Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 20)

"Fine." Gowan settled against the couch. "Lady Ash, I confess I'm very tired...could we pick this up at some point tomorrow? The journey was rather strenuous, you understand."

"Of course." Sara rose. "And we'll see you at breakfast in the morning. I hope you find your rooms restful."

“Mine is amazing!” Lia chimed up happily. “There’s so many furs!”

"I'm glad you like it." She smiled and helped her husband to his feet. He leaned on her slightly, wincing.

"Be down bright and early," Gowan said to Rana and Lia, then swept out of the room with Shea in tow.

Lia and Rana both scrambled to their feet, looking after the Reputations, then back at the Ashes, then at the door again. They were anxious and awkward and didn’t know what to do. Chase after their father? Stay and chit chat kindly with the Ashes? Excuse themselves?

They looked remarkably like deer in headlights, if headlights existed in this realm.

Sara eased herself and Gaius past them toward the door. "Do you need help finding your way back to your rooms?" she asked them.

“Uhh… n-no, ma'am,” Rana said quickly. “We can manage it. Thank you.”

"Certainly." She dipped her head and stepped out with Gaius, heading down the hall.

“I wanna see the library!” Lia piped up as soon as they were alone.

Rana hesitated then shrugged. “Sure. I wouldn’t mind going back to poke around some. Let’s go.”

The two girls strode to the hall on their way.

(I’m good if you wanna time skip or if you wanna have them run into someone)

(Wanna skip like a week ahead or whenever Rana and Lia get settled in)

(Sounds good to me! Take it away)

(Do you wanna start actually since it's your characters that are gonna be having adjustments and reactions going on? Gaius and Sara never have anything new happening to them.)

(My father has suggested that there may have been a project to link Christian and Norse mythology to deliberately convert the Norse to Christianity, saying "your stories are similar to ours but ours is better." He says it's impossible to say which culture influenced the other first, but nearly everything we know about Norse mythology comes from a Christian lens.)

(Ah that makes sense, the same is true for Celtic religions I’ve been trying to dig in more to ancient Irish beliefs to connect with my heritage and literally everything got destroyed by the Christians. Thanks for asking him!)

(Also I promise I’m not ghosting I’m happy to start I’ve just been on the struggle bus the past couple days lol)

(No prob! It's fun to chat about this stuff; he's got a lot of cool input. We're a pair of nerds)

Rana and Lia both settled in, to varying degrees. Rana spent most of her free time in the library. Lia took every opportunity she could to play board or card games when anyone at all offered to teach her, and had recently taken an interest in the medic, Sera. She seemed like a supremely cool lady and Lia was fascinated, though too shy to approach her.