There was a snarl that had been caught in Kahbrohm’s chest for as many days as he'd been avoiding his father. Meigth had reached out to him within hours of the fight with Dehka, but he'd been all but shut out. The same had followed the next morning, and by that same evening even his concern over the situation was starting to gather at a head. Even the normally sharp barbs he'd have turned into his brother had been tucked away like a deadly weapon to be sprung later.

A quiet Kahbrohm was a bad omen, as far as N’ori was concerned.

Kahbrohm didn't exactly enjoy stewing in his own anger, but he knew to play his rage close to his chest. All it would take was a little disruption right before the Hatching to get him stuck in the barracks and he was not risking it. Not with that egg on the sands all but singing the luring call of a siren. Maybe it would try to kill him for his assumptive hubris - maybe he would relish in it making the attempt.

It had become something for him to wrap his thoughts around to keep them from trailing to places he didn't want to go. A task not as easily achieved when the same voice kept seeping into his mind.

Your father would like to talk to you, as if conjured up by the mere passing notion, Meigth leaned his presence into the young man’s head as he frowned severely at the floor he had been tasked with sweeping. If a frown could have sent all filth scampering, it would have been that look that did it. I don't want to talk to him, Kahbrohm answered for what felt like the hundredth time in three days.

“That is rather unfortunate, as I am already here,” spoke up the familiar deep tone of the bronzerider, who had at no small effort hunted down where his firstborn had stowed himself away.

Kahbrohm didn't even look at him. “That is unfortunate. Leave,” he answered with enough conviction that for a moment, N’ori actually considered it.

Meigth had to brush the thought out to remind the man what he'd come for. “That would be an option if I didn't know you well enough to know you'll just sweep here angrily to no end,” N’ori answered instead, crossing his arms.

“I'll sweep here no matter how I'm feeling,” Kahbrohm countered, his attention not leaving the task at hand. But the bristling in his tone was impossible to miss.

“Kahbrohm, you’re a smart young man, so I just can't see why you'd go so far as to antagonize your brother. I know you knew there was no other way your words would go over,” if he waited to find an in for his thoughts, he'd never cut through the wall that Kahbrohm was quickly putting up. It was even more clear when he pointedly refused to acknowledge the statement.

With a sigh, he continued. “I understood your intentions, but when you choose cruel words-”

“You don't understand anything. You pretend you do, but you don’t. Instead of accepting this, you try to frame everything in this nice neat little box of yours where everything is backed with good intentions and kind hearts,” Kahbrohm interjected, that snarl he'd been allowing to grow in his throat curling out around his words.

It easily was enough to make N’ori frown. “I wasn't finished talking, young man.”

Kahbrohm turned, both arms held out to his sides as he gestured dramatically with the broom to the otherwise empty hallway. “You certainly are done listening! How about you come talk to me when you're ready to listen to someone besides your golden child?”

The alarm - anger, even - that shot through the connection between bronzerider and dragon was tangibly startled into existence.

“Do not put words into my mouth, Kahbrohm,” N’ori’s voice started to mirror that snarl in his son’s tone, but it clearly wasn't enough to intimidate him into silence.

“I'm putting words in your ears, but you don't want to listen to them, there's a difference,” Kahbrohm spat back, throwing out more before N’ori could get in more of his own. “I said I didn't want to talk, and now you've tried to corner me for your own ego - try to smooth things over between your boys so you can feel good about yourself. I all but spell out how I feel about that and you try to silence me.”

N’ori was not one for scowling, but it felt like the only appropriate expression right then. “I will not have you devaluing my care for you,” he said firmly.

Kahbrohm planted the broom with a loud THUMP and leaned on it, his own expression a nearly perfect mirror of N’ori’s. “I didn't need to do that,” he stated frankly. “I bet you haven't even tried to have this talk from the other side with Dehka. He can do no wrong because he's *just like you*.”

He'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth before N’ori had knocked him on his back.

“And wasn't there a time you wanted to be just like me?” N’ori’s voice took on a low tone as he stood over his son, not at all pleased with the fact he'd had to actually lay a hand on the boy to knock the rocks out of his head. “I worry that you'll allow yourself to become something no dragon will ever want, Kahbrohm. I worry you'll make no friends and be alone. I worry you'll become a fortress who doesn't even want to try and confide in those who love you. I am scared for you because you are one of my precious sons. But you don't want to hear that. You want to hear you're right,” he filed with his words as Kahbrohm used the broom to pull himself back up to his feet.

He was barely up when N’ori pulled him into his chest for a mostly unwelcome hug. “If I can't do right by you, how can I expect you to do right for others? Is that too much for me to want?” he asked as Kahbrohm attempted to not stab himself with the broom in the awkward hold. This had not been well planned at all.

Still, he couldn't accept all of his father’s points right then.

“It isn't too much to want...but it isn't something you can just be handed,” Kahbrohm answered, pushing himself awkward way from N’ori after the hug had lingered just a while too long. “And I'm still not in the mood to talk. I need to finish sweeping,” he stated turning his back to his father once again to resume his task.

It left N’ori with a bit too much food for thought - and a whole new set of worries.