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Bored, sore and slightly hazy Kleos eyes pointed ceiling-wards but didn't really see; she was riding in Moriath's mind. While her bondmate was also resting, recuperating from her hurts, she at least was outside with a light breeze occasionally caressing her red hide and with stars to look up at. She would have liked to make some conversation, or at least have the crimson acknowledge her, but her bondmate was too dismal over the failure to capture the traitor blue and his rider to want to interact.

This left Kleos to play her own actions that night over in her mind again, to wonder what she could have done better. Light. She ought to have brought light, and to have gone armed. Had she been more prepared fewer people might have been hurt, and the greenrider Ralae might not have suffered that mental break. At least everyone in the group that had hunted the snake had survived though; not counting whatever damage had been done to the greenrider's psyche Siata had been the worst hurt, herself following in second place. They would recover; she was thankful for that, thankful that the lesson had not come at too high a cost.

It was then that she heard the deep voice and snapped abruptly back into her own senses, a wide smile replacing her blank unfocused expression. "Siata! I am glad to hear your voice my friend!" she exclaimed, her own voice a little hoarse. When she had come out of her initial daze and haze of the first heavy dose of fellis that had been necessary to allow her wounds to be treated she had asked to be placed near to the wherhandler so that she could keep a watch on her, and so that when the big woman came around she would have the company of somebody she knew and liked.

"How do you feel?" the blonde rider asked after a moment, propping herself up gingerly on her right elbow to better inspect Siata. Her friend's eyes were closed at the moment, but she had been aware mumble a rather specific demand so she trusted that for now at least the handler was still awake.

Not used to such ribald japes Kleos flushed a bit and laughed slightly nervously. "I'm glad you feel well enough to jest," she said, rather than replying to the joke itself; Siata was really quite prone to catching her off guard like this. If not for the revolution she would likely not have taken the time to get to know her; a great loss, for certain.

"I have felt better," Kleos went on after a moment with a weak smile. "My torso looks as though it ought to belong to a blue dragon, and the healers suspect a cracked rib but I was fortunate enough to escape any breaks. Their greatest concern was the deep bite to my shoulder, but they tell me it shows no sign of infection which is excellent news." It was still very painful, as were the slashes on her right side and breast, but for now she had enough of a dose of fellis in her to keep the worst at bay.

"I was worried about you," the wingleader added after a moment, her voice softening. "When it rolled over on top of you I thought... well, I thought the worst."

Kleos gave a brief chuckle and eased herself back into a horizontal position, turning her head to keep looking over at Siata. "I'm glad that our mutual fears were groundless. Well," she winced, "largely groundless."

Thinking about Moriath made her laughter die quickly however; Kleos sighed and closed her eyes. "Physically she is better than either of us," she said softly, "but she is.... Are you aware of what went on in the woods?" As she doubted this Kleos decided to just continue. "Moriath led a small group to hunt the felines, as you know. What they found however was the traitor blue who transported the assassin, and appeared to rescue the Ancientcrafter at the dragonlights demonstration."

She paused then, trying to work a little saliva into her dry mouth so that it was easier to speak. "The blue and a wreck of a man we presume was his rider," she went on after a few moments. "The man looked like an animal; thin, wild, dressed in rags and with a crippled leg. Moriath and the dragons fought the blue, trying to force him to the ground, and the humans that accompanied them were set to capture the rider." Green eyes closed, and Kleos shook her head. "They failed. The blue was too swift for Moriath and Asoth - a large brown - and the humans did not catch hold of the rider; he was able to climb onto his dragon unaccosted, and they escaped between. Moriath blames herself; she is taking it hard." She looked forward to her dragon forgetting those events; it pained her to feel her bondmate like this.

Kleos nodded slightly, letting out a weary sigh. "Perhaps if I had been there to command the humans things would have been different... but I could not say what my absence at the fires and the fight with the tunnelsnake would have done. I am not so arrogant as to believe I turned the tide in either case, but perhaps somebody would have been more grievously wounded by the serpent had I been in the jungle." A soft chuckle escaped the wingleader at that point as a thought occurred to her and she added; "Certainly it would have had to find somebody else to keep pinning to the ground, and to charge at the end of the battle."

Staring up at the ceiling Kleos considered the rest of what Siata had said. After a few moments she nodded again. "We have learned something valuable, indeed.... I do not believe that a man in that state could be any kind of mastermind; whatever else he may be he cannot be in Keller's inner circle. It might not be much but it is indeed more than we knew of him before."

"You are right of course." Another sigh. "That does not change the fact that I regret it, and that Moriath does.... Thank you. I was afraid for you as well, even knowing how resilient you are. That beast was tougher than both of us." Now Kleos smiled again at her friend, so much more... rough and tumble than any she had been close to before. Perhaps she had been wrong to judge people with a manner like that so quickly in the past; Siata was steadfast, and funny in a way she wasn't used to. Sometimes the handler went too far for her sensibilities, and other times she made her laugh uproariously.

"The ground has been swept over with a fine toothed comb, as it were," Kleos went on as her mind came back onto topic; as she spoke her hand came up to her mouth and she started to chew on a ragged thumb nail. "The whers confirmed the scent between themselves, the scent of the dragon that some knew from the Dragonlights. We now also know the scent of his rider which none of them could recall smelling before. I suppose it is not a complete loss because of that and-!" Kleos paused, grimacing as she managed to rip her nail up the side. A drop of blood oozed out and the wingleader shook her head. "I must learn to stop doing that!... Anyway, yes, we know the rider's scent now and whatever they were doing they were disturbed from. We might have seen more trouble yet that night had we not at the very least found him."

Kleos gave a little laugh which rather hurt, but she smiled a little still all the same as she sucked the mildly injured digit. "You are too kind my friend," she replied, "but I confess I am sceptical about your hot-sauce advice." Shifting again the blonde looked over at a window and sighed again. "So much to do, and here we are trapped in our beds... perhaps I can persuade the healers to at least bring me some paperwork, I can't afford to get behind."

She could rely on her wingsecond, she knew that, but she was loathe to do so overmuch. She was a woman, and she rode a crimson. He was a man and he rode a bronze. That mattered, and mattered a good deal. Keeping control and retaining respect was not the easiest thing to do, it could all slip away if she wasn't careful.

Something of her present concerns showed on Kleos' face in a furrowed brow and tightening lips; she was not the greatest actor ever to grace Pern and struggled to hide her true feelings.

The pillow landed on the end of her bed with a soft thump; Kleos turned to look at it and then back at Siata. Sighing slightly and finding a wan smile she reached out to take her friend's hand, her own more or less vanishing in the large woman's grasp. "I am grateful to have my life, but I worry for what will happen while I am forced to remain here," she confessed softly, keeping her tones too low to be overheard by others. "I am the only female wingleader, the only non metallic wingleader. I fear what may be said if I am seen to fall behind what my male counterparts are doing."

And what of the other part? Kleos chewed her lip as she tried to frame her response. "I have no wish to flirt with you," she said eventually. "You are my friend, comrade in arms, and that is more than equal to a potential fancy... I hope that you feel the same way." She was fairly sure that Siata did but Kleos did not claim to be an impeccable judge of the feelings of others.