(no subject)
Title: Between Here and Now and Forever
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Rowena and Godric run for their lives, while Helga works to get everyone out alive.
Chapter 1
Master Founders Post
Chapter 21
When Helga returned to the guest house, Ari was standing inside, looking pensively at the bowl Godric and Rowena had brought back last night.
"This is stolen," he told her, once she'd closed the door. "This is Sindri's. I recognize it. It does... something with thoughts. They actually did it. I thought that it was only --"
"Yes, they did," said Helga. She took a deep breath. "I thought you knew. Damn it. I told Rowena she should just --"
Ari looked betrayed. "I mean, if they really wanted it --"
"Exactly!" said Helga. She hoped her agreement here would keep him from deciding Rowena and Godric deserved whatever would be done to them.
"Well, I suppose we are just going to have to get them out of this," sighed Ari, "if only so I can yell at her about it."
"Thank you," said Helga, breathing a huge sigh of relief. He looked at her oddly. "Really. Thanks."
"Anyway," said Ari. "What did my stupid brother tell you?"
"The Aurae are coming," said Helga.
Ari's face went from confusion to alarm. "Sleipnir's fucking pritchel," he said. "He called in the Aurae over this? Are they actually coming?"
"I don't know," said Helga. "I'd like to think they weren't, but it sounds like he planned to get Rowena for something ahead of time and she fortuitously decided to actually steal, because she's ...she's clever like that. Which means the Aurae were going to come anyway. Which means Lady Aeaeae's behind it."
"Oh, that's all right," said Ari. "She's nice, we can negotiate with --"
"No," said Helga. "She's not."
"...She's not nice?" Ari asked. "I mean, all right, she is a ruthless tyrant, but what would you expect?"
"All right, granted," said Helga. "And she is nice. But I don't think she's going to be too friendly to Rowena and Godric."
"I don't see why not," said Ari. "I mean, Rowena's her daughter and --"
"What part of ruthless tyrant do you not understand?" Helga asked. "She's been trying to get Rowena married again for years."
"So?" Ari asked. "Rowena is not going to agree to it. We both know that. I had considered asking her, to get my family off my back, but I think she would never -- no."
"The thing is," said Helga, "Rowena doesn't do well without her wand. I imagine she's mentioned it?"
"...No," said Ari. "But what has that to do with the price of iron in Reykholt?"
Helga sighed. "Rowena always carries her wand. Always. When it's taken from her she isn't exactly herself -- she panics, she cries, sometimes she has... fits, depending. Sometimes she bites." She felt bad telling Ari all this, because it wasn't really his business, but she had to explain how horrible it would be for Rowena if her mother got a hold of her. "I think it's because of her marriage to that arse -- he took her wand, you know. He locked it up for years, and she had no way to defend herself against -- against anything. If he wasn't dead," she said, furious once more on Rowena's behalf, "I'd kill him again. Slowly."
Ari's eyes were wide now. He nodded. "And her mother would -- you think she'd use that?"
Helga nodded. "If she doesn't know yet, she'll find out. If you had a mad daughter, you'd take her in for a while until she was better, wouldn't you? And maybe you could get her married off to someone nice and understanding -- on your terms -- who'd keep her safe from herself and others, and keep her wand out of reach. And of course, he'd have to be someone politically advantageous."
Ari looked horrified. "You cannot be -- I mean -- but she's just a nice old lady! Who, yes, happens to be a ruthless tyrant, but Rowena is her daughter!"
"Yeah," said Helga. "And you'd better be careful your father doesn't get any ideas."
He blanched. "Right. What do we do to stop her? Can you get me out of here too? I don't --" He sighed. "This makes me a coward, I know, but I don't feel safe here. Not anymore."
"Ari," said Helga. "I don't really know you. What I do know about you is that you cheat in duels, you're a practiced liar, and you boast constantly. And, more importantly, you have grown up here with this, if I may say so myself, terrifying family who think they can frighten you into doing things their way with the full power of the law behind them, and you're still steadfastly yourself. And, moreover, you are willing to risk life and limb to help Rowena and Godric. And only now have you asked for anything at all in return, because you are rightly terrified," said Helga. "Whatever your faults, you are absolutely not a coward."
He smiled sarcastically. "But I am a liar and a cheat?"
She dismissed this. "Useful skills. Unsportsmanlike, but this isn't sport. Now, I will definitely see if we can get you the hell out of here. You and I might have to take up arms, but hopefully Sindri will let us use his workroom. Plus, I've got some things of my own...." She started digging through her trunk, pulled her folding shovel from it, and shook it out until it stopped being papery and started being wood and metal.
"Why in the Nine Worlds would Sindri let us use his workroom?" demanded Ari.
"Oh, it's all in who you know," said Helga. "I know me. He knows me. I don't know him, and I don't really want to, but it might have to come to that. We'll see if he knows himself."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"Probably that I'm mad," said Helga, distractedly rummaging through her trunk. "But don't worry, I think I come by it honestly."
She kept hunting for the paraphernalia she knew she'd need -- a bit of unicorn hoof from the animal that'd given the hair in her wand, and an acorn from the oak it was made from. These had meant the wand had been very expensive, but were also, in her experience, wonderfully useful in dire situations.
"Now," Helga said, putting her spell components into a little bag and resting her shovel on one shoulder. "Let us go into battle, and pray that the stupid things we do now will be worth it in the end."
Ari took a deep breath. "I must admit, I have never been very good at this honor thing."
"Don't start now, Ari," she said. "It'd be very bad timing."
He grinned nervously and opened the door for her. "After you, then."
* * *
Rowena was rifling through trunks and cabinets for metal. She'd managed to find a few chains, a ring, and a good amount of tools, and Godric was arranging all of the fragments into a connecting T-shape, with the top line running across the doorway they hoped to lure the bears into. She understood the principal well enough; transfiguratory magic didn't generally take to metal, it just made the metal heat up. If they could find enough metal, and maybe if they could pile enough flammable potions ingredients near the doorway, Godric could set the workshop on fire from around a corner, assuming he was willing to put up with the inevitable effects of using far too much magic all at once. Godric was fairly powerful, though, so he'd probably just have a bad headache.
At least, she hoped so. He'd better not pass out on her, because Rowena wasn't going to drag him anywhere.
"Are you certain you want to do this?" she asked. "I mean, we could just run through the fake fire in the moat, and get away."
"Yes, but we can't have a bunch of bears hunting us," said Godric. "At least it'll reduce their numbers."
"Have we got enough metal?" she asked.
Godric made a few small adjustments to the trail of metal on the floor. "I think so. Get ready to unlock that door and run." He cracked open the other door, peering out. "All right, it's clear. And once this place is on fire, we'll run through the fire in the moat. Let's hope it really is fake."
"Right," said Rowena. "On four, then?"
"Four's good," said Godric.
"One," said Rowena, bracing herself to run. "Two." She raised her wand, pointing it at the far door. "Three." Godric, his shoulder to the near door, had his wand at the tip of their trail of metal. "Four!"
She undid her locking spell, the bears burst in, there was a great flash of light, and Rowena had the wind knocked out of her as Godric grabbed her and fled.
"Ow!" she said. "Why do you keep doing that?" she demanded.
"Well, you don't run very fast," he said. He put her down on the other side of the workshop, where most of the bears were still fighting to get in despite the fact that the roof was very clearly aflame. "There, happy?"
"Yeah," she said. A few ursine heads turned their way. "...Fuck, they've spotted us. Run!"
This time, he forgot to grab her, and the both of them ran like idiots into the fire. Godric got there first, and as Rowena didn't hear any horrible screaming, she decided it was probably safe. Or, at least, safer.
But somewhere in the middle of all that perfectly harmless fire, she lost her footing and fell -- further than she ought to have -- until she landed with a splash! The water was deep and cold, and very disorientating.
"You all right?" Godric asked, helping her to the surface of the water, which was much too deep for her to stand in.
"I'm nearly drowned," she said, distastefully, and looked around. Above them were the illusory flames, but Rowena and Godric had ended up in quite a regular moat. The water came up to Godric's shoulders, and the walls stretched some ten feet again above that.
"I suppose it was stupid to think they were defenseless except for illusions and bears," said Godric. He looked extremely bedraggled and grumpy, and she would've laughed at him had she not known that she, too, probably looked a bit like a drowned rat.
"Well, it's not like we're stuck here," said Rowena cheerfully. "I mean, we've still got our wands. And I notice those bears aren't coming in after us." Holding onto the fabric of Godric's sleeve with one hand, she pointed her wand at the opposite wall. "Scaelarum!" she said.
Nothing happened.
"Wish I'd thought of that," said Godric, grumpily. "Oh wait, I did."
"What?" Rowena demanded. "It didn't work. Why didn't it work?"
"Probably there's something to keep us from using magic in here," said Godric. "I mean, anyone who works out that the fire's an illusion is probably clever with spells, so this moat's here to trap them. No point in having a trap people can get out of."
Rowena made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a snarl. "This is bad. How are we going to get out? We can't climb the walls, we can't fly, we can't -- we can't get out. We're trapped."
"Well, maybe you could climb the walls," said Godric. "Except they're not stone or earth. They're really smooth --"
"Kept that way with magic, probably," said Rowena. "This is bad. This is really very bad." She tried, unsuccessfully, to fend off the panic of not being able to do magic. At least she had her wand -- but that wasn't the important thing, as it turned out. Fuck, this was bad.
"Rowena?" Godric asked. "Is there something wrong?"
"No, everything's fine!" she said, panic making her voice quaver. "We're just floating around while the bears chase us, and when they find us they're going to kill you and gods know what'll happen to me, but the best I can hope for is a stern note to my mother."
He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and closed it again. Finally, he said, "Well. Maybe it won't be that bad."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't -- I don't do well without magic," said Rowena, trying to calm down. For some reason she was more frightened now than she had been when she'd been fighting the bears for her wand. "They're going to kill you, though, they said --"
"It's fine. It'll be fine," repeated Godric. He was not looking at her.
"This is my fault, isn't it?" she said.
"It'll be fine," said Godric again. "Really, don't worry about it. Maybe they weren't serious about it!" He shrugged. Rowena, losing her grip on his shoulder and trying to keep her head above water, flailed and accidentally kicked him in the ribs. "Ow! Sorry," he said, wincing. He put his arm around her waist. "If you don't kick me, I can hold you out of the water."
"I'm sorry, I'm fine, really," she said, but she hung onto his arm just the same. She took a deep breath. "But, you know, they've got no reason to leave you alive."
"Won't they want to avoid annoying Lord Salazar?" he asked.
Her mind was racing with plenty of unhappy thoughts it wanted to share. She tried to calm herself down, but it wasn't working -- it was like someone was shouting in her ear, Rowena, you are a failure! You are terrible! Why are you so terrible? What's wrong with you?, and she began to feel very ill. "Lord Salazar? Why should they worry about him? They've got my mum on their side," she said.
"That's what I thought," he sighed. "Oh well. I wasn't very useful anyway." He did not actually sound surprised.
"You don't seem particularly upset," she said, envying him this. Of course, she would have to live with herself after they'd killed him. He was going to die. She believed this now, accepted him as a dead man even though she was looking right at him. She did not want to look at him anymore, so she stared fixedly at her hands and her reflection in the water. Her breath made ripples in the water, which irritated her, because if she had to look at her own ugly, stupid face she at least wanted the reflection to be smooth.
"I'm not," said Godric, who was still astonishingly calm for a future corpse. "I sort of assumed I would die doing something really stupid. This is about right. I'd like to have lived longer -- things were really good for a while there."
"What, really?" she asked, shakily. "You never seem all that happy."
"Well, I was," said Godric. "I mean, if I were normal I always thought I'd have a wife and a few kids and a Transfigurator's shop in some little city, and I'd take in apprentices to pay for books and experiments, and maybe my wife'd be good with numbers so she could help with the tricky Arithmantic stuff, or maybe she'd have some other specialty, and we could work together a bit, and we'd publish treatises every few years if we were really clever, and I probably wouldn't become an Animagus, because kids are probably a lot of work, but I'd be really happy. So getting the books and experiments and apprentices and treatises was pretty good, I mean. I was just missing the shop and wife and kids -- and I get to teach, so... that's something."
She hazarded a glance at him, and saw that he was staring at the far wall, looking completely gutted despite the cheer in his voice. All those modest, impossible ambitions, gone forever, she thought. She didn't really see why they were so impossible to begin with -- Rowena could bet there were a lot of cheerfully boring, mathematically-inclined women who would've gone for somebody like Godric, even as he was, if only he wasn't terrified of people. Godric was a kind man, at least. And he was clever. Plenty of women would've settled for him. Some might not even have considered it settling.
He pulled one hand out of the water, and looked at it, wrinkling his nose. "And my fingers are getting all wrinkly. Wonderful."
"I'm sorry," she said finally, hating that he was trying to make her feel better. She wished she could swim; it seemed awfully hypocritical to be apologizing to Godric for pretty much ruining his life while she was hanging onto his shoulder.
"Don't be," he said. "Water does that if you're in it long enough."
"I meant about the other stuff," said Rowena. "Your dull domestic fantasy."
"Oh, that," said Godric, waving his water-wrinkled hand dismissively. "That was never going to happen anyway. Like I said. I don't have a lot of regrets."
"I suppose that's good," said Rowena. She would have felt more comfortable if he'd had regrets. She certainly had them.
"There, er. There is one thing, though," he said. "And since you're here..." He went a bit pink, and looked around to make sure nobody was coming to get them yet. "You know that story you were telling about Odysseus?"
"Yes?" said Rowena, wondering where this was going.
"Does he make it home?"
He had turned toward her as he said it, and she was disarmed by his sincerity. He wasn't pretending to care -- he actually needed to know. Apparently dying itself was something he could manage, but he did not want to die in suspense.
"Do you want me to tell you, or do you just want the rest of the story?" she asked.
"Well, I... both," he decided. "Tell me first, in case they find us before you can finish the story."
"He makes it home," she said.
Godric broke into a wide grin. His relief was sort of heartbreaking to see. "Good," he said. "And Penelope and Telemachus, they're all right in the end? She's my favorite," he added.
"Yes," said Rowena. This conversation had become unexpectedly comforting. "Do you want the story now?"
"If you remember it," he said, as if it might be too much to ask. "If not, I don't need to--"
"Trust me, Godric, I'll always remember this one," she said.
* * *
When Helga stepped out of the guest house, the first thing she noticed was the acrid scent of unplanned explosions. Then there was the smoke. Then there was the fact that the smoke was coming from a burnt smudge of wood that had been where Sindri's workshop had previously sat.
"Oh, this is bad," said Helga under her breath.
Two figures, recognizable as Sindri and Grimhildr, were slowly walking around the smoking hut. They appeared to be arguing. There were no bears about that she could see, only the tellingly-identical guards that had become bears earlier. "Well, come on," she said, motioning for Ari to follow her. "There's nothing for it but to see what we can do with what we have."
"So you are not going through with your mad Sindri plan?" Ari asked. He looked extremely relieved.
"Oh, no, he's my in," she said. "We have to go through with that. But we won't be using his things, personally. Maybe he'll be more willing to lend out somebody else's workshop."
"I find that difficult to believe," said Ari. "And I think I know the man better than you."
"Oh yes, no doubt you do," said Helga. "But I'm going to need some help here."
"Yes, but --" Ari seemed to be at a loss for words as Helga walked towards the ruined workshop.
She was frightened, but she knew from long experience with these sorts of people that fear was apt to ruin a good negotiation. Besides which, while it was not strictly in accordance with her plan, the fact that Sindri's workshop had been destroyed gave him very little power in this situation, so if things went very badly the only thing he could really do to her was turn her over to the proper authorities. A fate worse than death was out of the question, and that was a great comfort.
"What do you two want?" demanded Grimhildr as soon as they were in earshot.
"I was wondering if I could borrow some of your tools," said Helga, "only I can see that might be sort of problematic just about now. Did you leave a fire going?" She forced herself to look Sindri in the eye. He was much older than she remembered him -- unsurprising, really -- and was pointedly ignoring her.
Grimhildr spoke again. "It was your stupid friends who blew our workshop up," she said. "Why should we help you? And what are you doing helping her?" Grimhildr demanded of Ari.
Helga was beginning to get annoyed. "Look, I'd just like a chance to speak to Master, er. ...what's your surname? I don't even know," she asked Sindri. Although it mattered very little right now, this was one of the more irritating things about the whole situation.
Sindri seemed taken aback by this question, but Grimhildr stepped in to answer it for him. "I don't see how it's any of your business," she said nastily. She really was painfully young, Helga thought. Helga felt a bit bad about her plan, but she'd come this far, and she had plenty of reasons to be angry with Sindri, if not with Grimhildr.
"Really, Grimhildr, you are very rude to our guest," said Ari. "Downright dishonorable." He grinned like a predator, and did not seem at all surprised when Grimhildr swiped at him with her staff.
"Ignorant leech!" she snarled, advancing on him. "You question my honor?"
He backed away from her slowly. "Well, I am one to talk. But really -- a leech? Me? How can I be anywhere as spineless as you?" He drew his wand, and grinned, not kindly. "Want to fight over it?"
"What are you doing?" she demanded, looking suspiciously at him. "What are you trying to trick me into do--"
"Confringo!"
Grimhildr jumped to the side. There was a large patch of scorched earth where she'd been standing. "Fenrir take your cowardly Latin magic," she snarled. "Skera!" The spell shot out of her staff, but Ari jumped back. Cuts appeared in his robes, appearing to just graze him.
"Grimhildr," Sindri shouted, "stop this nonsense at once!"
Helga wanted to agree, to stand between them, or at least to grab Ari and tell him off, but she resisted the urge, because this was her chance. "Oh no," said Helga. "I think it's time we had a chance to talk, Master Sindri. If you won't give me your surname," she added.
He looked sharply at her. "That's my daughter!" he said. "She could get hurt!" The delicate flower in question seemed to be clobbering Ari with her the blunt end of her spear, shouting all manner of insults.
"I'm well aware," said Helga. She smiled as Ari twisted the spear out of her hands and menaced her with it, then grinned even wider as Grimhildr managed to hold her own by throwing rocks at Ari's head until he dropped the spear. "But can we just put that aside for now and talk like civilized people?"
Sindri winced. "Look, if this is about your --"
"This isn't about my anything!" snapped Helga. "All I wanted to do was to borrow your equipment."
"My equipment's gone," said Sindri. "And why should I want to help you? You'll just betray us to your friends."
"Why don't you just run away from here, then?" Helga snapped. "That worked plenty well for you before, didn't it?"
"Do you think I want to be here?" Sindri ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I'm... I just want to be -- I don't know."
"What's keeping you here?" Helga demanded.
That seemed to make him angry. "If you're just going to be hysterical and ridiculous --"
"Oh, no, I want to know," said Helga, with as much sweetness and venom as she could manage. "Maybe I can help," she added. "Did you even think of asking for help?"
There was a long silence. They watched as Grimhildr landed a few hits soundly on Ari's head. He seemed to be having fun, though -- he had somehow acquired a broadsword, and was good-naturedly menacing Grimhildr with it.
"Well?" Helga asked. "Did you --"
"That would have been unfair," said Sindri. He did not look at her.
"You mean, less fair than when you disappeared, apparently forever, and we all thought you might be dead, only actually, you'd just got a wife and daughter?" said Helga.
"Three daughters and no wife," he said. "Hjordis didn't... we aren't..."
"Oh, so you wouldn't marry her either, then?" Helga asked.
"I divorced her," said Sindri, shortly.
"Oh, that makes it much better!" said Helga. "You're so reliably unreliable."
"She sliced my face open," he said, indicating the long scar on his face. "She wasn't -- she wasn't like your mother --"
"Who, incidentally, still thinks you're dead," said Helga. "Because you never came back! And you have no idea what Leo and I went through, do you?"
"By the time I was back on my feet it was far too late," he said. "I was already hearing about your work. And you're -- you're doing so well. I mean, you didn't need me. I was... I'm very proud of you," he said, as though this was supposed to make her happy.
Instead, something inside of Helga snapped. "You don't get to be proud of me!" she shouted in his face. "I get to be proud of me, and Mum gets to be proud of me, and even Leo, worthless as he is, he gets to be proud of me a little, because he taught me how to cheat at cards and how to throw a punch. But you? You do not ever get to be proud of me. I am not yours to be proud of."
"I was kidnapped," said Sindri, as if this excused everything.
"Yeah," said Helga. "I bet. Kidnapped. For over twenty years. And now you're in charge of your captors' security systems, and apparently you have the resources to stalk your illegitimate daughter who, by the way, doesn't even live near you and by the way those seeds were PROPERIETARY SO HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THEM?"
Helga became aware of two things. The first was that Ari and Grimhildr had actually stopped fighting and were staring at them. The other, much worse thing was that her face was wet. She looked from Ari and Grimhildr to her father, made a loud noise of rage and frustration, and took a deep breath which turned out, actually, to be more of an anticlimactic sniffle. "Forget it! I don't even want your help! You've never helped me in your life!" She turned and walked away, grabbing Ari's arm and dragged him away. "Come on."
"But..." Ari seemed very put out. "But I was winning!"
"Arnhvatr Stigandrson, you mangy wet dog, get back here and fight me!" shouted Grimhildr, stomping after him. "Or I'll cudgel you around the -- hrk!"
Helga had grabbed her by the front of her collar. "You're the only reason he's not dead," she snarled. "Because there's a chance you might actually be a worthwhile human being. Despite that very small chance, I am in no mood to deal with you, so shut up and leave us alone."
Grimhildr had gone wide-eyed and pale and, mercifully, silent. When Helga released her, she backed off, and, in case this was not enough, set her spear down on the ground carefully.
"Good," said Helga, grumpily. "Come on, Ari," she said, "you've probably got to fight some more people."
"...Yes. Yes, I. Are you all right?" he asked her. He was bleeding in several places, she noticed. It wasn't really her problem, though.
"Do I look all right?" she demanded.
"...what about the things we will need?"
"We'll have to find it somewhere else," said Helga. "We'll probably have to fight for it." She hefted her shovel.
"Not that that sounds unpleasant," said Ari, "but I think your diplomacy needs some work."
"Usually I'm much better about this sort of thing," she said, wiping her face on her sleeve and trying not to sniff.
"Helga!" called Sindri.
Ari sighed heavily as Helga turned. "What?" she demanded.
"What do you need?" Sindri asked.
Her pride, anger, and desire to hit people with a shovel wrestled with her idea of what her life would be like without Rowena and Godric. It was not a long fight. She sighed, and walked back towards them. "A container -- clean, not leaky, about the size of my hands together. Enough sap from the most common sort of tree around here to fill it halfway. A source of magic other than me."
"That won't be a problem," said Sindri.
Grimhildr glared at him. "What? No!"
"We have a bowl, the turpentine can be stolen, and then there is you," said Sindri.
"And then there is me," she said. "We hardly even know her. Whatever she is planning will destroy Bjornarbitholm --"
"And then we can leave this place," said Sindri.
Grimhildr did not look sold on the idea. "And then you can leave. I will be stuck powering the spell, whatever it is." She looked expectantly at Helga.
"...Well. Um. There's no reason it can't be portable," Helga ventured. "Really, it's just meant to be a distraction --"
"You need a separate source to power a spell that's only a distraction?" Sindri asked. "Who are you planning on distracting, the whole mountain?"
Helga sighed. She didn't think Sindri and Grimhildr, family or not, and no matter how little they liked Bjornson, would be willing to go up against the Aurae Aurelii, so she decided not to mention that. "Well, I like to be thorough," she said. "You are, no doubt, aware that I have a record of not dying in these sort of things."
"Well, obviously," said Grimhildr. "We aren't stupid. You are standing right in front of us."
"What I mean to say is," she said, "if I do this I can protect both of you and convey you safely out for a good distance. If you want to go, I mean." She looked at Grimhildr. "Personally, I'd take the chance to leave. Get away from him," she said.
Sindri raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were all upset about that sort of thing."
"Grimhildr isn't as young as I was," said Helga.
"Why is everybody talking over my head?" Grimhildr demanded.
"It's just so easy," Ari told her. Helga kicked him in the shin for Grimhildr. "Ow!" said Ari. "What was that for?"
"The short joke," said Helga. "It's such a lazy insult. You can do better, Ari."
"Thank you," said Grimhildr, reluctantly. "You are... going to help us, then?"
"You're family," sighed Helga. "So I suppose I haven't much choice. Anyway, I'm taking Ari --"
"What?" Grimhildr asked, dismayed.
"--so it would be sort of cruel to leave you lot behind. Although, frankly, also slightly poetic. But you probably don't deserve that," she told Grimhildr. "Seriously. After this, get away from being the source of someone else's magic for a while. It'll be good for you." She looked around at everyone. "So. Are we all for escape, then?"
"...Fine," said Grimhildr. "Yes. I'm in."
"Good! Pity I won't get to use the shovel, though," said Helga.
"...Were you planning on doing a lot of digging if we did not agree?" Grimhildr asked.
Helga grinned dangerously. "You have much to learn in the ways of the world, Grimhildr," she said. "But I think you'll enjoy it. Take your spear in case of bears, all right?"
Chapter 23
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: The Founders, various OCs
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Rowena and Godric run for their lives, while Helga works to get everyone out alive.
Chapter 1
Master Founders Post
Chapter 21
When Helga returned to the guest house, Ari was standing inside, looking pensively at the bowl Godric and Rowena had brought back last night.
"This is stolen," he told her, once she'd closed the door. "This is Sindri's. I recognize it. It does... something with thoughts. They actually did it. I thought that it was only --"
"Yes, they did," said Helga. She took a deep breath. "I thought you knew. Damn it. I told Rowena she should just --"
Ari looked betrayed. "I mean, if they really wanted it --"
"Exactly!" said Helga. She hoped her agreement here would keep him from deciding Rowena and Godric deserved whatever would be done to them.
"Well, I suppose we are just going to have to get them out of this," sighed Ari, "if only so I can yell at her about it."
"Thank you," said Helga, breathing a huge sigh of relief. He looked at her oddly. "Really. Thanks."
"Anyway," said Ari. "What did my stupid brother tell you?"
"The Aurae are coming," said Helga.
Ari's face went from confusion to alarm. "Sleipnir's fucking pritchel," he said. "He called in the Aurae over this? Are they actually coming?"
"I don't know," said Helga. "I'd like to think they weren't, but it sounds like he planned to get Rowena for something ahead of time and she fortuitously decided to actually steal, because she's ...she's clever like that. Which means the Aurae were going to come anyway. Which means Lady Aeaeae's behind it."
"Oh, that's all right," said Ari. "She's nice, we can negotiate with --"
"No," said Helga. "She's not."
"...She's not nice?" Ari asked. "I mean, all right, she is a ruthless tyrant, but what would you expect?"
"All right, granted," said Helga. "And she is nice. But I don't think she's going to be too friendly to Rowena and Godric."
"I don't see why not," said Ari. "I mean, Rowena's her daughter and --"
"What part of ruthless tyrant do you not understand?" Helga asked. "She's been trying to get Rowena married again for years."
"So?" Ari asked. "Rowena is not going to agree to it. We both know that. I had considered asking her, to get my family off my back, but I think she would never -- no."
"The thing is," said Helga, "Rowena doesn't do well without her wand. I imagine she's mentioned it?"
"...No," said Ari. "But what has that to do with the price of iron in Reykholt?"
Helga sighed. "Rowena always carries her wand. Always. When it's taken from her she isn't exactly herself -- she panics, she cries, sometimes she has... fits, depending. Sometimes she bites." She felt bad telling Ari all this, because it wasn't really his business, but she had to explain how horrible it would be for Rowena if her mother got a hold of her. "I think it's because of her marriage to that arse -- he took her wand, you know. He locked it up for years, and she had no way to defend herself against -- against anything. If he wasn't dead," she said, furious once more on Rowena's behalf, "I'd kill him again. Slowly."
Ari's eyes were wide now. He nodded. "And her mother would -- you think she'd use that?"
Helga nodded. "If she doesn't know yet, she'll find out. If you had a mad daughter, you'd take her in for a while until she was better, wouldn't you? And maybe you could get her married off to someone nice and understanding -- on your terms -- who'd keep her safe from herself and others, and keep her wand out of reach. And of course, he'd have to be someone politically advantageous."
Ari looked horrified. "You cannot be -- I mean -- but she's just a nice old lady! Who, yes, happens to be a ruthless tyrant, but Rowena is her daughter!"
"Yeah," said Helga. "And you'd better be careful your father doesn't get any ideas."
He blanched. "Right. What do we do to stop her? Can you get me out of here too? I don't --" He sighed. "This makes me a coward, I know, but I don't feel safe here. Not anymore."
"Ari," said Helga. "I don't really know you. What I do know about you is that you cheat in duels, you're a practiced liar, and you boast constantly. And, more importantly, you have grown up here with this, if I may say so myself, terrifying family who think they can frighten you into doing things their way with the full power of the law behind them, and you're still steadfastly yourself. And, moreover, you are willing to risk life and limb to help Rowena and Godric. And only now have you asked for anything at all in return, because you are rightly terrified," said Helga. "Whatever your faults, you are absolutely not a coward."
He smiled sarcastically. "But I am a liar and a cheat?"
She dismissed this. "Useful skills. Unsportsmanlike, but this isn't sport. Now, I will definitely see if we can get you the hell out of here. You and I might have to take up arms, but hopefully Sindri will let us use his workroom. Plus, I've got some things of my own...." She started digging through her trunk, pulled her folding shovel from it, and shook it out until it stopped being papery and started being wood and metal.
"Why in the Nine Worlds would Sindri let us use his workroom?" demanded Ari.
"Oh, it's all in who you know," said Helga. "I know me. He knows me. I don't know him, and I don't really want to, but it might have to come to that. We'll see if he knows himself."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"Probably that I'm mad," said Helga, distractedly rummaging through her trunk. "But don't worry, I think I come by it honestly."
She kept hunting for the paraphernalia she knew she'd need -- a bit of unicorn hoof from the animal that'd given the hair in her wand, and an acorn from the oak it was made from. These had meant the wand had been very expensive, but were also, in her experience, wonderfully useful in dire situations.
"Now," Helga said, putting her spell components into a little bag and resting her shovel on one shoulder. "Let us go into battle, and pray that the stupid things we do now will be worth it in the end."
Ari took a deep breath. "I must admit, I have never been very good at this honor thing."
"Don't start now, Ari," she said. "It'd be very bad timing."
He grinned nervously and opened the door for her. "After you, then."
* * *
Rowena was rifling through trunks and cabinets for metal. She'd managed to find a few chains, a ring, and a good amount of tools, and Godric was arranging all of the fragments into a connecting T-shape, with the top line running across the doorway they hoped to lure the bears into. She understood the principal well enough; transfiguratory magic didn't generally take to metal, it just made the metal heat up. If they could find enough metal, and maybe if they could pile enough flammable potions ingredients near the doorway, Godric could set the workshop on fire from around a corner, assuming he was willing to put up with the inevitable effects of using far too much magic all at once. Godric was fairly powerful, though, so he'd probably just have a bad headache.
At least, she hoped so. He'd better not pass out on her, because Rowena wasn't going to drag him anywhere.
"Are you certain you want to do this?" she asked. "I mean, we could just run through the fake fire in the moat, and get away."
"Yes, but we can't have a bunch of bears hunting us," said Godric. "At least it'll reduce their numbers."
"Have we got enough metal?" she asked.
Godric made a few small adjustments to the trail of metal on the floor. "I think so. Get ready to unlock that door and run." He cracked open the other door, peering out. "All right, it's clear. And once this place is on fire, we'll run through the fire in the moat. Let's hope it really is fake."
"Right," said Rowena. "On four, then?"
"Four's good," said Godric.
"One," said Rowena, bracing herself to run. "Two." She raised her wand, pointing it at the far door. "Three." Godric, his shoulder to the near door, had his wand at the tip of their trail of metal. "Four!"
She undid her locking spell, the bears burst in, there was a great flash of light, and Rowena had the wind knocked out of her as Godric grabbed her and fled.
"Ow!" she said. "Why do you keep doing that?" she demanded.
"Well, you don't run very fast," he said. He put her down on the other side of the workshop, where most of the bears were still fighting to get in despite the fact that the roof was very clearly aflame. "There, happy?"
"Yeah," she said. A few ursine heads turned their way. "...Fuck, they've spotted us. Run!"
This time, he forgot to grab her, and the both of them ran like idiots into the fire. Godric got there first, and as Rowena didn't hear any horrible screaming, she decided it was probably safe. Or, at least, safer.
But somewhere in the middle of all that perfectly harmless fire, she lost her footing and fell -- further than she ought to have -- until she landed with a splash! The water was deep and cold, and very disorientating.
"You all right?" Godric asked, helping her to the surface of the water, which was much too deep for her to stand in.
"I'm nearly drowned," she said, distastefully, and looked around. Above them were the illusory flames, but Rowena and Godric had ended up in quite a regular moat. The water came up to Godric's shoulders, and the walls stretched some ten feet again above that.
"I suppose it was stupid to think they were defenseless except for illusions and bears," said Godric. He looked extremely bedraggled and grumpy, and she would've laughed at him had she not known that she, too, probably looked a bit like a drowned rat.
"Well, it's not like we're stuck here," said Rowena cheerfully. "I mean, we've still got our wands. And I notice those bears aren't coming in after us." Holding onto the fabric of Godric's sleeve with one hand, she pointed her wand at the opposite wall. "Scaelarum!" she said.
Nothing happened.
"Wish I'd thought of that," said Godric, grumpily. "Oh wait, I did."
"What?" Rowena demanded. "It didn't work. Why didn't it work?"
"Probably there's something to keep us from using magic in here," said Godric. "I mean, anyone who works out that the fire's an illusion is probably clever with spells, so this moat's here to trap them. No point in having a trap people can get out of."
Rowena made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a snarl. "This is bad. How are we going to get out? We can't climb the walls, we can't fly, we can't -- we can't get out. We're trapped."
"Well, maybe you could climb the walls," said Godric. "Except they're not stone or earth. They're really smooth --"
"Kept that way with magic, probably," said Rowena. "This is bad. This is really very bad." She tried, unsuccessfully, to fend off the panic of not being able to do magic. At least she had her wand -- but that wasn't the important thing, as it turned out. Fuck, this was bad.
"Rowena?" Godric asked. "Is there something wrong?"
"No, everything's fine!" she said, panic making her voice quaver. "We're just floating around while the bears chase us, and when they find us they're going to kill you and gods know what'll happen to me, but the best I can hope for is a stern note to my mother."
He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and closed it again. Finally, he said, "Well. Maybe it won't be that bad."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't -- I don't do well without magic," said Rowena, trying to calm down. For some reason she was more frightened now than she had been when she'd been fighting the bears for her wand. "They're going to kill you, though, they said --"
"It's fine. It'll be fine," repeated Godric. He was not looking at her.
"This is my fault, isn't it?" she said.
"It'll be fine," said Godric again. "Really, don't worry about it. Maybe they weren't serious about it!" He shrugged. Rowena, losing her grip on his shoulder and trying to keep her head above water, flailed and accidentally kicked him in the ribs. "Ow! Sorry," he said, wincing. He put his arm around her waist. "If you don't kick me, I can hold you out of the water."
"I'm sorry, I'm fine, really," she said, but she hung onto his arm just the same. She took a deep breath. "But, you know, they've got no reason to leave you alive."
"Won't they want to avoid annoying Lord Salazar?" he asked.
Her mind was racing with plenty of unhappy thoughts it wanted to share. She tried to calm herself down, but it wasn't working -- it was like someone was shouting in her ear, Rowena, you are a failure! You are terrible! Why are you so terrible? What's wrong with you?, and she began to feel very ill. "Lord Salazar? Why should they worry about him? They've got my mum on their side," she said.
"That's what I thought," he sighed. "Oh well. I wasn't very useful anyway." He did not actually sound surprised.
"You don't seem particularly upset," she said, envying him this. Of course, she would have to live with herself after they'd killed him. He was going to die. She believed this now, accepted him as a dead man even though she was looking right at him. She did not want to look at him anymore, so she stared fixedly at her hands and her reflection in the water. Her breath made ripples in the water, which irritated her, because if she had to look at her own ugly, stupid face she at least wanted the reflection to be smooth.
"I'm not," said Godric, who was still astonishingly calm for a future corpse. "I sort of assumed I would die doing something really stupid. This is about right. I'd like to have lived longer -- things were really good for a while there."
"What, really?" she asked, shakily. "You never seem all that happy."
"Well, I was," said Godric. "I mean, if I were normal I always thought I'd have a wife and a few kids and a Transfigurator's shop in some little city, and I'd take in apprentices to pay for books and experiments, and maybe my wife'd be good with numbers so she could help with the tricky Arithmantic stuff, or maybe she'd have some other specialty, and we could work together a bit, and we'd publish treatises every few years if we were really clever, and I probably wouldn't become an Animagus, because kids are probably a lot of work, but I'd be really happy. So getting the books and experiments and apprentices and treatises was pretty good, I mean. I was just missing the shop and wife and kids -- and I get to teach, so... that's something."
She hazarded a glance at him, and saw that he was staring at the far wall, looking completely gutted despite the cheer in his voice. All those modest, impossible ambitions, gone forever, she thought. She didn't really see why they were so impossible to begin with -- Rowena could bet there were a lot of cheerfully boring, mathematically-inclined women who would've gone for somebody like Godric, even as he was, if only he wasn't terrified of people. Godric was a kind man, at least. And he was clever. Plenty of women would've settled for him. Some might not even have considered it settling.
He pulled one hand out of the water, and looked at it, wrinkling his nose. "And my fingers are getting all wrinkly. Wonderful."
"I'm sorry," she said finally, hating that he was trying to make her feel better. She wished she could swim; it seemed awfully hypocritical to be apologizing to Godric for pretty much ruining his life while she was hanging onto his shoulder.
"Don't be," he said. "Water does that if you're in it long enough."
"I meant about the other stuff," said Rowena. "Your dull domestic fantasy."
"Oh, that," said Godric, waving his water-wrinkled hand dismissively. "That was never going to happen anyway. Like I said. I don't have a lot of regrets."
"I suppose that's good," said Rowena. She would have felt more comfortable if he'd had regrets. She certainly had them.
"There, er. There is one thing, though," he said. "And since you're here..." He went a bit pink, and looked around to make sure nobody was coming to get them yet. "You know that story you were telling about Odysseus?"
"Yes?" said Rowena, wondering where this was going.
"Does he make it home?"
He had turned toward her as he said it, and she was disarmed by his sincerity. He wasn't pretending to care -- he actually needed to know. Apparently dying itself was something he could manage, but he did not want to die in suspense.
"Do you want me to tell you, or do you just want the rest of the story?" she asked.
"Well, I... both," he decided. "Tell me first, in case they find us before you can finish the story."
"He makes it home," she said.
Godric broke into a wide grin. His relief was sort of heartbreaking to see. "Good," he said. "And Penelope and Telemachus, they're all right in the end? She's my favorite," he added.
"Yes," said Rowena. This conversation had become unexpectedly comforting. "Do you want the story now?"
"If you remember it," he said, as if it might be too much to ask. "If not, I don't need to--"
"Trust me, Godric, I'll always remember this one," she said.
* * *
When Helga stepped out of the guest house, the first thing she noticed was the acrid scent of unplanned explosions. Then there was the smoke. Then there was the fact that the smoke was coming from a burnt smudge of wood that had been where Sindri's workshop had previously sat.
"Oh, this is bad," said Helga under her breath.
Two figures, recognizable as Sindri and Grimhildr, were slowly walking around the smoking hut. They appeared to be arguing. There were no bears about that she could see, only the tellingly-identical guards that had become bears earlier. "Well, come on," she said, motioning for Ari to follow her. "There's nothing for it but to see what we can do with what we have."
"So you are not going through with your mad Sindri plan?" Ari asked. He looked extremely relieved.
"Oh, no, he's my in," she said. "We have to go through with that. But we won't be using his things, personally. Maybe he'll be more willing to lend out somebody else's workshop."
"I find that difficult to believe," said Ari. "And I think I know the man better than you."
"Oh yes, no doubt you do," said Helga. "But I'm going to need some help here."
"Yes, but --" Ari seemed to be at a loss for words as Helga walked towards the ruined workshop.
She was frightened, but she knew from long experience with these sorts of people that fear was apt to ruin a good negotiation. Besides which, while it was not strictly in accordance with her plan, the fact that Sindri's workshop had been destroyed gave him very little power in this situation, so if things went very badly the only thing he could really do to her was turn her over to the proper authorities. A fate worse than death was out of the question, and that was a great comfort.
"What do you two want?" demanded Grimhildr as soon as they were in earshot.
"I was wondering if I could borrow some of your tools," said Helga, "only I can see that might be sort of problematic just about now. Did you leave a fire going?" She forced herself to look Sindri in the eye. He was much older than she remembered him -- unsurprising, really -- and was pointedly ignoring her.
Grimhildr spoke again. "It was your stupid friends who blew our workshop up," she said. "Why should we help you? And what are you doing helping her?" Grimhildr demanded of Ari.
Helga was beginning to get annoyed. "Look, I'd just like a chance to speak to Master, er. ...what's your surname? I don't even know," she asked Sindri. Although it mattered very little right now, this was one of the more irritating things about the whole situation.
Sindri seemed taken aback by this question, but Grimhildr stepped in to answer it for him. "I don't see how it's any of your business," she said nastily. She really was painfully young, Helga thought. Helga felt a bit bad about her plan, but she'd come this far, and she had plenty of reasons to be angry with Sindri, if not with Grimhildr.
"Really, Grimhildr, you are very rude to our guest," said Ari. "Downright dishonorable." He grinned like a predator, and did not seem at all surprised when Grimhildr swiped at him with her staff.
"Ignorant leech!" she snarled, advancing on him. "You question my honor?"
He backed away from her slowly. "Well, I am one to talk. But really -- a leech? Me? How can I be anywhere as spineless as you?" He drew his wand, and grinned, not kindly. "Want to fight over it?"
"What are you doing?" she demanded, looking suspiciously at him. "What are you trying to trick me into do--"
"Confringo!"
Grimhildr jumped to the side. There was a large patch of scorched earth where she'd been standing. "Fenrir take your cowardly Latin magic," she snarled. "Skera!" The spell shot out of her staff, but Ari jumped back. Cuts appeared in his robes, appearing to just graze him.
"Grimhildr," Sindri shouted, "stop this nonsense at once!"
Helga wanted to agree, to stand between them, or at least to grab Ari and tell him off, but she resisted the urge, because this was her chance. "Oh no," said Helga. "I think it's time we had a chance to talk, Master Sindri. If you won't give me your surname," she added.
He looked sharply at her. "That's my daughter!" he said. "She could get hurt!" The delicate flower in question seemed to be clobbering Ari with her the blunt end of her spear, shouting all manner of insults.
"I'm well aware," said Helga. She smiled as Ari twisted the spear out of her hands and menaced her with it, then grinned even wider as Grimhildr managed to hold her own by throwing rocks at Ari's head until he dropped the spear. "But can we just put that aside for now and talk like civilized people?"
Sindri winced. "Look, if this is about your --"
"This isn't about my anything!" snapped Helga. "All I wanted to do was to borrow your equipment."
"My equipment's gone," said Sindri. "And why should I want to help you? You'll just betray us to your friends."
"Why don't you just run away from here, then?" Helga snapped. "That worked plenty well for you before, didn't it?"
"Do you think I want to be here?" Sindri ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I'm... I just want to be -- I don't know."
"What's keeping you here?" Helga demanded.
That seemed to make him angry. "If you're just going to be hysterical and ridiculous --"
"Oh, no, I want to know," said Helga, with as much sweetness and venom as she could manage. "Maybe I can help," she added. "Did you even think of asking for help?"
There was a long silence. They watched as Grimhildr landed a few hits soundly on Ari's head. He seemed to be having fun, though -- he had somehow acquired a broadsword, and was good-naturedly menacing Grimhildr with it.
"Well?" Helga asked. "Did you --"
"That would have been unfair," said Sindri. He did not look at her.
"You mean, less fair than when you disappeared, apparently forever, and we all thought you might be dead, only actually, you'd just got a wife and daughter?" said Helga.
"Three daughters and no wife," he said. "Hjordis didn't... we aren't..."
"Oh, so you wouldn't marry her either, then?" Helga asked.
"I divorced her," said Sindri, shortly.
"Oh, that makes it much better!" said Helga. "You're so reliably unreliable."
"She sliced my face open," he said, indicating the long scar on his face. "She wasn't -- she wasn't like your mother --"
"Who, incidentally, still thinks you're dead," said Helga. "Because you never came back! And you have no idea what Leo and I went through, do you?"
"By the time I was back on my feet it was far too late," he said. "I was already hearing about your work. And you're -- you're doing so well. I mean, you didn't need me. I was... I'm very proud of you," he said, as though this was supposed to make her happy.
Instead, something inside of Helga snapped. "You don't get to be proud of me!" she shouted in his face. "I get to be proud of me, and Mum gets to be proud of me, and even Leo, worthless as he is, he gets to be proud of me a little, because he taught me how to cheat at cards and how to throw a punch. But you? You do not ever get to be proud of me. I am not yours to be proud of."
"I was kidnapped," said Sindri, as if this excused everything.
"Yeah," said Helga. "I bet. Kidnapped. For over twenty years. And now you're in charge of your captors' security systems, and apparently you have the resources to stalk your illegitimate daughter who, by the way, doesn't even live near you and by the way those seeds were PROPERIETARY SO HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THEM?"
Helga became aware of two things. The first was that Ari and Grimhildr had actually stopped fighting and were staring at them. The other, much worse thing was that her face was wet. She looked from Ari and Grimhildr to her father, made a loud noise of rage and frustration, and took a deep breath which turned out, actually, to be more of an anticlimactic sniffle. "Forget it! I don't even want your help! You've never helped me in your life!" She turned and walked away, grabbing Ari's arm and dragged him away. "Come on."
"But..." Ari seemed very put out. "But I was winning!"
"Arnhvatr Stigandrson, you mangy wet dog, get back here and fight me!" shouted Grimhildr, stomping after him. "Or I'll cudgel you around the -- hrk!"
Helga had grabbed her by the front of her collar. "You're the only reason he's not dead," she snarled. "Because there's a chance you might actually be a worthwhile human being. Despite that very small chance, I am in no mood to deal with you, so shut up and leave us alone."
Grimhildr had gone wide-eyed and pale and, mercifully, silent. When Helga released her, she backed off, and, in case this was not enough, set her spear down on the ground carefully.
"Good," said Helga, grumpily. "Come on, Ari," she said, "you've probably got to fight some more people."
"...Yes. Yes, I. Are you all right?" he asked her. He was bleeding in several places, she noticed. It wasn't really her problem, though.
"Do I look all right?" she demanded.
"...what about the things we will need?"
"We'll have to find it somewhere else," said Helga. "We'll probably have to fight for it." She hefted her shovel.
"Not that that sounds unpleasant," said Ari, "but I think your diplomacy needs some work."
"Usually I'm much better about this sort of thing," she said, wiping her face on her sleeve and trying not to sniff.
"Helga!" called Sindri.
Ari sighed heavily as Helga turned. "What?" she demanded.
"What do you need?" Sindri asked.
Her pride, anger, and desire to hit people with a shovel wrestled with her idea of what her life would be like without Rowena and Godric. It was not a long fight. She sighed, and walked back towards them. "A container -- clean, not leaky, about the size of my hands together. Enough sap from the most common sort of tree around here to fill it halfway. A source of magic other than me."
"That won't be a problem," said Sindri.
Grimhildr glared at him. "What? No!"
"We have a bowl, the turpentine can be stolen, and then there is you," said Sindri.
"And then there is me," she said. "We hardly even know her. Whatever she is planning will destroy Bjornarbitholm --"
"And then we can leave this place," said Sindri.
Grimhildr did not look sold on the idea. "And then you can leave. I will be stuck powering the spell, whatever it is." She looked expectantly at Helga.
"...Well. Um. There's no reason it can't be portable," Helga ventured. "Really, it's just meant to be a distraction --"
"You need a separate source to power a spell that's only a distraction?" Sindri asked. "Who are you planning on distracting, the whole mountain?"
Helga sighed. She didn't think Sindri and Grimhildr, family or not, and no matter how little they liked Bjornson, would be willing to go up against the Aurae Aurelii, so she decided not to mention that. "Well, I like to be thorough," she said. "You are, no doubt, aware that I have a record of not dying in these sort of things."
"Well, obviously," said Grimhildr. "We aren't stupid. You are standing right in front of us."
"What I mean to say is," she said, "if I do this I can protect both of you and convey you safely out for a good distance. If you want to go, I mean." She looked at Grimhildr. "Personally, I'd take the chance to leave. Get away from him," she said.
Sindri raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were all upset about that sort of thing."
"Grimhildr isn't as young as I was," said Helga.
"Why is everybody talking over my head?" Grimhildr demanded.
"It's just so easy," Ari told her. Helga kicked him in the shin for Grimhildr. "Ow!" said Ari. "What was that for?"
"The short joke," said Helga. "It's such a lazy insult. You can do better, Ari."
"Thank you," said Grimhildr, reluctantly. "You are... going to help us, then?"
"You're family," sighed Helga. "So I suppose I haven't much choice. Anyway, I'm taking Ari --"
"What?" Grimhildr asked, dismayed.
"--so it would be sort of cruel to leave you lot behind. Although, frankly, also slightly poetic. But you probably don't deserve that," she told Grimhildr. "Seriously. After this, get away from being the source of someone else's magic for a while. It'll be good for you." She looked around at everyone. "So. Are we all for escape, then?"
"...Fine," said Grimhildr. "Yes. I'm in."
"Good! Pity I won't get to use the shovel, though," said Helga.
"...Were you planning on doing a lot of digging if we did not agree?" Grimhildr asked.
Helga grinned dangerously. "You have much to learn in the ways of the world, Grimhildr," she said. "But I think you'll enjoy it. Take your spear in case of bears, all right?"
Chapter 23