#bergen_county

And he gives Dagmar a side-eye. "You stopped at Rome, but just to get a ride... right?"

"Yeah... I'm responsible for him."

"Sure did. And I won't say a word about what all I saw."

He facepalms.

"It WASN'T my idea...."

"Uhmm this was before he was a squire so I'll handle this debt but.. mmm what you saw?"

"Just the freehold." She sips her iced tea.

He sips at an iced tea that is thankfully inside a thermos tumbler so no one can see the scummy film on the liquid. "Yeah."

"Oh I am SO missing something good" Gerd says "But I guess Ican't talk repaying you then nose about"

"I lost track of time with time losing all meaning and I haven't hardly worked on any of my stuff I wanted done for pennons. " He gripes. Then blinks a bit. "The kid has a good sniffer, don't he?"

"Sure he does - why?"

"He can pay me back after all. He runs all over these woods, right? Things die - nature happens. I want them." A nod.

"Mushrooms?"

He shakes his head. "I don't need him to touch anything, even. But he can tell me where the 'possum croaked if he comes across it, or where to find a half-eaten grackle - normally they leave the wings, no meat on those."

"I'm tired of working with rats and pigeons."

"Oh, taxidermy?"

"Dogs like gross smells, so... bet I could talk him into it."

Though, he admits, "Mushrooms are good. Morels grow on oak trees too, like you have here. But..." He frowns a bit, and shrugs. "Nah. It's dangerous. He might find some false morels, and those are real poisonous." A thought. "Though I'm sure living here, Chief has drilled into the kids not to eat mushrooms found in the woods. That's like, Forest Ranger 101."

"He might forget and try to carry one back in his mouth or something dumb, and then I'd feel really bad explaining to Lily why her friend died and she didn't even get to watch."

"Oh, Chief showed me a lot of the poison-no poison stuff!"

"If you DO find any mushrooms, I'd be glad to take a look. Chief is sure to know BETTER, but if they're legit, I'll eat 'em."

"I'll warn him" A nod

"If they're deadly, Dirk can."

A snicker. "Mushroom roulette."

A snort "Great.. a Tripping redcap"

"Oh jeez, okay, no shrooms for Dirk."

Symon is laughing, a raspy wheeze.

"I mean, I guess in retrospect I should have asked questions and worried and stuff... but..." She shrugs.

"It's what it is now. And I'll figure out how it works."

"You can ask the Chief about squires and..." A pause then gerd blinks "huh"

"What?"

"I know she's a baroness and not a knight per se, but, I don't think theChief has ever had a Squire of her own"

"Watch out, or that little satyr will get ideas. She's busy enough without babysitting."

"Well... she has all of us though."

A nod. "Ann Marie deserves a knighthood for the work she does, but it would just end up being MORE work so nobody better suggest it to anyone."

"Might be too late..."

"What do you mean by THAT?"

"Would she want to be a knight, you think?"

"I mean, she just pulled off, like, all that."

"She had help of House Liam"

"if she thought it would help her help people? In a flash." He scoffs. "They take advantage of her, everyone does. No one MEANS to, but it ADDS up, all the little things she does." A pause, and he reluctantly admits, "She's working too hard again, what with Jonas off at EarthRunes all the time now."

"Can I help out, somehow?"

"She won't stop going to the soup kitchens. Even with social distancing, it's not SAFE." He gives a glance over at Gerd, and fidget a bit. Normally only Dagmar sees this side of him. A small scowl. "We have healing magic and everything, but if it got into the fae population, just like the hospitals in NYC, we get lazy and BAM, suddenly the system is overrun."

"Okay okay..."

"And viruses seem tricky to hit with magic, sure..."

"What.. what if you oakenshield a mask?"

"Might make it harder to breath through?"

"Dunno..."

"Now, there's a sidhe spell that only lets through what you want, but.. huh... maybe Nadeen knows it?"

"A sidhe spell?" Raised eyebrow, curious.