Difference between revisions of "Logs:A Favor Between Brothers"

If nothing else, K'zin had to give them credit for patiently hearing him out. He hadn't expected any less from Gvanna and Zakari, both made of such stolid stuff. The look they exchanged made the bronzerider catch his breath. He both hated and envied that they had that way of speaking without speaking to one another. It surprised him that after Zakari's nod, it was Gvanna that spoke, her voice a soft alto that always reminded K'zin of the velvet.

"We could, Waki," she began, still thinking even as she spoke. "Nothing ship-board. Illness spreads too easily there. It would be no service to him to sign him to a crew only to have him reviled but for the possibility. "In the crafthall, there's always work to be done, and surely something that he might be familiar with or something he might be taught to do." She meant her crafthall, Fishcraft. Her brow wrinkled, "But..."

"But," Zakari took up, his deep voice always holding more weight than was strictly necessary for any conversation, "If he might have information damaging ti the Hold, wouldn't it be wiser to send him elsewhere? To the Weyr even?"

It was a point K'zin had considered. "If he would come to the Weyr." He replied after a moment, oddly aware that beside Zakari's bass that had eight turns more of life experience than K'zin's that his own sounded almost brittle. He cleared his throat. "I've thought he might wish to go back to Crom, but if he wishes to stay here, I just need to know what he might be offered by way of employment."

Zakari made that rumbling in his throat, that thoughtful sound, that dwarfed his own throat clearing by spades. K'zin sometimes wondered if, under all that seriousness, Zak might not know what he did to his little brothers and get the tiniest unseen kick out of it. "Might ask Naz, if it's back to Crom." He suggested without obvious emotion.

K'zin felt as he often did back when he was Waki, that Zak couldn't not know what he was doing when he was doing it. "I could talk to mother..." He suggested in counterpoint.

"Mother," Zakari said with some finality, "has no sway at the Hall. Not anymore." He laid a hand on Gvanna's shoulder, her own rising up to cover his. "Talk to Nazius."

K'zin made a face worthy of a much younger him. Gvanna laughed, covering it quickly with a hand. Zakari just stared at him.

"Fine."

"Good."

"Whatever."

"Are you saying you can't do it?" K'zin demanded after a frustrating half hour of trying to tell Nazius as little as possible about why he was asking for the favor.

Naz' laughter was annoying, meant to make Waki feel like a dullard. "Well, of course I can, brother-dear." He smiled the smile that made K'zin want to punch him. The smile would look better minus some teeth, he felt sure.

At least this admission was progress. "What do you want for it, Naz?" K'zin sighed.

"I want you to find out what specialty Kazi is declaring before he does it, and if it's mine, convince him otherwise." Nazius' plain speech was met by flabbergasted silence. "You are his favorite brother, aren't you?"

No, but K'zin wasn't going to say that aloud. How hard could it be? "Alright."

Kazi was laughing. K'zin gritted his teeth and recounted all the reason his annoying blue firelizard bore the same name. The girl left with her pride wounded when rebuffed by K'zin after all the time Kazi spent pitching the bronzerider to the hold girl. It was cruel, K'zin thought, but that was Kazi for you.

"You're not really housebroken, are you?" His prettiest brother said with no small amount of laughter still in his voice. "Oh, you are. Oh, Waki. What has the Weyr done to you?"

K'zin took a sip of his drink, his mostly-water-ale. "I'm happy there," he said with resolve though he managed to keep vehemence out of his voice. Kazi wanted a rise from him. He shrugged his shoulders.

"She must be some woman," Akazi observed, still amused. "Or is it your dragon? I hear dragonmen love their dragons," the suggestion was disgusting. But that was Kazi, again, being Kazi.

K'zin rolled his eyes, "At least dragons don't chafe like rocks." He thought it was a good come-back until...

"You would know about both, wouldn't you, Waki." Point to Akazi. His lips pulled into a smirk of victory.

"I meant..." K'zin started, but it was lost. "How are you loving your craft these days, Kazi?" At least it was an angle in.

Kazi was obviously disappointed that the exchange of barbs wouldn't be continuing, at least, so obviously, and sighing over his wine, "Oh, well enough, well enough."

"Decided on a specialty yet?"

The miner was amused. "I don't know. I've always had trouble settling down." He was obfuscating and K'zin knew it.

"That's always been your trouble, aside from the obvious lack of sense." K'zin tried, but Kazi laughed. It wasn't good enough to be considered a barb by the other, obviously.

"Enough sense to know when you're fishing. Why do you want to know?"

K'zin always felt unmatched with his older brothers. Nothing had changed in the intervening turns. He sighed, "I don't. Naz does."

"Naz does." Kazi repeated, smirking.

"And he wants to make sure it's not his."

"Mmm."

K'zin frowned. "Will you tell me?"

"I might," Kazi hedged, thinking, but still amused.

K'zin sighed. "What do you want?"

"Just a favor." Isn't that all K'zin had wanted? It had seemed so simple before he went to Tillek. Kazi sipped his wine. "I need Kina's endorsement."

"Why don't you just ask him for it?"

"He doesn't like me."

"Go figure."

Kazi smirked, "He likes you."

"What do you mean he likes me?" K'zin gave him a genuinely bewildered look. "Everyone likes you."

What. K'zin frowned. "Alright. So you want me to convince him?"

"Yes."

"Fine."

"Good."

"Wait," K'zin said as he started to rise. "Are you any good at minecrafting?"

Kazi laughed. "Does it matter?"

No. K'zin left.

Kina had barely looked up from his loupe and the box of cleaned gem bits he was working through. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because he's an idiot."

K'zin couldn't argue with this. "Is it really that big a deal?" He could at least wonder this aloud.

Kina sat up and spun on his stool, letting the loupe drop away with his hand. "Yes." Duh.

"Oh." K'zin could feel his lower lip jutting out in what he hoped wasn't a pout. "Well. Would you do it for me? Because you like me?" So Kazi thought.

"Like you?" A single brown brow lifted at K'zin. "I don't even know you, K'zin." The only one of his brothers who called him by his name would be Kina, K'zin thought, and it would be only to prove a point.

K'zin sighed. "Well, is there something I can do for you that would get you to do it?"

Kina thought a moment and then nodded. "Yeah. You can convince Wazan's craft to post him to Crom. Mother's been weepy all turn wishing to have her children closer to home."

"Convince Wazan's craft..." K'zin repeated dumbly. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know." And Kina didn't care. He turned back to his work.

He went to Waz. What else could he do? It wasn't like K'zin knew anyone worth knowing in the BeastCraft.

"Can you?"

"I don't know," Wazan, unlike Nazius, wasn't playing games. He was changed since the last time K'zin had seen him. Changed since Fort, but that made two of them. The way Wazan's brow wrinkled made him look like K'zin's younger brother, he knew.

K'zin waited.

"I could request it, but I don't think they're likely to let me. I'm going to take my Journeyman's exam at the end of the turn, but I'm only nineteen so even if I pass they mightn't have me walk the tables for another turn or more. More than just exams matter." He said it even though he must have known K'zin would already know.

"Is mother...?"

The bronzerider felt his brow crease to mirror the concern in Wazan's. "I don't know. I've not... I've not been home. Much." He sighed. "As much as I should, anyway."

There was silence for a moment and then quietly, the younger said, "It's not easy. It's like she's a different person now."

K'zin felt some measure of relief, that Wazan understood. Of course, Waz wouldn't've been home much either. "Yeah," K'zin agreed somberly. "I'm not sure I'm a good son. But she hasn't been my mother in a long, long time." The lump he swallowed was the truth of those words and the guilt that they brought in voicing them aloud.

"She's never visited me here." There's a pause, "Did you know Kintaru wants to apprentice here?" Waz is thoughtful.

"He does?" K'zin's brows mirrored his brother's but for a different feeling.

"Do you think Kina really cares about Mother or is he just... I don't know, worried about Kintaru?"

K'zin frowned. "I couldn't actually say. I don't really know Kina well. I don't even know who Kintaru's mother is."

"I don't think any of us do." Whether he meant knowing Kina or about Kintaru's mother, it didn't matter. Something about that fact made them both laugh. When they were done, left smiling at each other, Waz said, "Listen, I have this afternoon off. Let's go see Mother, and then Kina. Maybe if you just come by once ever couple sevens and give me a ride to visit her at home, he'll settle for that." And they can avoid all the politics.

After that, after the visit with their Mother which was full of difficult moments for both of them, it was like dominos falling, if not quite so neat.

Kina agreed to endorse Kazi. Kazi admitted grading was his chosen specialty, which K'zin realized in hindsight, if he'd thought about or paid any attention to anything, he probably could've guessed by Akazi's wanting Kinarius' endorsement and saved himself some time and headaches. He felt better for following it all through though, so that was something. Nazius was pleased that Akazi wasn't going to be more competition (beyond Zakari) when it came time for trying for masterships, and agreed that if this person K'zin wanted to find employment for wanted to come back to Crom, he would find him a position at MineCraft suitable to his limitations.

K'zin felt exhausted by it all, reminded why he didn't see his brothers much, but something was missing.

He wrapped his arms tightly around her when she appeared in the dining hall where he waited.

"Sorry it's been so long, Kinzi."

Kinzi grinned as she thumped him in the shoulder. "Was beginning to think you forgot about me."

"Never." K'zin smiled.

"Good." She grabbed his hand and pulled him down onto the bench. "Now, tell me everything."

And he did.