Questions for the Healer (Aleda)

[Omnia Munda]

Immediately after The Assignment, several days prior to the hatching.

J'fel could feel Jordeth's rolling eyes, or the sensation that the bronze's young rider associated with rolling eyes. It was a lurching sensation of not quite disapproval, good-natured and almost affectionate. Well, I do have questions for her, grinned the young man to the beast, and Jordeth stretched out on his ledge and sank into a bemused silence. He was trying to remember exactly how his rider's conversation with the assigned pairs and Caminar had gone.

Entering his weyr, J'fel left the door open behind him. It was a little bit of a relief to find nothing more unseemly out of place than his weyrling jacket hung on the back of a chair, and this the bronzerider scooped up into a hand as he passed it by. Drinks. What do Caminar like? I'll just ask her, he thought, moving with that preternatural grace of youth of which he was all but unaware, a wild creature prowling his own den.

Had she followed him?

He hung the jacket on the wardrobe door's pull, then turned around with a hand going up to unhook the curtain that separated his sleeping and bathing chambers from the main room of the weyr. The movement was automatic even after only these few months living here; he didn't have to look up to take hold of the fabric and free it from its clasp. Nevertheless he did, and asked quietly enough that the words should not reach out into the chamber beyond his weyr, "Can I get you something to drink?"

And finally, as the curtain fell from his hand to close off the space behind him, J'fel looked toward the doorway through which he'd come.

[Alsivor]

Amused still, Aleda tailed after the Weyrleader, watching the way he moved, how he tidied, when he hesitated, when he didn't. She fetched up a shoulder against the wall just inside and continued to observe him as he moved around and waited until he spoke.

"I have just had some water, thank you very much, Weyrleader," the sabedoria answered politely, mind running through possibilities here. This was a chance to get more information out of the callow young man who pretended to so much and gave out so little.

"What is it that you wished to know of me? My qualifications I am sure you are aware of or you would not have bothered to call me to this meeting at all." Beat. "Unless this is a ..." she hesitated for a fraction of a second before the colloquial expression filtered into her mind, "... wild goose chase."

[Omnia Munda]

Water. Of course. There was a word for what Aleda was being, how she was acting - something about being intentionally unclever for one's own purposes - but J'fel hadn't time to summon it up. He'd press the point soon enough. For now he was letting his smile turn crooked and his eyes dance for the notion of checking on his guest's qualifications.

"I guess we'll find out how wild they are," murmured the young man, leaving his curtained bedchamber behind with a few long and lazy strides. Along the way he gestured openly at the room's furnishings: a couple of deep upholstered chairs possibly inherited from his predecessor arranged beside the generous hearth typical of Telgari weyrs. "But with so much at stake, no effort we make can possibly be misplaced. Even if there's nothing to find, we'll know more than we did."

J'fel put a hip against the back of one of the chairs. They were sturdy things wrought of leather and wood, easily supporting the bronzerider into a lean that made his whole body attractively crooked. "Wine? Whiskey?"

[Alsivor]

The Weyrleader's smile crooked to one side and Aleda caught the twinkle in his eyes. Ah. Well then. She pushed away from the wall and moved about the chamber a little, let him get an eyeful. "So you really do not know any more than what you just told everyone else," she mused over her shoulder. She almost wished she hadn't braided her hair. It was more effective loose. Still, she tilted her chin /just so/ right as she wandered past one of those big leather chairs, trailed her fingers along its back.

"So much at stake, yes. All of Pern. But nothing to find? So many riddles, Weyrleader, and unless you are hiding one of your Craft healers up your sleeve, I am the only one." She left the chair, threaded her way towards him, steps as easy as dancing, making her skirt curl around her calves as she went.

Aleda's hand came to rest atop the chair back where he leaned and she made the lines of her body mirror his. "Neither. I am not thirsty." A little pause and a little crooked smile of her own. "J'fel. What would you know of your healer?" Word games. They were more fun in Noestacan.

[Omnia Munda]

All of Pern. Aleda's words rang in his ears as though he were hearing them for the first time, and J'fel couldn't help but swell a little, catching a heady breath of self-importance and fervor. She was as passionate about this cause as he. More, he instantly corrected himself. The sabedoria was of course a woman: her sympathies would run deep.

And this woman was walking toward him. J'fel couldn't help, either, noticing the twist of her stride that sent that skirt into motion around her legs. He could imagine - but he had to speak for now. "You must understand why we can't ask the hall's healers to go just yet," came his murmur, deep and a little bit wry.

The weyrleader lifted a youthful hand toward her elbow, his fingertips bold but very light in their effort to trace the shape of her arm. "Please don't mistake my words for lack of faith." His gaze outlined the curve of her cheek, dropped to her mouth and lifted again; he had twinkles indeed for those dark eyes, then. "I wouldn't send you all if I thought there was nothing you could accomplish.

"I just want you to know." His hand lifted; his fingers would make a bid for her cheek, now. "How honored we are just that you've agreed to make the effort."

[Alsivor]

She watched him from beneath her eyelashes, the way his chest moved just now and then how his tone shifted. Aleda didn't move her arm, or lean closer when his fingers traced his arm. "Enlighten me," she murmured lowly in return, not wry at all, maybe even a little demanding, but with a hint of warmth beneath it, a hint of promise maybe. Maybe.

"Ahhh, so we are to have faith in you, that is the sum of it." Her eyes met his briefly, a little spark in her own, but then their expression deepened as if she searched for something in him, something she hadn't found yet. "It must be easier for your riders to believe," Aleda continued thoughtfully.

His hand drifting towards her cheek, caught with one of her own, met by strong fingers faintly stained with redwort in the creases. "We? Flatterer, J'fel," she accused him lightly. "You? Maybe. Though perhaps 'honored' is not the right word." She drew his palm to her cheek then and settled it there comfortably. "'Relieved', perhaps?" Teasing now, as her fingers traced between his then dropped away.

[Omnia Munda]

Flatterer, she named him, and J'fel dropped his gaze in faux modesty. But when he raised his eyes again to hers - too quickly - they offered mostly mischief, and his tongue appeared to wet his lips.

"I wouldn't permit that term for anyone else," he sighed, letting his voice take on the breathy, stricken tone that girls his age and less liked to interpret as hopeless romanticism. "But for me - I'll admit I'm relieved."

Stretching his palm against the sabedoria's cheek, J'fel's pretty lips twisted a tormented smile; then he withdrew his hand with much (and obvious) regret. Another sigh, as good as an overwrought alas that he had to return to business and offer the enlightenment she required. How he hated to interrupt this sweet moment, but did so because she asked him, etcetera: "It could cause quite a panic."

The young man raised his crooked shoulders and let them ease slowly back into place, his abandoned hand sliding into a pocket by his hip. "I'd like to have your faith, Aleda." He saved for later the pride in having remembered her name so effortlessly. "But I won't pretend I know how to gain it." And with a mental crossing of fingers the bronzerider silently added, Unless you'd like me to.

[Alsivor]

Again, Aleda's lips twitched faintly and the sparkle in her eyes increased. She leaned just a little, tilted her head to lengthen the line of her neck. Just enough distraction perhaps, though she had to bite her tongue at that breathy tone of his. She might only have two turns on him but they made a difference.

"Yes. Relieved that you can count on the word of a Caminar, honor-bound to keep your secret and too perhaps ..." and here her voice took on the regretful tone of faux-disappointment, "... that you do not have to risk a /real/ healer to this mission." She blinked slowly a few times, wide-eyed, a contrast to the starkness of the words. "There are ways to be discreet with the Hall of the Healers. And to truly prevent, knowledge is necessary. Panic would of course be bad." Knowingly understated. And her turn to reach his way, fingers walking along the back of the chair to find their way up his wrist towards his elbow and then shoulder.

"Stop playing games and be straight with me. That is the only way."

[Omnia Munda]

He was indeed admiring the slope of her neck when Aleda's tone slipped into a regretfulness almost as overdone as his own had been and put out the issue of his choice of healer in terms of risk. On that, the weyrleader's wandering gaze snapped fast to Aleda's, his blue eyes a little widened, one brow cocking and creating young lopsided wrinkles above it.

His mouth opened; there was a reply waiting there. But the mix of Aleda going on talking and her fingertips walking his arm quelled that instant response and, inwardly a little relieved for the moment to better school his choice of words, J'fel closed his lips into a small smile.

"I have been straight with you," he said, when she'd made plain enough it was his turn to speak. His smile twisted wry and he shook his head, though this failed to dislodge his raised brow from its high perch. "I'd risk a crafthall healer if I dared let it be known one was sent. I hope you'll forgive me for that offense against your people - but I certainly mean none against your skills."

There. Now he could afford to put the smolder back into his voice - and to take a risk calculated from the sum total of her fingertips' touches all the way up his arm to his shoulder, where he raised his other hand across himself to rest it across her knuckles.

He tipped down his head and lifted a gaze that sparkled through blue smoke. "Unless... you meant about my asking you here?"

[Alsivor]

"You know nothing more then," Aleda said slowly with a soft sigh of disappointment and smoothed her fingers over the fabric at his shoulder, more of a maternal gesture almost than invitation to anything else. On the craft's healers: "As if there were not ways to cover that as well." She smiled at him charmingly, not too much, not too little and leaned in again. "That instinct not to offend my skills is a good one, J'fel. Don't under-estimate them." Her smile continued and she tipped her head back a little to regard him more properly, brown eyes to blue. "Did you know that by Caminar custom, I still rightly belong to my father, because I am unmarried? He would beat you and me both, senseless if he knew I was here with you alone."

Aleda shifted the path of her fingers to drift across his chin, brush that lovely lower lip of his. "But those are risks that I am very, very accustomed to."

[Omnia Munda]

It didn't take much. Aleda had only to lean in like that and, no matter how severe the scold that lurked beneath her congratulatory words - 'That instinct not to offend my skills is a good one' - J'fel could only turn his eyes toward her, turn his lips toward hers, and smile.

Lavender, he thought, and something else. But then Aleda was tipping her head back and the space created between them was just enough that her subtle fragrance slipped away from him.

"The best opportunities come in the guise of risk," he mused, the fullness of his lip moving slowly - he spoke slowly now, his eyelids heavy and blue eyes heated - against the sabedoria's touch.

He'd been threatened by the fists of fathers before. He'd heard it the first time before his candidacy, but since Jordeth, J'fel had never taken such threats too seriously. And as if the intelligent bronze wasn't guard enough against such concerns, the boyish weyrleader had now that knot on his shoulder to shield him. Only one thing could worry him now - and whether to his merit or his detraction, he didn't envision the sultry-eyed wisewoman's father being of political import.

J'fel, out of clues to offer and suggestive remarks to make, opened his mouth slightly and fit warm lips around one fingertip. His gaze remained raised to hers, a silent invitation.

[Alsivor]

"Often, they do," Aleda agreed and for that heat, she had only merry sparks to offer in return. The politics of the Weyr itself mattered little to her and though J'fel wouldn't know it, to her father either if a temper came upon him.

She let him have his way with her finger for a moment, then gently shifted it aside, if only to make room for her mouth. Aleda's hand slid back into his hair and drew him close. She made that kiss count, let him feel the passion that simmered just below the surface.

And then she stepped back, broke away with an easy, charming smile and patted his cheek gently. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon, Weyrleader. For now though, I have your mission to see to." Her hand passed lightly over his arm with seeming regret, then she turned to leave, this time, without asking permission.

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel, obviously, would have liked to make count from more than the kiss. He was quick but not hurried to find her waist with his hand and took from her fingers in his tangled locks cue to stand close. His mouth savored hers, a smile latent in the corners of his lips, and he was beginning to shape an embrace of his other arm when she broke contact.

Cardamom, maybe. He raised his hand off of Aleda to catch her hand by his cheek, and something quite a bit like warning burned dark in the depths of those endless eyes. His fingers rested upon hers for just a split second, then fell away.

He couldn't have put words to it if he'd tried, but those eyes expressed a disapproval for patronization that was beyond language. However young and inexperienced he might be, J'fel had long since learned such things were not to be permitted. The lesson had gone deep: his reaction was instinctive.

But gentle. And so was his wry smile as she spoke, and even the flatteringly uncouth name for a girl like this that passed in silence through his mind. J'fel's hand overturned as hers passed down his arm, offering palm to her fingertips before she was gone from him.

"Welcome always, sabedoria," said the young weyrleader, wryly and very softly, to her back.

His talent for that word, for the particular musical accent with which it should be said, had diminished. Perhaps she'd kissed it away.

[Alsivor]

His hand there at her waist, the feeling of his hair slipping through her fingers ... Aleda had almost stayed. He'd probably have been sweet enough. J'fel thought she was patronizing him, she could see it in his eyes. When he offered his palm, she let her fingers graze briefly, found a grip to squeeze lightly with in silent apology, then stepped on.

She looked at him over her shoulder, chin tipped downward, braid falling over her shoulder with the motion. "Always, J'fel?" she questioned him as softly and smiled again, this time with just the faintest edge of regret.

The problem wasn't really him, in the end, other than that he seemed to be too much of everything.

The problem was, that for the first time in a very long while, when she'd kissed him, she'd wished he was someone else. And then the fact that she was leaving had sunk in and she wanted to be away to deal with it all, figure out what she would say to Teimo.

As she stepped out of the Weyrleader's weyr, Aleda thought of J'fel little enough, mind focused on what she would need for this mission, firmly telling her heart to stop pounding about the other bronzerider in her life.

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel had a hunch she'd be back. He hadn't, after all, sent her to any lasting doom. He had that certainty to comfort him. It niggled at him strangely, what she'd said about risking a real healer - did she think her life was in danger on this mission?

No matter now. She'd go, and he'd remember her the next time she kissed him. Lavender and cardamom, or something not quite like it.

Of all of this came one answer only for the departing sabedoria: a slow lift of bronzerider shoulders and a slipping of bronzerider hands into pockets. He had a smile for her, sure. The invitation he'd made before with his lips, still resting there in a gentle curve.

Yes?

J'fel hadn't asked for the bronze's attention, but he'd required it, and as he moseyed across his weyr to latch the door through which Aleda had left, the young man sank willingly into his beast's mental embrace. His feelings were mixed but mild: irritable, disappointed, bemused, annoyed.

Remind me what we get out of this knot, won't you? Besides being too good for the girls that will.

It was a task to which Jordeth was growing accustomed.