Arvid Ravenmark

I think I understand something now that I didn't an hour ago. I don't like it.

Freya Thorn

What was out there, Torvald?

Kael Frostborn

Noted. I hope your clan's pride keeps it as warm as my alliance would have.

Torvald Ashbane

Good. That's the Ingrid I remember.

Arvid Ravenmark

I've seen these words before I ever read this record. I don't like what that means.

Kael Frostborn

Then we prepare. Whether or not we believe it, the islands that prepare survive longer than the ones that argue about belief.

Ingrid Wolfhart

I don't believe in prophecies. I believe in clans, and axes, and people who show up. This changes nothing.

Torvald Ashbane

Where did you find that.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Arvid. Where did you find that.

Arvid Ravenmark

I didn't find it. It found me. I understand that isn't a satisfying answer.

Torvald Ashbane

I have no idea what this is about.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Then it shouldn't concern you to answer it.

Astrid Seaborn

It doesn't. I was speaking generally.

Kael Frostborn

Welcome to the question I've been asking since the beginning.

Torvald Ashbane

Don't let him make this about him.

Ingrid Wolfhart

I wasn't planning to.

Arvid Ravenmark

I have theories. I am keeping them to myself for now, which should tell you how much I trust them.

Sigrid Ironhand

Of course the names were always going to matter. Everything with you people matters twice as much as it should.

Kael Frostborn

You say that as though counting isn't its own kind of warning.

Ylva Winterseer

It is. I never said it wasn't.

Arvid Ravenmark

For the record, she asked me twice if it was "real real" before she believed her own boots.

Sigrid Ironhand

I asked once.

Arvid Ravenmark

Twice.

Ingrid Wolfhart

What was on it?

Astrid Seaborn

Look at that. The world let you finish something.

Freya Thorn

I'm SO happy for—

Sigrid Ironhand

It doesn't make you disloyal. It makes you young enough to still ask the question instead of just living the answer.

Kael Frostborn

Thank you for proving my point more gently than I could have.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Freya. Come see me.

Torvald Ashbane

That's either the bravest thing you've said all year, or the most terrifying.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Why not both.

Kael Frostborn

Noted, again.

Arvid Ravenmark

I could have told you that for free.

Kael Frostborn

I'd pay for the version with more detail.

Ylva Winterseer

That's a fair question, asked in a way designed to sound fairer than it is.

Kael Frostborn

Most fair questions are inconvenient. That doesn't make them wrong.

Sigrid Ironhand

Careful, Frostborn. Some of us are the walls.

Freya Thorn

That is not a full answer.

Astrid Seaborn

No. It isn't.

Sigrid Ironhand

At least she admits it. Some people around here just change the subject.

Freya Thorn

Oh.

Astrid Seaborn

♡ liked this.

Arvid Ravenmark

You don't owe me. I would have grabbed it regardless of who was standing there.

Sigrid Ironhand

That's worse, somehow.

Freya Thorn

Is everyone okay?? I only just saw this.

Torvald Ashbane

Ironhand admitting she owes someone something. Write the date down.

Arvid Ravenmark

This is not helpful, Elin.

Sigrid Ironhand

It was never going to be.

Freya Thorn

Wait. Astrid. What promise.

Torvald Ashbane

Nothing was "about to." You interrupted a conversation about the weather.

Astrid Seaborn

The weather. Of course.

Kael Frostborn

That's an interesting theory to publish in public.

Ylva Winterseer

You're welcome to disagree with it in public too.

Astrid Seaborn

♡ liked this.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Noted, Winterseer. Thank you.

Arvid Ravenmark

I would have found my way back eventually.

Sigrid Ironhand

Eventually is not a navigation plan.

Torvald Ashbane

Try not to throw him overboard before he's useful.

Freya Thorn

Can I come.

Sigrid Ironhand

No.

Ingrid Wolfhart

Careful with the poetry, Seaborn. It suits you a little too well.

Hhth

Kael Frostborn

Careful. That almost sounded personal.

Ylva Winterseer

It was an observation. You’re welcome to take it personally if it fits.

Astrid Seaborn

♡ liked this.

Ylva Winterseer

He is not wrong. He is simply the only one willing to sound this unpleasant about it.

Kael Frostborn

The Black Fjord has held its walls for three generations without your permission. It will hold them for a fourth.

Arvid Ravenmark

Then you’ll be relieved to know I don’t expect you to understand cartography. Only to stay out of my way when I turn out to be right.

Torvald Ashbane

Careful, Ironhand. That almost sounded like an opinion.

Sigrid Ironhand

It was a warning. Try again and it’ll sound like something else.

Sigrid Ironhand

I hate maps.

Arvid Ravenmark

That is because maps suggest there are problems too far away for your axe.

Sigrid Ironhand

So Torvald has seen it?

Ingrid Wolfhart

Careful.

Torvald Ashbane

Too late.

Ingrid Wolfhart

You forgot to mention the part where you explained nothing.

Torvald Ashbane

I was building suspense.

Freya Thorn

Is “building suspense” the same thing as refusing to answer?

Astrid Seaborn

No. Refusing to answer is what he does when the truth still has teeth.

Torvald Ashbane

I had imagined my return differently. More cheering, perhaps. Fewer knives. But I suppose, in the Black Fjord, suspicion is just another way of saying welcome home.

Arvid Ravenmark

The ravens flew west before sunrise. All of them. Then the sea returned a man it had kept for ten years. I would like to call this a coincidence, but the world has never been kind enough to be that simple.

Freya Thorn

Everyone keeps saying he came back from the dead. I know I am probably not supposed to ask this, but I am going to ask anyway. Was he dead, or is that what people say when the truth is worse?

Astrid Seaborn

Ten years gone, and still smiling like he owes the world nothing. Careful, Ashbane. Some debts survive storms.