"Yeah. I feel bad that we made a mess of it and now we don't know how it's going to go. We didn't - fail, exactly, we just didn't leave everything all neatly sorted out."

"I suppose it makes sense that destroying an empire wouldn't be that much simpler than conquering a court."

"It was a very ambitious goal to set. I'm glad you tried, though."

Hug. "We'll see where he's at now, and then decide, I guess."

Snuggle. "Yeah. And decide what to do with the not-emperor, I guess."

"He could speed up his family? That'd take his sons off the table as candidate heirs, too, right?"

" - yeah, I guess it would. We probably don't all want to be eating out of the same areas, but we could speed them up and then he could either head a long ways away and stay fast or head a long ways away and slow down and just - not mention to anybody where he was from, I can't think how he'd inherit then. And eventually if the Empire fell and the emperor died it might even be safe for them to head back to Denmark."

"Hey human are you listening -"

He's eating something a ways away from them. "No, sorry, what is it?"

"What do you say we speed up your wife and your children and you all go lie low somewhere? If you claim the empire of Scandinavia again you probably get possessed again but as long as you don't, you shouldn't."

Nod. "Where do you figure?"

"I don't really know the area. You could probably stay in Norway as long as you're fast. Or if you'd rather be slow again you could go anywhere people won't recognize you."

Nod. "I think I'd rather not deal with fairies forever. But we could find somewhere, yes."

"That's fair, I don't like dealing with fairies very much either." He turns back to Catherine. "Okay, I guess that's our plan."

"I like this plan. I feel like we will have accomplished something at least kind of definitively."

"Oh good."

Aww he's so good. She's so glad she married him. She's going to kiss him without him even having already decided that it's time for that. 

Technically this makes the kisses count the other way but apparently when you are married you don't worry about that. 

You don't worry about it at all, no.

It takes another month to reach Akershus, where Dyre's wife and children have remained. There's no sign of the emperor. 

"Is this where he would've been? Where the duke of whatever is?"

"Nope, he'd be across a bunch of mountains. But the emperor's been in him for a month, if that's where he is, I don't know whether he's still where he would have been. And if he were going to travel anywhere I'd expect him to have picked either here or the castle he was staying at in Sweden. Assuming he didn't immediately go off in search of other fairies."

"I guess probably to be responsible we should seek out other fairies and ask. But let's help the not-emperor first. Does he wanna leave a note or something?"

He'd like to leave a note, yeah, if they have useable paper and ink.

They still have some of that, yeah.

Then he can leave his wife a note and tell her to bring their children to the fairy ring. This is kind of a weird thing to tell someone to do, but hopefully she'll recognize his signature and accept it.