluses roughening long-fingered hands.

No answer from the ‘kid’. He only seems to shrink in on himself for Pirlan’s cackling and whistling. A few of the other prisoners look over, but are otherwise silent in observation to see how the ‘new blood’ holds up to the heckling — and the posted Guards just ignore it all. For now. Divale looks up from where she stands, idle tap-tapping ceased the moment Asher enters. Likewise she will give the Harper the once over, but if it was relief or even a smile expected, she yields neither to his presence. Just her usual shadowed neutrality and a slight narrowing of her eyes as they proceed right to business. “Journeyman Asher.” she murmurs cooly, while her gaze darts sidelong towards the brig. Fingers deftly gather up the report, all of which is then promptly handed over to the Harper. Here you go! Enjoy the quick-read, while she just lurks there to wait. “He’s in the farthest cell. Well enough away from the usual rabble.” Not exactly private, if he’s thinking on having a little chit chat, but beggars can’t be choosers.

It doesn't bother Pirlan that nobody seems to be joining in with the ribbing. He'll even try to encourage his nearest neighbor with an elbow to the napping man's ribs. "Hey, hey, hey. Tarupin! New kid's musta done something good. Got a wingsecond dragging him in only to meet mister Lord High and Mighty Harper himself." The old man will show just how diverse his whistling vocabulary is by letting out a wolf whistle towards the incoming harper. Pirlan hasn't been scratching 'Asher's Biggest Fan' into the wall of the brig although there's certainly been some other creative marks left by the time he leaves.

There is no doubt — who exactly was it, again, that shored up the Pernese equivalent of Igen v. Pirlan in turn eleven? Should the drunk start lauding his name in paired verse, Asher might well find himself in a world truly turned upside down, and not in the charming Stranger Things manner. For the benefit of all involved, Asher turns his attention instead to the report handed to him, a graciously-mannered "Thank you," uttered for Divale's offering of the same. Seasoned thumbs separate hides, flipping between pages one and three for some line of reasoning demanding internal validity. "And here I thought we'd purged our cattle rustlers for one and all." The line of Asher's lips briefly thins as he looks up, his attention shifting from Divale to Pirlan. He's not quite lost in thought, but the man gives him a necessary tertiary focal point. "He seems a little… young. Threatening a dragonrider at knifepoint? Is this a joke, wingsecond?" Only a day late for April Fool's.

Don't worry. Pirlan may have a ditty or two for Asher stuck up his sleeves, although he's saving those for a truly SPECIAL occasion nad tonight is apparently not it. He does have more comments though. "It weren't a knife! It were a sharding sword!!! I saw it with my own two peepers! From that there window!" You know, the one that's more than a man's height from the floor to allow for light and a breeze, but not for possible escape attempts. "I got yer back, wingsecond!" And not just when he's puking on it.

Tarupin grunts at being elbowed and promptly scowls at Pirlan. Why, by Faranth’s shiny ass is he always stuck in the same cell with this lout? “Leave off, man! Too damn hot to care what the boy’s done!” Though now a few of the others are rousing a bit and start to snicker and toss their own comments in. All to which the boy tries to ignore, glaring balefully at them all (especially for Pirlan) and learning too late that that will only make them laugh and renew efforts. Then all attention is on Asher — or at least the boy is focused there and looking paler now for it. Divale’s expression barely shifts when Asher begins reading through the report and voices his comments; just a small twitch of one corner of her mouth in what could be a smirk. She could be trying to keep her temper too! Pirlan’s timing has her just about to speak when he interjects and there’s a pointed glare his way before she squares her shoulders and begins again. “You can never purge them wholly from any area. Remove one and two more appear.” she remarks, as dry as the desert outside. “I do not joke, Journeyman.” Which is truth. Does it look like she laughs, much? “I did not bring him in just for his pitiful attempt at threatening! It is the other charges that are suspect.”

Asher doesn't want to interact with anything that Pirlan has stuck up his… sleeves. Sounds contagious. And unclean. The suit jacket he's wearing right now takes enough battering from an Igen summer without submitting it to further indignity. His cool blue eyes shift from assessing Pirlan to a swift evaluation of Tarupin, then his focus returns wholly to Divale. "Why do they always reach for the very stupid ways of making marks? Stolen cattle is hardly profitable here." He rolls the report and uses it to scratch along his jaw line. He's going to have to shave after dinner at this rate. There's visible amusement that quirks his upper lip into a semblance of a smirk. Surely his voice isn't suggestive when he asks, "Did he really threaten you with a sword, wingsecond?"

"It was this big!" Pirlan throws his arms full width. It's even more improbably that the kid was running around with a bastard sword. His scrawny little twigs of arms probably couldn't even hold one that big, if anybody on Pern made them. Tarupin is definitely getting frustrated with his cellmate's mouth and picks up the empty water cup to hurl at his head, but misses and so there's just a clinking sound as the tin cup falls to the stone floor. "Shuttup! Ye ain't getting outta here any faster squealing on anything less they care enough to ask. So give us some peace!"

“If we had smart thieves and petty criminals, they wouldn’t be caught, would they?” Which is Divale’s assessment on the lack of intelligence among the law breakers, layabouts and usual rabble that come through here. Those who are the true dangerous types, well… You don’t go harassing them without due cause! As surely as Asher’s voice wasn’t suggestive, then neither is the brownrider’s retort. “Hardly. It was more…” Her hand lifts to make a small, tiny measurement between index finger and thumb. “… a shiv. If that. I’ve never been threatened by a sword.” Have a rare joke, sans laughter and just a hint of bemusement. The ruckus in the brig draws her attention away and it’s then that Divale gestures with a tilt of her head. Get on with it? “If you’re going to speak to the boy, I’d do it now.” The natives are restless! “Or we can skip you interrogating him and move on?”

"I'm sure you haven't, wingsecond." Bluff amusement is visible on Asher's face and in his tone at the insinuation from the dark-haired Parhelion. Then it's gone, swept aside in a moment when the woman insinuates he'd slack on the job. "I adhere to the Charter," he says in way that should be stiff but instead reads far more as a fanatic's fidelity to a devout vow. "The boy will have his opportunity to plead his case." He taps the rolled hide against his leg briefly and then gestures. "Would you be in possession of the key, or has the guardstock determined him to be a bodily risk to my person?" It's a professional inquiry, a specialist asking another's assessment.

Surprisingly, the near miss of a headshot does at least distract Pirlan from his heckling. He'll pick the cup up and toss it back towards his cellmate before he settles back to mutter about what he might threaten Divale with and where Asher can stick his charter. And eventually, he'll sleep off his drink.

Divale gives no hint for her opinion on Asher’s claim to adhering to the Charter and merely strides forwards and past the Harper. She’ll assume he’ll follow along and there’s only a brief pause when she does wave over one Guard to precede them to unlock the cell door. There’s part of the answer! As for the rest? “He’s no threat,” she states. “But all the same… Try to avoid making the lad piss himself out of fear?” Is she taking a shot at the Harper now? Claiming he’s not really that frightening — or perhaps the would-be thief boy is really regretting his life choices right about now. The metallic sound of keys jingling and then meeting lock and turn fill the air, followed by the screech-whine of the door. Divale sweeps a hand towards it, with a small stiff nod of her head. “Keep it brief.” Her business is to merely oversee from here on out!

And the boy really does look terrified by this point but trying to put on a 'brave' face! Maybe he was a scapegoat in this whole mess. Who knows? He's definitely one of the ragtag Bazaar lot that scurry along the side streets and poorer areas, dirty and lean but by far not behaving anything like a seasoned thief or thug.

Asher follows Divale with a tasteful disgust present in the careful placement of his feet. His shoes may have met with much of the bazaar's detritus, but the sludge and muck within the brig's corridors is altogether a separate creature. It might eat his soles. And possibly the souls of those poor bastards stuck in the holding cells. The Harper frowns briefly down at Divale before brushing by her to enter the cell. He's of a martial thickness himself that his well-turned-out shoulders nearly brush the cell door frame; he navigates it with a single-shoulder lead that speaks of familiarity with his piss-poor surroundings. The Harper then proceeds to crouch at midpoint within the cell, blue eyes quiet on the lad. "Hey kid. My name's Asher. I'm here to help you," says the devil in the twenty-mark suit. At least he sounds soothing with that viper's tongue slipping behind his teeth. "What's your name?"

If Divale is enjoying Asher’s disgust, she’s hiding it well and is accustomed to the filth here (in all senses of the word). His frown is met with a cold stare in return and then the Wingsecond turns to find her usual spot to lurk, while a Guard stays at the ready incase the kid really does have a trick up his sleeve. The kid, when finally addressed, casts a wary eye at the would-be saviour. He was stupid enough to get in this hot mess but he’s not so stupid as to immediately trust Asher (but clearly trusted someone else). “Froehan…” hesitant is the reply, as he sizes up this suit-clad man. Quieter: “… am I really going to the mines?”

"Froehan." Asher's smile is wide and white and guileless as only a lawyer's alligator show of teeth could be. "You know, I think I know just the thing to keep you out of those wretched depths. Let's talk about who put you up to this…" turns out to be just the introduction into a slow, surgical interrogation about the greater parties involved in this latest would-be cattle baronry. Divale is, of course, afforded a front row seat for as long as she's interested. Alas, Asher isn't very interesting in his repetitive inquiries and soothsayed apologies for putting Froehan through the wringer. Eventually the Harper will make his way out of the dire muck of the guardhouse. His beard might be full-grown by then, but hey, who's keeping track?

Asher’s attempts to wring information out of him will be met with resistance at first but by the end of it? Froehan cracks and doesn’t stand a chance under the experienced Harper’s skilled interrogation. There will be plenty of information to be stammered and rambled; names given, the whole plan and of course his own fears and anxieties. Poor kid. Alas, his keepers for the night aren’t the most kind and Divale is anything but motherly. So after Asher takes his leave (and she’s done silently marvelling at the Harper’s work), she’ll have the Guard lock the cell again. Looks like the kid is having a not-so pleasant sleep over! The Parhelion Wingsecond will excuse herself, returning to the desk long enough only to pen a few neatly scrawled notes but leaving the report work to another Guard on duty. Poor bastard! No doubt there will me more to come on the fate of the boy, but for now? The night is young and there are other pressing matters to attend.