#anywhere

"Well, maybe. But she's very sweet, if also kind of greedy."

"She's left your pies alone since the bowl."

"She has," TOve concedes "She is sweet' Agreement "How's Adam doing you think?"

"Stressed out like crazy."

"Oh? Why?"

"He's being treated like an enemy, ain't he?"

"Like we're waiting for him to betray everyone."

"What?" A pause "Did he tell you that?" Tove says curious.

"Not exactly?"

"But, like, I can't take him to the Lodge, right?"

"But I am supposed to be teaching him stuff, but it's like I shouldn't be? Or it feels like there is stuff I should leave out, but I'm not sure what..."

Tove frowns "Well, I thought you could take him to the lodge with permission. "

"Right. So I have to text Chief every time?"

"Well, not necessarily. Maybe you could ask her if certain regular times of the week worked? You really think the Chieftain lets enemies into the hold often at all?"

"No..."

"But I got to go whenever I wanted...."

"Did you? Because I seem to recall something about 'trods'..." Tove raises a brow "how it was incredibly stupid you were the only one in the world who could not do it? How it could'n't be that dangerous?" She takes her daughter's hand

"I got to go to the lodge whenever."

She grumps. "Trodding is why we got Nadeen."

"Oh that's not your fault, honey" A sigh "I think .. I think Tanya had a destiny... the signs...well. We'll see. But the Lodge is a freehold. Kithain NEED it to be themselves...to keep half their souls awake. Kinain don't. I suppose in some ways wer'e more fragile than they are."

She chews on her lower lip and nods. "But Sally Mae..."

"Have you talked to Sally Mae about growing up on the DeBuke farm?"

"No."

"But how is he gonna be all loyal and devoted and whatever else if we keep treating him like... like... like a foster kid?"

Tove raises a brow, "mmm."

Then "So.. this kind of hits home for you?"

"Mmph." Shrug.

She nods, having learned more "That and he's cute for a boy his age."

Purple, scowl. "I dunno."

"Sorry, I got off the important part. You think we're treating him like a foster kid." her brow knits "I suppose you'd know better than anyone about that."

"But that's what it is. Like... " A frustrated noise.

"Like he's second class."

"If you mean like he doesn't have the full rights of a Kithain? You're absolutely right. He doesn't. Neither did Sally Mae. Did you know that the farm has certain duties for Kithain it doesn't for kinain, but also has some perks for the kithain that they don't get? "

"But Sally Mae isn't treated any different!"

"She needed the elder's permission to go to college. The kithain just say they're going. She's treated as being worth more for the children she might have than what she brings to the farmhold, or so she felt. "

"Shouldn't we be happy we found a new cousin? Shouldn't we..." A frown. "Okay, so the farm is fucking stupid and they suck. But we aren't them!"

"Well... the thing is the farm doesn't know they do it...they're changing, it just takes time." She says

"Them being dicks doesn't justify US being dicks." Harrumph.

"But we're not being dicks. Why do you think the Chief IS being cautious?"

"Because she doesn't know him? But she didn't know me. And I didn't trust any of you, but then I was... I was treated like I just belonged..." A waver of distress.

"And I didn't do anything to deserve it, neither, and I... I don't..." Hands in fists. "It's not fair."

"I got a real teacher, and I got to visit, and I didn't have to get tied up in an Oath...."

"It's incredibly fair. He has family that loves him. You had a ... well, I refuse to call her a parent and while the Browns were nice, they never were mom and dad to you. You are a changeling that will lose part of your SOUL if you don't sometimes get glamour, and might have turned Dauntain without the right lore. He's a mortal with gifts who could walk away from us and live very well. It's not that he's second class, it's that he's got different needs and so do you. It's... " Tove sighs "I love you, and I don't know how to tell you this, but Duty and honor means the Chieftain has to look after fellow kithain. She's not Baroness of the mortals, she's baroness of the changelings of Rivervale. He's not second class, he's the citizen of another world."

"But..."

"You have a good heart, and want equal treatment... but remember for a time you didn't want to admit you were still Sam at all. Sam is half of you. A girl who was beat down all her life but to my amazement held onto a bit of hope. Dagmar is a troll warrioress who was strong enough to take that hope and climb it to a better life for both halves. But ... Adam has one soul and it's not a fae soul. He seems a fine young man, but if the Chieftain let him know everything and run free? Why, I do believe she'd be oathbroken. "

"...but..." frustrated huff.

"She is sworn, to her lord, and to her people... to uphold the Escheat, to protect them. You hang with the wilders who know Adam. I hang with wilders and younger grumps who don't know him, and as word is getting out that he can see us, a lot of them, the ones NOT of the lodge I mean, are scared. They're scared of Adam, and what he might do, even accidentally, to draw banality on them and their loved ones. Some think the Chieftain is being too easy on him. You don't see those folks. I do. I tell them to stop fussing, that the Chieftain knows what she's doing and is doing her best to find the balance. THey don't all believe me, but fortunately they know the Chieftain woudl give up her life for them and so they quiet down and try to accept."

"Scared of him?"

"But he's kin. He's one of us!"

"is Twobit a cat just because we love her as much as we do Odin?"