#rivervale_lodge

TXT: Good luck on farm!

TXT: 💕

TXT: Talk later. 💋

Sylvi puts her phone away, smiles, and gathers her things for the trip to the Farm.

And off she goes.

And so she goes.

***************

"Mountain?" Kerri waits for a moment when it's just the two of them in the main hall of the Lodge. "I...need to speak with you. And show you something."

"Of course, Kerri." He puts his mug down. "What can I do for you?"

The Hearth looks decidedly uncertain. "I...can you come in the kitchen?" A deep breath. Does she look...ashamed?

Olgar is nearby. He did not want to pressure his wife, but he does want to be in on this.

"Yes, of course....." He does, looking concerned but not asking the obvious.

Kerri doesn't look directly at either of them. In the kitchen, she opens the locked cabinet, and she brings down a copper frying pan. "I found this. It's a treasure. It's...been teaching me an art."

Olgar mmphs.

"It... what?"

The copper pan flickers with potency

A glance at Olgar. "It's got a sentience about it. A...personality. And it's been teaching me...."

Frank nods, and leans a bit, examining it without touching it.

Frank can ken ... there's a power in it, and it's trying to hide from him.

"Mmmm...." He rumbles. Straightening, he asks, "How did you come to have this?"

"It was caught up in the base of a shrub, like the plant had sprouted and grown around it. It seemed to have been there a long time. Filthy."

"Kind of suspicious, Someone just leaving a sovereign teaching thing around"

"Where?"

Kerri glares daggers at her husband.

Then to Frank, "In the woods, the northwest side of the property."

"Here. In Rivervale?"

Olgar gives his wife a shrug at her glare. HE loves her. She'll have to deal with that.

Kerri nods to Frank, frowning to her husband.

"Either of you want a drink?" Olgar offers

A sigh. "Whiskey, please."

A nod "How about you, Mountain?" Olgar asks

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Okay" He gets his wife a shot of whiskey

"Dagmar is actually the one who found it. She brought it to me, a gift."

Olgar grunts at that. Stiffling a comment

She takes the glass and knocks it back as easily as water.

Frank nods.

"She found it.... walking along, or....??"

"No...I'm not sure whether a tree fell or if they knocked over something, but...it was lodged in a root ball. Dagmar had to...to wrench it out."

"Do you think she could take me to this windfall?"

"I couldn't. Dagmar...might? I don't know. This was months ago, Frank."

Olgar gives his wife a look. There's more to tell the Mountain in his opinion

Another look to her husband in reply. I'll get there!

"Months? How long ago?"

A blink. "Months. I'm not sure. Maybe...six months? Maybe more? I had it in the back of a cabinet for a while. I'd almost forgotten about it."

Frank nods. "Kerri... what have you learned?" Gently.

A hesitation...then a grin. "Not to use pans that have been buried long enough for trees to grow up around them?" A joke, or an attempt at one. She's no Vali.

Frank chuckles.

Olgar says "No more whiskey for you after that one" He puts the bottle up.

A rueful sigh, and she grows serious again. "Sovereign, Mountain. It's been teaching me Sovereign."