Chapter 6
-Don't worry, I'll take a bunch of photos. You won't miss not being there at all.
Tuuri ran off, Sigrun and Emil at her side. Reynir was really looking forward to visiting that Old World school. Why did he have to wake up with a fever this morning? He felt Mikkel's massive hand on his shoulder:
-You, back to bed.
-Won't I make Lalli sick?
-You have nothing contagious, from what I can tell. And you need the rest.
As Mikkel wrapped him in blanket, Reynir realized something: this was going to be the first time he and Lalli were going to be asleep at the same time. Hildur had told him about a certain property the safe areas had on language the previous night.
Unfortunately, Lalli had not liked getting a visit from him at all. The only words Reynir had heard from the man who had saved him from Helena were "get out". In a hurry to comply with Lalli's wishes and escape that giant tree that had grown in his area, Reynir had somehow taken a wrong turn and stumbled into Onni's space instead of his own. He got two surprises in a row: Onni being there and Lalli turning out to have followed him for some reason. Reynir saw what Onni had been talking about the previous night when he seemed to have to do some kind of effort to let Lalli inside, while Reynir had been able to simply walk in both his space and Lalli's. The two cousins had apparently not been able to talk since Lalli had left their home, so Reynir decided to let them chat and stay out of the way. He however couldn't figure out a place in Onni's space that was both accessible and out of hearing range. This caused him to hear things that they probably didn't want him to hear. This included Onni considering it a good thing they were now able to communicate by radio because something that he simply called "it" was looking for them "again". Lalli seemed to understand what he was talking about. After some silence, Onni asked Lalli if he had made any friends yet. Lalli replied that he thought he had maybe made one. Reynir wondered who that could be. It definitely wasn't Reynir himself, as his initial visit to Lalli' space had been his first real move to acquaint himself with him. Tuuri was his cousin, Sigrun didn't interact much with him outside of work and Mikkel knew enough about whatever was making his mind "different" to know that human interactions that he could consider "useless" were to be kept to a minimum. That left only one person. He couldn't be talking about Emil, could he? Unfortunately, Onni did not seem in the mood to ask him more, or at least had not gotten around doing so before Reynir woke up.
-Don't go getting attached. It may still die during the night.
The kitten was being kept as warm as possible in a padded basket while its mother and siblings were being buried outside by Sigrun and Emil. The latter had been the most shaken by them being dead, while Tuuri and Sigrun had had the general attitude of someone who had seen this happen enough times to be hardened to it, but remembered how hard the first few times had been. Strangely enough, the third person out there with them was Lalli, and not Tuuri. When Reynir had asked her the reason for that, her guess had been that Lalli could tell that Emil was sad and wanted to be with him. Had Emil really made friends with Lalli? Come to think of it, it wasn't that strange. It had been Emil's idea to bring the cats back. And Reynir couldn't help notice that when he talked to Lalli, Emil's habits of trying to make himself look good, sometimes by insulting others without really noticing it, almost vanished. Reynir had found out from Tuuri that Emil had tried to befriend her on the way to Øresund base, and during that had played up his past as an academic. Reynir had a strange thought: maybe that Lalli's utter lack of anything obvious in common with Emil had left the latter with no other way to approach him than the most basic and simple gestures of kindness. Lalli tended to take things at face value according to Tuuri. He remembered Tuuri's anecdotes of Emil getting more sandwiches when Lalli stole the meat from Emil's, Emil re-arranging Lalli's hair after the decontamination in Mora and telling his cousins to stop patting Lalli during a stop at his aunt's house. It had been soon followed by Emil making it clear he didn't believe Lalli was a mage, but was still consistent with his idea. He'd have to watch them more closely to see if there was something to it.
Considering his day had started out as not being able to go to that Old World school because he had a fever, he was surprised by all he was able to tell Hildur when she came to visit that night. He chose to not tell her anything her heard from Onni and Lalli's discussion, considering Onni would tell her anything he thought she should know himself. However, his mind was split between his amusement at the coincidence and how little he liked the answer when she asked him a very familiar question:
-Have you made any friends yet?
-I don't know... I'm not sure I can trust my own judgement about people anymore. And what Mikkel said about the cat reminded me that we were still doing dangerous stuff, and that most of them are more exposed to it than I am. I know I have to trust them if I want to have a chance to make it back, but that doesn't require making friends. And if I make friends with none of them, it won't be so hard if one of them turns out to be like Helena. We'll probably never see each other after this anyway.
-I see why you would think this. But do me a favor. Please give at least one of them a chance.