Whitewater Gorge A Prince Without A Kingdom

He does Arrille blubbers out more questions he cannot answer in full, jumping from one topic to the next whilst demanding Vaati answer. But Vaati is not one to oblige the needs of others so easily, he never has been, and especially when he does not see an advantage in return. Why would he? Kjalarr has made his home in Blackfeather Woods, which has made his mother more noticeably happy than she was before. There was nothing he would do to threaten that, and he owes Arrille nothing. They may be brothers by blood, but Vaati has his own siblings, his own life, and Kjalarr needn't know he had ever met the other boy. And so, he tells a little white lie, lifting his head mournfully though the emotions he feels are anything other than. "He's dead," Vaati, ironically, deadpans — perhaps the biggest lie he will ever tell but surely not the most important. The reunion between father and son is one he has reserved strictly for himself and the Northerner, he cares little for the feelings of this other child or the consequences of his words. He knows there is no chance he will ever see this boy again, and no certainty Kjalarr will ever know what occurred this day.  It is fail-proof, and he knows it, perhaps that is why the smug undertone of his words can still be heard present, only to the keenest ear.