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The candlemark was late, the night dark and full of terrors, not the least of which was the raging storm outside. Through stone and wood and metal the gale was muted, only the lowest rumbles of crashing thunder and a constant quiet rush of thousands of raindrops falling to fill the air. Deep inside Western's records rooms to the dim glow of a number of candles, several figures were mulling about. Low voices murmured, though the storm and stone silenced the whispers long before they left the cavern to spread down the hall to where rooms and weyrs were full of their occupants turning in for the night. One stood from a table, scooping up a bundle of scrolls and leaving through that same passage, and a few moments later another sighed, bookmarking their place and heading out as well.

Night had come, and beds were calling. But still two more figures remained, heads bent over a certain record.

There was a familiarity to their forms, leaned together almost shoulder to shoulder without hesitation. A careful observer would be able to read amusement in the casual stance of the shorter of the two, and a mild irritation or stress in the cant of the spine of the taller, but they seemed amiable enough. They were certainly working together with a sort of practiced ease, hands flicking out to dust over the record, tracing lines over and past each other's arms with the lightest of unflinching touches as they wove along down the most recent history of Western Weyr's clutches.

"I'm telling you Shahera, it's overdue," Came the low, smooth voice of one, fingers curving to make a near-fist as he gestured to where the record ended, dark lines of ink giving way to pale untouched parchment. "We've been waiting months. The old records say that golds began to rise more often when thread fell. It's been a thousand turns and more, but seems consistent enough in any Pass before. So why not now?"

Neither of them could know it, secreted away among old books and scrolls and the names of the long-dead, but they didn't have much longer to wait. Not at all.

"I suppose that's true, but that's why we've been looking even further back. If things didn't change in the long intervals before, why now? Did something shift because the dragons thought it was gone?" That seemed unlikely. He grunted as she knocked the records to the side, his brow furrowing at the rough treatment of the scrolls, several of which were undoubtedly old and fragile. And then hopped up, her infuriatingly short legs swinging away as if her entire future didn't hinge entirely on some dragon choosing now as the time to mate. Always so focused on the present...

Her tap to his forhead made him startle, eyes widening then narrowing. With anyone else (Marinel aside) he'd have been livid inside...but he was unfortunately used to having Shahera's paws all over him. "Acting without thoughts can ruin any plans I might have made or want to make. An idiotic action could tear down everything. I think it is you, Shahera," And perhaps because they were alone, or because of something in the air perhaps, he reached out one slender finger to jab her forehead right back. "That does not think enough." His eyes did not crinkle like hers, no he'd never stoop that low...but they did narrow just slightly.

Honestly, despite the wait, life was looking better and better these days. He had his twin, his plans for life. A few...friends, even. If they counted as friends...And in the distance, the echoing roar of a furious golden dragon.

Whatever blithe jab Dolmar'd planned to make back at Shahera was long lost in the bellow of the gold. For a moment, just a moment, his face was unguarded, and the emotions he kept clamped inside showed perfectly clear. Excitement. Hope. Raw, furious ambition, and smug confidence. "As if I could be anything else but perfect," He nearly purred, one corner of his mouth tugging upwards in a disgustingly cocky smirk. He was backed by an answering roar, then another, and another. On their heels, a wave of emotion that was nearly physical, rolling over the occupants of the weyr like a tide. Heat rushed into Dolmar's bones, and for a blinding instant he was keenly aware of how near Shahera was, how familiar he was with her, how her skin radiated warmth, even when his own hands had been so cold...

He had jerked away from the tables, his signature scowl fixed back in place as he scooped up an arm full of records, rolling the scrolls quickly but neatly back up, and stuffing them, if with more force than the valuable items perhaps merited, into their shelves. And he kept his back pointedly to the young woman, seething as if the crashing feelings from the flight now raging overhead were her fault. Well, he was having none of it. No thank you. He would not debase himself that way. And even if he had planned to, he would never do so with her.

She'd never let him live it down if he did, and frankly she was enough of an earache already. No, he'd take a migraine tomorrow, thank you. "Going to go find some tree to climb?" He quipped over his shoulder, half expecting her to already be gone. She'd always been the sort to enjoy a bit of fun and excitement, he'd assumed.

If Dolmar'd had long hair, it'd have all felt on end at the sudden voice just behind him, the almost preternatural awareness of her breath ghosting over his shoulder and across the base of his neck. Sheer force of will kept him from tensing, and thump! Thump! Thump! He continued slamming the records home in their shelving without pause. The sooner he put this all away, the sooner he could vacate the premises. He could just leave them be, no one would blame anyone in the weyr for leaving a mess on the night of a flight...but he was above that, shard it! The flight might herald massive change in his life, but it would not change who he was if he had anything to say about it.

Even if Shahera was all but daring him to become someone else, if just for now, this moment, this night.

What would it be like, he couldn't help but wonder. To give in, to turn, grab her by the shoulders, and engage in an entirely more intimate dance than any they'd practiced before? Despite his glacial attitude, he was still a living, breathing, desirous being, wasn't he? The roaring screams ahead seemed to encourage that sort of mentality. And he did know just how flexible she could be...And he knew she knew, as much as he might hate it, how to pluck the strings of his body like a finely tuned instrument...

The last of the records slammed home in the shelf with a dull bang of finality. "Someone has to," His words were little more than a whisper, or perhaps they were just quiet below the storm overhead. "One of us has to..." He twisted, too tall to be quite pinned between her and the wall, to stare her down, and stare down at her. His olive eyes were blown wide, and with a tremor that could be any number of things, his hand reached out. Slender fingers caught and trailed through a dark, twisting lock of her hair. She really did have quite fine features...He gave her grief over her wild fashion sense, but deep down he knew that anyone who could be his partner (in dance, or otherwise) would have to be something special to stand up at his side. To be worth his time and attention...

The air seemed to go still and cold as her hand rose to trail a path of fire across his shoulder. It brought their forms closer, nearly pressed together, eyes locked as time ticked on, creeping ever so slowly towards...something.

And then the slam of the scroll into the shelf jarred Dolmar out of whatever trance the flight had put him under. Like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head. He gave a shudder and let the curl of her hair slip from his grasp as his eyes pinched shut, brows furrowing as the sharp lance of what would surely become a migraine slid into place just behind his forehead. Gently but firmly his hands moved to her shoulders, pressing her back, away from him to arms' length and keeping her there at bay.

"One of us has to keep our feet on the ground," He reasserted, the words half-grit through a clenched jaw. Already he could feel the flight's desires leeching back in...He met her eyes again, a light of anger behind them now (and perhaps just a bit of fear). "Go find yourself something, if that's what you want." Before he could make the wrong choice, and do something unseemly.

He nearly flinched from her touch—not out of revulsion, as perhaps she thought, but out of a keen awareness of how very tenuous his grip on the controls had become—before she at least gave up the ghost. She backed down, and he felt his racing heart begin at last to slow. The pounding in his head grew in time with the beat, and he took a moment to lean back, the ridge of the cool wooden shelving pressing into the back of his skull, briefly spreading the pain, but lessening it for the spread. To her comment he said nothing. It didn't matter. Let her think what she liked of him. She'd only ever been trying to get a rise from him, and today would not be the day he let her.

He had better things to spend his time on that rolling in the furs with the first interested party. He had more control than a hedonist like herself. But she was something near to being a friend, and so the sooner he sent her packing, the better. Give her time to find more willing arms to fall into, he told himself. And retreat, hide out, and grit his teeth against the pounding ache and the surging blood.

At last she put her back to him, and with as much calm and poise as he could manage, he ducked around her. His path towards the door was brisk, slightly stiff, but more or less unharried. He wasn't running away, certainly not. "I suspect the Weyr will have a bit of a lie-in, come morning. If lessons go on and you're late, I'll keep notes for you," he'd paused in the doorway just long enough to call back over his shoulder, not even a tremor to his oil-smooth voice. And then he was gone, down the hall, into the darkness, leaving the both of them alone.