Zakroti remained silent for a few moments, deep in thought about the story she had told him. That hardly sounded like volunteering, more like conscription by his reckoning. He shifted over towards her, placing the bowel down and wrapping an arm around her gently as she buried her face against him. "It's okay, Miry. No one is going to trade you away. You only have to be you." Zakroti said reassuringly, gently holding her to his side. It was quite the brutal move, to sell out ones own family for politics like that. So much for the Gem's supposed moral superiority, he supposed, that was a move that would have insulted his own family with its blatant and unapologetic political powergrabbing. Not that he was precisely a stranger to fighting with his own family, the succession crisis that followed his father's passing had been clear enough in that regard, though Nastaki had sought to confine the fallout. And of course, Nastaki would be extremely eager to learn of this; After all, such a situation could probably be exploited by an unscrupulous lord for political gain... If anyone was able to exploit this situation, it would be him - or Zakroti himself, the young lord mused, considering the implications of his Grandfather's own impending succession for far from the first time. For a Drakken, Nastaki was extremely old, yet remained in surprisingly good health for his very advanced age. Aside from the use of magics and Nastaki's own lifelong commitment to his own health, it was often joked that Krenta's servants were simply too scared to come for the formidable old warrior. The conversation moved on quickly enough as Miry answered his question about languages. Zakroti paused as he listened - or watched, rather - intently to her explanation. She was evidently highly intelligence to know so many languages, and his mouth dropped open slightly as she rattled them off one after other. Some were extremely complex languages he couldn't have learnt in his dizziest day dreams, let alone have learnt with seventeen others to boot. "I disagree, that's very impressive, I can't claim to be able to read or write half that number. Learning patterns is how we learn, no?" Zakroti replied with a shake of his head, peering over towards Nenra for a moment and then glancing back down towards Miry as if trying to invite the other Gem to say something reassuring, realising that it would probably be a lot more beneficial for her to hear it from one of her own people than him given the details of their association.