Reciprocity

The first thing Lalli noticed upon entering the Hunter's Lodge alongside Stefan was Sigrun sitting at one of the tables and talking to Emil. Because of the table's proximity to the entrance and Sigrun's voice being easy to pick up in spite of the other conversations happening around her, Lalli heard her saying things about his family. He sprinted towards the table and slapped his hands on it:
-Stop talking. Now.
Sigrun stopped talking to Emil, and addressed him instead:
-Okay. But why?
-I don't want him to know anything about them… that you didn't already tell him.
Emil reminded Lalli of his presence:
-And why don't you want me to know about your family?
-So you won't hurt them.
-What makes you think I would want to hurt them?
Lalli had to think about the question for a few moments before answering him:
-I think you could be the type of person who would.
Sigrun intervened in voice that was surprisingly soft coming from her:
-Whoa, whoa, easy there. Lalli, I can guarantee that Emil means your family no harm at all. I know you're on edge about people doing that sort of thing too subtly for you to notice right now, but trust me, you're talking about one of the least subtle guys in town here. If he was up to something fishy, he'd do a terrible job at making it look like he wasn't.
Emil answered in a tone that was fit for a complaint:
-Sigrun, are you helping me or insulting me here?
Lalli honestly didn't peg Sigrun as the type of person who would be able tell someone like Roni apart from a sincere version of the sort of person he was pretending to be without someone else pointing her in either direction. Come to think of it, she seemed fit for being what Mikkel had once called "cronies": people who genuinely believed the "victim of circumstance" persona was the real person, and hence were always among those defending them in conflicts with other people, be it verbally or physically. Lalli had noticed she had a soft spot for Emil and… Mikkel had sworn that Lalli could trust her. What if Mikkel was wrong? The old man had told him he could trust Mikkel, and to go to him if he was taken by his job. What if… he was doing the very thing he was trying to not make a habit of doing, at least without having more solid reasons. He reminded himself that his everyday life would get much too tiring for him to handle on his own if he didn't trust the old man and Mikkel (and also Stefan, of course). That still left Sigrun to make a decision about. A poke on his shoulder startled him. The following second, he realized he had almost elbowed Stefan:
-It's okay, it's just me. I wanted to make sure everything was okay before I went onstage. Did something happen?
Sigrun explained:
-Emil got curious about Lalli's family, I was filling him in because I had seen them recently and Lalli told me to shut up because he was afraid Emil would use what I was telling him to hurt his family. And since using the info that way never went through Emil's mind, he's not liking the reason and well… being Emil.
Stefan let out a sigh:
-I see. Emil, there is an unfortunate overlap between your worse personality traits and those of a person who has done great harm to Lalli and his family recently. He also has little enough experience with other people that he still views that person's traits as coming in a package deal. Only long-term personal experience that this isn't the case is going to reduce the extent of that view, so your usual reaction to things you don't understand or like isn't going to help your case at all. Lalli, first, I can vouch that Emil would never hurt your family in any way, if Sigrun's trust in that is not enough for you. Second, you ask a lot of questions when you do get curious about people, yourself. Not many people are going to understand if you expect your questions about them to be answered all while assuming ill intent on the part of people who get curious about you and your family. Sigrun, I know you would never knowingly share information with someone who intends to use it for nefarious purposes, but I've gathered that Lalli has yet to be around you in the sort of circumstances where you watch who you are speaking with and what you talk about. His distrust of Emil isn't the only problem with what you seemed to be doing when we walked in. You were looking more likely to share the wrong information with the wrong people than you actually are. And… it's story time, I can't have people waiting too long.
Stefan skipped to the stage as the lunchtime bell's sound came in from outside and the room fell silent. Lalli didn't feel like trying to reach his usual spot at the bar through the room that had gotten much closer to being packed during their conversation, and decided to sit on a spare chair at the table Sigrun and Emil were occupying. He hardly noticed what the first few stories were about, trying to process the notion of Emil behaving like he had at the store all while having no bad intentions toward his family. Part of him knew that a full five years were separating the present day from the event that would have made Emil hostile towards his family, which meant there had been plenty of time for him to act if there had been an intent to do so. Another part of him had noticed that Stefan's own stories often had the main character prepare a payback towards the villain for several years. It usually involved some combination of getting the necessary resources and waiting for the right opportunity. Lalli showing up at the party wearing a flower pin had briefly given Emil an opportunity he hadn't had before; realizing this had been a factor in Lalli finding the motivation to approach Stefan as a potential partner before anyone else, including Emil, could ask him out.

xxxx

Lalli heard the most unexpected question from Stefan as they were walking back to the house:
-Would you like it if Emil left town?
-Did I say something that made it sound like I would?
Lalli disliked enough people that entire villages would empty out if he was the sort of person who wished for anyone he didn't like to leave forever. Besides, he and his family travelled so much that he always ended up being the one leaving, anyway.
-Leif has been old enough to leave Göte's home and go where he wants for a few weeks. Not wanting to do so on his own is one of the reasons he won't do it. I've been trying to figure out if there's someone in town who could go with him without leaving too much behind. Emil is one of the people I'm considering. If you really had trouble standing him, it could be something to take into consideration when I chose whom to ask first.
Now, Lalli was even more confused:
-You're considering someone I don't like because he sometimes acts too much like Roni. For being a travel companion to Leif so he can get away from the general store guy.
Stefan gave a light punch to his own forehead:
-Damn it, you're right. How trustworthy I consider him isn't going to mean much if Leif can't see a difference between him and Göte. Good catch. If you had actually met any of the other people I'm considering, you'd be the right person to ask about them.
-Is it something you could ask the old man about? Animals sometimes get to see things people don't.
-Not a bad idea. I'd better put in a formal request, though.
Väinö accepted to share the information he had gathered from the seagulls under certain conditions. This was notably the reason for which Lalli had known who to try to approach and who to avoid at the Solbergs' party before the unexpected amount of noise had kept him from thinking properly enough to actively follow any of the old man's advice.

As they continued towards the house, they passed by three children Lalli hadn't seen before sitting on a roadside bench, all studying the same piece of paper. All three children seemed to be related to each other and around the same age, none of them looking older than ten. The empty space on the bench was occupied by three backpacks that looked like those in which Lalli and Tuuri kept all their belongings when they were younger. There didn't seem to be any adults around. Just as Lalli was realizing that this was a situation that potentially needed attention, Stefan was already speaking to the short-haired child, most likely a boy, who was holding the paper while the two others were leaning over it to give it a look:
-Excuse me, where are your parents?
-Our father paid a cart to take us here, then he said we could ask people where to find our uncle's house. He said it's too big to be in the town, so we should leave it first.
-And what is your uncle's name?
The children turned out to have smudged the piece of paper with the name on it, and to not agree on how it was pronounced. As Lalli decided to listen closely in case one of the versions resembled one of the few names from the town he knew, his mind latched onto one of the children, whose haircut felt vaguely familiar. He realized the child didn't just have the same haircut as Emil: the hair was almost the same shade of blond and there were a few shared facial features, as well. Lalli took a deep breath before giving the name a try:
-Västerström?
The children spoke in unison:
-That's it!
Stefan turned to Lalli, his expression uneasy enough for Lalli to notice:
-Go find him. You're the fast runner.
Lalli hadn't paid much attention to where Emil had gone after story time, and hadn't cared about finding out how much of the day he had taken off to spend time with Sigrun. As he started jogging towards the village, he wondered what had been up with the expression on Stefan's face, before realizing that he remembered what servant rooms tended to look like and that if those children were related to Emil, all four of them in one of those rooms would make the place extremely cramped.

xxxx

A letter in the possession of one of the children and intended for Emil's father explained everything. Emil's father had borrowed money from his estranged younger brother at some point, with "the future favor of his choice" as collateral. Emil's uncle had recently found means to make the money lost to the loan back, but it would only work if someone could care for his children free of charge for a few months. He had apparently assumed that his brother was both still alive and still in possession of his house, and decided that hosting his children for the time necessary for his endeavor to bear fruit as a fair compensation. The Solbergs were fortunately willing to give a sufficiently big spare room to the children, who had already been invited to play with Juha and Anne-Mari if they wished to do so. Lalli had been roped into waiting for Emil and the children to finish letters that may be able to leave with today's mail if someone brought them to the post office on time. Stefan had gone to file his request to the old man. Since Emil could take care of himself, Lalli found himself being the one to watch the children while the house's servants were re-organizing their work so they wouldn't be running around the property unsupervised. To his pleasant surprise, the children knew how to close an envelope properly. Emil soon arrived with his own letter and a few coins:
-Use that to pay for the stamps. Keep anything that is left over for your trouble.
At least Emil was paying for the run to the post office. That was a point in his favor, as long as Lalli was concerned.

Lalli got to the post office before the day's mail left for the bigger town from which it could reach more places. Once the stamps were paid for, Emil turned out to have given him a decent tip. An idea briefly went through his mind. That he could run errands for people around town and be paid for it. That he wouldn't have to get used to a whole different place for each job anymore. Then he realized that there was probably already someone in town doing that job. He remembered how people tended to act when they got the idea the family had been hired to do work they were already doing and didn't consider they needed extra people to do it. It might still be worth asking Stefan. With the coins in hand and the general store still open, Lalli decided that it was a good time to see if his ban being lifted had been more than mere words.

As soon as he entered the store, Leif took him aside:
-How much can you pay for that waistcoat right now?
-I thought he wouldn't have it made.
-He sometimes does that if someone he found a reason to ban happens to have a pending order. He gets the order ready anyway, then complains about the wasted money and finds someone to sell it to at a discount. Preferably someone the person who originally made the order regularly runs into. If you start paying for it now, you'll be showing you still want it and it will be harder for him to find an excuse to sell it to someone else.
Regardless of what trick could be hidden behind this, Lalli did want that waistcoat. Counting Emil's tip, he had just over enough to pay for a third of it on the spot. When he realized he would be able to pick up more money at the bank later, he offered to put his remaining money toward the second installment, but Leif advised him against it, as records of partially paid installments were the sort of thing that got lost easily in the store, especially if the payer was someone that Göte was letting into the store reluctantly. Lalli was already on his way back to the house when he realized that Leif probably meant that those records tended to get lost on purpose. Moments like that did nothing to get Lalli rid of the feeling that he couldn't navigate this world without someone whom he could trust to spell out to him things that were being left unspoken or expressed by cryptic means he hadn't figured out how to decipher – at least fast enough to be able to respond properly – yet. Unfortunately, Roni and Onni both painted the world as more hostile than it really was, albeit in different ways, while Tuuri had the opposite problem. Cecilia and Reynir were overall bearable, but he considered them Onni and Tuuri's respective spouses first, their children's other parents not far behind. He didn't feel like making them part of his life more than constantly traveling together entailed. Being able to trust whoever would end up being his partner with that job was all he had left.