Northstar Vale you and me and the devil makes three

Lotte was quite taken by the bright-eyed spitfire in spite of — or perhaps because of — her ardent questioning. “Giant puppies,” she affirmed with a mischievous sparkle in her argent eyes. “They rolled onto their backs and chased one another, leaping and diving like a blitz of bluefish in the sea.” She made this reference somewhat ignorantly, for she still hadn’t actually seen a bluefish, but Rouge had warned her that they were dangerous — and in tale-telling, dangerous often meant thrilling and impressive, so she went with the simile. “Some wolves tried to eat it, but the cold was such a shock that their eyes rolled up and their teeth chattered like this.” She tipped her head back and mimed the symptom in question. “Adults can be quite silly — I can be quite silly, as you have seen.” She winked.

When Airi’s laughing face fell into somber, even irritated lines, Lotte’s brow furrowed in concern. Had she said something wrong? She was both relieved and sorrowful that the problem was not with something she’d said but something far less fixable: a distinct lack of excitement regarding her own family’s repertoire of stories and songs. Lotte couldn’t ever remember feeling discontented about her family in any capacity, and she vowed to fill Chusi’s life and the lives of her future children with Arturo with as much laughter and lore as she could stuff in. She fretted inwardly at her great distance from Dagfinn but kept her attention trained wholly on the young girl. “I could give you a story in a song,” she said, wanting to please her, “if you want one, pikku peloton. I will give it to you and show you how to change things as you see fit. That way you can have a new story whenever you like. My idea of a good story might be different from your idea, so you can do as you like with the bones of this one.”