That push and pull of rough assertion would sometimes still dance under his hand sometimes when his hands were particularly idle. Kahbrohm had boiled the brunt of his anger out of his system, using that desire - that hope - as kindling. But it hadn't been enough to keep the frown off of his face, and the particularly biting looks from being turned on his br- Dehka. But he'd settled back down to a state of tolerable to other candidates, at least.

Instead, he nursed privately at a different knife that twisted in his chest. Peeling tubers gave him more time to think than usual - something about the repetition, perhaps. So he thinks I'm going to stray that far away, it wasn't introspective and life-changing in the way it should have been. In fact, it was like a fuel that was added to a concentrate of disappointment. Thinks I don't want to be like him anymore, his brow knitted and the young woman sitting across the table from him frowned and scooted over. What had he done to give that impression? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Fact was, Dehka just had to be the shining golden boy that was so much more like N'ori and suddenly all Kahbrohm could do was be cast in shades of darkness by comparison. The thought twisted sharply in his heart and his frown turned into a glower of disdain.

N'ori's judgement wasn't some insurmountable obstacle to show what he was made of by climbing over, however. He was safely tucked away in a Weyr his entire life, cared for, provided for, and perhaps the worst thing that had ever happened to him was to be handed to another not his birth parents. Handed into the loving care of a man who now claimed he loved him - but had so little trust in what kind of man he'd become. If he didn't simply grab onto his want to be something more, no obstacles were going to become his foothold so he could hoist himself up to it. He had to carve them out, because no excuse to prove he could do it would present itself to such a normal boy.

He'd come from simple. He'd been raised in simple. He'd not been forged in Nabol and whisked away to greater things - and in that way, he was looked down upon as just another. Just another Weyrborn boy. Just another thing that could be seen without effort, without any distinguishing features that made him stand out.

And somehow, that ambition is darkness now, at least where it mattered. It hurt in a way that he couldn't wrap himself around. It hurt in the way only N'ori could have hurt his son.

But he'd weather that to continue his climb. Either he found a way to build himself up, or he would remain flat with no momentum in either direction for the rest of his life.