The SSSS Scriptorium

[Grade E cat]

I'm warning you all: I'm using a new viewpoint at the end of this chapter, and I think the bulk of the last quarter of Adventure I is going to be in it (trend currently shown by the one-chapter backlog between what I post and what has actually been written).

Spoiler: show

Silent Child 6

The food was proclaimed safe to eat by Onni. As Reynir was tasting a strange brown soup, both Onni and Katja were digging into the cake. Katja in particular was acting like she was eating some for the first time in her life, which, all things considered, was probably the case. The old lady turned to be someone who had died of the Illness, and while able to leave for the afterlife when she wished, felt that there were lost souls pledged to her Old World god that needed her help to pass on first. Reynir realized that she may be able to help with the ghosts that had been following the tank. They would need to be brought to the lady’s “church” which was apparently the physical world counterpart of the building in which they currently were. Unfortunately, the old lady couldn’t remember the place’s location from the top of her head and an active attempt to remember it resulted in Reynir getting a very brief glimpse of what some of the places they had visited in the Silent World must have looked like while they were actively being used as care centers. Soon after, Onni decided it was time for all three of them to leave.

That morning, Reynir saw a strange spirit that seemed part plant, part animal on top of the tank while outside it. Katja, who was with him, seemed to see it too. Reynir reassured her:
-Don’t be afraid! I think it’s something called an omen. It can’t hurt us.
Lalli seemed to see it also, and Reynir vaguely noticed him saying something in Finnish in a tone somewhere between annoyed and grumpy. In other words, what usually happened when Lalli tried talking to him at all.

xxxx

Emil had ended up guarding the “helpless babies”, as Sigrun called them, while she, Mikkel and Lalli got to search the hospital. The one silver lining of it all was that Katja had decided to keep him company while Tuuri and Reynir did whatever they had taken to do together to keep each other occupied. After a complete lack of anything interesting happening, Katja suddenly pointed at the pocket in which Emil had stuffed the allegedly magical drawing Reynir had given everyone a copy of. Emil realized something inside it had apparently spontaneously caught fire. He tried to pull the item out, grateful that his gloves were fire-resistant. Fortunately, whatever it had been had been easy to burn, so it soon ran out of fuel. Just as Emil realized that Reynir’s drawing had been the only thing in that pocket, Sigrun ran out of the hospital, Mikkel and Lalli in tow. Emil and Katja got into the tank just as Sigrun was speaking to Tuuri:
-Step on it, more annoying spirits incoming!
As they drove away, Emil noticed Lalli had his hands placed on his head, his eyes closed and was generally looking tense, a combination he hadn’t seen since a short time he had collapsed and seemingly slept for two entire days. Worried, Emil tried to approach him, but got elbowed away. As he withdrew, he noticed that Reynir was standing against a wall, his eyes closed, his hands joined in a prayer gesture, and looking just as tense as Lalli. He also noticed Katja had taken a posture similar to Lalli, except she was taking advantage of her small size to hide under the office desk. Emil needed to have a talk about magic with Mikkel.

xxxx

The big daddy and the big mommy had talked to the big box a lot, while, she, two of the smaller daddies and the small mommy were eating. The mean daddy that was always out when it was very dark had been sleeping, but woke up and went out before it was dark enough. He came back before it was time to sleep. The moving home moved, and she had to stay in the room with all the beds with the small mommy and the small daddy who was her second favorite daddy after the big daddy. There had been a lot of bad things outside. Bad beasts, bad trolls, bad shadows. The bottom of the room with the beds was broken. A troll was on the floor. It was dead because the mean daddy had come in and had a used rifle. The small mommy had her hand on her shoulder. It was red with blood, like her first daddy before her first mommy took him outside, came back alone after a very long time, then spent a lot of time hugging her and crying. The mean daddy went back out, then came back with the big daddy. She went towards him, but her second favorite daddy grabbed her and made her sit on his lap while hugging her. After that, there was a lot of noise. At some point, the small mommy went out of the room while she and the daddy holding her stayed in it. Nobody went to bed for long enough that it became light out again. Little after it was light, the daddy who was nice but was out of the home much more often than her second-favorite daddy came to get her, and walked with her among a lot of dead and cooked beasts and trolls who were on the ground. She showed him one that wasn’t dead, and he used a rifle on it. After this happened a few times, she understood he had brought her out of the home that sometimes moved to do this. Then the big mommy came to join them, but she started yelling, and the small daddy yelled back. She didn’t like it when a daddy and a mommy yelled, so she ran away and tried to look for other daddies. The first one she found was the mean daddy, who was standing alone outside the home. He wasn’t yelling right now, so he was still better to be next to than the daddy and the mommy who were yelling. The mean daddy spoke to her a little, picked her up, hugged her, and started crying. Wait, when had she last seen the small mommy?

Between this and the chapter I just wrapped up, the impulse to listen to the "You've been Brave" track from Yes, Your Grace is strong...

[Jitter]

Oh Cat, the last part from Katja’s perspective is so sad and sweet. Smaller daddies

[Mirasol]

Aww Grade E cat, I love how you wrote how Katja percieves the crew as her new parents! This chapter is adorable and sad.

[Grade E cat]

And... it's Sunday again!

Spoiler: show

Silent Child 7

The home that sometimes moved had a big window. Under that big window was a big box that was always the first part of the home to get wherever it was going when it moved. The box was open and the small mommy had spent a lot of time looking for something inside it. She didn’t seem to have found it yet. She spent the days watching the small mommy. The big mommy and each of the daddies had all hugged her while crying at least once over the past few days, yet the small mommy was right here, looking for things in the big box. Why had they all been hugging and crying so much, if the small mommy was not gone? Why wasn’t the small mommy sleeping with everyone else anymore? Why had the big daddy put the thin sticky paper around one of the doors, and told her “no” in some way or another if she tried to take it off or open the door? She hoped that if she watched the small mommy carefully for long enough, she would understand.
Tuuri found herself missing Reynir, but Katja more than made up for his absence. The little girl seemed particularly interested in the mechanical work she was doing. At least, outside of the few times she had actually tried to teach the girl something, in which case she seemed to have no idea what she was trying to do. Tuuri had never gotten around taking an apprentice in Keuruu, but now she felt a sudden impulse to transmit her knowledge to someone else. That had also manifested in her intensifying both Emil’s Finnish lessons and Lalli’s Swedish lessons. However, that impulse had nothing to do with considering that the bite might be infected. After all, she had been quite lucky so far. One of the few to make it out of her village’s outbreak alongside Lalli and Onni. Taru being one of the people in charge of picking a team for a Silent World expedition that was willing to take a non-immune as long as they had the right skills. Meeting an actual Icelander during the expedition. She was certain she would be in the clear in just a few more days. There was certainly some force looking out for her. In the meantime, she needed to follow the protocol to prove she wasn’t dangerous to Reynir or any non-immunes back in the Known World. Then she would get to sail home on an actual Icelandic ship, and see the country itself.

xxxx

It wasn’t until the day on which the small mommy and her second-favorite daddy talked a lot through the door nobody opened anymore that she understood that they were the two who were being kept apart from each other. She, the big mommy, the big daddy, the mean daddy and the other nice small daddy could be on both sides of the door. But he second-favorite daddy was never in the room with the talking box or the one with the big window anymore, and the small mommy didn’t come to the room with the beds or the room with a door to the outside right next to it anymore. She didn’t know why this was happening, but it was always a good idea to not prevent daddies and mommies from doing what they were doing. Though the big mommy wasn’t doing much, and had been sleeping a lot since the floor of the room with all the beds had broken.

xxxx

Sigrun, who had been sleeping off both her arm’s infection and the medication used to treat it, was woken up by a pair of tiny fists pounding on her abdomen. As she was about to let out a quip about the girl needing to stop if she wanted to have younger sibling someday, she smelled smoke. She promptly got up, and rushed out of the driver’s cabin just in time to see Mikkel dump the contents of the washtub, which he had probably been using for something else, on the tank’s smoking hood. Tuuri was looking at her meekly:
-I-I don’t think I can fix it anymore.
Mikkel pulled a paper map out of his pocket and within minutes – still more of them than Mikkel would have apparently liked – Emil and Lalli were off to scavenge materials, while Tuuri helped Mikkel with other preparations and Sigrun herself was back to sleep to build up strength, with the little mage girl watching over her.

xxxx

She wasn’t sure when it had started, but she now knew for sure. The small mommy now felt like a bad troll. And because of that, she didn’t like the small mommy anymore. But what was happening was so new to her that she couldn’t help but continue to watch the small mommy from far away. After eating time, the small mommy went into the of the room with two doors her second-favorite daddy had decorated with a nice drawing. After some time, she came out and went inside the room with a big window. She spent some time in there, left it, then spoke a little with the mean daddy. He was less mean to the small mommy than he was to her. The small mommy went to have a walk far away, and she couldn’t follow her because it was too close too dark and the bad things would come out soon. The small mommy had left something on the ground. It was the thing the small mommy and her second-favorite daddy sometimes had on their face. She decided to play with it a little, since she wasn’t allowed to touch it most of the time. After a while, she found how to make it stay around her neck without needing to hold it, and decided to go show the big mommy and the daddies. But before she could do so, she heard the mean daddy yell something she couldn’t understand, and soon the big daddy found her, took the thing away from her, put her in the room with big windows and left. He came back after what felt like a very long time, took all her clothes off, washed her with a lot of the smelly stuff he sprayed on the mean daddy when he came back in the morning and made her wear her other clothes before leaving and coming back with her second-favorite daddy. The big daddy left, and her second favorite daddy sat on the chair facing the round thing the small mommy always had her hands on when the home was moving. He picked her up, put her on her lap, and started crying. Outside, some distance away from the home she could see three people doing things. The small mommy was the person missing.

This chapter is unofficially sponsored by the "Farewell, My Daughter" track from Yes, your grace. The title of the track should be self-explanatory for people who don't know the game, this time.

[Jitter]

Oh Cat, another bittersweet piece. Describing it through Kitty’s lack of understanding is very touching.

[Mirasol]

*Try not to cry, try not to cry...* too late. You have done well, Cat. Something more lighthearted (?):

Spoiler: part 12 • show

Everyone was super busy as usual. From what Reynir had gathered, they would continue their mission now that Lalli was awake. Awake and completely back to his grumpy old self. The Icelander was glad that the scout didn´t seem to have been really sick.
Reynir had volunteered to help Mikkel with his chores again. He supposedly was doing the dishes, but with Kitty running around that proved to be more difficult than expected. She wanted to help, that much was clear. But nearly making him trip wasn´t exactly useful.
“Help!”, she shouted excitedly and reached out to the plates in Reynir´s arms. He dodged her at the last moment. That reminded him…
“Kisa, wait!”
The girl looked at him impatiently, but backed off.
“Do you remember, last night with the ghosts? You cried for help, and then the ghost was scared. And Onni heard you! How did you do that? Do you know since when you were able to do that?”
Kitty looked confused.
“You… help… ghost?”
Right, language barrier. Tuuri had decided that words like “troll”, “ghost” and “help” were the most important ones for now and taught them to her this morning, that´s why Kitty had said it. She still couldn´t understand more than that. But she seemed to have made her own interpretation of the question.
“No, help-“ She pointed at the plates.
Dang it… He would have to wait until they were asleep and find the dream-kitten, if she was there. Back to dirty dishes.
He immediately tripped over Kitty and almost fell. There was no point, if he didn´t want to break everything he had to let her help.
“Forget about it. You win.”
He handed the child the spoons. At least she couldn´t damage those. Kitty started skipping around with a triumphant look in her eyes.

***

When passing the tank´s door, Reynir noticed Mikkel talking on the radio, a very smug look on his face.
“Can´t remember what was on your mind? That´s quite alright, happens to the best of us.”
He spoke calmly and politely, so politely that the Icelander seriously started wondering who on earth he could be talking to. It couldn´t be one of their employers, Mikkel just asked the person on the other end how their day was. He wouldn´t be asking something so trivial. Then, there was basically only one other option among the people in the Västerströms´ house left. And he would maybe, hopefully, actually be able to help him!
“Kisa, forget about the dishes, we´re making a radio call now!”
He put down the plates and rushed inside, Kitty just let the spoons fall right where she was standing and followed him.
“Hey! Mikkel!”
“Yes?”
“Is that Tuuri´s brother on the line? Can I talk with him?”
The Dane kept his smug expression.
“Wait your turn, we are currently in the middle of a riveting discussion.”
“No you aren´t! Please, please, please! Let me use the radio! I need to ask things!”
Onni had probably said something, since Mikkel nodded and gave his seat up. Reynir sat down and put the headphones on, Kitty jumped on his lap and immediately yelled a cat-like sound into the microphone. A surprised “Mrr” came from the other end of the line.
“Kisa, no! Don´t yell! Sorry about that. Hi, this is me! Reynir, that is! And Kisa, the one you just heard. Sorry again. Do you remember me? Us?”
“I do, I don´t have a problem with my memory.”
This was… a strange accent. Reynir recognized the voice from his dreams, sure. But there had been no languages. Here, he would have expected Onni´s accent to sound like Tuuri´s, which meant, there basically was no accent, but… well… Onni was barely understandable.
“…Hello? Did this thing turn off again?” The Finn was starting to sound impatient.
Reynir quickly stopped Kitty, who was already inhaling for a second yell into the mic.
“Ah! Sorry! I didn´t expect your Icelandic to sound so… um… bad. I mean special! I-I´ll get used to it.”
The pause that followed felt like Onni was slightly offended. But he sounded just as calm as before when he spoke again.
“Did you have a question?”
“Oh, yes! Two, actually. But first of all: thank you for last night, that was awesome!”
“Yes, yes.”
“Okay, so, remember the ghost things that attacked us?”
Onni did, but didn´t know either what they were. And Kitty´s helpful “ghost!” into the microphone every now and then didn´t really improve the conversation. At least she seemed to have fun. Regardless, they came to the conclusion that the weird shadows used to be humans and that this was not a good sign. Onni would teach Lalli spells for protection, but those wouldn´t work for Reynir, as his gods gave him a different kind of magic.
“And your other question?”, the Finn asked.
“So, Kisa-“
“Kisa!”, Kitty shouted into the mic.
“The one who called me? The Kitten? Can you… put her somewhere far away, please?”
“Sorry. Sure.”
He pushed the child off his lap.
“You are too loud. You can come back if you´re quiet.”
She just hissed.
“Please stop apologizing. It´s annoying”, Onni grumbled.
“Sorry, I mean yes. Anyway, we found her here, in Denmark. Do you think she is a mage?”
“Obviously.”
“Can you teach her spells? Or me?”
“… What does she believe in?”
Reynir watched the child, who was currently pushing a second chair to the radio, with a concentrated look.
“Did it turn off again-“
“No!"
Had Onni ever worked with a radio before?
"I mean, I don´t know. What she believes in, that is. She can´t speak Icelandic. Or, just a bit. Only Danish. Actually, she can´t really speak at all.”
For a while, Onni said nothing.
“Was she ever in contact with the known world? Before you found her?”
“I don´t think so.”
“Then, she probably can´t learn from either of us. She most likely has her own religion. And magic. From what I saw, it was different from both Finnish and Icelandic magic.”
“That´s a shame. So she can´t help us.”
“She may learn on her own. The first mages managed, so why not she.”
“Maybe. Thanks anyway. Goodbye.”
“Hm.”
In that moment, Tuuri came in to ask something in Finnish, Onni answered something. Reynir gave up his seat. As usual, Kitty followed him.
“There has to be something we can do to help, right?”, he asked the little girl once they were outside.
“Help!”, she assured.
Reynir sighed. “But, what?”

[Jitter]

Oo, interesting! New kind of magic! I hope you are planning to explore this further!

And I loved the radio call. Poor Onni! At least Kitty was having fun

[Lallicat]

Ahh I haven't had time to write since school started! Anyway here's half of the next chapter. 

Spoiler: Kitty part 11: Cake part 1 • show

Onni had been asked by Lalli to train the human child they had found. He had wanted to turn him down, like with the annoying Icelander. They quite clearly didn't share the same gods, it didn't make sense to try. Then again, he doubted there was anyone who shared that strange child's gods. So he'd grudgingly agreed. The child could sense trolls. It made no sense to not hone and develop this skill, especially if it could increase the chance of Lalli and Tuuri coming back alive. He closed his eyes briefly. No. They would both make it back alive. They had to. He had to believe that or he'd be torn apart with worry every waking moment. He breathed deep and turned back to Kitty.

"Focus on solidifying your form. Stop flickering like that!" It was unnerving to watch her change her form that often, and with apparent ease, as if it required no energy at all. He was a little jealous to be honest, it had taken him a while to learn how to assume the form of his luonto.

"I don't know how, or I would have done it already," Kitty huffed. "If you told me how to do it instead of scowling at me I might do better!" Onni was saved from replying as Reynir suddenly meandered in his dreamspace.

"Hey!" he greeted. "Do you remember me?" Onni felt his temper flare.

"Yes! For the fifth time, I still remember you! Did I not tell you not to come here?"

"...I don't think you did."

"... Hm. I must have told Lalli then."

"I need your help with something."

"Please use the radio," Onni sighed. He was exhausted and didn't need the red headed nuisance to make it worse.

"I can't for this! I found a weird place out there, an empty house. I don't want to go in there alone, and my dog doesn't care!" Onni was starting to get annoyed. When would that red head realize that it's best to not bother things outside of your dreamspace. At least he wasn't completly stupid; he hadn't gone in there alone.

"Whatever it is, leave it be. And don't leave your space again."

"I'm not leaving it alone! I've seen it in a vision before, there's some meaning to it! What if the place could warn us about something dangerous, and we all die horribly because you told me to ignore it? Do you want that?!" This was the most agitated Onni had ever seen Reynir. Granted, he hadn't known him for a long time, but he had seemed like the easygoing type. And he could call it a lesson for Kitty, who had been watching the exchange curiously.

"... Fine." Reynir turned around at the speed of lightning a grin on his face.

"Great! Follow me! Right over here!" Onni walked to the edge of his dreamspace and hesitated. He rarely left it and wondered if he could do it now. "Come on!" Reynir called to him. He could change his mind saying he didn't want to take Kitty or... Kitty! Onni cursed himself for almost leaving without her.

"Kitty! Come with us. It'll be a lesson," he called to her. She joined him and slipped her hand in his. Still, he didn't follow Reynir. He glanced around, looking for something, but he didn't know exactly what... Reynir huffed and walked back to Onni. They stood facing each other, then Kitty gave him a push and he tripped onto the dreamlake. Reynir took the opportunity to push him forward. Onni shook himself out of his grip. He was perfectly capable of walking. Reynir leased them to a tall building with arching windows. The inside was bright and clean.

"What is this place?" asked Reynir and Kitty in sync.

[Mirasol]

"Please use the radio," Onni sighed. He was exhausted and didn't need the red headed nuisance to make it worse.

Let´s just apprechiate Onni calling Reynir "red headed nuisance". This will be my new favourite nickname for him. Thank you for this, Lallicat.

[Grade E cat]

Looks like I managed to wrap Adventure I up in nine chapters, so this is the second-to-last one.

Spoiler: show

Silent Child 8

She had somewhat of an idea of why the small mommy wasn’t coming, but why weren’t the mean daddy and the other nice small daddy coming either? Her second-favorite daddy was holding her hand very tight, and the big daddy had put a piece of rope around both their wrist for some reason. First, it seemed like they weren’t walking fast enough. As the walk continued, it reached a point where the pace felt just right to her. Then they were walking a little too fast for her. Her second-favorite daddy carried her for a little while, then came closer to the big daddy and told him something. After that, the walk didn’t last much longer and they stopped in what seemed to be a very broken home. Under the part of the home that still had a roof, they built a fabric object that had nice drawings on it. She remembered what it was called: a tent. Between the time her first daddy was gone and the time her first mommy was gone, her first mommy had started a game where they would build a tent outside and sleep in it. She tried to go in, but the big daddy stopped her, made her sit next to the big mommy on something wooden. A fire was started.

xxxx

Lalli and Emil should have been back hours ago. Mikkel finally got to the point after reminding her that they would probably be fine for a single night if need be:
-… Don’t go looking out for them tonight.
-I’m not going to! I’m not an idiot!
Whatever they had woken up without realizing, but had been too slow to react before they walked past it, was going to be on guard for the better part of the following night. She was going to have to wait for the early morning, by which point most things will have let their guard back down, to be even remotely safe. That was why…
-I’m backtracking tomorrow morning, if they don’t show up!
-I can accept that.
Mikkel then got up from his seat, but was stopped by Reynir. An exchange in Icelandic ensued, and Sigrun had to butt in to find out what was happening. Mikkel explained:
-He’s letting me know where the… spirits are.
She really didn’t have any more energy left for being patient:
-Then you listen to him! He and that four year old kid who’s as good as ours are our only lines of security right now!
As Mikkel left to answer nature’s calling, Reynir went back to sit on the seat he had been sharing with Mikkel. Sigrun looked between the two lost children they had picked up along the way, both bundled in spare uniform jackets as a concession to the fact that nights outside the tank were going to be too cold for their usual clothes.
-I can not believe the two of you are our lifeline right now.

xxxx

The meeting with Onni could definitely have gone better. When he saw Katja in her own safe area, Reynir decided to enter it to speak to her, to get an idea of the extent to which she understood the situation. In his search for a good place to start, he discovered that her understanding of her surroundings was still quite lackluster. It turned out that while she was aware of having a name, she hadn’t been aware everyone else had one. Due to the circumstances in which she had grown up, she, among other things, also thought that all adult females were “mommies”, that all adult males were “daddies” and that all buildings, in which she included the tank they had just abandoned, were “homes”. Having two immune parents and being immune herself, it had taken Tuuri’s Rash actually developing for her to understand the true nature of trolls. As a result, Reynir just barely managed to finish an explanation as to why they were sure Tuuri wasn’t going to come back as a troll before waking up.

xxxx

Reynir had said mommy Sigrun would go look for Emil and Lalli in the morning. Instead, she came back without them, looking sad. Then they continued walking. For a very long time. Mommy Sigrun was walking more slowly than everyone else, and ended up being the one in the back. Then she fell. Daddy Mikkel and Reynir didn’t notice, so she pointed. Daddy Mikkel went to speak with mommy Sigrun, then put her on top what Reynir had called a “wheelbarrow”. She was a little jealous. She wished she could have been carried on the wheelbarrow also instead of walking. But she also hoped this didn’t mean that mommy Sigrun was going to be dead soon, also.

After they stopped walking, daddy Mikkel and mommy Sigrun spoke a lot, then one of them used a rifle for a reason she couldn’t understand; there hadn’t been anything bad nearby. Then Mikkel talked with Reynir, and at some point, hit him on the head with the thing from which the soup came out ever since they had left the moving building that Reynir said was called a tank.

xxxx

Reynir came to explain that Emil and Lalli were probably dead also, but they weren’t entirely sure. He also taught her a lot of new words, and explained who were the people she had seen in the place where she could speak, but not in the tank. She learned what siblings were, and decided that Reynir, Emil and Lalli were her brothers since only Mikkel was her daddy. And that Tuuri had been her sister, even though she was gone now. After that, Reynir explained what a cousin was. When she asked about the lady living in the nice building who had given them good food, Reynir said she was a “friend”. Someone who isn’t “family”, but who you still like. Reynir was surprised when she asked him to explain what “family” was, then why the lady in the black dress wasn’t “family”.

[Joe Steele]

Shameless plug for the fic I've been working on:

Spoiler: show

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479060/chapters/64524694

State of the Union: a story about a bungled pandemic response and what comes after.

[Jitter]

Wow, Joe, wow! Gloriously horrible!

[Grade E cat]

Mirasol, your version of the Human Kitty premise gets credit for me thinking up this ending. The rest is that it made some sort of sense in regards to a couple random things I had thrown into previous chapters.

Spoiler: show

Silent Child 9

Reynir promptly closed the small room’s door. She had become a troll long ago. That explained so much. Strangely, Katja, who had led him both to the church and the room inside it, seemed unfazed. He barely had time to start pondering the reason when he heard noise coming from the building’s still-open main entrance, which reminded him what getting Katja and himself to the church in the first place had entailed. Mikkel grabbed the back of both their collars:
-You insolent little children! Why did the two of you run off like that? Sigrun is already ill and you almost gave her a heart attack!
Almost as soon as Mikkel let them go, Sigrun arrived and grabbed both him and Katja by the front of their collars. He didn’t quite understand what she said in Norwegian, but he was about eighty percent sure there had been Mikkel’s name and “heart attack” in there. This was probably the only one of the two scoldings that Katja had somewhat understood, as Mikkel had given his own in Icelandic. He wasn’t sure who of him or Katja swatted Sigrun’s arm first, but she looked taken aback by both. Reynir then explained Mikkel what the place was, so he could tell Sigrun. They soon found signs on the unfinished cure having been used in the church and noticed the absence of the ghosts it seemed to create. Soon after, she had to convince Sigrun to not kill the one live troll left in the place, and that they needed to stay in the building for the night.

xxxx

Everyone else was sleeping. She left the room in which they all were, making sure to not step on the dark parts of the drawings Reynir had made on the other side of the door. She went to the stone block with a decoration that looked like her necklace from the last place with lots of books they had gone to. Soon, the bad ghosts appeared, and the lady Reynir had called a “friend” came near the block also. She talked with the biggest bad ghost, who was very angry, then very sad, then became much smaller. Then the lady did something Katja felt she could do also. A light surrounded the stone block, and all the bad ghosts became small animals before going inside the light and leaving through a door. At the end, the friend-lady needed to leave to. She was the one who would need to close the door.

In the dream sea, Reynir was watching all the ghosts leave for the afterlife:
-Thank you for your help, nice lady. I wish I could have known your name.
A sheep-like figure that was wearing glasses and ascending alongside the last of the ghosts answered him:
-It’s Anne.
She then pointed toward a direction in which the only obvious thing of interest was Katja’s safe area:
-Our heavenly Father does not forget his children.
Reynir was too surprised by those words, and the feeling they had a deeper meaning, to give Anne a proper goodbye.

xxxx

Aside from the room in which they had stayed, it seemed like the entire church had collapsed. One of the miraculously spared spots was an area around the big stone block, in which Katja had taken refuge after sneaking out during the night. According to Mikkel, she wasn’t hurt in any way. After a long discussion with Mikkel, Sigrun drew two important conclusions in spite of her foggy brain. One was that both children were pulling their weight in surprising ways. The second was that this now-dead giant troll had probably been Katja’s only possible teacher in the brand of magic she carried. However, she couldn’t blame her predecessor for wanting to go after all this time. Besides, if half the things Mikkel had told her about how that religion had become so widespread in Old World times were true, she couldn’t blame that god for wanting to start things over with a blank slate. Still, if it wasn’t going to soon be the only thing she had left from her original parents, Sigrun would have been tempted to change the girl’s name to something that would sound like “curveball” if pronounced fast enough.

xxxx

The set of buildings whose fence daddy Mikkel was currently cutting looked at lot like the home in which she had lived with her first mommy and her first daddy. There was now a hole in the fence through which she could easily walk. Daddy Mikkel took her for a walk all the way around each of the buildings, then they all went in one of them. Everything was brought in a room full of beds much bigger than the one in the tank. A stove was put on, gloves, shoes and coats were taken off. Soon, they were all eating food out of small metal boxes that tasted better than the soup they apparently didn’t have any more of. That evening, she fell asleep happy. She could feel Emil and Lalli again.

xxxx

She was woken up because it was cold in the room all of a sudden. Emil and Lalli felt closer than they had been when she had fallen asleep.  She saw that the door was open and daddy Mikkel was standing in the way. The room also smelled bad in a different way than yesterday. Mommy Sigrun shouted something, while Reynir picked her up from her bed and took her to the other side of the room the farthest away from the door. It quickly turned out that Emil and Lalli had found them, but were all dirty.

xxxx

What was that? It was like a small room that had walls entirely made of the same material as windows. There were also a lot of new people she hadn’t seen before. Daddy Mikkel was in the room next to hers, and said “no” each time she tapped on the wall too hard. But tapping on the more normal wall between the rest of the room and the “bathroom” was okay. A new voice spoke in her head:
-You will understand who I am when the time comes. For now, you need to grow among other people.

[Lallicat]

Ooh, great ending Grade E cat! Here's some more Kitty from my side.

Spoiler: Kitty Part 11: Cake: part 2 • show

Reynir leased them to a tall building with arching windows. The inside was bright and clean.

"What is this place?" asked Reynir and Kitty in sync.

"It's a temple to one of the old world gods." Onni explained. "This was widely served in both of our nation's for a significant time. For a thousand years by your people, 800 years by mine. These temples were raised in nearly every village. You must have come across one of them before."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I've seen a couple. I've never gone inside one though. Or thought too much about them. There's So many weird buildings." replied Reynir. "But... why is this here?"

"I don't know. It holds no meaning to me." Onni moved to grab Kitty and leave, who was gazing at the place in wonder. "We should leave. It's not a vision, I see no point in lingering." He had only taken a few steps when Kitty had tugged at his arm. He turned to see a woman standing in the doorway. He shoved Kitty behind him, then moved to grab Reynir and yank him next to Kitty. Not fast enough though. Reynir greeted the spirit with a "Hello."

"Don't look it in the eyes," he ordered, blocking Reynir's line of sight with his arm. He covered Kitty's eyes with his free hand and screens his own shut. "You're not strong enough to shield yourself. I'll handle this." He felt Kitty fidget uncomfortably. Then the strange figure spoke.

"Please calm yourselves. Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Reynir. We're just-"

"Stop. Speaking." Onni growled. Honestly, would he ever learn? He would get himself killed one day, if he kept trusting everything that came his way. The sooner that he learned that most stuff out there was trying to kill him the better. "Alright madam, let me know who you are and I will guide you towards your destination. You can be at rest."

"You seem confused. I need no guidance, I know where I am. And I have no intention of leaving just yet." Onni refrained from sighing out loud. He should have known it would be difficult.

"Look lady. You're dead."

"... I'm well aware."

[Róisín]

Part two of my take on Kitty has gone up on Archive. I’m Tanist over there.