Deinha is swimming. She may not have the efficiency down perfectly, and her grace may be a little ... hindered ... by the overly fast movements, but she's clipping along fairly quickly. Just not in a straight line or anything. In fact, it looks rather as if she's just attacking the water, and it happens to be taking her somewhere. Ah, well. Sebayeth, meanwhile, has all four legs planted in the water, and ... her head is beneath the water. In fact, there's a steady stream of bubbles rising about where her muzzle should be. The back and forth flick of her rather long tail, though, is lazy and at ease -- she's playing.

In comes O'kano, muttering -- complaining -- to the bronzed dragon who follows closely as the pair enter the hot springs. "It's cold. This's the only place to get warm, you know. Other'n the sands...but I'd rather be Bitran than go out there again." Jharzeth rumbles his amusement before mildly bugling his greetings to the gold upon sight. The weyrling's head comes up at once, and he peers suspiciously into the pool; Deinha is spied, and he watches her efforts at swimming a moment or two before commenting, "It's good that you're working at it." Because it needs work. The fact that she may not be able to hear, amongst her splashings, is overlooked.

Sebayeth lifts her head up rather abruptly, causing splashing that drowns out even the sound of Deinha's efforts. And *that* gets the girl's attention: after a brief and furious few kicks she stops, treading water for half an uncomfortable moment before flipping to her back and floating. That, she can do. O'kano's thoughts are heard -- or relayed, perhaps -- for she soon heads his way. This time, her strokes are slower, more deliberate: more polished. She's not that bad. Sebayeth, while her lifemate swims, offers an amused << Mine is not concentrating on that, you know. >> Deinha, reaching the appropriate level of water, stands. "No, I'm not, Seb. But what does that matter?" Faint annoyance -- for there's no mistaking the flat tones in normally soft voice -- disappears as she smiles at Puo. "Hello O'kano, Jharzeth." Sebayeth merely ducks her head beneath the water again. << Still, you weren't. >> Bubbles start rising again.

No commentary rises from Puo concerning whatever the other weyrling happened to have been thinking about as he pauses at the edge of the pool. "G'eve," he responds amicably. "Mind if I join you?" Not that he'd leave if the answer was negative. Jharzeth, though, asks no such courtesies and steps right in and causes a considerable disturbance of water upon entering. "Looks good -- better than before," O'kano adds in regards to Deinha's strokes. "You've improved."

Deinha's lips twitch at the question -- it's one she remembers asking. "Not at all." Her hands are spread, automatically, as the ripples begin, and she shifts slightly. "Oh? Thanks.." Nah, she's not ducking to cover a blush. Nope! Dei looks up again, "Ah, O'kano? Are you just going to swim, or ... I mean," she flounders, then finishes, "Would it be bothering you to talk?" Sebayeth snorts, then has to pull her head out of the water again. Ahem. Deinha glances at the gold, giving her head a little shake. Warning?

"Great." Off goes O'kano's towel, and he steps into the springs with no further ado, although he enters with a much more subdued pace than his bronze. "Ooh, it's always nice to get warm," he comments cheerily as he wades through the shallows towards deeper water. "I...I was just thinking of swimming, you know, but I never expect you -- anyone -- to be here. But..." Here he shrugs, although it's a gesture that's probably disguised somewhat, what with all the waves of water thrust Puo's way from a content, playful Jharzeth. "If you wanted to talk, then I won't stop you." He pauses, frowning briefly; his words didn't come out as he wanted, and he swiftly rephrases. "Er. I wouldn't mind talking."

Sebayeth shakes -- shivers? -- so the water slides over smooth hide and falls back into the water. Just a subtle movement, really, but the effect (to HER thinking) is worthwhile. She does it again. Splash, drip, trickle... Deinha rolls her eyes, but grins, and then nods at O'kano. "I know how you feel." Apparently, she's addressing both the issue of warmth, and the (lack of) expectations. "Oh." Deinha doesn't quite know how to take that initial phrasing, but the second earns a smile: "Oh, good." She pushes back off the ground, floating again, and looks ... up. Not at O'kano, and not at Jharzeth, and not even at Sebayeth. "What do you think you're really going to do, when Jharzeth starts chasing?" She's direct, no? But the sound of her voice -- it's not so much forward, or even curious, as .. troubled. "Do you think you'll be lucky enough to escape to some secluded spot anytime there might be a proddy green?" An afterthought: "Or gold?"

"Oh. That." O'kano's expression slides into the more uncomfortable realm, and he half-jokingly notes, "Maybe I shouldn't have said that after all." There's a ring of truth and regret to Puo's tone, but he can't back down now; so, after flipping onto his back and idly floating -- it's a way to avoid glancing towards Deinha -- he carefully formulates a response. "What I'm really going to do? I don't know." Blunt, he lapses into a few moments of silence and basks in the springs' warmth. "I...I don't want Jharzeth chasing. But I don't want him to be unhealthy, either. But /I/ don't know about being lucky every time. You know." He's reluctant to finish off his thought, although it's fairly easy to divine where it's leading and why O'kano's worried about the 'luck' aspect.

With a wry grin -- likely unseens, since both are floating on their backs -- Deinha listens until it seems that O'kano's spoken his piece. An agreeing "mhmm" can be heard about when unhealthiness is mentioned, but, all told, she's fairly quiet. Then, a sigh. "Even so. I don't know whether to envy you, for being somewhat free, or to be ... glad there's no choice, hardly, for me." Lazily pushing herself in a semi-circle -- doing little more than to wave her fingers through the water -- Deinha continues, "I mean, I really don't ... don't like that I have to be so affected by Sebayeth, at times like that." On hearing her name, the gold's attention drifts to her lifemate << But they assured us that it's ... pleasurable? Why not *share* that with *you*? >> Deinha coughs, succeeding in messing up her smooth floating, and simply treads water there. "Seb... it's just not me!" Finally, she looks, almost pleadingly, to O'kano, "You get that, right? I mean, we're from the same sorts of places, climate aside, and... it's just ... so ..." A random slap of the water in frustration. "It just doesn't *feel* right, the thought of being with any old rider -- somebody I've never even met, or somebody I hate, or ..."

"Or just about anyone in the Weyr. Or another Weyr," O'kano finishes bleakly. "Yeah. I get it." He hesitates, then offers up in an attempt to buoy her spirits, "At least you know it's going to be a guy, probably?" It's not too reassuring, but it's the best he can do with such a touchy subject. "I don't like it either. And you're right -- it doesn't feel right. And I certainly don't want to be stuck with someone.../anyone/...without control over myself. It's not done. And it doesn't seem like it's a normal thing. Even though it is, apparently, in Weyrs. But that doesn't mean that I've got to like it." He lets out a melodramatic sigh. "I don't know what I'm going to do." Jharzeth listens on silently, and his comments aren't too helpful, apparently, for the next words to emit from Puo are an exasperated, "/Jharzeth!/"

Deinha floats again. It's distracting. "Oh? I guess.. I don't know -- I guess I can hope a bronze catches, yes. And even of brownriders, not too many are female..." She *is* feeling better. Slightly. "But it's still... yes. Not *right*." Okay, call her rude, but O'kano's exasperation seems to lighten Deinha's spirits, since she next remarks, "You know, it doesn't seem our lifemates really care at all how uncomfortable this makes us." Hmm. "Well, maybe that's not the way to word it, but.. it's like Sebayeth's just being ..patient with me. As if I'm going to suddenly feel all .. hunky-dory with it!" Pause. Then, very quietly: "Did I just say 'hunky-dory'?" Oh dear.

"Yeah." Some amusement enters Puo's tone. "Yes, you said hunky-dory." Continuing to float upon his back, the weyrling allows silence to ensue before he adds, "And yes, Jharzeth's definately acting patient. Like it's going to change. Like I'm going to change. And I don't think that's going to happen." O'kano's perhaps a bit bitter, there, although he doesn't emphasize it /too/ much.

Deinha sighs again -- and keeps afloat, even. "This is getting to be too much. I don't care what they say about not worrying." She giggles, suddenly, "And when they mentioned the .. the substitutes. Oh, I'm sorry, my parents would be shocked but... didn't you get the feeling it was just like.. some person you had to keep at your side all day, and ..." There goes another giggle. "Treat like some, oh, lovetoy." Highly inappropriate talk; hence the giggling. But she can't help it!

O'kano sourly intones, "I don't think anyone can not worry about something like this. Unless it's someone like..oh, Myca." The name is said with distaste -- it's not of Puo's favorite people, especially after the comments at the previous day's lecture. "You know. Weyrbred types." The bronzerider's tone is much more shocked as he forms a reply to Deinha's remarks, and his phrases don't include any laughter. "That just sounds.../bad/." He shudders to think -- or would, if he were standing.

Deinha leans forward, feet coming down in the water until she's treading water -- amazing what people can learn to do, however late the lesson. "Oh, O'kano, that's just it. It all sounds rotten. If I don't laugh, I think I'll cry." All sobreity now, she tilts her head to the side and gives it a little shake, trying to dispense of the water lingering in one ear. After this quick motion, she picks up her speech again: "It's like thinking about it as an act alone, I can be detached, can laugh even, but as soon as I start to think of this being Sebayeth, myself..." She pushes at the water a bit more forcefully, then calms down to keep from bobbing under. "Isn't it all just a bit crazy? Having no control, doing utterly outrageous things like ... like T'milla explained? I have to keep that outside of myself, can't think that *I* could very well be doing those things someday, or I'd just let myself slip under the water, right here. So then, when I look at it that way, I've dropped everything about myself from it, and it just becomes ... so pathetic that it's not even rotten anymore. And then I start to see how it's funny that a proddy rider might be flirtier than usual -- like she were drunk --, or that a substitute would have to follow the rider around all day, never knowing just when it'd be time for him to be ..." She bites back another chuckle, snorting indelicately instead: "Useful."

Although O'kano continues to float, staring up at the cavern's ceiling, he listens intently, expression somber. The touchy part is left alone, and he only speaks up to mention, "You wouldn't let yourself slip under. Or if you did, Sebayeth'd make sure you came back up." A faint smile comes to his facial features -- but only a faint one -- when she talks about the acts of proddiness, and he allows, "It sounds amusing when it's talked about, just as people. But I don't think I'd want to see it close-up, happening around me."

Deinha doesn't respond to that .. assurance, is it? Though a bit of a smile flickers across her lips, momentarily. And to the last comment, she sighs and firmly agrees, "Exactly." A blessed moment of quiet, on the girl's part, follows, as she relaxes back into a float again, eyes drifting shut and everything. "I guess I just brought it up because... well, because we can't avoid it, not entirely, no matter how much we want. One day it will be happening around" (to) "us. And I guess I've always been one to talk about my worries." A faint pause, then: "It helps, sometimes. Do you know what I mean?"

O'kano confesses, "I generally don't talk about things." Unless it's to complain. "I just...avoid it. Or let it happen, when there's no other options." He sniffs, scornful, and declares, "I'm not going to /let/ it happen to me. It won't. I'll make sure of it -- just you watch." Sure enough, Puo's in denial -- and he doesn't want to be clued in to the way Weyrs operate.

Deinha listens quietly, perhaps measuring that thought. And then, a bit hesitantly, she asks, "Does that really work for you, though? I'd think that would be an awfully ... difficult... way to live. And lonely, not knowing you could count on somebody to listen to you, to give you new advice..." Following the abrupt declaration, she abandons her musing, pointing out, "I don't know that there is another option for you, though. Not from what what the others seemed to say. As long as a dragon flies, Jharzeth may well chase. Since that *is* part of being a dragon. And I'm not sure if you *could* even keep him from knowing a female is rising. Maybe if you were really, really far away from everyone. Isolated." Coming full circle in her thinking, Deinha finishes, "And that would *have* to be lonely."

Silence greets Deinha's questions and comments as the other occupant of the springs reflects. "Lonely? Maybe. Not really. I guess I never noticed..." O'kano lapses back into thought before he defends, "Besides, I've got Jharzeth now. So I'm not lonely." The rest is ignored while he floats, although he does mutter out a phrase to his lifemate, who finds the conversation a wee bit too interesting. "Shut up, Jharzeth."