Summary:Halgrim reunited with an old friend. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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*
Halgrim comes back to New York not long after the commune falls and he's freed from the geas, because now in Sweden it's just his nieces and nephews, who are already in their 70s. Their children and grandchildren don't know him as who he really is (their great grand-uncle; ha, what a thing to be!), just as a 'friend of the family'. If he bears a striking resemblence to their grandmother and grandfather's middle brother who disappeared, well, maybe he's a relation on some distant arm of the family. He, Sigrún, and Joakim had decided that would be the ideal solution, in the long run, and their children (his nieces and nephews) have agreed to it, as much as it breaks their hearts to know he's losing his own family by dint of staying alive.
He comes back to Leland, who is dying. One more thing the commune took from him. He's never going to forgive them, he thinks. But Leland has never doubted Halgrim would come back, even as death waited patiently for his mutant body to give out, and Halgrim does have a few days with him. Enough time to give him a gift: a small shop, above which Halgrim's old things have been kept in storage. It's not much, as real estate prices in New York have gone wild, but Leland was careful and made sure to keep the small building through the years. Now it all belongs to one Stellan Tjäder, whom Halgrim has a passport for with a photograph of himself.
And here he is, back in New York, almost exactly like he arrived in 1964: alone, cut off from his family, wounded by the decisions of others, with a furious spirit lurking in his heart. So little about his circumstances has changed in 54 years that it makes him want to scream.
*
Leland was a young man struggling with his identity as queer and mutant and Jewish, when Halgrim met him. He had needed someone to show him the way, and Halgrim does that for him. They became fast friends, Halgrim sponsoring him into college, Leland assisting him with finds.
Then Halgrim vanished. Leland tried to search for him, to no avail. He always mourned the loss of his friend.
By the time Halgrim returns to New York, Leland's cancer no longer responds to treatment. It's eating him alive, but in many ways he never stopped being that young man. He asks Halgrim for his blessing before he passes. "What could it hurt?" he whispers, humor dancing in his eyes despite the pain, despite the death waiting for him. Halgrim returning to him at the end of his life; it's something he hadn't dared hope for. "God understands a man's got to hedge his bets."
And soon after, Leland was gone, and seventy-four years of Jewish, queer, mutant, American history with him. He left Halgrim memories and the things he'd held for him down the decades.
While Leland's household prepares to sit shiva for him, another old friend of Halgrim's picks up a discarded newspaper blowing into an alley.
50 Year Anniversary: Central Park Cryptid, Monster of New York, More!
*
They've seen her a handful of times, and once Leland passes it's all Halgrim can so to keep the two of them from going wild in the streets, furious with grief. It would be so easy to do; the druids taught them how to lash out with extreme violence in a way little can react to in time.
Halgrim's been working hard to train them out of that, but it's a bone deep instinct after decades of battle. So he does what Stephen Strange recommended to him all those years ago, if with far better control than Halgrim had at the time: he lets her have the reins, and they go out into Central Park. The Green Heart, as she calls it, if not nearly so quiet and green as it once was. There's more noise, more light, more everything.
She hates it. At least she's far more stealthy than she used to be; one of the druids' 'gifts'. (Really, something they forced the two of them to learn, so they could kill better.) It serves her well, now, in this new age, where the shadows are thinner and fewer. She moves in the darkness, surveying the Park's night life. There are still deer, and coyotes, and of course, the raccoons. Some of them greet her. Perhaps they've passed down stories over the years; it seems like a thing they might do.
Occasionally someone sees her. A homeless person, someone out doing their after-dark deals, people going to and from their third shift jobs. They see those huge yellow eyes skulking in the dark and they remember the stories told by old retired cops about those handful of years in the early 60s when everyone swore there was a monster in Central Park the likes of which no one had ever dreamed.
Tonight she's at the watering hole, hunched in a large smoke bush, watching a pair of deer drink. She's not hungry for them, just watching. Sometimes humans come to defile the pond, and she runs them off. It's a small task to give herself after all that she's done, but one that needs doing.
*
Adam has heard the rumors, fresh and new after fifty years. There was a monster in Central Park, and it wasn't him.
Could it be her? He cannot let himself hope, even as he travels the tunnels towards the park. Others of the underfolk, the monsters and Morlocks, whisper greetings or offer nods as he passes. He's made those tunnels his home and his territory. He's fought for them. Bled, needed repairs, almost died for them. He, the Monster, the creature of the night whose existence was spurned by his own creator, has come to know a home. Like many other New Yorkers, this home is far from his native soil, and yet the only one he has.
Adam pushes aside a manhole cover, perhaps the same one he'd needed to dump Halgrim into on that long-ago Fourth of July, and pulls himself out. He sets it back into place, and checks that his hood and cloak conceal him.
She always liked cover. He'll check in the deepest areas of the park, the least trafficked. She will be as far from humankind as she can get.
*
The deer drink placidly, unaware of Fjorskar's presense. This goes on for some time, undisturbed, until there's a pop! and something kicks up a small bit of ground next to one of the deer. They deer both flee in the blink of an eye, launching in great bounds into the trees.
Two young men, one short and skinny and pale with long, limp blond hair and the other average height, solid, and red haired, come staggering off the main path. The blond one has a BB gun.
"Damn it," the red head yells. "You fucking missed! There goes my lunch tomorrow."
"Fucking…lunch, man you can't even cook a fucking, hot dog, like you're gonna…whatever it's called, a deer?"
"Skin it? How fucking hard could it be?"
They're plainly drunk, both walking with the unsteady grace of those who've had enough to be a menace but not nearly enough to pass out. They stagger to a bench by the pond and flop into it, laughing and drinking from two cans; the plastic ring the red head carries has two more beers left.
From her spot in the bushes, Fjorskar begins to growl, low and soft. They're too drunk to notice.
*
Adam's great head comes up, hearing the pop. He knows the sound. When drunk male voices speak up, he prowls towards them. The sound of gunfire, even small, and the sound of drunken men? Always trouble. Always.
Idiots. They couldn't have killed a deer with the BB gun, but they could have wounded one and left it to die from infection. Wastrels. Contempt rises in Adam's breast.
He melts out from the darkness. His voice rolls from within the hood of his cloak, deep as a glacial crevasse, just as cold and dangerous. "The word is 'butcher'. It is harder than you think."
*
Just before Adam speaks the red head turns and looks behind them, scanning the bushes. "Hey did you hear something?"
The blond sees and hears Adam, and his eyes just about pop out of his head. He fumbles the BB gun trying to aim it and shoot. "Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh SHIT!"
Red head turns, saying, "What? Wh — fuck it's a mutie!"
"It's talking to us!"
The flail their way off the bench and back away from Adam, towards the bush where Fjorskar crouches. She's not making a sound, now, because her eyes are fixed on Adam, and she's gone entirely still.
The blond recovers first. "You — you can't just roll up on us and, and, start talking like that outta nowhere, man!"
Red head tries not to look directly at Adam, not under any circumstances. "Fuck, look at him, Jesus."
"Kinda tryin' not to…"
*
No matter how low Adam's opinion of men, they always manage to make it lower. "Will you shoot, and add to your crimes?" His ice-pale eyes stare at the blonde man.
He moves. Charging towards the thin blonde, he snatches him up by the shirt front with one hand and relieves him of the gun with the other. Holding up the gun to make them look at it, he crushes it in his hand. Then he tosses the man none-too-gently to the ground.
"Run, fools!" he growls at them.
*
The blond's scream wavers as Adam lifts him; he outright sobs when Adam crushes the gun and tosses him. He tries to get up, clawing at the ground, making to follow his friend the red head. Instead he collides with the red head, who had turned to flee into the bushes, and run into something, and is now slowly backing out.
"Oh fuck," he whispers, his voice a whimper. "It's — it's real — Jack — "
Jack gets to his feet, and stumbles back towards Adam. It's Fjorskar that the red head has run into, and now she's moving forward, melting out of the dark, red-purple leaves like a shadow-beast coalescing out of darkness.
"Oh shit," Jack whispers, unable to move.
She's the same overall size and shape as when Adam last saw her, but there are subtle differences. Her eyes have a faint greenish cast to their baleful yellow glow, and there are a handful of scars on her flanks and back; they disrupt the flow of the scales covering her torso, sometimes in long, thin lines and sometime in short, jagged chunks. The great scar along her chest remains, however, as does the gleaming, wine red stone at her neck.
For the moment she only has eyes for the humans who came to despoil the pond. Her lip trembles, pulls back from her silvery teeth, and she starts to growl. The too is different; of course her growl had always been deep and threatening, but there's a new undertone to it, a sound meant to stir deep fears and make an enemy seriously doubt their commitment to battle.
"God, damnit," the red head says. He grabs Jack by the arm and takes one step back, another, and another, until he's fleeing headlong past the meadow, dragging Jack in fits and starts.
*
It's Adam whose eyes go wide, now. He pulls in a breath, enormous hands dropping open in a gesture of surprise and vulnerability. "Fjorskar."
He hadn't expected her to materialize just when he went looking for her, and yet, here she is! The two humans vanish from Adam's mind. Lucky for them.
"My sister," he says, reaching out to her, uncertain. Those scars. The new note in her growl. The fact that it's been fifty years since Halgrim disappeared and Adam and Constantine could not find him. "My sister, it is you?" Adam's voice shivers with emotion.
Himself, he has not changed visually. The body parts he'd needed have grown to become a part of him; if his stitching is different in some places, it's difficult to tell. His skin is still corpse-white with unpleasing undertones of green and black. His hair is still hip length, jet black and vibrant, almost more alive than the rest of him. And of course, his face, as terrible as it's ever been, a face that makes mortals scream in their sleep.
*
Fjorskar's enemies flee, and she watches them, eyes wild with the desire to follow. It takes everything Halgrim has to stop her from hurtling after the two drunkards. The lessons of the war scrabble for purchase in their mind. Let none leave the field of battle without feeling my teeth at their throat —
No! Stop it. They're idiots, not worth bothering with and besides, there's —
Adam says their name, and Fjorskar drags her eyes off those retreating shapes that beg every instinct to run them down, and forces herself to look at Adam. It's much easier to stop thinking about killing enemies when she's regarding a friend. Or someone who once was one, might still be, or may become one again. She's uncertain; no matter that the years under the commune's geas had been (by her own measure) short, they'd felt much longer. In this, more than anything else: they'd cost her friendships she's held quite dear. (If she comes across a member of the commune there's no way she'll allow the host to hold them back. They'll be slaughtered without mercy. It will happen as easily and quickly as they draw breath.)
Adam reaches for they, and Fjorskar lets him, huge black feathers fluffed out as she wrestles with the maelstrom churning inside her. "Brother," she snarls, low and soft. Another change: though still not a language meant for this body, her pronunciation is significantly improved, far less hesitant.
*
Adam embraces Fjorskar. Risky, yet he can do nothing else. He might take a wound, or several, for it. Worth it, if he does. Long, powerful arms wrap around Fjorskar's ruff. Adam says, voice quavering, "My sister," and cool tears streak down his face. "I thought you and he were lost to me forever."
*
Fjorskar doesn't reject the hug, no doubt another sign of how she's changed. For certain prior to their vanishing she would have left a gouge in ''some'' part of Adam. Maybe just his forearm, if she was feeling generous.
Now she doesn't. She's not exactly cuddly; she's stiff and uncertain about this gesture. Yet the host is there in her mind, assuring her this is normal, this is fine. She listens, because their packbrother is invaluable to both of them, and if there's anyone with whom she doesn't want to misstep, it's him. She snarls, soft and low.
"They took us," she growls as she endures the hug. "Bound us. We could not speak. Could not draw. Could barely think. Your names, to call for you." The snarl rises, falls off. "We were their weapon. Nothing more." A heavy sigh that stirs Adams hair. "If we could kill them all. We would."
*
Adam doesn't need repairs for his presumption, and he is grateful. He lets Fjorskar go, in order to cradle her enormous head in both his hands. He looks into her eyes. He keeps it brief, knowing her instincts rile at prolonged eye contact, but his need to do it is so powerful. The news that Halgrim and Fjorskar have been captives, worse than captives — enslaved — makes that ancient anger rise in him again.
"Who?" His voice is low and menacing. "Who did this to you."
*
What were once baleful yellow eyes are now tinged with a hint of green, the green of Halgrim's own eyes. It's unsettling in its own way, calling to mind a whole different fury and rage than the old color. Her teeth bare further and the growl deepens until Adam looks away, though neither reaciton is directed at him per se. She's been forced to lean into these instincts far too hard, and they come without warning sometimes.
"Life shapers." She says the phrase the same way she might say 'world shaper'. Her eyes flick to his for a moment as she realizes the distinction between them and her usual term for a mage might not be obvious. "They are like, and not like, the world shapers. They are the children of what…He was." The shade that may very well still be lurking in some corner of her heart. "They do not all agree on how…to shape, and bind, the life energy of the world. Or its children. They have always squabbled." A low snarl. "Like teething whelps. But now their squabble has become a battle for supremacy. A war. And like all human wars. There are lesser weapons. And greater ones." Her eyes flit to him briefly. "To create a being such as us is beyond their ken. So they take, what they cannot build."
*
"He. The madman." Adam straightens, warily scanning over what he can see of the park. "They took you and they used you. How did they bind you? How did you escape?" It's so relieving to be able to speak with Fjorskar in something much clearer than he was used to. Now he can be sure he understands her, understands what she wants to tell him. Adam interrupts himself to turn back to the great chimerical beast. "Come to the tunnels. When you're safe, we can talk then."
*
Fjorskar growls, heavy and furious, to even ''think'' of the geas. She swats at her neck, feeling it again, shakes her head. Oh how the shade had taunted them under the geas, like the cage before. They'd be mad now if not for one another.
It takes her a moment to regain her composure, ears pinned and feathers rippliing with emotion. "Yes," she agrees. "The tunnels. And the host, he will wish…to speak with you." She shouldn't keep Adam all to herself, much as she wouldn't mind spending several days in his presence. It's soothing, to be reunited with one from before the war; a reminder of far better times, and that she's far from that nightmare, at least for the moment.
"Yes," she repeats, starting for the entrance she's most familiar with. She pauses. "Are the places the same?" The whole of the Mother has changed radically, it would be foolish to hope her old home in this place hasn't as well.
*
Adam considers his answer. "Not all. Your old place, however. Yes. I have kept it the same." For it was the only way he had left to pretend Halgrim might one day come home. "Come. I will show you."
He puts one hand on her feathered ruff, gentle. "You remember the way."
The way is the same. The Monster Metropolis is different, fuller — the Sentinel disaster has driven many more people underground, and many of them did not see any reason they should return to the surface. If the humans sent Sentinels against them once, there was every chance they'd do it again. Whether it was legal or not. The building is better, with alien metals and plastics, and LED lights everywhere.
Halgrim's shack is exactly the way he left it, true to the Monster's word.
*
And so it is that Fjorskar has missed one war for another. The fact that they weren't here to defend their family, their pack, only makes her hate the commune more. Maybe one day she will ask her packbrother to hunt them with her. Make them pay. All of them. Every last one.
For now she surveys the Metropolis, so different and still the same. A few younger monsters gaze in surprise as Adam returns with something as large as he is. A handful of the very oldest remember her; some raise their hands in a gesture of greeting, others hold their breath. The hulking beast they'd told stories of has come back after all these decades.
She approaches the little shack slowly, regarding it warily. An old den goes fallow, and she expects to smell the same emptiness here, yet doesn't. Her packbrother has kept it alive, and the memories that flood her are intense. She sniffs at the futon, gazes at the brittle, aged, crayon drawing of herself hung on one wall, toys with some of Halgrim's (their) effects on the ramshackle desk with her gleaming claws. Artifacts of a previous life.
She turns to face Adam. "Thank you for keeping this den." Not, perhaps, that she should need to thank a packmate for doing what they should do, but she's long since accepted that the bitter truth that the world of man's customs are not the wild's.
*
Adam hesitates, out of surprise. It's not that Fjorskar has never thanked him before, although such times are few. It's that she clearly feels the need.
Kneeling just outside the shack (it can't hold them both), he says, "I could do nothing else," tone soft, settling on the truth rather than human-style courtesy. "I have missed you. Yes. Missed you greatly. You and he, when you disappeared, we could not find you. I feared — many things." Tears are threatening again, and he doesn't stop them. These tears honor his friend, his packmate. "It is more than I hoped for, to see you again, whole in body."
*
Fjorskar trembles to see Adam's tears, furious at all the things that have happened in these decades. To them, to their packbrother, to the fledglings (now dead, dead, oh she blames the commune for that too, that they were robbed of those few short years of their lives), to the Mother whom they fail to protect in their petty war. To this odd place which is not green but is still a home. It's like coming out of the cage all over again. The fear, the pain, the hopelessness. All their fault. All of it.
She settles after a few seconds. If Adam's reaction is to cry, hers is to rage. It comes so naturally she doesn't know what else she could do, save for howl. (And she won't do that to these her den mates, this her packbrother.) "We will always return, if we may."
Her head half-turns, eyes going unfocused. She bares her teeth, regards Adam again. "The host, would speak with you." She knows full well she can't keep Adam all to herself.
It doesn't occur to her to explain how this aspect of things has changed. She's too used to them needing to shift very swiftly, with little time to consider it. The process is still draining for the host, but at least other issues have been addressed. So when she hunches down over that wine red stone and her form blurs, becomes indistinct, and reshapes, Halgrim appears fully clothed. It's his usual sort of attire with a modern take: a dark blue Henley, black jeans, hiking boots. He's disoriented at first, staring around himself, but it only takes him a moment to lock onto Adam. "Adam," he says, voice breaking.
*
Adam lets the tears fall. They harm nothing. Even they do him some good, a little draining of the vasty deep of his heart. Kneeling there, he looks at Fjorskar and weeps without sound, without motion, only the tears. "I know you will."
He nods, when she says 'the host' will come out, but there's more surprises in store. The shift is fast! Before Adam can quite realize that it's happening, there is Halgrim. Right there, in front of him, the man he feared he would never see again. And then, Adam just scoops him in, embracing him with long, long arms wrapped around him, against his massive cool chest. He bends his head to Halgrim's, the great curtain of his hair sweeping down around him. "Halgrim. My soul sings to have you in my arms again."
*
Halgrim laughs and cries at the same time. He frames Adam's ugly, mishapen face with his hands. "I didn't — I didn't dare hope you'd — still be here. Gods I was so afraid to come and look, I couldn't bear the thought it would be empty, destroyed. I couldn't stand to see it all gone, and I thought…after what I read, about the machines…" He sighs, ducks his head in regret for his own fears keeping him away even a single day longer.
He stays like that a time, curled into Adam. He is, despite all logic, physically the same. Or nearly so; there's a touch more white in his hair and his beard, but nothing like there should be for a 95 year old man. He's not aging anymore, and it couldn't be more obvious.
After a moment, he says, "Oh, gods, Adam they're all dead. The…" The ones who weren't like Adam, or John, or Stephen Strange. The mutants.
*
"Not with I, and the Doctor, and Constantine." Adam's hands are each half the size of Halgrim's torso, and he uses them to good effect to just hold the hell out of him. Adam can kneel here, holding Halgrim, for most of eternity, so he's in no rush. "We paid for the privilege. Constantine most of all. He is not named the Saint of Last Resorts for the drama of the thing.
"Immortality," he says. The one word is steeped in grief and rage. "That we go on, for no reason other than it is our nature, and others do not. The curse takes time to land home, yet inevitably, it does."
He shifts a little, only a little, to get a better look at Halgrim. "You are coming up on a century, yes?" One finger, ever so careful, brushes over the white in Halgrim's hair. "Our sister preserves you."
*
"Not with us," Halgrim agrees, tired and sad. An august company which he'd never had designs on joining. He supposes he can't be surprised, though; she's an ageless spirit, after all. And after what the commune did, binding them together even tighter than they already were, it's no surprise the last dregs of his mortality have left him. He thinks, for a moment, of all those years under the geas. "We do pay, don't we." He clears his throat, scrubs at his face. "Can you believe people used to search for this sort of thing? The Fountain of Youth, and all that? Fucking ridiculous." He manages a weak smile, even.
"A curse indeed," he says, voice low. "I suppose I might still be able to die — or, my body might. But I wonder if my spirit would remain a part of her." He frowns, thinking it over. That's a question for Constantine and Strange, perhaps. It's beyond his ken; the commune hadn't been foolish enough to teach Fjorskar or her host a lick of magic.
"Ninety-five this September 1st," he confirms. "Not bad, hm? Though I could wish for less white in my hair, I suppose…I wonder if I should grow it back out." He leans against Adam, exhausted. "I have so much to tell you," he says. "I wanted so badly to find a way to reach out to you, and John, and Stephen, but…they bound us with a geas." He reaches up, rubbing reflexively at his neck. "We couldn't speak, or read, or hear your names…couldn't barely think them."
*
Adam never used to sink into physical affection like this. His own curse keeps most sane folk at well over arm's-length. Over the years, he's learned to accept that nobody wants to touch him. Tonight, he can only revel in the feel of Halgrim against him. He wishes he knew how to better share his joy, or that he was better capable of it.
"Your hair, less white? I think the young men and women will find it most fetching." Adam never says that kind of thing flirtatiously, and he doesn't now, either. Nope, only facts. "It becomes you admirably."
The geas — he goes tense in the subtlest of fashions. "She mentioned that you were bound. Her powers of speech are much more formidable." The old bloodthirst bubbles to life in Adam's belly; he represses letting it show. "We almost had a proper conversation. Will you tell me more? If not now, then another time?"
*
If Halgrim minds the affection, there's no sign of it. He's glad to have someone he knows be alive and well (or as well as Adam might be), though it's not just that. The years among the commune and their war have shown him many strange and hideous and wonderous things. Adam's ugly countenance is more a variation in the world to him now than it was before.
"Will they?" he muses, tugging a small length down and eyeing it critically. "Mmm, perhaps. I suppose it wouldn't be much better to be cursed young. Imagine, looking twnety-five your whole life. No one taking you seriously, not even for a moment, because after three hundred years you're still fresh-faced and inexperienced looking." He shakes his head. "This is better," he agrees. "Though, young — ulch, Adam, now they're all too yooung." Truly an immortal's lament.
Of Fjorskar's improved communication skills, he says, "They, ah, required it." He rubs at his eyes. "They needed her to be able to communicate, when she was…" He stops. No, he's not ready to talk about that. "And they refused to remove the other binding. So they drilled her on speaking a great deal. I fully expect her to unlearn it out of spite, though if you encourage her she might be inclined to keep it up for you."
Another soft sigh. "I don't know…how ready I am, to talk about the rest. About the war." He covers his face. "Gods, Adam, it was so ugly."
*
Amusement rumbles low in Adam's chest, like earth shifting. "All are young to us now, my friend. Ahh, I do not begrudge her the unlearning, although it was quite pleasant to be sure I understood her." His amusement fades, at Halgrim's distress. "Then we will not talk of it. When you are ready; only then." Adam curls a little closer around Halgrim, pulls his cloak around him to warm him. "Whatever you wish to tell me, I will hear, and you need not fear for my exposure to ugliness. I am well-acquainted."
He says it that way to make Halgrim smile, or at least, he hopes that Halgrim will smile. "You said you had much to tell me, besides."
The long-buried well of grief opens again within Adam and he bends his head to Halgrim's, to press his cool lips among the curly hair. "We searched for you long. We were obliged to turn from the search to carry on our guardianship, but oh, I mourned. I mourned."
*
"Oh, they already were young, Adam, now they're…" Just children, Halgrim thinks and doesn't say. But then many of them had been already. Oh, how painful it had been, to see Leland an aged man, dying in his bed from an illness mankind had yet to conquer, and still know he remained two decades his senior. How was it said — no parent should live to see their own children pass. How keenly he understood now that this was life as someone who didn't age, in a nutshell.
The phrasing does draw a small laugh from Halgrim; he nods, sniffs as he knockles down on tears. "I will, when, ah…when I can bear to think of it. I don't know that word will spread of the current status, they were secretive about it. They didn't want the likes of Stephen interfering." He wipes a little at his face. "It's alright, I…I knew you wouldn't be able to look forever. I'm honored you did. I could only hope I would eventually find a way to escape."
He sighs, truly exhausted now. "Yes, ah…Leland kept my things. He left me a spot in a nice building, actually, nothing fancy but it'll work as a shop front and it has an apartment. I'd never be able to afford to live here otherwise, rent's become egregious. And I have my father and mother's collection. Well, most of it, I let my grand nieces and nephews take a few things. I was thinking of asking John to sort out a way for me to have access to the University. We could even use my proper name, at 95 I could be Emeritus Faculty…"
*
"Leland. The young mutant of whom you and she were so fond. He is gone, then." One of Adam's hands clenches into a fist, slow. "He and the other young ones. They were taken from you along with all else."
Murder whispers in his heart. Those who did this to Halgrim will pay with their lives, and with more, if Adam can make it happen.
Later. They'll talk about it later. Halgrim needs rest, not plotting revenge. At least, not yet.
"It's not all right," he murmurs, "but…it is what happened." He falls quiet for a moment. "John will be pleased to see you. Insofar as he is ever pleased with anything."
*
"Yes," Halgrim murmurs, sad and quiet. It exhausts him to think of it. "I…" He takes in a shuddering breath. "They eventially allowed me to see my family. In Uppsala, it was how they convinced me not to take the," he swallows, "most obvious and extreme course of action. I suspect they must have had some way to prevent that from getting back to John, though I've no idea how." He doesn't want to contemplate it, since the notion that magic was used on his family members is nauseating at best.
Fjorskar stirs in his heart. Later, he reminds himself. Later.
"I'll be very pleased to see him, even if he's not pleased to see me," he admits with a weary smile. "I've missed all of you, even him." Ah, a little of the old Halgrim there. "And, I may yet have a task for him to help me with. As generous as Leland was, I am still almost 96 years old and looking not half that. It's a problem, in terms of paperwork."