#rivervale_lodge

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Grumbling, Siv goes up and down stairs, taking some of excess things in and out of the hold to storage

She doesn't grumble when any grumps around, should she see them she puts on a smile and keeps working.

Dagmar, meanwhile, heads for the hold after school.

As it happens, Siv meets Dagmar out near the storage shed.

"Siv!"

Siv is carrying a box so cannot wave "Hey, Dagmar. How goes?"

Dag scowls. "Dunno."

Siv says "Well, have you heard the latest?"

A worried frown. "What now?"

"I suppose if I tell you don't be upset, it'll set you for being upset, that's the way people are sometimes. But honestly, I'm the one who should be. She'll be taking half my room on the night she spends over after all"

"What? They're keeping her here?"

"She has a home."

"Easy easy...obviously, Tanya will be staying with her folks, otherwise it would attract too much attention, but we're setting up a spare spot in my room for those nights she 'stays over' mostly under the excuse of cheerleading practice with Sylvi. Apparently Count Autumnsbane thinks that since she had her dream dance in this barony, and lives here, that it falls to RIvervale to help raise and teach her. We'll be seeing more of her, not less"

A sigh "I'm sorry, Dagmar. I know you and she did not hit it off"

Understatement of the year

"....it isn't fair. It... I don't want her here. She acts all high and mighty, and she's mean to Symon, and she stole Tanya..."

"It's how most of them do it, though no one is exactly sure where the mortal soul goes" Siv says "You know.. how I am not a changeling? Sometimes I worry where the body came from" A bite on her lip "I think I just was born I mean, my parents were flsh and blood right?"

"Happened in the dreaming though. So... not sure how 'mortal' they were there" Siv muses a bit more. "Could be something bad had to happen for me to exist. I hope not, but could be."

"How can she be so sure Tanya is okay?"

"It's not... the Browns -adopted_ her. At sixteen! Nobody gets lucky that late!"

"I thought she was your age huh," Siv wishes she were da and mum, sometimes it seems like they're so wise knowledge of what to do just sparks out of them, "I don't how sure she is...sidhe do know more about Arcadia and some parts of the Dreaming than most. And they've done the body take thing forever. Even Count Hemlock did. Not Bancroft though cause he's a Scathach of Autumn" Siv seems to want to stress that. She doesn't want Dagmar to hate her lump "So odds are good Tanya continues elsewhere. Okay? I don't know. I think if I were a sidhe and had thrust someone out of a body... Id' want very much to believe they were fine, happy even."

"She didn't ask, though. She just took. And Tanya... I mean... she didn't deserve that. To lose everything - even if she's not dead, she lost everything."

"I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better, Dagmar," Siv says "I really do. I wish I could tell you really was a trade and somewhere in the dreaming, Tanya has her own personal fantasy land with everything that makes her happy"

"But I just don't know"

It's not said snidely, the tone is a mix of sympathy and some frustration with powerlessness

"She had just been adopted..." Defeated.

Meanwhile she puts her excess things in storage "Aye. She had. I'm afraid we're walking fairy tales, and not all fairy tales are happy." A look back from the storage, "Dagmar, are you feeling... bad because you might have been a bit...well, because you didn't like Tanya when she was here? you might not have liked her, but you were never cruel to her that I saw."

"We'd fight, some. I mean, I fight with everybody...."

"I think I was jealous. Tanya was... pretty, and perfect, and everybody liked her so I always felt just... not good enough."

"And maybe that's because I'm not? I dunno."

"Oh none of that now, suree, the jealous part maybe you were, but you are good enough. Jaymes adores you. You know you and tove are the only people he smiles for? I've TRIED to make him laugh. It's hard. Vali can't do it, not that Vali is as funny as he thinks he is- but for all his attempts to get the ball in the basket you'd think you'd hear a swish after the first hundred? " wry then "But you? You make him smile. With pride no less. I'm not making this up. He brags about you to my dad. Wants to make sure folks will go to the first game. Him? A social butterfly? not his style. But for you he'l lnot just do it, you can't keep him away. Now Jaymes isnt' a fool, so clearly he sees you as better than you see you. Having seen your courage and kindness myself, I'm siding with him on that judgement. You're good person Dagmar aka Sam King. Don't you ever forget it."

Perhaps without realizing it, slipping into big sister mode, or at least certainly cousin

"...okay, okay." A pause. "Do you think this is my fault? Like - we went into the Dreaming, right? On Samhain?"

"I think you are tied to it, but that does not make it your fault," Siv says , stuff now stored up, at least that part of it, "I'm told Da'an has it's push on folks. And pulls. Sounds like fate, or someone else might have set things in motion, and set you down a path, wittingly or unwittingly and there you have it. Think of this way, let's say a thunder storm rattles birds and sets them flying., It's not the thunderstorm's fault that a hunter chooses to take advantage of that and get easier targets. That make sense? I mean, you cleared the bug man and boom she goes...but you didn't clear the bug man for her, you took him down because he was HURTING folks and wouldn't stop. "

"But..."

"But would he have attacked if he hadn't met you?" Siv ponders "I think he would have. He was not right in the head. I think he would have grown more and more paranoid that he might have started killing any girl troll who even looked like the Day Maiden. I can see him threatening Gerd, for example"

"If he'd walked away, this wouldn't have unfolded. It's ...Torrin tells me that it's a common theme in stories. One trying to avoid their end but they end up doing the very things that makes ending them needful"

"Ironic."

"Aye . I guess my point is, you shouldn't take the blame for what others chose to do with any opportunites your actions might have made possible. If I didn't have a cutlass, no one could steal it. But that doesn't mean it's my fault someone is a thief. You savvy?

"

"I... I guess. But, I mean, do you think she hitchhiked back with me after I was on the trod?"

"I think somehow she knew the bug man was gone, and Samhnain being the 'thinnest time' she happened to start passing through on the night that made most sense for her, and you happened to be on the trod. Sometimes it's fate, sometimes its coincidence."

"But..honestly, for the right person on that you'd want to talk to someone like my dad or Sir Vali."

"Jaymes seems pretty sure I do have an Oath, and I can't just say no."

"Well, then we need to learn what kind of Oath, don't you think? Not from Tanya, but someone. Must be some way to omen just the oath?"

A pause "Can one willow shiper the oath?" She considers "Mum could.. oh wait" She beams "I know who can help you learn more if you like, and he's a troll!"

"Who?"

"I mean, she acts like I'm... her servant, like I belong to her... I... I'll be an Oathbreaker before that!"

"Whoa, easy... let's not jump to the extremes without.. oh wow, its' weird to hear ME say that of all people" A blush "Anyway, before we get wild about that... we learn first. And I know someone who teaches my FATHER some magics. Emmit DeBuke. He's the Mountain of the DeBUke Farm. I don't know them as well as Sylvi does, but they're allies of Rivervale. I bet he might make a house call. Want me to call him?"