#rivervale_lodge

"Duty's got nothing to do with it " Jaymes says and looks down "Okay, let's ask this flat out: Do you still want to be my daughter?"

Her expression quails - is she afraid?

A slow in hale and he waits. Hoping he didn't just blow this somehow.

"I... I want to. I want to take the oath and make it real..."

"And I still want to bee your dad, or guardian or whatever you'll me be. " Jaymes nods, a bit of a smile, "And I think the Oath is important to you, so yes I want that too. You're going to make me nuts sometimes, and I'm going to make you crazy sometimes. that's okay, it's part of being a family."

Torin says "Daughters can be difficult" /Tove snifs "Someone's asking to not get any strawberry flavor on their pancakes"

"Never had a dad. Don't know how it works, really."

"But... Frank said the oath is magic, see? So it wouldn't just be... this. And this is good. I like this." Purple.

"But the oath means it'd be for real. So I wouldn't just be some kid, it'd... it'd be different..."

"We'll figure it out" Jaymes says "And.. I like this too. And.. it feels real to me, but ok. WHen it's time we do the oath." A pause "And... you don't get to drivee the truck for a month"

A surprised laugh. "I don't get to drive it already!"

"Well, i told you I was new at this..." Jaymes counters "So... that's something I'm sure of. no driving the truck." FIRM nod

Tove laughs too. Sorry, she's not THAT strong willed.

A shy grin. "Okay."

"good. Ah...." A look "that smells really good, Tove"

"Well, if you folks are ready," Tove says "So's the food." She looks at Jaymes adoringly as if even when he's being silly and vulnerable there is something wonderul about him. /Torin watches his daughter and Jaymes, and Dagmar and smiles "Well, while we eat. Dagmar. Tell us how it went down, the right and all. Did Symon get to help?"

Oddly, Jaymes does not seem upset by this idea in the slightest now that he's had his say.

"Symon helped, yeah. He... he showed the Bug Guy, broke up his magic."

Okay, now they are definitely interested and ask her, between bites, to elaborate. Breakfast and a boast... seems to be something almost expected. then again, they did all live on Thyle.

Dag isn't too boastful - Siv and Sylvi did a lot of the planning, Symon and Zane did magic...

She's subdued and... odd... when talking about the Fake Fight. "It was just fake stuff. Not real. The stuff they said wasn't real."

"It wasn't real" Jaymes says firmly with such confidence it's almost as if he were saying the sky were blue or things fall down.

"Right..." A steadying breath.

"So, I was in the playground, and he thought I was all alone. So he didn't wait to attack, and there was this one little bug, then three GIANT ants..."

"It's always threes" Torrin observes "Well, almost always"//"Good lord" Tove says "the little bug, was it venomed?"

"I think it may have been - it glowed, like a nasty green. So I managed to avoid it."

They listen raptly

"The ants, way easier really - Flyswatter is good at big targets. I missed once, but when I hit... bam, whole thing was split in two."

"Dirk an' Siv and Sylvi, they got on the other ones, but Symon broke the Bug Guy's cantrip, and Sylvi hit him with a whammy."

"Redcaps have a gift for violence"

That from torrin

"They do!"

"Sylvi gave me a boost, like, up in the air, and I came down on the Bug Guy, Flyswatter first..."

"And it.. I just hit him the once..."

"He probably never expected to be in the open and seen." Tove observes "the coward"

"It was all... like... all blood everywhere, then... pop... gone. Just a guy." She frowns.

"I don't think I meant to kill him, but then, I shouldn't have hit him with Flyswatter?"

"Well, sounds like he already got stung from what you said of SYlvi's magics earlier" Jaymes reminds "so.. that throws in an uncertainty factor . Given his magics, pulling your blow too much might have let him get a curse off or something. I think I would have done much the same. It's hard to gamble with the lives of friends and you had friends relying on you"

"Yeah. Just... I dunno. I didn't think it would kill him."

Torrin nods "The fact this worries you is a good thing. You only took his life because you had to, not because you enjoy slaying. If that ever changes, then you should be more concerned. You did not break the Escheat. And while he may return in this life, no harm was done that will keep him from coming back in the next one."

"And he's going to stay... away?"

"Absolutely" Tove says "the Chief will see to that."

"Won't hurt anybody again?"

Torrin considers "No. I don't think he will. By the time he returns, he'll be weaker. And the Moutain knows him now. Frank..pardon, Sir Frank, has his mark..heck, might even have a bit of his hair. Bug Man will be watched even if he ever wakes and if free? will be much easier to find this time. You have broken the threat of him- and as twisted as his mind was, I think you removed a threat to the entire barony. "

"He hurt you."

Tove says "Well, he won't do it again"

A satisfied look. "Yeah."

Jaymes nods "Now our biggest problem is Odin talking us to death"

"Rrrwwmph!" From another part of the kitchen

"You have food!"