"They're my siblings. Nine, eight, five, two, and two months."

"Do you know whether the older three would want to live with their mom or their dad?"

"That depends on a lot of stuff. Like what I do and what the other world's like and whether it looks like there'll still be any titles to inherit in a few years."

"Do you know what you want to do?"

"I wanna save my aunt and I wanna meet my mom and I wanna defeat my dad, and then I think maybe I want to take over Scandinavia, and then I want to become a wizard."

"Okay. Would you want to live with your aunt and your mom here while you were working on all that?"

"Well it depends on how I'm going to defeat my dad. It might be that I need to stay in Scandinavia so I can make allies, or it might be that the best thing to do is to become a wizard first and defeat him with magic. But people don't like it if you stay away too long and they feel like you're a foreigner."

"You will not be able to use Vanda Nossëo magic to go to war."

"See, that's the sort of thing I need to know before I can tell you where I'm going to have to live. I bet I can do it without going to war, though that makes it harder. It all depends on what my options are, you see?"

She nods. "So your aunt is worried that her children will choose to stay with their father?"

"Well, she's partly worried that they'll want to stay with him, and she's partly worried that they'll come with her but then he'll say that she kidnapped them, and then everyone in Scandinavia will be upset with you because you kidnap royal heirs, and maybe you kidnap lots of children and maybe theirs will be next."

"How many concubines does the Emperor have?"

"Like a dozen I guess? He's had a ton of 'em but he mostly gets bored of them and marries them off pretty fast."

"Then it seems likely some of them will want to leave and he will have this complaint regardless of what your aunt does."

"I guess that's a fair point."

"Do you think your aunt would have other worries if other concubines were already leaving and if her children were excited about living here with her?"

"Well she'll probably say you're all godless heathens, but most of Scandinavia is, too, so I guess she'll come around."

"Is she religious?"

"I guess she's like the most religious person I know. Except for my dad, but I dunno if it counts if you're in charge of your own religion."

"What religion is your aunt? We could maybe arrange to match her with some people who share her religion."

"She's Catholic. D'you have Catholics in Vanda Nossëo? ...d'you have Norse pagans?"

"We have both of those!"

"Huh. I was gonna see which god came out on top, but then I found out I could be a wizard and now I'm gonna follow whatever gods're handing out wizardry."

"....Loki is a Norse god in Earth mythology, right?"

"Yeah. People don't mostly pray to him, though. I think he's pretty neat but I'm not gonna follow him unless he gives me magic."