Protection

Thanks to the rain, Emil was stuck in the school's hallway while Håkan, Sune and Anna were taking tests to see which class they would best fit in. A bell signaled the beginning of the short afternoon break that usually allowed for the children to spend a little time outside. With the current weather, they were better off staying in their classroom. Another young man, whom Emil vaguely knew to be a local hunter, joined him in the hallway:
-Well, there goes the kids' survival training class. It would be a good time for some sort of "real conditions" exercise, but I'm assuming most parents want their children back with fairly clean clothes. And unharmed. What brings you here? Did you only think of enrolling your cousins in the school today?
Emil sighed, hoping he wouldn't have to answer that question too many more times:
-There were so many other things to take care of when they arrived that I didn't think of it on my own, and I don't remember anybody I've talked with bringing it up. Mrs. Breiner is testing their level right now.
The hunter went to lean against the wall Emil was already using for the same purpose:
-My best guess is that if nobody actually did tell you, they were all assuming you had already thought of it or been told by someone else, and didn't want to risk annoying you by reminding you one time too many. That said, considering how suddenly they were dumped on you, you're not doing half bad, since it didn't take you too long to think of coming here. What have you been doing with them so far?
-Mostly getting them settled in and telling them how to find their way around town. I took them on Stefan's tour of same-sex pairs living in town this morning to make sure I could tell them without them getting scared of me or something.
The hunter sighed while crossing his arms:
-The day we will be able to have younger relatives whose existence we didn't know of yesterday dumped on us and not feel the need to worry about what they have been taught by their parents will be a good day. But here and now, that was money well spent. Fact that I'll be the one doing the survival training aside, Sven's own training has just reached the point where he'll be left on his own one day a week. All the people who really don't want him to teach their children acted on their thoughts back when they found out I was sometimes taking care of small groups on my own, but the last thing we need is more children who won't like having the two of us as teachers for reasons other than our teaching methods.
Emil mentally slapped his forehead as he finally remembered the man's name, Matti. He and Sven entering a life-time partnership, which was the closest thing to a marriage the law would allow them to have, had officially depleted the town's "middle crowd" pool of single men interested in male partners. At least, until some of the local children would see Sven and Matti together and realize that this was what they wanted for their own future. Money well spent, indeed. Matti was also right about the fact that not needing to spend that money would have been even better. The man's latest words suddenly sunk in:
-Wait, what's up with you and Sven's teaching methods?
Matti looked like an okay person so far, but he didn't know Sven very well and wasn't close to anyone who had a child in the class in which he was apprenticing. The question was hence definitely worth asking.
-He's definitely on the stricter side. He's apprenticing in the older children's class – the one your cousins will be in if they have the proper level for their age – because he's too hard on the younger ones and too close in age to the teenagers to be taken seriously.
At this rate, Emil's family and the Breiners were going to be in the early stages of a family feud. Thanks to Emil being cajoled his first tutor and the cheaper one being incompetent, Sven's mother had put Emil with the older children rather than the teenagers when he had tried public school. It had been so embarrassing that he had elected to start working early to help his parents pay their debts instead. On top of this, he had yet to spend enough time around Göte to know the man's real personality at the time, so he'd had no idea how people who were truly prone to sabotaging others actually acted. Without that frame of reference and having only heard of such people, Sven's mother had been more than close enough to Emil's mental image of them. Emil now knew that her behavior at the time had made sense, both as a principal and as a teacher. Quite possibly as the mother of a young man around his age, as well. Maybe it would be a good thing for his cousins to have someone strict, but not actually harmful, in their lives. Emil knew for sure that he was not going to be that person. Matti interrupted his thoughts:
-Hey, you never did any of that survival training yourself, did you?
-No. Why are you asking, all of a sudden?
-Those tests take a while, even when it's just one kid. There are a few basic things I can show you or tell you about without needing to set a foot outside. It will help you know what to do if there is any sort of problem on the way back to the Solbergs a little better. Any interest?
Emil looked at the weather outside. Anything he could learn in that particular field would be a good idea.

xxxx

-Emil, why are we all walking so slowly? I want to get back to the house fast.
-Hey, look, it's Lalli.
-And Helena is over there. Hi Helena!
The other children who lived in the side of the town they had to reach before getting to the Solberg's house did a faster job of telling them to be quiet and reminding them why than Emil ever could. Håkan apparently didn't understand:
-What do you mean, monsters? That's dumb!
Emil was ready to intervene, this time:
-I will explain when we get home. Please stop talking until we get there. This goes for all three of you.
Emil was used to seeing Helena in her work clothes, but that hunting gear, despite being clearly borrowed, suited Lalli surprisingly well. He hated to admit it, but he would have, indeed, barely noticed Lalli's presence among all the similarly clothed people if Anna hadn't pointed him out.

As soon as everyone was either back in their own home or far away enough from the river that the hunters could leave if they wished, Lalli let himself follow the train of thought that had started when he had seen Emil's cousins being silenced by those around them. As he started walking towards the old man's house, he hoped Emil was going to keep his promise of explaining them why they should be silent next time they would need to cross the river after a downpour. Onni's idea of protecting him and Tuuri tended to be to not tell things until he realized that their lack of knowledge about something was creating more trouble than telling them would. If they noticed something before telling them became Onni's only option, Onni would insist that he was able to handle the situation himself and they didn't need to worry about it. Sometimes, he and Tuuri would try figuring out what was going on themselves and see if anything they could easily stop or start doing would help. If they guessed right, Onni would be more irritable than usual for at least the next couple of days for reasons Lalli couldn't understand. Roni had been the first to explain it to him in words that made sense to him. As the family's adult, protecting them from as many things as he could was important to feeling both useful and competent for Onni. If Lalli and Tuuri noticed the problem enough to change their behavior in response to it, it meant he had failed. In retrospect, this had been a definite "you spot it, you've got it" situation. Now, Lalli knew all too well that too much of this "I can do it myself, don't worry about me" attitude could be a sign of that personality trait. It was one of the reasons he could no longer view it as the act of love that Onni claimed it to be. Where was the consideration for others if something bad happened, and that something could have been prevented by asking for help, if not accepting help that was already being offered? Lalli realized that the person offering the help could be dishonest themselves, and that if such a situation had happened too many times… But if this was the problem, neither Lalli nor Tuuri could know unless Onni told them. If it was not, they risked making things worse by acting on incorrect assumptions. Damn, how had his thoughts ended up there from thinking of Emil's cousins?

That thought was promptly overridden by his mind doing the equivalent of screaming "human being fast approaching" and his eyes noticing that a short-haired blond child was running off-path in the very direction from which Lalli had been walking away. Lalli quickly caught up with him, grabbed his collar, looked around for Emil and the boy's siblings, then brought his attention back to the boy himself when he saw neither:
-What are you doing?
-I want to see the trolls.
-If they see you, trolls will hurt you very badly so you don't run away, then eat you. Me and the other people were here so that the trolls would hurt us instead of you if they came. You are not getting hurt just because you want to see them. Now, I'm going to let you go and you're going to go back to the house where you're staying. Okay?
The child nodded. He walked back towards the Solberg's house for a about a dozen meters, then started running in the river's general direction again as soon as he was far away enough from Lalli, apparently trying to avoid him by changing directions more often. Lalli caught him again:
-You didn't do what I told you. Now I'm taking you back myself.

As he took the boy towards the Solberg's house, he was joined by Helena, who was holding the boy's sister by the wrist:
-I'm not sure whether to consider the fact you have Håkan with you a good thing or not. I'm starting to suspect all three to have run off in different directions knowing Emil could only go after one of them. If that is the case, I hope he was going after Sune and someone got him. Don't worry, we're both doing our part by bringing those two back.
Lalli needed to be reassured on that topic more than he had realized. He took advantage of the situation to fully take in Helena's clothes; he had vaguely noticed her presence earlier, but had been focusing on watching out for trolls:
-You're a mage?
Helena let out a chuckle:
-If you're asking me, Stefan has done a good job at being discreet about it. I'm the mage he sees for a certain something I'd rather not mention in front of the children, but I know a few protection spells, as well. By the way, don't worry, Stefan doesn't tell me more than he needs to out of habit and it sounds like Sigrun has told Emil more than I have.
As a gesture of good faith, Sigrun had shared with Lalli what she remembered telling Emil before being interrupted at the Hunter's Lodge. He had fortunately interrupted her before she got to information that could be used in any harmful way he knew of, but again, Roni had been creative. But he also remembered Stefan's comment about the amount of information he expected to get about people when talking with them or people who knew them. He also remembered that people sharing information about him in his absence had resulted in people getting false ideas about Anne-Mari's parentage. Making himself the main source of information about himself felt like the best way to handle things, for now. He realized he should probably say something.
-Thank you. For… doing what you just said.
-You're welcome. Ah, that reminds me.
Helena pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket with her free hand. As she showed it to the short-haired boy, Lalli could see it was a very good drawing of a troll:
-This is what a troll looks like. The real ones can be bigger than our male guards. Do you still want to see a real one?
-Lalli said they would eat me, so no.
Lalli couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief. Neither a book full of actual photographs of trolls nor countless warnings from Onni had gotten the idea of observing a troll up close out of Tuuri's head. As Lalli was thinking, Helena was the next to speak to the boy:
-Good. Matti doesn't like kids who prioritize catching glances of trolls over escaping them. This goes for you as, well, Anna. Here, have a closer look if you want.
Matti. That sounded familiar.
-Who is Matti? I forgot.
Helena was kind enough to answer without admonishing him for forgetting:
-He's the school's survival training teacher, among other jobs. One of the things he teaches is not getting eaten by trolls if lost alone near a body of water on a rainy day, on the off-chance it happens.
The part of Lalli's brain that had apparently decided to make a list of what he could do in town, if he didn't go back to working with the rest of the family, took note of this. Though maybe he should avoid things that involved a bunch of children. They were of often unnecessarily noisy and prone to touching both things and people without asking first.

The next person to speak was Emil's girl-cousin, who had apparently already forgotten the "no unnecessary loud noises when trolls are out" lesson from less than an hour earlier:
-Hey, look, it's Emil! He has Sune with him!
Helena pinched the girl's shoulder and told her something about pulling her sleeve instead of shouting while Lalli observed that the people just leaving town to come towards them were, indeed, Emil and the boy-with-longer-hair cousin. As they came closer, Lalli noticed the child was crying and Emil's head was hanging down. Unfortunately, running was supposed to be avoided when it was wet enough for trolls to come out of the water, so Lalli and Helena found themselves making the children they had found stay where they were while Emil and the third one slowly came to join them. The crying one was only allowed to have a hug with each of his siblings before Helena whispered something about going back to her house to hear about what had happened. To make sure a proper number of eyes was kept on the children, Lalli went with them.