This isn't what Caesar would want.

In those early years, when Blue-eyes was not much bigger than Milo was now, she had often been thankful for the respite offered when Koba offered to watch Blue-Eyes while she or Caesar rested. Being a parent may have come naturally to wild born apes or those allowed to lead semi-natural lifestyles in zoos, but she had been taken from the wild as a baby, and Caesar had been raised by humans. Instinct could only get one so far. Besides, Koba had doted on young Blue-Eyes, and he in turn had looked up to the bonobo. Now? That relationship had shifted to student and mentor, something Caesar wouldn't have openly spoken of negatively, but it was apparent to Cornelia, that their eldest son's recklessness was fostered by Koba, when Caesar would have counseled patience. 

'Maybe I should speak to Koba?'  She signed, before she'd really thought about the movements her hands were making.

Looking up for the first time since Ash had fallen silent, she could see the younger ape appeared guilty, worried that his words were seeding dissent. He need not have concerned himself with that, what was said here wouldn't go further.

Huffing a little, she raised one hand and appeared to pat mid-air, assuming he'd have come to the worst possible conclusion.

'Will not tell Koba that Ash worries. Will tell Koba Cornelia does.' - Which was the truth, he may have taken it better coming from her anyway. She had, for a short while, been held at the same place Koba had spent years. She knew a fraction of the pain he'd endured as a part of those experiments, but it was enough to have some common ground. The humans being here, it had unnerved her too, knew Caesar was treading on thin ice, but ultimately, as long as that fragile peace held, they would be fine.

'Things change once humans finish work by river.  Koba have no more reason to be angry then.'

Yet, Cornelia thought to herself, had it not already gone too far for that?

When she signs that-- to speak to Koba herself-- the younger ape responds a little loudly for his liking. After he's gone silent, he brings his hands up, carefully signing a genuine response to her, as genuine as everything else he's been giving her has been.

'Don't have to. Maybe shouldn't, could be bad.' He reasons. Ash isn't sure how Koba may react to Cornelia. He doesn't watch them interacting much at all. Cornelia and his father, he has seen interacting. Rocket has told him they go some ways back, to the shelter, when his father was the leader. It makes him laugh, now; Rocket's gruff ways of admitting to being beat by Caesar are entertainng, and Ash doesn't mind that sorty. Enjoys it, even. Rocket hasn't got all that many stories to tell him about his time before they fled into the redwoods, and those, he's heard before.

Listening to her soothe his unsaid troubles, he peers up at her from under his brow, as if he's searching her, asking her how she could read him so. But she's known him for so long, it only makes sense she's able to pick up on his little quirks. Two sons, too; Cornelia is well versed in seeing through males.

"Human work...," gruffly, unpracticed on his tongue, he speaks what their very subject had done nights before. Returning to his sign like a duck back to water only seconds after. 'Caesar like humans?' He asks, though he feels he knows the answer; 'Will they...come back? May think they can. Think, ape friends.'