"Different people disagree about which ones of them exist. For Christians it means - I want my children to worship God and be granted eternal life in heaven for it, but the Emperor cares about what Scandinavians think and the Scandinavians want everyone to worship their gods. Because they think it's right, I suppose, though the Emperor doesn't even believe in them himself."

"So - if you worship God enough then he comes for you when you die and repays you? Do the Scandinavians think their gods will repay them too?"

"I think they think their gods sometimes favor them in battle. ...which is admittedly not inconsistent with their recent military history. In Scandinavian stories you mostly get to go to the best afterlives if you die in battle."

" - huh, so, the more people they have doing favors for their gods, the more their gods repay them with victories in battles, which lets them force more people to worship their gods?"

" - I hadn't really put that together, but I guess that makes sense. If you believe in the norse gods."

"- I guess if you can't sense debt you wouldn't know if the people you were doing favors for even existed. Right. Huh."

"Yeah.

"I don't know whether there are - beings, of some kind, that the Scandinavians are really paying tribute to. I know that if they are real they seem much more horrible than God. God is - you can't ever really pay him back, it's just, when you die, if you were good and tried to serve him as best you could, he'll take you home? And he doesn't demand human sacrifices, he had his son be a sacrifice to pay back everything we've done wrong, so that we wouldn't ever have to."

He seems to spend a while trying to come up with a parsing of that which makes sense to him. After a few minutes he nods. 

"I should feed the children and get some sleep, I think."

"Sleep well."

"Thank you."

She feeds her children and sings them to sleep. She doesn't feel like she absolutely needs more snuggles, so she doesn't ask, just goes down to sleep by herself. 

He goes out looking for more food, comes back a little while later, and falls asleep next to her.

She is very happy to discover this when she wakes up. She will maybe eat something and feed her baby and then keep resting here with her until he's awake.

"- 's a field of flowers with the smallest sort of paths, to our south a while. Thought we could eat there and then keep walking."

"That sounds good."

It turns out that the way you eat from flowers with the tiniest of paths is the same way bees do it; you walk right up the slender stalks in the center of the flower and lick the nectar out of them. 

It's sweet. She likes it. Ingolfr really likes it, especially since he hasn't had anything at all sweet since they came to fairyland.

He seems pleased with himself and collects some sticky stalks to carry as they walk and then asks if she'd like him to scoop up Ingolfr and herds them out again for another day walking.

She would like this. 

She's feeling better today. She successfully lets him know when she's starting to be in any real pain, this time, and when they should start looking for places to rest.

How about this bird's corpse, it has very soft feathers.

That's kind of slightly suspect? But yeah, OK, if it doesn't smell yet. It is very soft.

It does not smell. It's so cozy.

OK.

....snuggles?

Yeah.

"Is kissing okay if it's not foreplay?"

"I think... I might like that? If you won't be upset if it turns out it's not - "