Respect
-Grandpa, why is Stefan drawing at dinner?
Lalli wanted to correct Juha that Stefan was actually writing while they were all having dinner, until he noticed that the contents of the page that he was currently filling up was a mix of text and diagrams. He'd long considered it useless to do such a correction regarding the child's familial relationship with Väinö, since his actual grandparents were long dead on both sides anyway. Väinö answered Juha:
-Sometimes he just starts doing that, and he won't stop on his own until he's done or too tired.
Earlier in the evening, about an hour into the scribbling, Väinö had explained that Stefan often got like this when a story came to his mind, and that the nature of several of his side jobs came from the fact that he often got ideas while interacting with other people. Väinö had also said it was a "good sign" that Stefan had wanted to write during a conversation with Lalli and advised against interrupting him in any way until he was done. Lalli didn't feel like doing so anyway, as he, himself, hated being interrupted when he as focused on a task as Stefan currently seemed to be.
xxxx
Both the notebook and Stefan's stamina ran out late in the night. Stefan had been put in a guest room, but Lalli had decided to stay with him. He knew from experience just how draining a stamina-hogging activity could be, especially since things other people seemingly could do for hours on end drained him almost as much as using a sufficiently powerful spell. That, and Roni had often expected him to stay in the room under similar circumstances, even when he was unlikely to need another person's help for a stretch of time that would have allowed Lalli to take a nap. Stefan fell asleep at the desk he was using almost soon as he put his pen down. Lalli used the basic vitals-checking spell that Onni had taught him, and came to the conclusion that it would be okay to put him in bed and leave water for him on the nightstand. He looked at Stefan's clothes and decided it might be a good idea to get at least a layer off him. Jacket, shoes, pants. Was he supposed to undo the ponytail or not? He knew Cecilia and Tuuri undid their hair to sleep, but Anne-Mari's father didn't undo that monstrosity of his unless he was about to wash it. And that sheep smell had stayed on him too long for it to be often. Stefan's ponytail was low enough that the part that could be rested on Stefan's shoulder included the hair tie. It would probably be okay. He folded Stefan's clothes and put them on the desk, next to his notebook. He made sure to put the cap back on the ink pot and the fountain pen in its box so nothing would get more stained than it already was. He went back to his own room, which was further down the hall. He grabbed the blankets and pillow he kept under his bed, put them under the desk in Stefan's room, and was soon asleep. If it were just his own choice, he would have happily slept in his own bedroom. However, Stefan had been present when he had woken up in the Lodge and he preferred staying the room to potentially getting yelled at the next morning for not having stayed.
xxxx
When Lalli woke up, the first thing he noticed was a pair of legs spread around the desk chair in such a way that seemed designed to not be under the desk itself. He slid out from under the desk and found Stefan reading the notebook. He spoke without taking his eyes off the notebook:
-Hey, you're awake. I was waiting for you to go get breakfast and getting an idea of what went through my mind yesterday while I was at it. The whole thing always feels like a dream when I wake up the morning after it. By the way, thanks for staying the night, but don't feel obliged to do it in the future.
Lalli asked the first thing on his mind:
-Are you okay?
Stefan nodded:
-A good long sleep is usually all I need, though I should probably eat before I go anywhere. Here's a good stopping place. Let's go.
Stefan picked up the notebook and they both left the room, heading for the kitchen.
On the way back to the Lodge, Lalli briefly set his eyes on the notebook Stefan was carrying, and decided to risk asking him about it now that both their stomachs were full:
-What kind of story did you write?
-According to what I've read so far, it's more an idea for Emil's court case than a story.
-Why would you write something like that down?
-The fact that they got away with it and could be doing the same thing to other people as we speak isn't the only problem with the people who swindled Emil's parents' money. Even if one of those people is caught, it may be hard to prove that Emil's parents weren't simply too careless to leave the association before investing started entailing putting themselves in significant debt. One of my cousins is a lawyer, and she sometimes finds herself having to explain why people can have difficulties leaving marriages and life-long arrangements with… people like Roni, basically. Or so easily get into them in the first place, for that matter. Yesterday, I apparently realized that there were a few similarities between those situations and what I know of what had happened to Emil's family.
The conversation had definitely just become worth continuing for its own sake:
-How can they be similar?
-During one of our courtship outings, you mentioned you spent a lot of time resting between your arrival in town and asking me out because that Roni guy had tired you out. Am I a correct to assume you didn't become so tired you needed to rest for the better part of a month because of a single incident?
Lalli thought for a few moments, then let out a faint "yes".
-Were there, by any chance, moments where you genuinely liked spending time with him in-between moments where you were wondering why you had bothered to meet up with him?
This sounded like an accurate description, as well. He did his best to voice the fact that Stefan had correctly guessed a little more clearly than the previous time. Stefan continued:
-Now, it's far from being the best analogy, but pretend he gave you say… ten crowns during each good time and you had to give him ten crowns during each bad time. Do you think you would have eventually run out of money even if you had a lot of it when you first met him?
Lalli remembered something, and felt he was beginning to understand:
-There were a few times where Tuuri said she gave my pay to Roni so he would give it to me, and Roni said she never gave it to him, so she probably still had it. Tuuri does some annoying things, but she never stole my money before he started saying she did.
Stefan's pace briefly slowed down:
-First thing, that guy's sounding even worse than he did a couple days ago. Second thing, this isn't what I meant… though come to think of it, something similar to that could have also happened to Emil's parents. That investor's association may have been only giving them part of the money they made on anything gainful and keeping the rest for themselves. Damn, I was hoping a little more time than this would pass before I would get tempted to call you one of my muses.
Lalli had heard that word before. Roni was a musician who was trying to write a song that others would want to play. Lalli didn't remember the exact name of the instrument he played, only that it was a quite loud one. Roni had wanted to have either a new portion of his song ready or to have improved an existing one each time he went to a social gathering, which was often. He claimed Lalli's sole presence was enough to inspire him and saw no reason for his to be anywhere else than by his side when he wasn't on active duty or sleeping. The extent to which Roni would accept that he might need to leave for any other reason had once gotten Lalli in trouble with Onni, as it had prevented him from promptly responding to a time-sensitive problem Cecilia had noticed through the squirrels. After that incident, Roni had complained about Onni being the one who expected Lalli to put his entire life on hold for him. The question he had in mind should be okay to ask:
-Are you going to want me to go everywhere with you also?
-The short answer is no. The long answer is that there are already plenty of people who are able to fill that role in my life, but I want to neither make you feel obligated nor excluded in that regard. I'd like to make use of the freedom you're letting me have without being disrespectful toward you… so I guess it's a good time to ask you your thoughts about the idea so far.
Being free without being disrespectful. Stefan had almost spelled out the very thing for which Lalli had been intermittently trying to figure out the requirements over the month he had spent recovering from the breakup with Roni. When they had been children, doing anything else than what Onni said could mean losing their current job and no longer being able to eat. That hadn't really changed when they had all started working with Cecilia. Work was much easier to find and paid better, but the potential consequences of a bungled job were also much bigger. Because of that, being good and being obedient had always gone hand in hand in Lalli's mind. It had been to the point that Roni merely showing him that this didn't necessarily have to be true had been enough for Lalli to initially genuinely want to spend as much of his free time with him as he could. By the time he had broken up with Roni, Lalli had figured out that the freedom that Roni offered him had limits of its own. Those limits had made it almost impossible for Lalli to stay on good terms with Roni and his own family members at the same time. When he had been asked to choose, he had decided to let go of the person who was expecting him to make the choice in the first place. Roni's attempt to make him change his mind had included many utterances of the word "disrespectful" and other words with a similar meaning. Even before Lalli had met Roni, Onni and Tuuri had done their part in voiding the word of its meaning in Lalli's mind by using it all too often while explaining what he had done wrong while interacting with someone else. His personal observation that the "disrespected" object could be anything from an actual law to a poorly informed personal opinion had only reinforced Lalli's doubts about whether the word had a consistent objective meaning or not. Yet, there had to be one for Onni, Tuuri, Cecilia and Anne-Mari's father to be able to live their lives without being called "disrespectful" anywhere near as often as Lalli was. The only possible meaning of the word he felt like he understood was the feeling he had when he knew he had worked hard on something, but those around him either greatly underestimated the effort it had taken, didn't acknowledge his contributions at all or turned out to have undone it while he was sleeping. If he was given enough time to figure things out instead of being expected to answer on the spot, some, but still a minority, of instances upon which he had been called disrespectful started to make sense. Unfortunately, Roni had also shown him that some people claimed to feel disrespected as a means to make others do their bidding with minimal protest, in situations where protest was far from being an unreasonable response. The percolation of those thoughts escaped Lalli's mouth before he realized it:
-I need to think longer about the muse thing, but I'm not sure how to make use of freedom without being disrespectful either. Maybe… we can find out how we're supposed to do it together.
Stefan looked a little surprised, but soon settled for smile:
-You know, I think I like that idea very much.
It was almost lunch time when they got to the Lodge, which meant that Stefan had just enough time to get ready for storytelling. Lalli had fortunately thought of taking his wallet with him, so he would be able to stay for lunch. When Stefan opened the door into the tavern, they found a man sprawled on the floor, with two of the waiters keeping his arms and legs pinned to the ground. Milla was standing nearby, rearranging her dress' low neckline:
-Ah, hello. Could the two of you please memorize that guy's face? He's not allowed in here anymore.
Stefan came closer to the man and gave his face a look:
-Isn't that Father's new friend?
Milla, having apparently arranged the dress to her liking, crossed her arms and looked down in the man's direction with a clear frown on her face:
-If it is, he may need a friend-choosing intervention again. Really, is it only me or do this family's patriarchs keep acting like theirs is the first generation to come upon money?
Stefan casually walked by her, heading for the corner of the main room he usually used as the storytelling stage:
-I think using the entire rest of the family as relatively cheap labor until someone needs to take over may be backfiring a little. On the other hand, the Västerströms were at least three generations deep in money and it didn't keep them from falling into a trap.
Lalli, having nothing to contribute to the conversation and determined that Milla and the waiters didn't need any extra help for whatever they were doing, sat at his usual spot at the bar that let him see the stage when he turned sideways. Milla stepped aside as the waiters got off the man, helped him up, then escorted him out of the door. Lalli heard the man grumbling, claiming that someone named "Niklas" was going to hear about what had just happened. Milla was soon back behind the bar, offering Lalli a menu and a few coins with a sigh:
-Don't worry, I unfortunately got used to customers like that man showing up once in a while. As for the money, I saw the notebook in Stefan's arms. It's to pay back for it and the ink he used. We do this each time he ends up using stationary from other households and we don't want to make yours an exception, especially with that safety deposit you insisted on leaving for the entire courtship.
That made sense to Lalli, and he accepted both items. For once, one of the new items on the menu was close enough to something he already knew he liked that he decided it was worth giving it a try. While Lalli was waiting for his meal, Stefan told the story he had heard before of a King who hires special tailors to make magical clothes for him. The clothes are supposed to be so light one can barely feel them, and invisible to anyone who isn't competent at their job. The King ends up going to a major event in his smallclothes because nobody in the castle, including the King himself, is willing to admit that they can't see the clothes and are persuaded everybody else can. The one person who admits to not seeing the clothes before the big event is considered to be admitting to being bad at their job and disrespecting the King, which gets them fired. It takes somebody with no job to be incompetent at not seeing the clothes for people to understand that they all got tricked by the alleged tailors. Once again, Lalli felt sympathy for the person who had tried to warn everyone else before the event. Being punished for breaking rules he had never been clearly informed of and followed a logic he didn't quite understand was something he could relate to all too well.