Squealing with delight at her very first visit to The Capital of Scandinavia (or, really, anywhere outside of Finland), Tuuri sprinted ahead into the thick traffic of Outer Mora, Lalli struggling to catch up behind her without getting flattened by the press of people and horses. She even outpaced Emil by a good bit, slithering her way through minute gaps in the crowd with uncanny adroitness… until she took one chance too many.
A sickening SNAP and a scream of mingled pain and outrage announced that Tuuri had come to grief in the horde. When Emil reached her, he could see that her right leg was broken, whereupon Emil almost fainted, this being his first experience of serious injury in someone he knew and was beginning to like.
Emil’s reaction paled beside those of Siv and Torbjörn. Now, usually the two of them had an arrangement where if one was gloomy and depressed the other would be bright and cheery, but this catastrophe was of such magnitude that both of them practically collapsed as one.
Fortunately, Taru was far more levelheaded. “Siv, you’ll need to stay behind here to see to Tuuri; I’ll send for one of my backup candidates to meet us at Öresundbron.”
*
After the local hospital had patched Tuuri up, she’d confided to Siv that four weeks of inactivity would send her right up the wall (unless the Gnorns, putative children to Siv and Torbjörn, didn’t manage it first, but Tuuri kept that to herself). Siv got a devious look on her face before asking whether Tuuri would like a job perfectly suited for her current disability, so the two skalds went off to Siv’s old workplace.
The Mora Institute for Rash Research’s Svensson Experiment Center was decidedly underwhelming to Tuuri’s initially eagerly expectant eyes. When she glanced over at Siv, she could see her thoughts reflected on the older woman’s face, along with a melancholy resignation.
The few researchers present fell upon Siv with surprising fervor. Even after she told them she herself wasn’t returning to work, the fact that she’d brought Tuuri as a replacement practically sent them into paroxysms of joy, Tuuri’s broken leg notwithstanding.
Well, it was a job, at any rate.
*
After Mikkel tended to Emil’s potential face-cancer, the young Swede stayed in the office area for another few minutes, intent on conversation. He had not had the opportunity to introduce himself to the replacement skald, a large woman perhaps a decade older than he who reluctantly vouchsafed her identity as one “Miira Kiianmies”.
When Emil tried to engage her in a longer conversation, the large skald sighed and turned away from him. “Look: I’m not here to be your friend, and I’m certainly not here to be your ‘mommy’. The only reason I’m here at all is to see that my daughter gets her chance at a better life than I’ve ever had.”
Emil didn’t know what to say in response, but she forestalled any reply he might have made. “Now leave me to my work and don’t bother me again.”
This did not bode well, but Emil supposed he could live with it; it seemed he’d have to, at any rate…
