Kason
(Picture of PB here)
Portrayed By Naveen Andrews
Position Journeyman Smith, posted at Landing.
Former title(s) Formerly posted at Crom Hold. Apprentice at the Smithcrafthall before that.
Sex Male
Age 23
Place of Birth Igen Hold
Family List family here, and link to any who have pages.
Faction Adamantly progressive.

Character History

Kason was born at Igen Hold as the sixth child and second son of a stablehand named Bartan and his wife Merisa, one of the hold's cooks. His parents were relieved that he was strong and healthy, because the little girl a Turn ago had died in only a month. He was quite a handful, always getting into things and toddling away at the worst possible time. His family tells the story that, on the day Kason's younger sister Dantona was born, his father resorted to tying a net over his cradle in an attempt to keep him out of the way for a while. Unfortunately the birthing went long, and Kason somehow untied one of the knots and toddled out past his six-Turn-old sister Irinya, who had fallen asleep in the heat of the day despite having been told to watch her little brother. Had his eldest sister Bartisa (then thirteen) not seen him while rushing back to the family cot with news of the birthing, there's no telling how far he would have gotten. Kason takes great pride in this story, even though it may have been exaggerated when retold to him.

One of his earliest actual memories was of watching a journeyman smith shoe horses on a day when Kason's father took him to see the stables. Kason was only four at the time, but he was already fascinated to see that metal things could be shaped (plus he liked to see the sparks coming off the glowing metal.) He wanted to do that himself, so he found himself a nice flat rock for an anvil, and some fist-sized rocks for hammers, and after that he only needed one thing more. He waited until he saw the farrier at work again, and when the man's back was turned, Kason grabbed the red-hot horseshoe off the anvil. and tried to make off with it. Needless to say, he dropped it immediately, but it unfortunately landed right on his bare foot. The quick-thinking smith dumped him into a nearby watering trough to cool his burns, and Kason wasn't permanently injured, though to this day he has an irregular scar on the top of his right foot.

This incident didn't dampen Kason's enthusiasm one bit. He soon discovered the hold smithy, and tried to visit there as often as possible. He would sneak away from his chores and even when the smiths shooed him out, he would hang around the door watching with huge eyes as the smiths crafted all manner of items from metal, wood, and even glass. Eventually journeyman Dargin took pity on Kason and let him watch more closely in exchange for working the bellows at his forge, sweeping floors, and whatever other little tasks a seven-Turn-old could do. Kason had a lot of trouble keeping his mind on this boring stuff when so many interesting things were going on around him, but after getting kicked out for not working well enough, he swallowed his pride and begged his way back in on condition that he do his jobs right or be banned from the smithy completely.

With this motivation, Kason managed to concentrate on his work, even though he still watched the smiths as closely as he could. After another Turn or so, Dargin started teaching him to carve wood, and he showed a talent for it; not so much in artistic work but in making things like small puzzles or gears. This prompted the smiths to start seriously teaching him, and they recommended to the hold steward that Kason apprentice at the Smithcrafthall as soon as he was old enough. Kason's family resisted this idea, though, because his elder brother Marnon had just been Searched to Igen Weyr, leaving Kason the only son in the family. Since the boy wasn't old enough yet in any case, the hold steward didn't make an issue of it, but kept Kason assigned to work in the smithy.

By the time Kason was twelve, the smiths had given him a decent start in many aspects of their craft, though of course he wasn't strong enough to do heavy work yet, nor steady enough for really delicate tasks. The hold steward had meanwhile arranged an advantageous marriage for Bartisa, in exchange for Kason's parents' dropping their opposition to his apprenticeship, and so Kason found himself saying goodbye to everyone he knew and heading off to the Smithcrafthall.

Because a mere apprentice didn't rate draconic transport, Kason was sent overland with a trader caravan. During the journey, some of the teenaged trader children, led by the caravan master's nephew Vallan, offered to teach him to play cards. Feeling very grown up, Kason took their offer only to find himself swindled out of everything but the clothes on his back. The worst loss was his belt knife, which he had made himself and was hoping to show the Mastersmith as proof of his skill. He tried fighting Vallan to get his knife back, but was beaten up. Then he tried sneaking into Vallan's family wagon to steal the knife back, but Vallan arranged for his father to catch father to catch Kason, who found himself hauled before the caravan master. When he protested that he was only trying to get his knife back, the children all said that the knife belonged to one of them and that Kason had been trying to get it for the whole trip. Though grumpy at the disturbance, the caravan master was not a fool, and listened carefully to both sides. After examining the knife, he realized that it couldn't have been made by a journeyman smith, and told his nephew that even if the knife wasn't Kason's, Vallan didn't deserve to have it because only an idiot would pay money for a knife like that. Kason was crushed by this off-handed dismissal, because he had grown proud of his skills. Even getting the knife back didn't help, and he spent the rest of the trip sullenly keeping to himself, planning ever-greater proofs of his (he thought) great talent for smithcraft.

When Kason got to the Smithcrafthall, he was dismayed to find that the skills he was so proud of suddenly didn't mean much. He was a junior apprentice among other apprentices, and not nearly the most talented, nor the only one who had gotten a head start at home. Luckily apprentice life wasn't bad; though there was a certain amount of pranking and bullying, the journeymen kept a sharp eye on things. Even though Kason was doing well with his lessons and even made a few friends, he still felt like nobody special just because he wasn't the best. He tried to be a standout wherever he could, even if it meant acting out and getting in trouble. He was almost sent home after he broke his left arm jumping off a roof onto what he thought was a pile of sawdust; it turned out to be not so thick and soft as it looked. For the second time in his life, Kason had to either get serious or lose everything he wanted, and as his arm healed he buckled down to his studies and stopped acting out, at least mostly.

Though he was still not at the top of his class, he did have some real talent, and being recognized for that made him feel better. Unfortunately, soon after that point he hit a really gawky and awkward stage of puberty, complete with serious acne. He felt miserable and clumsy, and it didn't help that he was hopelessly smitten with a craftmaster's daughter named Calisa, who worked in the kitchens. She always seemed bright and happy even when she was doing smelly chores, but Kason was far too embarrassed to even say a word to her. He would hang around the dining hall hoping to get a glimpse of her, but if she saw him he would slink away, mortified.

As is the way of such things, though, Kason grew out of his awkward stage. He even made friends with Calisa, though his crush on her had mostly faded and he didn't much mind that she was involved with someone else by then. As he progressed in his training, he focused on complicated mechanisms such as flamethrowers and locks, rather than traditional blacksmithing. Of course, he still had to be trained in that, as well as some glasscraft and woodcraft, because there was far more demand for such things than for the complex projects that Kason wanted to specialize in. Kason was eighteen when AIVAS was discovered, and he immediately started agitating to be posted to the newly forming Landing Hold, seeing a chance to do the sort of work he most wanted. Unfortunately he wasn't diplomatic about it, even losing his temper and having a shouting match with a craftmaster. Thus it was when Kason walked the tables, he was posted to Crom hold as a junior journeyman.

Crom had more smiths than usual due to the constant need to make and repair mining tools and equipment, and Kason was too busy to make a fuss, even though he still wanted a transfer so bad he could taste it, and held a serious grudge against the Smithcraft leadership for posting him away from there. A few Turns later, he made the acquaintance of the hold harper, Pevin by name, who was also stuck in Crom despite being highly interested in events down South. Pevin helped Kason realize that his behavior had been exactly wrong for what he was trying to do, and that his posting to Crom was largely his own fault. Eventually he re-applied for transfer to Landing, and this time his request was granted, both because of the need for more smiths there, and because it was apparent to the craftmasters that Kason was somewhat more mature now. He arrived at Landing about a year before the mission to the Red Star, and has been there ever since.

Relationships:

Memorable Quotes:

Trivia and Notes:

Kason's Logs

Photos:

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