"I am... somewhat less confident that they'll come back in a timely manner if they're all over there."

"Won't they get hungry?"

"They're rather stubborn. And there are farms to raid, though I doubt they'll raid them efficiently."

"Should we go after them?"

"Probably. I'll get the baby?"

"All right." And he rolls his sleeves up and down and pulls his hood over his head and follows Vigdis.

She gets the baby and motions for Ingolfr to follow.

The kids have determined that they can't move people or man-made objects. They're not particularly hard to find; they're hanging out in Vigdis's room complaining loudly to each other about the complete and total unfairness of their circumstances.

Since he is nearly invisible and Catherine is not he reports this.

"We could... bring them some food, or something? I'm not actually sure whether giving them a few days to get tired is better or worse than having admitted to following them. I didn't really plan for figuring out how to convince them that things are all right here while in the process of, uh, planning to get their preferred parent killed."

"We should've discussed it earlier, I hadn't thought it possible until he mentioned it. - will being hungry for a few days harm them?"

"A bit, but nothing serious, I don't think. And I wasn't actually planning to get my niece stuck here, but if we're going to capture her father I don't know what's in her interests anymore."

"She could try to conquer the country once he's gone?"

"She's a girl. She can fight, but she can't rule, not except under extremely unusual circumstances. If she could he'd be planning to be her, not to marry her.

"....I suppose it's probably a very good thing that my sons are going to be presumed dead, otherwise there's at least a remote chance that one of them could inherit someday."

"So then they can't go back, really, even if they want to."

"The boys can't, no. Not really. Not if we're going to do this, and I think that we probably should.

"...my niece is probably still better served being able to make some kind of mark in the world than being forced to live in the woods away from it, though. I think. I wish I hadn't given her so many reasons to dislike me, but if I were in her position I think I'd want to stand a chance of changing things somehow."

"I could go in there and tell her it'd be a personal favor if she feeds your children, and tell her how to do that, and that once we're even she'll slow down again, if she wants that."

Nod. "Yeah. I think that's - probably better than keeping her. And I'd like to leave her on - somewhat friendly terms, I guess, if that's possible."

"'m still not good at people. But that's what I'd be least annoyed about if it were me."

Nod. "I think she'll appreciate being given a way to - deal with all of this."

He pulls down his hood and goes back to Vigdis's room.

"Niece of Catherine's?"

"Present, not really taking audiences right now but I guess if you're quick about it."

"If you want to slow down again and rejoin your society, we have to be even, no debt. That's not very hard, it's just a couple of questions's worth. I am telling you that I'll consider it a personal favor if you arrange for Catherine's children to stay fed. You can interact with food while it's growing, but not once humans or their tools have harvested it. The smart thing to do is to follow one of the paths that looks like it's going somewhere small, and then eat the food while you're small; you'll still be fed when you're fully sized, and you won't run out so quickly. A couple of days of that and you should be out of debt and drop out of this realm, do you understand me?"

"Yeah, all right, got it."

He leaves.