"I don't want her to spend her talents on conquest. I just - also note that we don't have anything particularly useful to do, here."

"She could fight vampires but - not when she's, what, ten?"

"Eleven. She's not expecting to go out and rearrange the world tomorrow, you understand, but she won't be very impressed by circumstances that don't prepare her for it.

" - also she's a werewolf? I'm - not sure she'd want me to tell you that, but it seems difficult to hide, if she does end up staying."

"That does complicate things somewhat although she could have a bunch of werewolf friends."

"I have absolutely no idea how much that thought would appeal to her, sorry."

"Did you - want to go out and change the world?"

"I was not really someone who - wanted very many things, when I was her age.

"I feel like - I keep being handed things I didn't ask for, and growing to love them, and having them torn away, and then I have to figure out whether to hold onto them as hard as I can or to attempt to find something else to put in the resulting emptiness. And often I'm not sure how to do either one very well."

Nod.

Sigh.

"It's - unpleasant feeling like I used to be valuable, at all, and - I can still feed the baby, now, but I can't do much else. Not to complain about it, just - "

"Cassie was saying we should get people who study medieval English and Norwegian looped in. They'd probably be delighted."

" - that would be nice. I know I - thought that living at Rána's court would be horrible. And then I met his father and decided that it would probably be bearable after all, even if we did have to spend all night there."

"That's not the reaction he usually provokes. Okay. Linguists. And maybe you can teach Beowulf at the school here once you learn a bit more English."

" - maybe. If people would be interested. Maybe I would like that."

"Knowing some linguists I think many of them would give their right arm to speak to a native speaker of the languages they study from incomplete written records."

"Then I would be delighted to speak with them."

"We'll get it set up."

She heads back into her house to find Rána.

"Other you says he's going to find some linguists for me to talk to. Apparently they have records of the languages I speak, but they're not very complete."

"Oh good! That sounds like it'll be good for you."

"Yeah, I think so. I'm sorry we don't have a lot here for you."

"It's not an accident. But - I'll be fine."

Nod. Hug.

She can wait to talk to the linguists.

That was a good idea, he told Karen. Cheered her up substantially.

Oh good.

Less sure what the kids need now.

Yeah. Uh, they don't seem as angry as they were, but they don't seem any happier either, really.