The outcome of this scene is not IC knowledge - Please RP accordingly as if your character is not aware.
Xanadu Weyr - Weyrleaders' Office
Office and retreat, this is the domain of Xanadu's Weyrleaders. The door is in the eastern wall, quite close to the southern end while the northern wall is dominated by big, expansive windows, framed by sumptuous deep blue drapes edged with a brilliant gold braid and tied back with a thick rope of braided gold and blue cord. In between, the eastern wall is covered floor to ceiling with shelves that house all sorts of records, manuals and supplies that are used on a day-to-day basis. The southern wall has the Weyrleader's desk — plain fellis wood, well polished and masculine. From behind his desk, the Weyrleader can look straight through the windows and out onto the main airspace of Xanadu. The western wall is where the Weyrwoman's desk resides: a lovely piece of furniture made of warm cherry wood. From her seat, a glance sideways gives her an equally good prospect out the window. There are a few other seats, some comfortably arranged around a low round table for small, informal meetings while there also some that can be drawn up to one of the desks.
On the south side of the door, the space is occupied by a low oblong table where refreshments can be set without someone needing to intrude. There is also an 'incoming' tray where incoming correspondence or similar items can be left.
The round up is over and has been for nearly 24 hours. The Weyrwoman is looking for the Weyrleader. And while their different duties to dictate they deal with different parties and move in different circles much of the time, still they meet for some things, or they used to. They still share an office, though no order has, as yet, been signed by her to divide the room into two. Expecting that he'd be out in the plains for some time mopping up after the feline attack she'd not grown restless until the hours ticked by into darkness. Her duties have been mainly in the caverns, the clearing and the infirmary. There are at least two injuries she's been checking in on, soothing distraught families of riders tasked with patrols, answering their questions, settling the candidates who are understandably excited over all the goings on, she's been busy but mindful that others, the Weyrleader included, are in danger. She hasn't seen him in the infirmary, if he's been there, she's missed his tenure in it (probably for the best). She enters the office now. Maybe he's come up here while she was down there?
A'dmar hasn't particularly wanted to run into the Weyrwoman since the round up was called off. He's got a good reason to avoid her, considering he'll be blamed for the felines and for the fact that he didn't call off the round up due to the one feline caught in the forest. Either way he looks at it, he would've been poorly judged. If he called it off before the herdbeasts had been fully gathered to the extent the beastcrafters wanted, the Weyr would've suffered a shortage. If he did what he did, and what happened happened, he's still at fault. Anoryn said it best during the hunt, that was the bane of any Weyrleader. So while Thea might've ticked away the hours in the office, the Weyrleader was being inconspicuous, for the most part. He had to ensure that Galaxy was being supported by the other wings to hunt and track the stray animal, the large male that nearly took his arm off. They had yet to succeed in flushing the creature out. Regardless, he luckily timed the visit to the infirmary just right, missing Thea altogether, such was now too, when he had taken residence in the office with the weyrwoman long since gone to check on her charges and ensure the infirm and caverns were to her liking. He's surprised she's returned so quick, more to his dismay than anything. Albeit, he sits there in his chair, half pivoted toward the window, his left arm in a sling, bandaged - not broken, just torn up. His spear is propped up by a shelf and his hunting gear is also hung up on the coat rack, showing evidence he just crawled out of it not too long ago. He's actually sitting in an undershirt, a simple tight framed muscle shirt, while his hunting trousers have been swapped over for some comfortable slacks. He doesn't have too much going on, other than the collar that's sitting on his desk, clumps of fur still stuck to it, remnents of the animal which once wore it. His eyes lift but for an instant toward the door, then away toward the window, preparing for the onslaught with a grim look on his features.
Oh theeeeere he is! The Weyrwoman shuts the door and leans upon it while cradling her clipboard in her arms and taking in the brooding man. Sigh. "So. How's the arm?" She asks in the same chipper tone one might say, 'how've you been?' Stalking forward, she comes around to his side of the desk, eyeing him from a different angle, dark head tilted to one side to better see him. "The healers, of course, claimed patient-client privilege so they would tell me nothing. Do you need anything?" She'll probably tell him he should be in bed in a minute. Onslaught? There seems to be none forth-coming from her unless it's her mother-henning him.
Chipper… That earns a slight scowl from underneath his brow, too tired to mask his expressions completely for once, cracks in his poker face giving her a view of a real man underneath his mask. At least his response is somewhat humoured, if his tone wasn't so dreary, "Still on, fortunately enough." It would've been nothing for the animal to have ripped it off, the male was huge. His dark eyes track her stalking forward toward him, half pushing himself up in the chair to sit more proper upon her approach. As for what his needs are, his eyes lift toward her tilted head, giving his own a soft shake, "They provided me with what I'll need, thank you." Further indicated with a flick of his finger toward his desk, where some of his medications are, mostly such to keep any infections at bay and to help with the pain. He'll be drugged up with fellis in no time, when he decides to go to bed, that is.
The Weyrwoman knows how dangerous felines can be, she and her twins were stalked through the forest by them once. But all she says is, "Good. I'm glad to hear it." Perhaps his poker face over the past several weeks hasn't been all that much of a mask to his cold withdrawal or brooding dislike as much as he thinks, so she's not wasting fluttery sympathy on him now. Thea doesn't do fluttery anyway. She can see the bandaging peeking above the sling, the medicines on the desk. "I suppose they wanted to keep you but you refused," she observes. Nope, not his mother! So she's not going to chide him about not being in bed where he should be. Instead, she says calmly, "So. We have felines. No one was killed. Nice catch." No… onslaught.
A'dmar is still expecting some sort of scolding for the choices made, it's just what he's come to expect from wearing the burden of the knot on his shoulder - which currently isn't on his shoulder and instead tucked away neatly in the desk drawer. When it doesn't immediately show it's ugly face, the chiding, he waves off her comment about the healers, "If it was a critical wound, I would have remained. Instead, I have ensured Galaxy and the support wings made up from Comet, Quasar, and Asteroid assist in further hunts and sweeps. The pit traps are being removed however, as we speak, since they were never intended to remain longer than they have." He doesn't need anyone killing themselves on it, especially with the added traffic of hunters in the bush, each wanting a piece at a feline pelt, or to be the next great hunter. Either way, he's catching her up on the basics of what he's done since returning to the Weyr, "The cats we killed are both being taken for further examination, though I do fear the implication of a collar found on the one Anoryn killed." The said collar, on his desk still. Untouched by him so far. It earns a distrustful eye, before he pops his elbow of his good arm up on the chair to allow his face to be held up in his palm, weighing and measuring the consequences of such a thing, perhaps.
Thea mmhmms, perhaps skeptical about whether she believes that he'd really have remained in the infirmary, but she doesn't comment to that. His report is received with a nod. "Nice work," she says. Genuine praise, for well-done work. "Some pet," she says about the collar, her voice vaguely troubled and yet, for a woman who usually uses more words, she sure is using few of them today. She turns on her heel and heads for her desk, sits in the seat and pulls out some paperwork, appearing to lose herself in it. But the paper… really shouldn't take so long to read and she's not flipping it over.
Dark eyes turn up at the praise, unsure if that's exactly what he heard and if there's any falsehood to her words. Still, she turns on her heels and heads for her desk before he has a mind to put any further comments on the table. Instead, he scoops the collar up into his fingers, dangling the thing in his one hand, turning it over as if the piece of leather would give him any clues as to what or whom did this. Absorbed in that for a time, he lobs it back onto the top of his desk when he's done cross-examining the piece of leather, as if it would speak and betray all its secrets. Instead, as he shifts in the chair, some quiet observation in between his own thoughts has caught up to the Weyrwoman's actual task at hand, or the fact that she's not really doing much with the paperwork on her desk. He looks forward at his own desk. The right thing would be to reassure her. Yet, he can't find the words to make promises he cannot keep or reassurances that would be false from his tongue. Thus, he climbs from his chair with some effort, muttering, "I'm turning in. Have the steward read over that report for you…he might get through it faster," assuming it was a report of some sort. "Good night…" he says that much at least as he works stiff muscles over toward the door, remembering to scoop up his meds on the way toward the exit.
"A'dmar," the quiet voice of the Weyrwoman forestalls him. Ignoring the man's jab about the Steward, she nonetheless has a hint of steel in her tone that warns he'd best not leave just yet. "You are fired. I'll be appointing an acting Weyrleader in your place. Would you like help packing?" Not that she's going to help, but, "I'll send someone." Maybe the Steward? The document is lifted and taken with her as she steps to his desk drawer, pulls out the Weyrleader's knot and leaves the document in the middle of the desk he's just vacated.
That, well, that makes him stop. If it wasn't the hint of steel it was those words, you're fired, that makes him cant a look over his shoulder. It takes him a while to actually fathom what she said. Once it's in there, he isn't really sure what to do with himself. Stand there, beg for his job, argue with her, tell her how she can stick her traditions where the sun doesn't shine? All of these are viable responses, yet, instead, he says quite reasonably, "I cannot between until my arm has healed." Then a turn, a look at her, for future reference, "May I ask why?"
Thea isn't in the mood to hear begging, so she's perfectly fine with him not doing that. "I'm hardly kicking you *Between* with an injury," she says tartly. How dramatic. She eyerolls and sighs, shoving his knot in the drawer that then clicks shut, locked. "I'm merely relieving you of duty. It's… traditional. It's called executive privilege and it's been done before in times past. I’ve researched it." He's standing, she hasn't sat back down, and so moves out from behind her desk, then leans back, half-sitting against the front of her desk with her arms crossed. Green eyes are troubled, but far from angry as they regard him. "Because you, by your own admission in front of your daughter don't find Weyrleading worth doing, because I don't like the way you treat my people, because I can't work with someone who doesn't care about Xanadu." Angry? No. Disappointed? Yes.
"I see…" is all that he's capable of saying. Now whose being dramatic. "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I too have felt unjustified. My opinion means naught to you, so I'll save my energy." There's really no point arguing. Instead, he jerks his arm out of the sling, showing it to her, bandaged as it is, there are angry red marks running up where the skin didn't actually tear but was knicked, his tone deepening, "If I didn't care about Xanadu, I would have done nothing to prevent the felines… I would not have risked myself for it, its people, or you." He shakes his head, moving back to collect his spear and fling his hunter gear over his arm, using the spear as a walking stick, "As I said, I'm turning in. I will be here in the morning whether you like it or not. Until Seryth rises to dispose of me." He turns and leaves.
Thea already knows A'dmar is hurt so when he jerks off his sling, this just has her resisting the impulse to roll her eyes again. "Regardless, I won't have my people treated in a heavy-handed manner. You have your business in Ierne, but Xanadu is my home. These are my people." Unshed tears sparkle in her eyes. This has been bothering her for awhile, obviously. She’s not the best leader Xanadu ever had. She’s not the worst. She has her faults and she’s made mistakes. But really she doesn’t understand the black mood and withdrawal she’s seen in the man over the past months. All she can think is that Quoin Shipping is hurting and he’d rather be there. Yes, he's injured, yes he should go rest and so she doesn't try to keep him when he leaves. If A'dmar comes to the office, he'll find the lock changed and guards present to bar his entry and Thea elsewhere. He’ll go back to his failing business in Ierne and someday when it prospers again, he’ll be glad she sent him away.