Tuuri had been very happy about Lalli following Emil and while Emil found it weird he was happy he hadn't had to argue with her about it. Onni had simply asked Lalli if it was what he really wanted and then there hadn't been any arguments from his side either. Emil had expected more of a fight. The two had followed Emil and Lalli to Pori, they had spent a few hours together there, and then Tuuri and Onni had to leave on the boat back to Keuruu. Emil and Lalli had spent another hour in the town while waiting to board the ship. They found a room where they left their stuff and then headed out to investigate the boat before it left shore.
Lalli took cover under the bed when the boat left the harbour, leaving Emil to entertain hiself. He found a few Swedes returning from cleansing the Finnish forests, so he settled down and talked with them. Neither of them recognized him since they belonged to the Mora-division and Emil mostly worked in Östersund and during the conversation his line of work never came up. They had a few drinks together, played some games. They were joined at midnight by a couple of Finns and Emil had to work as an interpreter between the two groups. His respect for Tuuri increased every time he did that; he had trouble translating between two languages and couldn't imagine having to do it with three.
Around three Emil had gone back to the cabin and fallen asleep. He woke up in his sanctuary, noticed Lalli wasn't there and fell into a deeper sleep. The cleansers had woken him up as the boat pulled into port and he thanked them, waited until they had actually stopped before shaking Lalli awake. Lalli scrambled out from under the bed and they left the boat together.
They had to stay in Björköfjärden for the night, Emil got them a room at the hotel, dropped off his backpack and showed Lalli around in the little town. Emil got a couple of potatoes to give to Mikkel and winked a little at Lalli, who only shook his head. They searched for something else that might work better as a gift and Emil found two small books: "Improve your swing" and "Stitches for beginners". Lalli shook his head again, but smiled and Emil took that as the other approving of the gifts.
They left the hotel early in the morning, had breakfast in the bakery and at nine the boat to Bornholm left the harbour. Lalli took cover under one of the bed and Emil settled down on it.
"It'll take us about five days to reach Bornholm, you should try to get used to it."
"Mff."
Emil knew Lalli wouldn't be persuaded just yet, so he left the other to check the boat out. He found a group of Danes on the deck, spent some time with them and asked if any of them knew where the Madsen-farm was. One of them laughed, hit Emil's back.
"You must be that Swede my brother told me about. I'll take you to it, it's about time I see my family again."
The man introduced himself as Malthe Madsen. He told Emil that he spent most of his time in base near Øresund, under admiral Olsen, but he had spent the summer in Sweden to help start up some farms in the cleansed areas around Björköfjärden. It had been four years since he joined the military and he hadn't had time to see his family during those years. The other Danes also introduced themselves, told Emil a little about their life-stories and Emil told them he was on vacation together with a friend to visit his old team.
After a couple hours all passengers were called below deck since the boat would enter more dangerous waters and Emil and Malthe found a group of Norwegians who they settled down with. When evening came Emil grabbed a couple sandwiches and went to the bedroom, shook Lalli awake and told him to eat a little. Lalli turned to his other side and Emil sat in the bed, listened to the engines and ate his food. After dinner he went back out to the other passengers.
The next day Lalli joined him a little while he talked with Malthe. They had found a pool table in one of the rooms and decided to spend the day there, but Lalli left after only a couple of hours. Emil explained that Lalli was very prone to sea sickness and Malthe nodded in understanding. Malthe won most of the rounds and at dinner time Malthe went back to his Dannish friends while Emil got company from an older couple who were on their way to visit their granddaughter in Iceland.
The last three days of the trip Lalli managed to stay awake without feeling too much like throwing up, and Emil was happy to get to spend some more time with his friend. They played some pool, hung out with Malthe, played pictionary with the old couple or just walked around in the boat in order to kill some time. They arrived to Bornholm late in the evening on day five and Malthe said good bye to his friends who were going to continue to the base before leading Emil and Lalli along the road. As they walked he showed them a few places, told them a little about Denmark. They had walked for almost two hours when Malthe stopped, gestured towards some houses.
"There it is, the Madsen farm!"
