It would be a lie to say that it's not as hot as the other day; it's been the kind of morning that beads sweat constantly on your forehead until it trickles down uncomfortably. Dione, not the most patient of people originally, dealt with it by the simple expedient of pouring a bucket of water over her head — her mother's not around to see, and if all goes as planned she has a long walk towards the jungle. This time the basket seems fuller than before, and she's marching at more of a meandering pace, having taken a large bamboo-like umbrella to protect her against the fell sun. It makes her, if possible, even more visible when she finally steps into the jungle with a sigh, sporting simple clothes and an inquisitive look on her face. "…Koa?" she calls out gingerly, peeking around for his gritty-dirty form.

Wildlings do not magically appear from the depths of the jungles, the shaded canopy holding a myriad of secrets in which a person can hide. Dione's manifestation is so at odds with everything the jungle represents: bulging basket, bamboo umbrella, the stain of Pernese society clinging to the essence of a girl of the sky people. Koa, hidden in the shadows of this particular spot in the woods, watches as the girl makes her way and calls out his name. He does not move immediately, adjusting his stance on the balls of his feet only minisculely. Whether he lets time pass to ensure she's not being followed or he lets time pass because he considers the wisdom of showing himself is not yet clear. However, the trees rustle and birth the man much as before. The nutty stain of skin-paint adorns his body, across the bare chest and down the arms. The machete and curved knife are present still at his side, and the carrysack slung across his body is in much the same position. His face gives little away, black eyes glittering. "Dee-on."

Below the canopy the umbrella isn't necessary, so Dione spends moments carefully folding its lacquered green-and-pink top. It's a fidgety task, one that eats maybe a minute, but pretty soon she's waiting — and not quietly at that. Plunking the basket down on a convenient fallen jungle giant, she ventures in deeper, until she's on the verge of disappearing around a tall clump of lianes before his voice comes. As the first time, his appearance is enough of a shock that she flinches when he does appear. This time, however, she's okay with turning and eyeing him balefully, hands on her hips, before she makes her way back to the basket. "Almost," comes her voice, slightly rueful — angry more at herself than him. "Di-oh-nee." Pause. "How do you manage to hide that well? It's not like you don't have muscles on your muscles." Her fingers flick towards the basket. "For you. And anyone else here with you."

Koa is not a man to trifle with a person's emotions as he is neither cruel nor filled with the unkind desire to force pain and fear onto an innocent person. So the presence of the flinch and her question of how he hides incures the single lift of his brow, though her name is sounded out thoughtfully in the accent of a man who's lived his entire life deep, deep within the jungles. "Dee-ahh-nee." His vowels are a little flatter and elongated, but he makes it sound pretty close. Suspicious is the glint in the onyx eyes that fall to the basket that provokes the twitch of thick, calloused fingers before Dione finds herself the subject of his stare once more. "What makes you think anyone is with me?" The rolling of his shoulders is the precedent that sets the final forward movement that allows the fur-covered leather booted feet to move closer to the basket. Close enough that when he squats, it leaves his free hands dangling between his knees and over the basket. With a poking finger, he tests it, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth for her description. "Forest walking is learned from birth in my people. The Two-Ear Long-Tails will get you if you cannot be quiet."

Dione saunters over the last few steps, sinking down on her haunches next to him. "I'm not saying that there's anyone else here," she comments quietly. "Just, if there is, this is for them as well. I didn't know whether anyone else is out here mourning with you." She twitches the cloth away from the basket, revealing the inside: containers of salads and stew and things that last long, together with breads and fruit and a large skin. "They almost got some of us on a hunt some time back." Her cheeks are dull with an embarrassed blush. "I made sure to stay far away. Some riders and guards took them out — not really my kind of thing." As she speaks she hauls the skin out, twisting to rest it against his hands. Cool, almost cold. "Fruit juice with ice," she says triumphantly. "I asked Sevreni for the last of yesterday's batch. I'll have to make fresh this evening with a new batch of ice, but I thought… well. I thought you might like it." There's even a cup of thin, fired pottery.

Balanced on the balls of his feet, the heels of his dirty shoes digging into his dirty pants, Koa espies the containers within the basket and reaches out tentatively to touch one. The salad is pulled out and he examines it after giving it a testing shake. The grit and dirt that cling to the pads of his fingers mar the surface in shadows. The shadows of paint that whorl across his skin catch the light that filters golden-green through the wide leaves of the jungle. He sniffs the container. Shakes it. Licks it. "Only the fiercest can take them down." A statement given at the same time his other hand is picking at the container lid to see how it opens. Frustration emerges as a huff. "No bodies to mourn, Dee-ah-nee. Only memories, and anger." The shaved scalp with the single strip of short-short black hair half-turns to give her his profile. Lips part, words about to come out when his hand is full of the damp sweat of an icy cold skin of juice. Koa jerks, twitching in surprise at how cold it is. Hesitantly, he takes it, eyes narrowed. "I-see. What is I-see?" He shakes the skin. Shaking seems to be his go-to action. Shake-shake-shake; the fruit juice sloshes about. "I do not understand why you care for us now?"

There's a hand raised to smack his, probably a holdover of caring for younger siblings, but it aborts half-moved, and Dione sighs. "You have to open them first. See, like so." There's a trick to it, a twisting and a turn, but anyone that can plant a knife where they want it to go can master opening up these containers. Likewise, she shows him how to open the skin, tilt it and squeeze some of the cold juice out into the cup. The question of why is ignored until it preys so large against her internal mindscape that she pulls away. "Because I want to," she mutters, oddly defeated. "I didn't ever think about how wildlings must survive, just that I'm safe in my Weyr. I feel guilty. This… this makes me feel a little better. I don't know why." Her lips thread thin with a frown. "Ice. Water that is so cold it is hard." Another pause. "Is it bad if I do this?"

A tension spills across the muscles of his body when her hand half raises to smack his, and slowly he turns to look at her. While he might not be immediately violent, make no mistake that he is a warrior-hunter of his people, and that coiled predatory aspect can easily be called out. "No one thinks of our people. You call us 'wild' but you do not know us." Koa leans over and spits on the ground when she uses her sky people name for them. "I am Kalimpura of the South West jungles. I am not wild." Again, he spits on the ground, a sign of disrespect for that name. Despite this show of outward disgust, he gamely takes her knowledge of how to open the containers to heart. Sniffing the lettuce (snorting when a leaf sticks to his nostril by the suction of air), he turns to her. "I-see. I have heard of that myth, but I have never travelled to the places of I-see." Falling silent, the savage man tucks each little container (but not after giving it a hard thump with his thumb and forefinger) back into the basket. "You care now. Maybe that helps. It is not bad, Dee-ah-nee to show compassion, but compassion does not always come in time." The dark-dark eyes lay their gaze unto her face, intensity crackling across his features. A point pressed upon her.

Dione thanks her lucky stars that she didn't complete the smack, and droops the longer he lectures her. It's not something she can refute, not ably; she is not a Harper to enjoy chopping words and logic. "There are ways you can get there from here, if you wish to see it one day. I don't like it, because I don't like the cold, but I'll show you how." Her gaze flicks to him, then resolutely away. "Koa, Kalimpura of the South West jungles. I said sorry last time. I can't keep on saying sorry, but I won't stop feeling guilty for some time. Let that be enough, please?"

"You do not need to say sorry for what your people believe," Koa is not an asshole of a man; he's a man of a people with a multitude of different customs. "I do not demand your apologies," the man leans back on his haunches, forearms braced on his thighs. "My people just want understanding, Dee-ah-ne of the sky people. You are trying to understand, yes?" A kindness given is not returned with anger and derision, although, the complex emotions held in the dark grasp of black eyes speaks to many things yet left unstated between his kind and her kind. "You do not like the I-see? Why not? Cold is not so easily enjoyed, but the tales of my people that have ventured into the land of ice have told of it's beauty. Is it not true?" The intensity held in his demeanor never lessens, the draw of brow and pucker of lips forming the frame of how Koa views the enigmatic world around him. And Dione is as much an enigma as the weyr. Just enough of one that a dirty finger slowly approaches the vibrant, brilliant hue of her hair. Maybe he wants to poke it.

"You poke at me for calling you a wildling, but then you call us sky people." Dione's tone is reproving at that, but there's little sting to the sentence. "And yes. I want to understand, but we're from two such wildly different places that it's going to be difficult. Perhaps…" She darts another look at him, bites her lip. "Perhaps you can show me your world, and I can show you mine? Then at least we will have many things to misunderstand, each of us." There's a tremor as his hand nears, but seconds later a sigh as well, and she tilts her head to let the red strands fall over his fingers. Still slightly damp and curly with it, but soft and squeaky-clean, snapping and twisting around fingers with static electricity. "It is very beautiful, but I have seen it once, and that's enough for me. Still, perhaps you will enjoy the ice mirrors and the hot pools? I have no idea what you find beautiful. Knives and competent people?"

"What is the name of your people?" Koa asks, not insulted at her reprimand, but curious. If that could be curiosity etched across his dark caramel features. "Here, here is my world, but it is dangerous. Your world is out there," with a thick and dirt-encrusted finger, he jabs his hand towards the clearing that beckons like a thing of dangerous intent. "Where the sky death falls." The touch of her hair draws a grunt from the man, testing the texture curiously before withdrawing. It is possible that he has had a touch too much civilized contact. "Too dangerous in the jungles." To give real intent to this, he turns his head and stares into the shadows collected beneath wide and shiny jungle leaves that twist about the trunks of trees that soar upward, over their heads. "Life is beauty." Another grunted response while fingers collect the fabric (again, testing it with the grubby rub of his fingers to the cloth) and tuck it around the basket. "Dee-ah-nee, the people of my people's people's people will thank you for this kindness." It is not that Koa has said no to her request, exactly, but the warrior-hunter of the deep, eastern jungle people that hers call wildlings and they self-name to the Kalimpura is suspicious by nature and skittish besides. "Do not venture too deep here." Koa gives this in warning as he prepares to stand. This close, the clothing and textiles he wears are obviously rough-hewn and not entirely of animal-based products. Yes, some leather, but also plant-based materials. Around his neck is a thick chord of sinew, dried and hung with beads and larger bone bits that match his bracelet.

Dione watches him stand, frowning at the sudden surge of muscles and dirt and natural fabrics. "Thread," she says firmly. "We call it Thread, and the sky-people are dragon-riders, and not all of us are riders. I'm just a bartender." That's said with a certain fatality, unsure whether he'd even understand the concept, but she flicks her hair back, stands and opens her umbrella. "I don't know if there'll be a next time. I…" Again, words fail her. It's such an odd occurrence that she looks exactly like a grumpy feline, large eyes and displeased expression. "Just leave the basket around the edges here somewhere, and I'll find it. Give you good day, Koa." With a flick of her wrist the umbrella swings into action and she stalks out towards the sun. "Be safe in the next fall!" That, called over her shoulder, might almost be an order. Almost.