It was a sultry summer back home, the night their father had summoned them. Kaarden Desius itself was still partially in ruins, was an active war zone that very few Aigard were willing to risk returning to. The proud Konik of the military branch of the Aigard would set his camp up nearby, but even he had refused to make himself such an easy target as to reclaim his old throne.

So it was that after they'd been spoken with, they left his tent to the slowly cooling air of the evening, ears twitching now and again with the rise of crepuscular, droning insects. They didn't speak to one another, but Kenzou signaled them all to split, and they did so without question.

Long after the last rays of sunlight had died, Keung met his monstrous brother at Kenzou's lair outside of the Garandezwarden encampment. Kenzou was an outcast because of his horrific mutations, but at least he'd been outcast since birth, and was used to the scorn of his family. Keung was still learning to live with the disgusted glances and the utter lack of respect.

Though Kenzou was outcast, he wasn't destitute. He sat on a low pillow spread over goatskin rugs. His home was tidy, this cavelet made comfortable for visitors. Keung was always skeptical of that: the low table before Kenzou was lined with esoteric paraphernalia. Feathers from the mistoff bird and a low bowl for burning them. A wooden bolus carved and sanded for throwing knucklebones, a flat silver tray for pouring seer's water. How could so many be interested in humouring Kenzou's ridiculous claims of magical powers? Yet if it weren't for these tools, and for Kenzou's calm diffidence to his lot in life, he really would be destitute.

Keung felt a wave of disgust rise in him as he settled on the other side of the table from Kenzou, but he had by now gotten used to that. He wasn't sure if it was with Kenzou or himself, and hadn't made his peace with that, even if he couldn't currently do anything about it. He was weak, now. He needed the comfort that came with Kenzou's lies. He craved the solid alliance Kenzou provided, as low as it felt to admit it.

Kenzou was at his ease already. He had a long, slightly curved pipe, and was puffing at it while he pretended to ignore Keung settling in and feeling sorry for himself. He passed the pipe to his brother, who warded it off. Kenzou shrugged and exhaled. "He's not looking well."

That got a bark of laughter from his brother, and Kenzou returned a small smile. He couldn't do more, really, not with his muzzle-marred face. "I'd say I hope he does better, but father isn't constitutionally suited for it."

"We'll know when something's wrong when he stops scheming," Keung agreed.

"So what do you think it is this time?" Kenzou asked, pipe forgotten for a moment as he met his brother's gaze. "He has not requested my presence in years, and now all three of us...?"

"You think I have father's ear?" Keung said, bitter. "Speak with Keshon."

Kenzou waved that suggestion away. "We both know that Keshon has neither of our interests at heart. He will do what it takes to come back triumphant from this, which means that either we're sacrificial, or we're expected to support him." Keung grimaced, and Kenzou knew he'd hit a spot. He preferred that; Keung could be hot-headed and unwary, and Kenzou didn't want an ally who wasn't thinking things through. Better to put him on his back foot now so he had time to think about what to do about it.

Remarkably, Keung came back with a thought that wasn't a leap to conclusions. "I don't believe this will be sacrificial," he said, voice uncharacteristically slow and unsettled. "And I'm not sure if we will be called on to be his bulwarks. But if we were, it would be in Garandezwarden's best interests... wouldn't it?"

"It would be in father's interests." Kenzou took another puff, fascinated by Keung's attempts to unravel a plot. This was a new leaf for him. Maybe he wasn't as inutterably stupid as Kenzou feared.

"It would be." Keung placed one mangled hand in the other, looking down at it, still. "The question is, then, is it also in our House's?"

"How does having the sons of Keigat bonding dragons at the behest of some made up Lord going to set us above Garandevierken, when Garandevierken has been throwing its bravest warriors and strongest dragons against the meatgrinder of a balebitch for years?" Kenzou asked, voice mild.

And there it was, that flare of anger he knew Keung possessed, clear across his face. Even the flash of green behind his slit pupil, the ruined one, seemed brighter. Keung said, "it doesn't, it just folds us in with the rest. But he wouldn't risk Keshon. If he does, then succession falls to the Koniket, and they've always been at one another's throats."

Kenzou nodded, but said nothing. That was a non-issue, in his estimate, unless his father and uncle's dynamic had changed at all during the balewar. From what he'd heard from his sources, very likely it hadn't evolved in any appreciable way. Instead, he said, "whatever comes, our lives will be changed forever."

It was Keung's turn to freeze, to say nothing. Now he did accept Kenzou's pipe when he passed it over.

Kenzou, feeling the time was right, learned forward, straightened a little. He loomed over Keung even though they'd been born at the same time, from the same mother. Kenzou was barbarous, animalistic, nigh on feral to an Aigard. Kenzou secretly knew he was apart from his brothers and better-than. He had a further view. But Keung was a powerful ally, against Keshon, against Keigat, against the other Houses. Useless against Balespawn, as he'd so clearly proven... but elsewise, he had been cultivating this relationship for years. He said, "whatever happens, brother, I have your back." Whether or not he meant it didn't broach in his expression or bearing. Kenzou watched Keung drink it up.

Keung put a clawed hand out. "And I have yours. Brother."

The following days were menial and agonizing for Kenzou. He was used to playing the part of a drudge, though, and he didn't see the humans with the same disdain that his brothers did. They were all three of them different from every other draconar at Ryslen, but moreover not all the draconars here were human, either. There were a few who looked distinctly other, though perhaps not as wildly different as Kenzou, and as far as he could tell, they were treated no differently than the bulk of the Nidus' citizens.

It gave him an odd, private, barely acknowledged hope. If draconars were considered equal, what would that mean among his own people?

What would it mean for Vrejnu-kind?

He kept his ear to the ground as he performed his assigned chores. Neither Keshon nor Keung were willing to get their hands dirty with mopping or mucking, but Kenzou signed on without complaint. The work was demeaning, obviously, but Kenzou towering over a human-sized broom, hulking in the corner of the lower caverns, was a magnet to the locals, and he always did his best to appear as civilized as possible, so when he began (mercifully able to shield his disgust and disgrace, since his brothers rarely spoke to the humans) to explain how his Aigard kin worked, he received an equal flow of information about the Nidus.

Namely, Flurries, which were still the talk of the Caverns. Snow-wrought dragons born by the dozen every few years, special above and beyond most dragonkin. Kenzou was skeptical; Flurry Whites sounded not too dissimilar from a leader's chosen heir, raised above the rest and pampered until they were inconsolably spoiled... but perhaps humans and their alien bonds were different from what Kenzou knew. He hoped so.

More importantly, as he learned more about Flurries past, he learned more about their circumstances, and one day an elder of the caverns put two and two together: Keshon and Keung were not the first Aigard he'd seen. Nor was his memory failing him; the first one he'd seen, he'd said, came in on the back of a literal clouded castle in the sky, with apparent magical powers far greater than anything Kenzou had ever heard of.

He nodded along as if it was all well and true, that Aigard in general possessed great magical might-- of course he would. Better to leave anyone who had even the slightest doubt that his people were superior with the inkling of limitless power just waiting to swoop in, even if he didn't believe it himself. Even if he had a deep grudge about that very ideology. Kenzou had had it burned into his soul from birth that Garandezwarden was better than the other houses, and that Aigard as a whole were better than anyone else. Only he was an outlier, a monstrous freak. He had to have loyalty to his people... or else what was he?

So he nodded along and learned more, and he drew his own conclusions.

The muckwork was hard, and boring, and often unpleasant, but there were a few locals who listened to him when he spoke, and rather than disillusion them with his troubles, he endeavoured to show them what little traction he'd been able to make in the guessing game that was the mystic art of Seeing. Humans, it turned out, were more driven by love than by duty. Perhaps he could make that work...