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Pool Party


Date:  August 17, 2004
Place:  Telgar Weyr Hot Springs
Game:  PernMUSH
Copyright Info:  The World of Pern is copyright(c) to Anne McCaffrey 
l967. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is a registered copyright.

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Kassi's Note:  Kassima manages to hassle the Healers into giving her
some towels and letting her go off to bathe, and so she runs into 
several Candidates--along with Yselle and her family--who all have 
the same idea.  Much of the conversation focuses on I'sai's injury 
and the dangers of high-diving.

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The Log:

You enter the tunnel leading out to the steamy springs.

Amarie walks in from outside the room.

Yselle glances back to her son playing in the smaller pool, smiling fondly,
then back to the candidates, grinning at the efforts made by Jaleran and
Metri, "Very good," she says. "You know, if you two would like to, and you
don't impress, I'll take you with me when Dianneth go flying one day," this
apparently is something of a gracious offer. "I don't mean like last time
either," she tells Jaleran, grinning. "I'm not pregnant any more." She
turns to Lanisa, and nods. "Well, not much we can do with the eggs hatching
so soon," she says. "I'm sorry, but... look, if you need a message sent..."
She waves after Claret, but seems more intent on her chat with Lanisa.
"Anyway, remember what I said earlier."

Jaleran turns over so he's drifting on his back as Metri executes his dive.
That the trader youth had made the not-easy climb from clifftop to the
higher shelf was impressive enough to him, but when he executes the high
reverse dive, he lets out a low whistle. When he reaches the shallows, he
tosses his breeches off to the side near his discarded shirt and starts in
on himself with sweetsand. After spending the day around the whining and
the crying and the climbing, he'll wait a bit before being introduced to
Roselle. And they seem to be having a private conversation anyway. So he
works on bathing, then when Metri breaks the surface, holds a thumbs-up
towards his fellow diver.

The click and thump of Kassi's stick against stone and the oddness of her
not-quite-right step might be audible before the greenrider's actually in
view, particularly given the steam, the distraction of fancy dives, and
other such factors. Kassi herself misses such distraction, since she's
concentrating on walking with mouth pressed into a line. "Oh, Faranth," she
murmurs when it finally registers that, hey, people! "I've come upon a
regular Candidates' Gather. G'deve, g'deve, g'deve--" She waves the towels
she's holding in her free hand and scans the pool, the better to find a
place that's relatively splash-free.

Metri seems to have opened his body enough after breaking the surface of
the water that his dive doesn't take him half as deep. He surface swith a
deep inhale, taking to a backstroke after sparing a grin for Jaleran. He
seems to be taking a bit more time before bathing (modesty, perhaps?).
Instead, Yselle's offer is met. "Sounds like a plan." Then he backstrokes
around in a tiny circle. "Hi Kassi," he calls without properly righting
himself.

"Nicely done," Velano congratulates Metri, though the comment is fairly
rhetorical since he breathes it lowly before the other candidate's head has
even come up to the surface. Shaking his own dark-curled head, he bends to
claim his trousers, the only bit of his usual clothing to make it even as
far as the baths, then moves toward the inner caverns. This path takes him
across Kassima's, and he pauses to eye her over carefully before greeting,
"I think I can forgive you." Then, with a grin declaring the former comment
to be affectionately met, he adds, "I was just on my way out. Last pool
that way's the hottest," indicated by a thumb over-shoulder.

Lanisa shakes her head, though she smiles to Yselle after, "It's alright.
Tarien said she'd be sure someone came and got me as soon as they were
back, so I could see them then. Not like there's much else to do." She
lifts a hand to wave to Kassi and then sinks back into the water, up to her
neck, "Very nice, Trii." She echoes Velano before settling a bit more into
her soak.

Amarie enters the caverns her skirts swishing as she makes her way in. She
passes by Velano on his way out and flashes him a smile as well as, "Good
evening," to the butcher. She greets the others with the same smile and
'good evening'. She has her nightgown tucked under one arm.

Yselle nods to Lanisa. "Okay, well let me know if you change your mind,"
she says. She glances at the candidates, and calls, "Levarn, I think you
can come in here now," the little boy scoots over to the pool everyone else
is in, and plops in, waiting at the shallow end. Yselle smiles, and keeping
one eye on him, begins to undress her daughter, and then, with her
carefully wrapped in a towel, and ensconced in a corner, undresses herself,
and then picks up her daughter, wading in with her. "Bath time," she says
cheerfully. Presumably this isn't how they do it in the nursery. "You're
going?" she asks Velano. Very perceptive. To Metri and Jaleran, she asks
"Where did you learn to do that? It looks like fun."

Yselle is almost fully immersed before she's satisfied that both her
children are safe, and calls over, "Hey Kassi, didn't expect to see you
around so soon. How're you doing?"

Jaleran shrugs to Yselle's question, "It was just one of the things we did
down at Honshu for fun. A short runner ride south to the Western Barrier
Range and we had a good number of deep pools with good, climbable cliffs to
dive from." He turns to smile to Kassi as she approaches, his hands busy
soaping up his hair so he can't wave. He's started to walk a bit deeper in,
reaching a point where the water is just under the top of his hips, when he
sees Amarie walking up. Then he proves that yes, blushes can be seen even
in scar tissue as his face, neck, and even a portion of his chest reddens
in a blush. "Oh. Hi, Amarie."

"Hey, yourself," Kassi calls back to Metri, lifting a hand. "Are you trying
t'make yourself dizzy? Ah, Velano, I'm glad t'hear that." She tenders the
Candidate a wry sort of grin. "Faranth forfend you *and* the Healers be
irked with me for all time. I'd have t'expire of despair, I do believe. Is
it?" A glance is cast back that way. "Thankee. M'muscles should appreciate
that; the leg... well, 'twill soon find out." She seems game for the
suggestion, anyway, since she click-clicks on over that way. Over her
shoulder she calls back, "Muddling through, Ys--the Healers would probably
*like* me t'stay in the Infirmary, but I nagged them until they gave me
towels. I'm desperate t'be clean. After that Fall, a washcloth and a
head-dunk in a bucket doesn't bloody cut it."

"Almost fell asleep in the pool," Velano confesses to Yselle. "Which could
be a bad sign I should be in bed." At Kassima, he nods a shallow mockery of
a bow, noting through a grin, "That would be worse. And Metri would tan my
hide." He turns around a last time, one hand on his towel and the other
looped with his rumpled trousers, and calls to the group, "No one split
their skulls open, hey? And good night, all."

Velano walks off towards the Inner Cavern.

Metri stops his circling to answer Kassi. "Nope, not trying to. Did,
though." He gives Velano a fishy look, only lacking in menace and
affirmation that there will be hide-tanning because he's still cross-eyed.
His grin shifts between Amarie and Jaleran duly before he strokes closer to
the rest of the group, answering Ys but blinking away his dizziness to look
at Lani with concern. "On the ground, mostly," the boy admits. "My brothers
and I used to compete in that sort of stuff, and so most of the time we
practiced on the ground, till we got to something worth diving off of
without cracked skulls."

Lanisa calls after Velano, "Night. Hey Amarie." And then she's nodding to
Yselle, "I'll remember. And I promise, I'll ask if there is something.
Thanks." She just listens then to the other conversations, though with a
smile for Metri she says, "Well however you learned it, it certainly worked."

Yselle grins at Velano. "Something like that," she tells him. She glances
between Amarie and Jaleran, and ever so slowly, quirks an eyebrow at the
girl. Still, all she says is, "Well, maybe you'll show me one day, it
sounds like fun." /She/ smirks at Kassima, "Naughty," she says, just as
though /she/ hadn't had to be dragged in there when she needed to go. "What
do they say? Wingleaders make terrible patients," she hums to herself as
she wets a cloth she brought and starts gently washing her daughter, one
eye kept on the son diving in the shallows. "How do you practice diving on
the ground?" she wonders. Lanisa, she just offers a warm smile, and if the
girl will allow, a brief touch on the arm, in support.

Amarie removes her clothes and steps into the bathing pools. She tries to
be as quick as possible about it, something about that Hall born girl
within her. She settles down in the shallows by sitting there and reaching
out for the sweetsand to clean with. "Hello Lanisa," she smiles at her
friend and then nods to Jaleran although her gaze doesn't quite go his way.

Kassima stands at the pool's rim for a moment, facing a dilemma: how to
balance the ever-important modesty against one, getting clean, and two, the
leg? Eventually she decides on a bizarre solution that seems to consist of
wrapping a towel around herself, tugging the clothes off from *beneath* the
towel, and very carefully settling onto the rim to work at removing the
somewhat stained bandaging wrapped around her right thigh. "Wait, wait, you
regularly thumped your head against the ground for *fun*? That explains a
whole sharding lot," she teases Metri, her grin rather wicked. "--Now, Ys!
'Tis m'very first 'scoring, y'know. I should know how t'behave?" She puts
on her most innocent face. "I'm nay *trying* t'be trouble, a'course I'm
nay... anyway, at least Jirel and Ylysse came by for poker this morning
a'fore I could make m'self any Healer-skin suits. Belated felicitations
t'you on your daughter, too. What's with all this diving?"

Metri shrugs at Yselle. "You just practice the tumbles and stuff. My
brothers could throw me high enough that I could usually get off a
somersault or two before they caught me. Usually." No need to say what
happened when they didn't. And his statement is accompanied by a grin to
Kassi. "Took you long enough," he says wryly. However, he drops the
conversation to go back and grab sweetsand, discard of his breeches, and
start washing himself. He washes quickly enough, rinses, and then scrambles
out of the water, retrieving his towel and slinging it around his hips.
"Right, I'm going to bed. Resting. Sleeping even," he suggests with a sober
nod. "G'night, you lot."

Jaleran dives under the surface as Amarie enters the water, more for
curtesy than anything else although it does the job of rinsing out his
hair. When he surfaces a length down the rim, he catches Kassi's last
question, "I absolutely had to blow off some pent up steam from chores
today, so I decided to climb up the wall and do some cliff diving. Then
Metri decided he had to show me up." Simple as that, right? He waves after
Metri as he leaves, then finds more sweetsand to continue washing.

Lanisa does allow the touch on her shoulder with a smile in return. And
after a wave to the departing Metri, she asks Amarie, "How're you tonight?"
Then she does chuckle lightly, "Trii likes to do that." Show people up?
Probably.

"Not bad," Amarie says to Lanisa. "I had infirmary duty today. I think
there may have been a few more people because of the Fall at Benden. But I
didn't have to watch anything being sewn up or anything gross like that."
She shudders slightly. "All I did was fetch things mostly."

Yselle grins at Kassima, as if she had been hoping the woman would bite at
her comment. "Don't kill all the healers," she says. "Never know when you
might be pregnant again," oh /now/ she can tease about that. "Seriously
though, good to have you about. I've had reports of you of course," she
grins at the wingleader, "But it's much better to see for myself that
you're okay. Now if only I'sai would get back and complain at us a bit, I'd
feel much better." As for the compliment about her daughter, she looks back
down at the girl, and begins washing again, "Thank you, she's beautiful
isn't she?" Metri's explanation seems to floor her, and she murmurs,
"Sounds like something Tel would do," she waves after him. "Well, Jaleran,
it makes sense. We go flying when we're all wound up. - Levarn, not too
deep dear."

Kassima looks up from the unwrapping first towards the cliff... then down
towards the pool where Jaleran now is. "You're insane," she observes. To
judge by the tone, it's a compliment. "Both of you. Ever been t'Boll, tried
the vine-swing there? It sounds like something you might go for."
Eventually she gets the last of the bandages off. She regards the angry red
'score line in silence a moment, then mutters something under her breath
about idiots and begins the process of slooooowly easing into the water.
"There are," she calls to Amarie. "I must have missed seeing you--but then,
we were playing cards most of the morning. Anyway, from the sound of it
there weren't many serious injuries at all. At Telgar. Several deaths...
but nay ours." Some small consolation. Yselle gets a very amused look. "I
should save them t'kill during the labor, then?" she teases. "The idea does
have some appeal... Is is on his way back; Tear told Lyss this morning.
They're flying straight. I don't imagine 'twill take them so long, though
if'n Tear's a fraction as exhausted as Lyss, they'll surely have t'stop and
rest along the way. I hope he gets back soon, too. Mayhaps we can duel with
our sticks if'n he gets one too. I've always wanted t'do that." Trust
Kassima. "And you're nay going t'hear me saying a bairn isn't pretty, Ys.
Especially nay t'her mother."

Jaleran isn't really the quickest off the mark. But in his defense he was
underwater most of the time things were being mentioned. "What happened to
I'sai?" He very pointedly keeps his gaze away from Kassima's threadscore,
less it conjure up memories he'd rather not go over again. So he nods to
Yselle, "I've always tried climbing new and different cliffs to keep myself
sane." He nods upwards, "For instance, I've plotted out what should be a
spectacular climb up the Weyr's caldera that I'd try if it weren't so cold
and icy out. A switchback course up the southern and southwestern faces
ending just up there," he points up to the opening above the dragon pool,
"where I'd have a rope secured to do a forward rapell down into the water."
Yes, Jaleran could be called insane in his own way.

Yselle nods to Kassima, grinning, "You know, I can't see him with a stick -
although I could see him duelling with you. Remember when he got you that
clay for your turningday?" - "He'll probably enjoy himself, dropping in to
see people. He seems to know everyone." She blinks at Jaleran, and
explains, in a low voice, with a pointed look at Lanisa, "Threadscore,
he'll be okay, but he's got to fly back straight." She finishes washing her
daughter, and just holds her gently in front of herself, looking into her
eyes in the most sappy manner. "You're beautiful," she tells the girl. "Me
too!" Levarn pipes up, bouncing over there. "You too," she smiles,
reassuring him.

"I took the day off they offered, considering." Lani says in return to
Amarie before she slips from the water, "I think I'm going to try and get
some sleep. Maybe da will be back tomorrow." That last suggested hopfully
to the two greenriders while she moves to put on her night clothes. For
Jaleran she nods, "Both he and Tear were hit. They say it's not too bad,
but I couldn't find him before they brought us home from the Fall." She
gives a shrug in an attempt at nonchalance as she gathers up her remaining
things.

Kassima's eyes cross when she finally does get the leg submerged, but she
grits her teeth, reaches for the soapsand she brought with her, and--after
pulling free the towel, now that she's in water up to her shoulders--sets
to attacking her skin and hair with a vengeance. "Threadscored leg," she
reports for Jaleran. "His leg, Tear's neck--both sides, methinks. Tear had
worse luck than Lyss; nay sure how bad Is's luck was. They were trying
t'get nigh anyone injured t'fly home straight by the sound of it. Probably
would've me, if'n I hadn't escaped." Scrub, scrub, scrub. "I'd warrant
he'll be all right. Hope he gets in soon, all the same--oh, shells, aye,
Ys. That *might* be the oddest Turnday gift he's ever gotten me, though
some of his gifts to the spawnlets have topped it! That wher costume for
Kaisan--" She shakes her soapy head. "G'deve, Lani. Hopefully he will;
seems likely. I'm sure he'll be happy t'see all his family when he does."

Amarie waves, "Good night Lanisa!" She calls from where she's sitting in
the water. She freely grabs the sweetsand, scrubbing vigorously at herself.
"Did you really climb up there and dive?" Amarie asks, having overhead the
story. This is asked of Jaleran as she glances from him in the water up to
the reported 'rock' they dove off of.

Jaleran nods to Lanisa as she starts out, "If they're flying, they'll be
fine. It's not so far between here and Benden skies that it will take him
much longer to get home. You'll see." He tries to put both assurance and
appology for his verbal blunder in his voice. After Lanisa has gone, he
nods to Amarie, "Oh, aye. The both of us did. Off that shelf about a
half-length above where the cliff-stairs end."

Lanisa pauses on her way towards the door, a slight grin to Kassi, "Told
him I wanted a runner next time... You know, if I don't." Impress likely.
Lani -would- tell him that. "But I don't really mind if he passes on that."
She nods again to the others and is gone.

Yselle watches Lanisa go, concern showing on her face. "You know," she says
after a moment, "I should probably get these kids to bed. "Awwwwwwwwww,"
Levarn complains, pouting. "It's really good to see you okay," Yselle tells
Kassima, scooping her daughter up, and stepping out. She begins to dry and
dress her daughter, just watching Levarn have his final few splashes.

"They're nuts," Kassi helpfully informs Amarie. "And I *missed* it. There's
just nay fairness in life at all." She rubs at the back of her neck.
Despite the attempts she must've made to clean herself up after the Fall,
there's still ash and soot clouding the water around her; she grimaces.
Watching Lanisa go, she wonders, a little wryly, "I wonder if'n any of
m'children were half such worrying hens. Well, Kiss, probably. She's acting
more irritated with us than aught, but...." She flicks a quick smile up to
Yselle. "I'm pretty happy about it m'self. Good t'see you too, and your
lovely lassling. Have a good night, all three of you, hey?"

Yselle smiles over at Kassima, once her daughter's safely dry, wrapped, and
watching her mother with those big eyes of hers, do the same for herself.
"Thanks. It's good to just have time with them," she says. Once dressed,
she fishes a complaining Levarn out of the water, and ministers to him as
well. "Come on love, remember it's sea monster night," - "Night you lot,
don't stay up too late, and you," grinning at Kassima, affecting a
mock-stern expression, "Get better." She looks completely in her element as
she leaves, draped in children.

Yselle walks off towards the Inner Cavern.

"Good night Yselle," Amarie says this with a slight smile over the
Weyrsecond. She keeps her distance after the last time she tried getting
too close to that mother hen and got pecked for it. To Jaleran she asks,
"Will you dive again?" Worth a try asking. "I want to see."

Jaleran waves to Yselle as the Weyrsecond collects her kids and heads to
her weyr. And when Amarie asks him if he'll dive again, what can he say
but, "Ok. Just a minute." He jack-knife dives underwater and swims over to
where he deposited his breeches. He pulls them back on before exiting the
water at the base of the cliff-stairs. He climbs much more slowly this
time, taking a moment at the top of the stairs to shake off as much water
as he can and get his hands mostly dry. Then he's planting hand and foot on
the cavern wall as he climbs the vertical half-dragonlength from cliff to
rock shelf.

Kassima slows and finally stops in her compulsive scrubbing to watch this
climb, suds-laden hair dripping into her eyes. "Crazy," she repeats under
her breath. Then: "Sometime I'm going t'have t'try this." Of course.

Amarie lifts her head watching every inch of the climb. She looks a little
worried. Her lower lip goes between her teeth to get nibbled on as she
watches him attempt that harrowing climb up the side of the wall to the ledge.

From below, Jaleran's feet prove to be nearly as calloused as his hands as
they grip the various holds and cuts in the rockface just like a second set
of hands. He pulls himself up onto the two-pace-wide rock shelf, then
braces himself against the wall as he stands and faces the pool. "Clear
below!" Even if the entire cavern were empty save for him, he would still
call that. It's just basic safety that's been drilled into him. He scoots
forward until his feet are halfway over the shelf's edge, the toes curling
down. Then, like before, there is barely the length of a heartbeat between
motionlessness and flight; He bends double, his legs bent to the point that
his heels touch his hips and his arms pulling behind him to his hands are
above the line of his shoulders. He springs more forward than upward, his
powerful legs sending him not only well clear of the cliff below him but
nearly a quarter-dragonlength further towards the pool's centerline. At the
peak of his dive, he jack-knives to grap his ankles and goes into a
straight-limbed forward flip. Two flips later, with a half-twist between,
and he lets go to arc into the water upsidedown and backwards from the
position he started in. While his mass makes a splashless entry really
impossible, the amount of water sent into the air is a good bit less than
might be expected.

Amarie blinks and then claps her hands. "Wow!" She looks amazed and
surprised by the way he dove off that cliff.

Kassima watches with great interest indeed through this dive; and at its
end, though he hasn't yet surfaced, she laughs, whistles, and starts to
applaud as enthusiastically as wet and soap-slippery hands will allow. "Oh,
you'd be a hit at Boll!" she calls. "Excellent! I haven't seen many dives
better. That twist between the flips was a particularly nice touch."

Jaleran doesn't do the same underwater laps before surfacing like he did
earlier. He lets his dive take him to the bottom of the pool before pushing
up and surfacing at the base of the shallows. Since he came right back up,
he's not even winded from being underwater and swims leisurely back to his
spot on the rim, the whistling bringing a grin to his face. But no blush or
flustering; this is one of Jaleran's prized skills and not something that
he's ashamed of at all.

Amarie claps her hands from where she sits in the shallows. "That was
wonderful Jaleran!" She smiles, practically beaming at him. "Will you show
me how you did it sometime? I mean truly?" She glances up at the rocks. "I
could do it.." Her voice sounds, somewhat doubtful as if she might be
making a boast she can't keep.

"I'd like t'learn too," says Kassi, pushing hair back from her face. "Well,
eventually. I can do the spinny bits," and she gestures circles with a
finger to indicate the flips, "sometimes, when swinging out from the vine,
but 'tis more accident than design then. I've certes never managed the
twisting part on purpose."

Jaleran holds up a finger to Amarie, "Show you how to dive, yes if you want
to. But not up on cliffaces like that." He nods to to the cliff the stairs
lead to; the one that shelfs nicely over the water at a much more sane
height and directly over the deepest part of the lake. "You don't want to
start much higher than that, really. And what's this I hear about Boll and
a vine?" He settles in to lie back at a point halfway up the shallows so he
half-floats on the surface with his hips anchoring him.

"Why not?" Amarie asks, "If Metri can climb up there, I can climb up
there." She finishes scrubbing the rest of herself and dips further in the
water. She leans her head back to get her hair wet before attacking that
with the soap.

Kassima ducks her head underwater briefly before answering, the better to
get at least some of the soap out of it. Temporarily. She's pouring on more
sand for a second scrubbing soon enough. "Off one of the cliffs at Boll,
near the beach, there's... well, methinks it's been replaced by a rope now;
I still call it the vine, since 'twas once," she explains. "The trick is
t'run up the path, grab it, and swing out over the ocean. They've had
contests t'see who can do the most tricks on the way down, that sort of
thing--I won one Turn, but luck had a lot t'do with it. You should try it
someday, if'n you haven't. And Metri. If'n you don't Impress perhaps we
should make an expedition of it, sometime in summer or the like. You could
probably do that, Amarie; people who aren't divers try it all the time...
though," and here she grins, "sometimes they, and by they I really mean
'we,' chicken out and have t'be pried off the thing. Entertaining, at least
when it doesn't happen t'*you*."

Jaleran sighs softly and smiles at Amarie. He has to admire her
determination, but then there's the stuborn pride part. Oh, who is he
kidding... he admires that, too. "Metri has been tossed into the air by his
brothers since he was little. He's had his whole life living in the
outdoors to learn how to climb, jump, flip, and dive. And I've been
climbing rockfaces since I could walk. I don't doubt you can learn how, but
don't try to do it all at once." He grins at Kassi's description of the
vine, "I haven't been out Boll-way before. I came north via Keroon River
Hold. Nothing like that over that way. But it sounds like great fun."

Amarie's lip suddenly comes out in a stubborn look that says she's about to
do exactly the opposite of what she's told. She tilts her head back again
to rid her hair of the excess soap. She announces, "I bloody well tried ice
skating, I can bloody well try this." She gets out of the shallows and
finds her shirt. Pulling it on, she wipes her hands on the shirt tails. She
moves over to the high rock Jaleran climbed and tilts her head back staring
at it. She's looking for the good places to pull herself up on.

"'Twould be a messy, messy way t'die," Kassi observes, eyeing that cliff.
"Falling down from it and cracking your head open. Pity the other
Candidates who'd have t'be cleaning up the Springs afterwards if'n naught
else!" But she grins; she's at least partially teasing Amarie. "Never
t'Boll? Ach, you've missed out. Lovely beaches they have. And food. And
bar. M'favorite leisure place when I don't mind company wandering by,
methinks." Her light tone disappears as Amarie heads for the cliff; she
straightens in the water and calls, "Candidate. Stop."

Jaleran is swimming switftly to the base of the cliff stairs as soon as
Amarie actually starts climbing them. So he's vaulting out of the water as
she's standing looking up the cliff. Kassima's words get an instant
response from him and he pauses in a crouch at the base of the cliff
stairs. She might not have been speaking to him, but 1; why take the
chance, and 2; there are times when a Wingleader is just that. But his gaze
is locked on Amarie on the cliff above him, eyes a bright gold with
gut-chilling worry for her.

Amarie turns her head to look at Kassima, "I can do it," she says. "If
Jaleran and Metri can do it, I can do it too." She hasn't started climbing
yet but then she hadn't decided on her choice of 'first step' just yet.
"You said yourself Kassima that you wanted to learn how to do it too."
Perhaps reminding the Wingleader she said she'd try it if possible would
help. "I won't do anything dangerous.. I promise." She looks at Jaleran,
her own eyes gray with determination to do it.

Kassima corrects herself quickly: "Nay you, Jaleran--" There's not a chance
of her being able to get out of the pool and run over there to spot Amarie,
after all; and she doesn't try, either. "I said that and meant it--I want
t'*learn* how. Which includes learning how t'climb a cliff, which I don't
know how t'do, and which it sounds like you don't know how t'do either. Can
you throw a fifty-pound firestone sack just because I can? Can you ice
skate because Lanisa can? Butcher a herdbeast properly because Velano can?
If'n you want t'let Jaleran show you how t'dive off that low cliff, I've
nay problem, but if'n you broke your back trying that high one when he says
you're nay ready, 'twould be more than a problem."

Jaleran stands up when Kassima specifies, but he doesn't climb the stairs
towards Amarie. Anyone looking at his expression could easily tell that
right now he's lost. He desperately wants Amarie to realize how dangerous
what she's trying to do is, but he doesn't want to damage the respect
they've built by rushing to her 'rescue.' He knows that Amarie would pick
up on it quickly enough if she started with the basics, but right now his
mind is full of what could happen to her if she fell. His lips move of
their own will, mouthing 'please... don't... you could die...'

Perhaps it is because Kassima presents a logical argument or represents a
higher authority, or maybe it's because she was looking at Jaleran and saw
those mouthed words. Amarie turns away from the wall and says, "Alright."
She gives in for now. Her shirt is soaked and she walks past Jaleran on her
way to her towel and clothes. The towel gets used to soak up the excess
water in her hair.

Kassima relaxes visibly, sinking at least an inch deeper into the water.
"Better t'get lessons in an art like that at a saner hour anyway," she
speculates, wry, rubbing soapsand into her shoulder. "'Tis just too late at
night t'die. And I really didn't want t'see you fall, so I thank you."

Jaleran is radiating relief so strongly, it's a wonder he and anyone within
five paces of him doesn't get instantly dried off. He stands at the base of
the stairs for a breath before he turns and goes to collect the rest of his
own clothes as well. When he has everything he came in with over one arm,
he stands a pace away from Amarie, "From what I could see, the skating
lessons from Lanisa will help the balance you'll want when diving. And why
not start on those lessons during stargazing time?" Yes, he's babbling a
little but the words are no less genuine.

Amarie pulls her nightgown on over her head and removes her wet shirt from
beneath before sliding her arms through the long sleeves of the cloth. "I
won't die Kassima," she promises. Then with a grin she says to Jaleran,
"I'm not afraid of diving. I'm just going to fly!" She lifts her arms out
on either side of herself, smiling wildly as she throws them up carefree.
"And if you'll be willing to teach me then I'll be learning from you during
that time." Tossing a bold smile to both her and Jaleran, one that shows
off her overbite she says, "Good night to you both. And sleep well." She
lowers her arms to pick up her dirty clothes as well as her extra towel.
She trundles on out of the baths.

"You, too," Kassi bids, reaching for her waterlogged towel to wrap it
around herself again before finally hauling herself out of the Spring with
great care. She settles on the rim rather than trying to stand immediately,
her fingers poking through her clothes for a silver comb. "And you'd best
nay--I don't think Jaleran would ever, ever forgive you." Her grin takes on
more than a hint of impishness. "Call it a hunch."

[Editor's Note:  Jaleran disconnected shortly after that, so
the log ends here. :) ]