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Though there were still riders enough to fly sweeps and all, there was no question that High Reaches had been rocked by a bad Fall. Niobet couldn't even remember stories of dragons dropping fom the skies in the numbers she had seen since, perhaps, First Fall. Maybe not even then.

She'd been thinking things over since, and more, waffling back and forth about ask a question of the leadership here that was bound to lift eyebrows and maybe twist some shorts uncomfortably. The question was whether the potention storm that came from asking was worth it in the end. She was neither healer-trained nor a dragonhealer, not any more than any rider was. Would she be overstepping? Did she care?

It had been some time since a thought had kept her from sleeping. She'd left her Weyr and wandered down to the living cavern for a late night cup of wine that she hoped would, at least, slow the spinning wheels in her mind. She'd claimed a seat at a table that would let her put her back against a wall, but hadn't dared to put her feet on the bench for fear of being chased off.

Legs stretched out beneath, she didn't een glnce up at who might be passing by. Footfalls were enough to spur her into asking, "Do you think it's really possible to wear out a mind by thinking too much?"

The question had honestly been more musing aloud. If she'd gotten a grunt back or an only partially intelligible answer, she wouldn't have been surprised. Not at this hour. No, a truly clear answer was unexpected and she looked up from her cup, surprised.

Then she shook her head at herself and her own reaction. "Sorry," she offered. "I don't think I was expecting an answer. Maybe that proves you're right." She lifted her cup like a toast to him. "Nicely done."

Well, if they were going to have a conversation...

Rather than return the toast again and begin a never-ending pattern of raised cups, she put a foot against the bench opposite her and nudged it out. Shoved, really, given the effort that went into moving the thing, but was anyone really judging? She hoped not. It was a gesture of invitation. An unspoken "have a seat".

"I was thinking," she confessed, "about that ugly Fall and what, if anything, we could have done differently. " She tapped a finger against her right temple. "The sense-making part of me remembers the wind and fading light and insists that if we were poorly trained, even fewer of us would have come back unscarred." Or worse. "And the woman who watched too many dragons drop out of the sky insists that there had to have been something we missed."

She exhaled a laugh and took a long sip from her own cup, then looked up at him again. " And around and around we go."

As she listened to V'riel's point of view, her expression cleared, a little. Some of the weight from her own thoughts eased away. Chasing the same ideas around in her own head really wasn't going to help anyone, she knew. She knew that, logically, but since when did logic matter when sleep wouldn't come?

"It is a comfort," she admitted. "And very true and worth a deep breath or a dozen. You're right. Burns and bones can still heal. Sense-making," she repeated with a nod. "Who couldn't use more help with that? Thank you."

She sipped, then folded her arms on the edge of the table and settled into a comfortable lean. . "So what is it that's got you up and about?"

"I think that means you're calling me stubborn," she said mildly. Not a hint of real accusation in the words at all. "I might call it determined to find an answer or dedicated to discovering a solution, but." Her shoulders lifted slightly despite her lean. "Stubborn works just as well."

"Ah, yes," she agreed when he explained why he was awake. "The time-honored tradition of finding patterns in the stone ceiling of your weyr. Have you ever considered actually painting something up there? Or tacking a tapesty to it somehow. Better than counting rock freckles, I think."

"Oh no," Niobet answered, making a similar sort of face. "I can't stand when that happens. It's usually more than a chord with me, but yes. Over and over and over, the same bit until I wish I had a way to just pull the sound out of my head. You're right. That's exactly it," She paused, sipped, then asked, "How do you get the music unstuck?"

"Ah," she said then, nodding again. "You have a point." Or more than one, honestly. "I keep a glow basket tucked off to one side of the Weyr, so there's always a little light. Enough to see the cracks by, at least." If she was really unable to sleep and desperate enough to bore herself back to it. "Warm," she echoed, pulled back out of her thoughts. "I am a fan of warm. Where would you go?"

Niobet had lifted her mug in salute already tonight, and yet she did it again, saying, "To suffering the whims of an idle mind, then. May neither of us have to do it often." Had she just toasted them into overtaxed schedules? Only time would tell.

"Ohhh, Ista." Those words were spoken as a wish, for sure. "A sevenday on an Istan beach sounds perfect. I'd settle for three. Even two," she amended. I don't think they know how lucky they are to live where they do. I bet they take it for granted. What do we do today, friends? A few chores and then stroll on the beach with no hint of snow? How boring." She smiled into her mug before she drank again.

"I'm not complaining, though," she said when she'd swallowed with a quick glance skyward as though she wasn't quite speaking to V'riel for a moment,. "We're better off here and we're not going anywhere." Refocusing on him, she lowered her voice, and asked, "Did that sound like a complaint?"