An early reunion

Onni got the strange impression that whatever gods were currently paying attention to him had decided that he should be exposed to various reminders that other people were going to get to see their loved ones come back soon. The radio conversation with the Icelanders relieved to find out that Reynir was alive and well had sufficiently gotten on his nerves to make him leave the room, only to end up face to face with a picture of Emil and the children hanging on one of the hallway walls. Onni had never really checked the house for photos of him due to trying to care for the other members of the crew only in their capacity to keep Tuuri – and Reynir to an extent, once he had realized he was a non-combatant as well – safe. Among them, Emil had definitely been the hardest to make stay a mere file photo, and the young man now had to stay alive for Lalli to have any kind of chance of recovering from his current situation. The closest Emil had come to participating to a radio conversation Onni could understand had been Mikkel reporting everyone's health status. As for the conversations he hadn't been able to understand, Emil hadn't participated in them much either, which was strange considering his uncle and aunt were on the other end of the line. Or maybe it wasn't; if Trond's comments were anything to go by, the guy was an idiot who had been intentionally tricked into thinking the mission would be much easier than it actually was and could very well now be giving the cold shoulder to the very people who had tricked him. But this opened another question: how had Emil ended up being the one who had gone missing alongside Lalli? The report of the tank having broken down some time before Tuuri had died had confirmed Onni's guess that Lalli would have wanted to stay wherever Tuuri had died for a few extra hours while other members of the crew secured a camping spot a few hours away; this accounted for the separation of the crew into two groups happening in the first place. He could also picture the other members of the crew not being entirely certain of what, exactly, Lalli intended to do while left alone, resulting in one of them staying with Lalli to make sure actually made it back once he was done. But why Emil? It couldn't be Reynir for obvious reasons, but Onni could see plenty of them for which either Sigrun or Mikkel would have been better suited for the job. Wait, hadn't Lalli once mentioned he thought he could be making friends with someone on the crew?

His mind got interrupted in putting two and two together by a hand being waved between his face and the picture:
-Onni, they want to ask you something.
He recognized Taru's voice. He went back into the living room and was offered one of the seats next to the radio. The woman on the other side apparently knew enough about magic to know that Lalli being stuck in a non-mage's dream realm didn't add up with Onni having been told some of the more recent news from the expedition crew. Onni thought that "Reynir is a mage" was a simple enough concept that either Trond or Taru could convey it without needing his help, but the woman seemed to want to make really sure she didn't misunderstand the situation. Onni answered her questions the best he could, but had trouble understanding the reason for which some of them were being asked. From what he remembered, foreign mages were chosen rather than born with their powers, so it couldn't be that odd for Reynir to suddenly have them, especially after accidentally getting himself in an environment in which he could use all the help his gods could reasonably provide. Trond finally spoke:
-Ma'am, can I please remind you that you are talking to a Finnish mage and the older brother of the young woman who died? All the odd things about the young man's magic showing up when it did are probably going over his head, and it's most certainly a bad idea to make this discussion more tedious for him than it needs to be.
After that, the questions became more to the point and easier to answer. Onni still couldn't make out what the "odd things" were supposed to be, and the extent to which he currently cared about this particular subject wasn't enough to muster up the energy to ask anyone questions about it. The radio call was quickly wrapped up, with arrangements made for the next contact.

-For all I know, Ólafur, Guðrún, Bjarni and myself could end up dying before having children of our own. Reynir was supposed to be the one who would stay home and safe. When I told our parents he had been chosen, the first thing they asked was if there was any way to hide it from him. There was, but I also knew he envied us for being able to travel internationally. The only reason he hadn't tried to do so already was that our parents had lied to him about the travel ban on non-immunes being still in place. I knew he was going to try travelling sooner or later and couldn't bear the idea of him getting into trouble that basic magic could save him from while unaware of having powers. So, I made being in danger a condition under which he could become aware of his powers. I didn't tell anyone else about it in case the seal was still holding. I'm sorry about this, Njala. I'm going to need to apologize to him, as well.

Emil had definitely come down with a fever, which wasn't surprising considering what he had gone through over the past few days. He and Sigrun still somehow found the energy to argue over which of the two had it worse instead of actually getting sleep, while Reynir had made it his life's mission to provide as much help as he could, which resulted in Mikkel telling him to take care of himself first; the last thing he needed was yet another patient. After that, Reynir gave the books a quick look, then set up the chessboard. Kitty jumped on the table and decided to sniff the pieces, knocking some of them over in the process. One of the pawns ended up on the floor, and promptly got chased around the floor by the cat for a good two minutes before Reynir got his hands on it again. By the time Reynir's brief ordeal was over, Sigrun was very obviously stifling a laughter, and eventually had to take a deep breath to make up for the stifling. She fell asleep little after that. Reynir smiled very briefly while looking in her direction before re-arranging the other fallen pieces and starting to move those on both sides of the board. Mikkel was too busy with the various small things to be done to be his opponent, but there were definitely worse signs of boredom than playing chess alone; trying to counter one's own moves was actually a legitimate exercise to get better at the game. Emil started stating the rules of chess out loud in the tone he used to answer questions asked by Lalli and fell asleep before he could finish. Mikkel had told Michael as much of the truth that he could without getting magic involved when he had asked after them.

xxxx

Hildur's plan had been to sneak into Reynir's dream realm while he was still awake to be able to explain the situation as soon as he went to bed, ready for whichever response he could have to both seeing her again and finding out what she had done all these years. Instead, she found his dream realm as active as it would be if he was asleep, but Reynir's own self absent. Hildur then remembered one of the things Njala had told her and looked in the direction of the other dream realm, which belonged to the Finnish mage. If she squinted, she could make him out between the trees doing what she guessed to be some mild body control. He ended the task almost as soon as she noticed him and started heading back to his own realm. About half-way out of the other mage's swamp, Reynir took notice of her and ran straight into her arms. He sobbed for a good two minutes before realizing the possibility that she could not be real and the fact that she owed him an explanation if she was. She barely had time to give him the short version before he was woken up. She looked though his eyes while he was trying to convince a blond man with sideburns that he was alright and needed to go back to sleep to speak with someone. Wherever Reynir had been sleeping was high enough for Hildur to notice a couple of other people sitting at a large table, looking in Reynir's direction. Hildur had thought Reynir looked a little underfed upon seeing him, but she now could tell that he hadn't been any more deprived of food than the others. Actually, the short blonde person at the table had looked at little worse off than Reynir when it came to any signs of malnutrition. Once Reynir came back, he had many questions, and unsurprisingly didn't like the answers to many of them. The fact that he had, himself, recently concealed bad news from someone only for it to backfire when the person had found out emerged during the conversation. Njala had off-handedly mentioned that the non-immune skald of the crew had died little after the expedition's home base in Sweden had lost radio contact with the crew. Hildur had been so focused on each day bringing her closer to where Reynir was over the past few weeks that she had never considered the possibility that he could have made friends with at least one of the explorers in spite of the situation. Reynir asked Hildur to leave him alone to process everything he had found out until at least the next morning, right before she got woken up by Njala back on the ship.

Sigrun sighed:
-And when, exactly, would have been a good time to have either you or Tuuri basically ask him "Hey, kid, do you know of any mages among your family or friends? Because I'm quite sure someone's been making sure you didn't notice you have powers for at least a few years". It would have accomplished nothing besides making him aware of an issue that he had no means of properly doing something about until we got back to civilization. Then you mentioned his sibs and I realized it could be one of them. Then these ghosts started following us. Then Tuuri got bitten.
Mikkel relayed Sigrun's explanation to Reynir. Fortunately, Mikkel reported his reply to be understanding of Sigrun's position, which was more than she expected considering the lateness of the hour. She wasn't sure what to do aside from letting everyone involved sleep on the situation. Upon closing her eyes, she wondered what Lalli was making of the situation, if he was paying attention to it at all.

Michael had already told Mikkel about it, but he unfortunately had yet to figure out a way to stop reflexively reciting the entirety of the lone story he had been telling the trolls every evening in spite of no longer needing to do it to stay alive. Memories of there being storytellers back home were slowly coming back to him, and Michael guessed that if he didn't find a way to stop it, there could be a way to make use out of it. But for that, he would need more stories, and he remembered none of the ones he used to tell when his repertoire was richer. An idea crossed his mind as he remembered Mikkel collecting books to bring back to his crewmates: maybe he could ask Mikkel to tell him another story, and see if he could try reciting it instead of the usual one the next evening.