Shifting horizon

Sigrun had gotten a little bored and decided to see what the Madsen twins were up too. It turned out that she had shown up just in time, as both of them had realized that the Icelanders tending to Michael would know Norwegian if they knew any Scandinavian languages at all, causing Michael to want to try understanding it again. Sigrun felt like she was starting to get him interested in a conversation about whether letting the trolls he had grown attached to live was such a good idea, regardless of their proximity to any kind of settlement. However, the conversation took an unexpected turn as she mentioned the death wishes that were sometimes expressed by trolls and a sufficiently well-known phenomenon that even Swedes and Danes didn't deny its existence:
-I never heard them say they want to die. Not once.
To anyone who had had just a short encounter with one troll, Sigrun could have simply pointed out that they could have simply not been around long enough to hear it. But what was she supposed to say to someone who had been around a bunch of them for ten years and was getting to live to tell the tale? As she tried to look for something to say, she remembered the reports of mental calls for help being used as traps from mages she had worked with and Emil, alongside all the times some of the verbal calls she had heard herself could have distracted her long enough to get herself killed. And now, someone that trolls had actively kept alive was reporting having never heard the calls for help. The thought of what this could mean made her skin crawl. It brought back the memory of couple who tried to get their way by claiming whatever they didn't like about how things were done was harming their young children in some way, while actually speaking to the children one-on-one would reveal that they weren't even aware of whatever their parents were complaining about that week. She looked at her left arm to remind herself of the concrete consequences of the proximity of trolls, that were still the same regardless of the deeper causes. That as many as possible needed to be killed for humanity to have any kind of chance to recover. And that because of this, people with Michael's viewpoint on the situation would always be considered in the wrong, regardless of the knowledge they had to back it up; once in a while, she had run into a recruit who had been lucky enough to go through their entire childhood without a troll-related tragedy occurring among friends or family and ended up asking why raiding the nests was necessary. Michael's case was different enough from that of those youths for her to not be entirely sure she wouldn't take his side if she knew everything he must have found out over the last decade. Yet, even now, part of her wanted to have this conversation for the off-chance of gleaning something that could make troll nest raids less deadly for her fellow hunters in addition to helping Mikkel with something in which she had more expertise than him. She spoke the words that would help at least one of her purposes:
-Did you hear them say anything else? Besides asking for stories, of course.
Michael looked about to speak, then crossed his arms:
-You're a hunter. If I tell you what I heard, you will use it to hurt them. We talk about something else. Not trolls.
This tended to happen during the conversations with recruits as well. Unfortunately, getting the conversation back on track when the other person insisted on talking about something else entirely wasn't her strong suit, even when she was in good health; she gave up and asked Michael if there was anything else he actually wanted to talk about.

xxxx

Reynir was going to be late compared to the other times he had come, as he was going to talk with his sister a little longer this time. Lalli thought he could get some rest, but found himself eyeing the chess board instead. He felt he now had enough of a grasp of the rules to try playing alone, and see how worthwhile it would be as a means of entertainment. He had never been one for any entertainment that involved other people, as even the smallest groups could have someone not come back one day, and make an extra person to mourn for those still alive. Up to very recently, he had wanted as few people as possible to be that to him, with the side effect of keeping people other than Tuuri and Onni from being sad if he ever ended up dying on duty. His thoughts on the subject quickly drifted into the fact that he actually wouldn't mind playing with Emil. But actually asking someone other than family to be brought to one's safe area for non-professional reasons had implications, especially for those who largely preferred being the one going to the one receiving. Reynir, in his ignorance of protocol and barriers alike, was like that bird that flew into an open window, landed on a random piece of furniture, and assumed it was welcome unless someone actively shooed it away. Lalli's own stay in Emil's safe area had been one of necessity, at least at the beginning. Who would he ask to bring Emil to his place, anyway? Reynir clearly had no idea how to get himself to where Emil was, otherwise he would have tried looking for him rather than spend a whole week fruitlessly waiting for any sign of life on Lalli's part. He briefly considered Reynir's sister, only to realize that in addition to the fact that he knew her even less, both siblings were a bad choice for the same reason: he and them would be going their separate ways once this mission would be completely over. He took a while to realize he considered this to be a problem because he wanted to be able to still see Emil after the mission was over, which had never happened the few previous times he'd had to temporarily work with someone else. Shifting back to his initial train of thought, he realized that his only other option was Onni, who was out of the question for plenty of reasons. Then, he noticed that he had another option: becoming good enough to be able to go see Emil on a regular basis on his own power.

xxxx

-Tomorrow evening? Are you sure?
Reynir nodded:
-They made more progress than planned yesterday evening and last night. If nothing makes them late, they should be here before nightfall tomorrow.
Mikkel switched to Danish for the benefit of Sigrun and Emil:
-Looks like tonight is the last night we are going to spend here, and we'll have all day to pack tomorrow.
Sigrun piped up:
-Guess this is our cue to start figuring out how presentable we can make ourselves with what we have around here. People are probably going to take photos, if only to try to convince people back home that what we did was a bad idea.
Mikkel decided it was time to give her a reality check:
-We can bathe and I can mend some of the clothes, but the only things we have than aren't already on someone's back are Lalli's uniform and the jacket we lent Reynir.
Sigrun sighed in resignation, and held something up to Mikkel's face:
-Fine. But we should at least give that thing a proper wash.
"That thing" turned out to be Reynir's braid, that seemed to have become the home of various stray pieces of nature during the trek. A full comb and wash were probably the only means to get rid of them all at that point.
-I'm sure he'd appreciate the sentiment, but doing it properly would take all d…
He realized too late that some people did have all day to do it.

Sigrun almost regretted her project idea for the day when she was reminded that braiding hair tended to make it appear shorter than in actually was, and that the reminder was applying to a braid that was already reaching below its owner's waist. Emil fortunately knew a few things about caring for hair, and the wash and first comb took the rest of the morning. The hair would need to dry for some time before it could be made into a braid that wouldn't get messy again too fast, and was wrapped in a couple of towels. Both she and Emil decided to use that time to account for the fact that they were still nursing a fever and have a nap. Reynir decided to sit down as well, as his hair could get quite heavy when it was both wet and undone. As Sigrun and Emil were fixing his hair, he'd found nothing better to do than think about the fact that he'd soon be back to safety and probably expected to make up his mind on what kind of magic he wanted to learn. He'd gotten a couple of ideas, only to quickly realize that their main applications would be military. He had tried to think of specializations that would enable him to help without getting to far away from home, but nothing had come to mind. Right now, his best hope was that at least one of the specializations he was currently considering had civilian applications he wasn't thinking of due to ignorance. He planned to ask Hildur about it in the evening.

Once the announcement of just how soon the boat would arrive had been made, Mikkel's priorities had shifted to spending as much time with Michael as he could spare and get him ready to be put into the care of the Icelanders. The latter consisted mostly of checking for anything that could make getting on the boat difficult, if only because it was going to be taking him further away from his living place of the last ten years than he currently was and entail him spending at least a couple weeks alone in a small room. Eventually, he had one last question left to ask:
-Do you happen to remember anything from the day I was fired from the Kastrup campaign?
-No, why?
Mikkel let out a sigh of resignation before explaining:
-Something happened that day. That something may make you have bad feelings towards me if you remember it during the trip. I didn't mention it before because I didn't want to put an extra burden on you, but I thought it might be a better idea to ask you whether you would be okay with me telling about it upfront or not.
Michael though for a few moments before responding:
-Tell it.

It hadn't been like Michael to commit a blunder. But he had, big time, and it had been something that made admitting to it and resigning before someone could fire him the only graceful way out. However, doing so a few minutes earlier or later wasn't going to make much of a difference, so he had decided to use that time to tell Mikkel what had happened, so he wouldn't be surprised at his resignation. Michael's blunder turned out to have been partly witnessed by someone. A very new someone who had only seen Michael's back and had no idea he had a twin. Their overlapping duties had meant that many people were never sure which brother they were working with, and Mikkel's habit of seeing how long he could fool people into thinking he was actually Michael had only gotten some of those people even more confused. When he claimed Michael's slip-up was his, nobody had questioned it, or if they had, had also figured out that they should keep their mouth shut. Soon after, Michael was sent to one of the outposts. The outpost had been evacuated after the fall of Kastrup, but the few other people assigned there had been forced to leave without Michael after he hadn't come back from a shift. After what had happened, nobody had considered sending people to go look for him to be worth it. The initial expedition mission plan was supposed to bring the crew nowhere near the outpost Michael had very briefly worked at, but fate had managed to twist itself in that direction anyway.