Oh Brother...s, 3/12 (After Lunch)

[Deryni]

As the crowd was leaving the dining hall after lunch, they went by two rather oddly dressed boys who clearly didn't belong - even if they didn't have a somewhat foreign cast to their features, it was obvious that their clothing had no connection whatsoever to anything even vaguely resembling uniforms. Instead, one (a tall and gangly looking youth) was dressed in muted shades of green, brown and grey, while the other (a rather small boy who couldn't have seen ten summers) was in a cinnamon brown and black, and both the outfits seemed similar to those of the performers and tradespeople down at the Blackmoon Caravan. And they were rather obviously looking for someone...

"Toki!" It was Toki that Tanim spotted first, which seemed odd to him since one would have thought his fire-haired sister would be easier to see. "Over here!" It was very, very good to be seeing one of his little sisters again, and the teen couldn't hide his relief at finding her well. I've been worried... That wasn't something he'd really wanted anyone to know, since he was sure the people up here would take care of them, but he'd been keeping an eye on his sibs for so long that not being able to check on them anytime had been slowly making him frantic. And frantic doesn't help you learn an Expertise. Or anything else, for that matter.

Mochni, for his part, was fretting about something else. What if Toki's still upset with me? It's all my fault... and I was going to be better, but now she's gone. It felt like all his sibs were leaving. A few of the others were going to become something called 'pages' here, and Nalai was gone to learn magic, and Toki went off with the spirit-horse - which was all his fault! - and Tanim was so busy with learning to read minds that it just wasn't the same. Truth be told, the boy was rather lonely, and desperately missed when it hadn't been so complicated. Even helping Braan didn't make up for it. I don't want her to be upset with me. The cook's assistant fidgeted with what appeared to be a confusing series of braided strips of leather, scuffing his feet in shame before his sister even got over there.

[hanakojenn]

Toki was heading out of the dining hall with Shafan neatly tucked in her arm, thinking about what she might do for the rest of her ‘free day’. She was attempting to be Katryn’s shadow and find her way safely out of the crowd by following her mentor, with the distinct idea that both Nalai and Nalai's Mentor were somewhere not far behind.

She heard something familiar that caught her attention and made her pause in the crowd, risking being bumped or pushed. Did I hear my name? Toki stopped mid-stride and stood up on her tip-toes and listened again, knowing she couldn’t hope to stand still in the crowd for long, but luckily she heard the voice again that was both comfortingly Ruvian and gave her a direction to look. The sound led her eyes to was Tanim!!! I didn’t expect him so soon, and Mochni! This is fantastic oh, Nalai…Katryn is still here. She resisted her urge to run but quickly turned around to catch her sister’s attention “Nalai! I see Tanim and Mochni! They are here!!!” she said just loud enough to make sure Nalai could hear and then turned back towards Katryn as her face scrunched up in a rushed thought. What was the word for brother in trade again? Aha! “Brother!!” She exclaimed. Toki’s face had brightened considerably and she had a large smile plastered across her face.

As she determined she had given enough warning , Toki tucked Shafan in her arms so the chicken wouldn’t be as affected as she barreled through the crowd and ran more or less into Tanim. She was unable to give a full-out hug because of the chicken in her arms, but certainly able to well receive one if he opened his arm and generally meant to give him a half hug when she got close enough she could free one of the arms being used to shelter Shafan. “Tanim! Mochni! You’re here!! I missed you…We missed you! You should see this place! We have classes all the time – seriously- I even had one today! ” She then proceeded to give Mochni the same cheerful half embrace she had given Tanim.

[Deryni]

"Brother?" Katryn blinked as her trainee blurted that out, then bolted through the crowd. She's an orphan - ah. Right. They view each other as sibs. What brings one of them here? With a shrug, Katryn followed after, although at a much calmer pace. "Varden, their sibs are here, pick up the pace," she called back to the young man.

***

Tanim hugged Toki tightly, careful of the chicken, and let go so that she could hug Mochni, who was holding himself a bit stiffly as she did so. "Yeah, we wanted to come see you two. The others are curious about what it's like, and we were worried. Mochni also wanted to apologize to you. So, where's Nalai, so that we can get away from this crowd? Is it always this busy?" The older boy scanned the wave of people, looking for the familiar red-head. Is that her? It was hard to tell... Too many people, and most taller than Jenalai would be.

Mochni gave a nervous smile to his sister. "For Shafan..." The small boy offered the braided lengths of leather. "Tanim helped. It's a harnass and lead, for Shafan." If Shafan had had something like that, she wouldn't have gone out, and Toki wouldn't have nearly drowned, and she wouldn't have left us. He'd learned not to say some things, because he'd already been laughed at when he said that one, and he didn't want to tell Toki he was upset that she was gone. But everyone's leaving... Everyone that matters.

[Stephamarie]

Sibs! Tanim and Mochni! Here? "Varden! My brothers are here!" The fire-haired girl grab a hold of her mentor's sleeve as she pushed forward with enough excitement that she was close to giggling uncontrollably. Jenalai of course couldn't exactly pull the older mage if he didn't follow, he was much stronger than she was of course, but unless he gave significant resistance she held on to the fabric of his uniform as she ducked and started weaving her way through the crowd. "Ah, sorry - I mean, sorry! - Ow, pardon. Oo, sorry sorry..."

The progress through was a little slow, or at least slower than she would have preferred and she hoped the few feet she stepped on wouldn't be taken personally, but these were her brothers! Finally, they were out the door and darting her head back and forth she spotted them and dashed their way, still "dragging" her mentor by the arm. "Hey-Tanim! Mochni!" Giggling followed her words as she finally made it to them and only then did she let go of Varden's arm only to leap at her oldest brother and wrap him in a hug that still had most of the velocity of her sprint. "I missed you both!" After a significantly long hug for Tanim, and once Toki had released her other brother, she threw her arms around Mochni next, then let go and took a step back. Her face was flush, creeping down to her collar, at her delight of seeing her siblings again.

[Deryni]

Varden ended up being half-dragged after Nalai, idly catching Katryn's arm to drag her after - they made an amusing little chain, he noticed. However, the young man's smile died as he met the eyes of the boy that his mentoree was making a beeline for. There was a deadly cold in that gaze that chilled the blood in the Buff's veins. Woah. Scary face. What'd I do?!

***

Tanim started to smile at the sight of Nalai, then his smile faded and he locked his gaze on the young man his baby sister was dragging behind her. There had better be a good reason for someone your age to be in the company of someone my sister's age, or I will make you regret ever noticing her. It wasn't likely, that was true, but he'd long ago learned that certain perversions could be found in the most unlikely of people, and unlikely of places. A certain satisfaction at the red-head's visible surprise, then he had Nalai basically tackling him - he hadn't thought she could get enough speed for that in this crowd!

Staggering, Tanim tried to catch his balance, shoulder slamming against the door frame. Between that and Nalai's impact with the collection of bruises he already had, the older boy paled and hissed in pain. "Hey little flame..." Tanim's voice was a bit strained. "We missed you too."

[hanakojenn]

Toki cocked her head to the side a bit when Tanim mentioned Mochni apologizing. She honestly didn’t think of blaming Mochni, even when she was having a hard time here. It’s much easier to blame Bulan for me being here she thought with a smile and really its not his fault I’m so silly as to have almost drowned myself for Shafan…although I’d do it again to save her.

“Nalai should be here any second and yes it’s always very crowded at mealtime” Toki said with a smile. Not that I love the crowd, but at least I see Nalai and Varden.

She thought she heard ‘Nalai’s giggle in the background just as she finished saying that but Toki didn’t want to make Mochni wait too long so she turned her attention back to him. She had no desire to let him feel badly for any longer than she had to. Toki hadn’t meant to leave him feeling bad and needing to apologize at all! Although I am glad they came to visit she thought to herself.

Toki's face had faded to one of mild concern when she turned her attention back to Mochni, responding to his own nervousness with concern, but at seeing the harness and lead her face just lit up with a bright smile. “This is just what I needed!” She exclaimed with delight as she took the harness from him just in time for Mochni to be attacked by Nalai.

“Nalai! Look! Mochni made me a harness for Shafan! She’ll love this. Shafan has been getting very frustrated when I can’t put her down enough because I need to keep her by me and out of trouble. I take her to classes and chores and everywhere” She admitted with a bit of a blush. Well I’m not about to let her out of my sight for too long!

“Mochni this is fantastic. I can’t thank you enough, and thank you Tanim for helping.” She offered enthusiastically with a big smile. “I think we’ll need to get out of the crowd though to put it on. You guys get to meet our mentors! Mine’s name is Katryn and ‘Nalai has Varden” She offered looking to see if Katryn had come yet.

Right about then it occurred to Toki to ask “Nalai do you have after lunch chores today? I’m done since I had cooking.” She turned her attention to Mochni and Tanim to explain “I’m not sure of our mentor’s schedules either to be entirely honest. After lunch is when a large portion of our daily chores get done, and we have different chores 5 days out of the week.” She offered with a shrug.

Toki was still smiling from the excitement of visitors and the present, she occasionally would look down and fiddle with the harness and lead. It looked nice and sturdy and would definitely make Shafan happy. Shafan wiggled a bit and made a bit of noise in response, Toki's excitement clearly spilling over into the Chicken.

[Stephamarie]

Jenalai was beaming with delight and quite literally bouncing in place giving no attention to those around besides her siblings. It was only the crowd that was keeping her from re-tackling her two brothers. She'd missed them so much and seeing Toki as excited as her only made it all the better that was until Toki reminded her...no! I have lunch clean up!!

Quite visibly Nalai wilted and her grin turned to a pout as she shifted her weight to one side and sighed, her gaze cast to her toes. "I have to clean up lunch...but I don't want to leave you guys while you're here!" It was very nearly a whine but not quite, it was obviously though upset, as she looked over her forward hunched shoulders back into the quickly emptying dinning hall. "There's all kinds of stuff I had to tell you about...." She kicked at the ground with the toe of her boot and bit her lip trying to think of some way out of the situation...well, what did they say happened if you skipped out on chores...

[Deryni]

Mochni blushed and scuffed his foot some more, this time more with the mixture of embarrassment and pride that accompanied Toki’s praise. She’s not angry with me! “Do, do you need to do the chores?” The boy’s voice was pitiful. He really didn’t want to get Nalai in trouble, but it’d take her so long to do the cleaning, and she could show them stuff, her and Toki, and he wanted to see his sister again, it’d been so long! His gaze turned to the older boy – he was even older than Tanim, and bigger! – and Mochni gave him the most pleading look he possibly could. Surely this mentor of hers could help…

Varden looked to the smaller boy, not sure what they were all talking about, but the older one had stopped with the scary look, and now the little one was… Is he giving me puppy-dog eyes? “Ah… Uhm… Firehair, what’s going on?” And now the older brother was giving him an intent, very thoughtful expression. “Why are they looking at me?”

“Ah! So you’re Toki’s sibs!” Katryn’s voice was delighted, and she was starting to offer a hand to the boys, when abruptly both were eyeing Varden. “Hey, flame-brain, what have you done?”

“I don’t know!”

Tanim looked over at the new girl, and smiled a bit at her. “This is Katryn? Please tell her it’s nice to meet her.”

[hanakojenn]

Toki felt guilty immediately for having asked about chores and couldn’t decide whether it had been better or worse that she had reminded her sister. She hadn’t meant to upset anyone, and she wasn’t sure what the resolution would be. If ‘Nalai skips, she’ll be in trouble. If she doesn’t what will we do? She looks so upset and I know Tanim and Mochni were looking forward to seeing her too…Maybe we can all help and the chores will go…four to six times as fast depending if Katryn and Varden can help. She then considered the potential complications and tried to imagine if they could share the duty and if it would be allowed. Toki looked over her sibs trying to come up with any other solutions.

Toki looked at Katryn surprisedly when she heard her name and her eyes went immediately to ‘Nalai for translation out of habit, and then immediately wondered what they would do in this group with 5 people, with only one person to communicate between the halves especially if that translator leaves....

She looked briefly to Tanim at his comment “Katryn speaks trade too if you know any…’Nalai speaks fluent Valdemaran though. I’ve been using her and a few others to help me communicate while I learn.” Toki looked a little unhappy about the language barrier although she was quite grateful for her sister. It was something between frustration and resignation because she could barely communicate without the help of others. Toki was trying to learn…She couldn’t translate for Tanim, but she could introduce. She looked directly at Katryn and Varden and then pointed to Tanim and said “name Tanim”, then she pointed to Mochni “name Mochni”. She then looked a back at ‘Nalai briefly and before waiting for the translation she decided to share her ideas.

“Mmm maybe either we can help ‘Nalai with the chores, or I’ll show you around my side of things and we’ll meet up with Nalai as soon as her chores are over? They are only for a candlemark-how long can you guys stay?” She offered her view switching from Nalai to Mochni and Tanim to see what they thought and what input the Mentors might have after all the translating got done both ways.

[Stephamarie]

Nalai looked at Toki then her brothers. Mochni's expression made her feel all the worse and turned wide dark eyes toward her mentor, her lips were pouting slightly. Then she started talking near pleadingly. "I have to clean up the dishes and thing. I have chores but I wanna see my brothers...I don't want to cause trouble...what happens when someone skips chores, is there a way I can make them up and not get in trouble?"

She really didn't want to cause trouble, it wasn't that she didn't want to do the work or help out but she didn't want to miss spending time with her brothers. They were worth extra chores or something if that was the consequences. Seeing them was worth getting in trouble.

[Deryni]

Varden sighed a little bit at the way everyone was looking at him. Looking at Katryn, he offered the other mentor a wry smile. “I’m being used, aren’t I?” The young man looked over to Nalai. “I’ll do your chores for today. Go have fun with your sibs, just don’t be late for class.” Catching Katryn by the arm, he headed back into the dining hall, “And you’re coming to help, because I’m not doing extra chores alone.”

Katryn just smiled and went along with it. “See you later, Nalai, Toki.”

***

Tanim watched the pair walk away, frowning, then nodded as if he’d figured something out. Looking at his sisters, the boy offered a smile. “Shame I don’t get mentors to do chores for me. Where do you two want to go? And you need to tell us all about this place, so that Mochni can brag about it to our other sibs.” And so that they’d both know a bit more about the place they were leaving two of their sisters in. At least now there’s two of them… and I know that there’s four Professionals and the Mender here, too. But the brother in him just didn’t think that was enough. Not that anything would be enough, other than me. But that’s not really true, that’s just what I want. “Have you enjoyed those classes?”