If I could really speak Kung Fu,
There’s so much I would say to you,
I would try through thick and thin,
And should you want a mandarin,
I would take off of its shelf,
An Orange that killed itself…
“You mean a lemon.”
“…Hmmmm?”
“That’s what I said a mandarin was like: a lemon that killed itself. You put ‘orange’ down there.”
“They’re both citrus, and when did you learn to read Swedish, anyway?”
“After you told Mikkel you didn’t know what half the stuff on his shopping list was.”
“…Anyway, it’s just a stupid poem; I don’t even know why I started it.”
“Because Tuuri challenged you to find something that rhymed with ‘orange’, and you decided to cheat by using a lesser-known synonym.”
“…You heard that, huh?”
“I may not have Lalli’s bat-ears, or even yours, but I can still hear two kids giggling as they make stupid dares to each other when they think everyone else’s asleep.”
“I was hoping I wasn’t actually speaking, given what ‘Tuuri’ is; I should have known better.”
“An official member of the crew is what she is, unlike Troll-Bait back there.”
“I thought I was supposed to be his mortal enemy now, not you.”
“That freckled ray of sunshine wouldn’t know how to be someone’s mortal enemy if you paid him to; nevertheless, I still think it’s weird that Short Stuff likes him, but Twigs doesn’t.”
“I’ve been thinking about that myself.”
“Don’t strain anything, kiddo.”
“What I think is that Lalli still doesn’t like being reminded of the truth behind ’Tuuri’, and Reynir is the one person on the crew Lalli can’t hide the truth from; ’Tuuri’ just wants to be accepted, and Reynir does, despite seeing through her.”
“In more than one way.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a joke.”
“Not the kind you usually make.”
“Never let yourself be fenced in by the usual, Little Viking; that’s how you get predictable, and therefore dead. Grosslings don’t stay in any nice little box labeled ‘usual’, so why should we? And very little about Lalli’s… um… ‘problem’… is what you could call ‘usual’.”
“Which is why I’m scribbling down bad poetry in an attempt to make one part of him happy while trying to figure out how to make another part happy.”
“And there’s a third part we haven’t seen yet, though the Mora gang says he ’showed up’ there.”
“Do you think ‘Onni’ will ‘show up’ here?”
“He’s supposed to be a big-shot mage, and the only reason we’d need one of those here is if we were deep in the fire, so I hope not.”
“What is Lalli needs him here for some other reason?”
“Since ‘Onni’ hasn’t ‘shown up’ so far, Lalli hasn’t needed him here; if Lalli does, ‘Onni’ will, and we’ll handle that if it happens.”
“Mrh.”
“That’s what I meant about not getting fenced in by the usual: when that happens, the ‘unusual’ gets you all twisted up with worries about stuff that might not happen at all.”
“Or they might yet. Hello, my name is Onni.”
