#rivervale_lodge

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Tove is singing, wandering and touching the woods as she walks the forest path. Her voice is meant for older songs her father says, but she finds something old in the new. Dreams of old things can be sung of in new ways, and anyway, she certainly ddoes it better than Clint Eastwood

"I talk to the trees
But they don't listen to me
I talk to the stars
But they never hear me" She pats a pine

"The breeze hasn't time
To stop and hear what I say
I talk to them all in vain"

She eyes the House in the distance, with it's new paint and stone work, from this angle, if you don't go by the road, it's not as fully hidden, "But suddenly my words
Reach someone else's ear
At someone else's heart strings too"

"I tell you my dreams
And while you're listening to me
I suddenly see them come true" she ponders going to visit again. The man is pig headed at times, but he's got a good heart.

Of course, she has a request from another date from Wiliford, who is quite posh really "I can see us some April night
Looking out across a rollin' farm
Having supper in the candlelight
Walking later, arm in arm" Actually, her vision would be something very much like this. Woodland winding ways, a house very much like... she blushes and tries not to lose cadence

"Then I'll tell you how I pass the day
Thinking mainly how the night would be
Then I'll try to find the words to say
All the things you mean to mmkak" The song ends as the rotting vines choke off her throat and waist, the air taken from her.

She struggles, starting to tear as her eyes darken, skald or not, she's still a troll, and the might of her kith...

does not prevent the bug from stinging her in the neck.

A soft voice whispers, "Shhh no no none o that....I have it out you see. The Dawn Maiden cares for some people. I suspect you are one of them...." the whisper says "You're rather lovely for a troll, and such a voice....but I will render you more mute than I if you do not comply. I will steal your songs, ,Tove daughter of Torin. Unless you obey, and tell me all you know of Dagmar..."

She can't speak, but she knows enough of this world to raise a middle finger.

"Such a pity... take her to the questioning room. I'll learn what I need to know there.... mmm I hope it doesn't require too many knives. Such a pretty face such a pretty girl...."

Dagmar looks up from her comic and scowls. Jaymes might well hear her thunder down the stairs - grabbing flyswatter on the way!

"Hey, where you .." But by the time he starts to tell her about breakfast being soon she's gone.

He might, indeed, notice the GIANT POLEARM she's taking with her!

Indeed...

"I heard somethin'!" She calls back.

And she races ahead... well around, where where where is ..she knows Tove's voice.

"TOVE!" She shouts.

A sound o bugg's squeel from the deeper woods!

THAT way

"JAYMES!"

Jaymes is on her heels a claymore in hand

"It was Tove, she stopped singing..." And with that, she's at a run towards the woods.

A rotted wandering tree with uprooted roots as legs and strange vines like a squid's tentacles...and in those vines and brambles.. . Tove's form is a quarter buried in it. And along her neck , it seems her veins are almost greenish, and her right hand has crushed something. whatever it was, it was venomous too. A shadowy figure is further along.

Long legs closing the distance!

Dagmar bares her wolfish teeth and raises her halberd. "How dare you!"

The figure turns, and says ssoemthing, but his whisper is hard to make out. his hatred is TANGIBLE! And long with fear, and he gestures...

Her face settles somewhere between a glare and a grimace, and she swings the halberd at the vines like a nordic lumberjack.

Jaymes calls out "TOVE!" And there's a blinding flash of lightning, the sluagh is illuminated and tries to shield his eyes, but he is revealed! Even as Dagmar hacks the vines, sending bits of it flying! Tove slumps loose

She does not look good!

Dagmar drops her weapon to grab Tove by the armpits... yanking her free from the tangle.

"slay the daymaiden..." the sluagh croaks to the tree. which brings new spiked brambles down only to hit Jayme's Claymore "Grab her, get her back to the House"

She... picks UP the trolless with surprising ease - a look at Flyswatter, only for a moment, before abandoning it to haul Tove back to the house, post haste.

"THOR'S MIGHT! OAK'S BLIGHt! Righteous fury! SMITE SMITE SMITE!" Lightning bursts down behind Dagmar as she carries Tove back

"You're gonna be okay, Tove. I'll call Brekke, she'll come, she can fix you..."

Tove is breathing hard. eratically, but Dagmar swings the doors to her home open. There's a sense of haven here, not like a hold, but this is her HOME. It's..home.

She carries Tove through, gently laying her down on the couch. "It's gonna be okay..."

Tove mutters , her voice barely a whisper, and she's delerious, she's rattling off in Norweigan, but the words "Dagmar... Jaymes" are there

"Yeah, it's Dagmar..."

She leaves, just for a little bit, to wet a dishrag with cold water and bring it back. She puts it on the woman's forehead and sits on the floor next to her as she calls Brekke.

A ring, another ring - voicemail.

In the distance, thunder rolls

"Dammit..." She hangs up, Brekke's inbox perhaps catching half that word.

And then, it grows quiet.

"See? Jaymes zapped him, it's gonna be okay..."

"Jeg må beskytte Dagmar....Jeg må beskytte min Jaymes" Sweating

"Yes, this is Dagmar. I'm right here." She fusses with the rag. "Wake up, please?"

Frank is trucking... Brekke must be out... Who else?