#rivervale_lodge

"Damn it, Frank. He's going to get all Liamy about this. I can tell"

"You can tell him to calm his toots if he fusses." Connor suggests helpfully, walking past with an armful of bedding.

"Very likely." Kerri nods, then just looks at him another moment before she vanishes into the kitchen.

"Calm his...' A blink then a smirk "Maybe the thing to say. " he notices his wif'es look and rubs at his head. A sign he's processing , trying to read into it

Then he smiles at something, as he realizes what that look meant. Sure hope I don't need to go to the bathroom

The balefire seems to side with Kerri, it heals him, but it makes pops and fizzles that almost sound like scolding.

There's clattering in the kitchen, but a comfortable, celebratory kind of clattering, not a scolding, irritated kind.

Then the dogs start barking all at once, and there's a sound of running steps outside, and the door is flung open. Sylvi stands there, out of breath, looking around to see..."Dad!"

Connor waves to Sylvi, and in a split-second decision decides NOT to recommend that she calm anything, and merely ducks out of the way so that she won't run him over on the way to her pops.

Connor is a wise boy, as Sylvi makes a bee-line for her father and only barely remembers not to tackle him because he might be hurt already. "Dad? You're okay?"

Olgar was singing under his breath Stay with me by Babeo Baggins, but when his daughter speaks up, he turns "Hey, if it isn't the future senator herself. I'm okay. Your mom got the worst of it"

"The...worst? Mom's okay?" She's confused, and not sure whether to hug him or go find her mother.

"I mean, the worst of my wounds" He clarifies seeing her alarm "I had a knock on the head, so no real harm done. Now what's your side of the story?"

"Oh!" She takes a deep breath and relaxes...and belatedly gives Connor a hug. "Sorry, Connor, I didn't mean to ignore you." Then she claims a seat near her dad. "I'm...just really glad you're back." Mature daughter speak. "There was an Oracle that Vali knew. She said it was...well, that it was kind of close for you, but you were going to make it back."

"That... explains a lot," Olgar raises a brow "Did you ask this Oracle for help somehow?"

"I...uh..." Sylvi looks uncomfortable. "Well, she said we'd earned boons because of stopping the Balor and making Nadeen's dad hand over that Treasure so it can't be used....so...um....yeah."

"Huh. Well, tell your mom that and you might get your grounding reduced a bit" Proud look

A soft thump thump thump as Connor's tail wags, and then he slips out, leaving them to have a father-daughter moment.

At which point Kerri does reappear, carrying a platter with...well, there's no word for it other than a "feast" of meats and breads and cheeses and sauces to accent each one. She looks about as relieved and content as she ever has, and moreso when she sees Sylvi has returned.

"Connor? Do you want any?" Kerri offers as she sets down the platter. "Sylvi, you're just in time, but wash up before eating."

Sylvi nods, "Yes, Mom," but gives her father a quiet look before going.

Olgar looks at the meal, "Did I mention how much I love you recently, wife of mine?"

"Oooh. Nope!" He plucks a piece of cheese off the platter, and is munching that as he slips out of sight... off to pop up on someone else when they least expect it.

"Oh, I'm willing to hear it again," she says, helping fill a plate for him before taking some for herself.

A few minutes later, and Sylvi rejoins them. Despite her father's urging before, she doesn't mention the Oracle's boon to her mother at this time, though she does start telling them about the transformation of the Thomas family.

Olgar listens and talks when asked on his part... whatever he saw near the last part of the Dreaming was apparently beautfuil as the normally unpoetic man says "Like Stars taste on an astronomere's eyes"

And the meal goes very nicely indeed

(End Scene)

---------------

Frank is not the most powerful Mountain, and he's too modest to call himself wisest, even if he were. However, he certainly felt the surge of magics shifting through the dreaming... a great wound in it... and then a healing. His own daughter makes things to predict with sooth say, and the calls to the other Liams revealed few options. Sounded to them like a mortal soul was lost regardless, but they understood and agreed that being judge was... hard.

Frank steps out of the phone closet slowly; the weight of the day.... is heavy. He pauses in the main Lodge room.

And sees Siv coming down the stairs in fresh clothes, Olgar snoozing on a cot

Frank moves towards the kitchen.

"Hey Dad I..." Siv says as her dad starts to head off, "you..want a report?"

In the kitchen, there are the familiar sounds of Kerri's work.

"Not just now, Siv. Give me a moment." And he's through to the kitchen.

"Kerri."

Siv nods biting her lip

Frank clears his throat. "I think... you have a cabinet here. May I have a glass?"

Kerri turns from the counter where she's setting some bread for a second rise. "Mountain? I...yes, of course." She passes him a good size glass, and nods him towards the right cabinet.

Frank pours himself a dram. "Thank you." He carries the glass back out and settles himself at his desk. He sips, then looks at Siv, and nods.

"Okay, so..." Siv says taking the nod as message to go ahead, "We took the boy out of the orphanage with little trouble, Vali and I. And.. frankly it was cold... and I don't mean the AC"

"Of course, Mountain." Kerri nods, then turns to finish up her work...though perhaps a bit more quickly.

"Anyway, " She says and continues "Sylvi and Adam got the Thomases out... so they'd be safe"

The grump troll nods, listening.

Kerri follows quietly out of the kitchen a few minutes after Frank, listening to Siv's report as she sips her own drink, a beer.

"Well, there was this gaping wound in the Dreaming itself forming and... " She explains it all, rather straight forward, Praising Nadeen's sshielding the boy even before her father's soul arrived, and Olgar making sure the soul did not exit alone! She talks of the tentacles, and how Vali tries to ease the wound... but could not do it alone! She talks of the unholy fusion that was a slave until Dagmar freed it by battle...

and yes, she mentions, after looking around to make sure Connor is not in ear shot, about the Balor's end.

Frank listens gravely, indeed.

Kerri listens intently. She'd heard bits and pieces, but now she's hearing it altogether. Olgar is still sleeping, or at least dozing, and she takes a step closer to him, protectively.