Northstar Vale you and me and the devil makes three

Thank you for the thread.

Apologies for any unwanted assumptions.

Before the cub had time to respond, the songbird launched into her tale. “For a good story, pikku kipinä,” she began, “you need a hero, a foe, and a journey.” She made examples of a few of these. There was Grayday the Skyslayer, a mottled gray wolf who had singlehandedly used his cunning and his brawn to conquer a winding spire upon which giant ravens roosted, each of them taller than three wolves standing atop each other’s shoulders. There was Dagfinn the Adventurous and the demon bull who had chased him for five days and five nights — she’d embellished it since sharing it with Birk, because Dagfinn could have done it. She was sure of it. And she wasn’t lying if she was sure it was true, right? There were Deirdre and Emaleth — sisters as unlike one another as they could be, but two sides of the same coin — who had risen above the Donnelaith fire in the form of smoke and water, creating a deluge that washed the sequoias clean and renewed.

Lastly, Lotte created a story just for the girl before her, inviting her to fill in details as she saw fit. She asked the girl’s favorite time of day and used it, set the scene on a mountain, and told the story of a young wanderer with dark fur and bright eyes and a fiery temperament that belied her cool exterior. “If you do not like it,” she said when she’d finished, “you can choose your own monster, change the time of day, change the place you find yourself in.” She smiled invitingly. “It is your own story, and you have all the control, pikku peloton.” The restlessness came for her again then, and she rose. “I am for home, young hero,” she said, almost exactly as she’d said to the frostbitten wolf near the hot springs. “I wish you well. Should you have need of aid — outside of those you already know — you may look to the northern coast.”