Several months later Bjorns recovery was going great. During that time his body just felt wrong. He felt weak, and unbalanced. Over the course of the last few months his body slowly started to regain what he lost. It started with slowly regaining his strength and moved on to balance. He had no idea how important using his toes and moving his foot mattered to his ability to walk just fine. Now he sort of understood how Meira felt while using a peg leg, though his situation was not nearly as bad.
Also slowly but surely he regained his memories of the night they got attacked by the hag. At first it was a nightmare. Then it was small blurry fragments of memory. All of a sudden one day it was like a dam broke and all of his memories came flooding back. He remembered exactly what happened that night. The one thing that didn't happen was him regaining that sense of purpose to take a life.
Even without the return of that crucial part of the fight it was nice for Bjorn to recover what he had lost. Meira didn't see the return of the part of her husband that would do whatever was needed to keep them safe. That didn't discourage her though, if it happened once, when the need was there he would return once again.
They took it easy over the winter as Bjorn recovered from his injuries. They tried using Meira’s healing magic on Bjorn but as wonderful as the magic was there were apparently things that her magic couldn't just heal. It seemed like all that she was capable of was restoring missing health, not fixing too damaged tissue. Which meant that Bjorn had to live with the loss of function from the frostbite.
Bjorn took the entire thing in stride though. He didn't really complain and just accepted his current lot in life. As such his work around the farm slowed down over the winter. He took his time and reduced the total amount of hours he worked in the day. One thing that was unexpected about the severity of the frost bite he suffered from was that his stamina drained significantly faster than it had. This also contributed to the shorter amount of hours he worked each day. Instead of pushing himself into a bad situation he accepted what he could do.
Even with the reduced hours worked and the reduction in the quality of work done during the same amount of time they finished work on the alchemy huts exterior. There were of course a few other things that needed to be done but it was completed enough to where he finally was able to get a description when he identified the building.
It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was better than he expected it to be. He was happy with the end product. He briefly wondered what determined the effects of the buildings that they were building but there was no definite answer, and to his knowledge now way to get one out here, maybe if he was in Vanta or Blackrock Bay he could get the information he was looking for but a trip just for answers was not going to be worth it.
With the outside of the alchemy hut done he dedicated his time and attention to the interior of the building, he wanted to build counters and cabinets as well as prepare the herb storage room. So he busied himself with doing just that, he wanted to move on to the next major project but decided that it wasn’t possible, or at least probable.
The next thing he wanted to work on was widening the river. On the best of days the water flowed too fast for them to really do anything useful with the river. With him building the walls into the river banks to hold the bridge and stop erosion that was the next major project. There was just 1 slight detail that kind of matter, the ground was frozen so the amount of work that would be needed to widen the river at the moment was not worth it.
Initially he planned on building irrigation channels that ran through their fields but he eventually decided against that. While the crops were growing he and Meira both watered their crops by magic anyways, they were never lacking in the water that they needed. On top of that their magical spell increased the output of their fields. This ultimately made them decide that irrigation channels weren't worth the effort that they would have to put into it.
Instead of wanting irrigation channels Bjorn and Meira came up with another idea for how to harness the river. As it was, Meira had to dedicate several hours each week to grinding down wheat and another plant that they grew called duram to make flour for their bread and other cooking needs. Bjorn had plans to build a waterwheel to harness the power of the river to automate that process for Meira. It would be great for saving her time, but they could also use the waterwheel for many other things. If built correctly they could use it to power a saw to make plank making easier for example.
All of this would have to wait though, as they couldn’t get in to widen the river right now due to how cold it was outside, the winter was starting to turn but the ground was still frozen. With the amount of work that needed to be done this project was going to be a several year type of job anyways. They were only two after all, neither of them were professed builders, or honestly had any idea what they were doing.
One day towards the end of winter Meira pulled Bjorn aside as he was going to go work on the interior of the alchemy workshop. “Hey I have something for you.”
“Oh?” Bjorn asked, his curiosity peaked.
Meira slowly led Bjorn over to the table and sat him down. She walked around behind him and placed her hands on him, one on his shoulder, the other on top of the back of his head.
“What are you doing?” Bjorn asked skeptically. He trusted Meira with his life, but not with unfettered access to his back. She had played enough pranks on him that he didn’t entirely trust what she was doing.
“Hush. I am busy, just sit there for a moment. You will like this I promise.”
Bjorn sat there like a good little boy waiting for Meira to do whatever she was doing. He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to do anything to him, as if she was going to mess with him she would have already. As she stood behind him she was muttering to herself quietly under her breath. Even with his enhanced hearing due to his magically enhanced attributes he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
Eventually she must have figured out what she wanted to do as a powerful glow began to emanate from behind him. He wanted to turn around to see what she was doing but her hands held him steadily in place. The glow lasted a few moments before information began to flood his mind.
After Meira transferred the two spells that she learned from those spell books she stopped. Before when Bjorn’s attributes had been higher in Blackrock Bay two spells was what he could handle. She didn’t want to overload his mind. His mental stats were lower than they had been when the mages taught them spells, which had some unintended side effects.
One of the side effects was that Bjorn's mind took longer to recover from the influx of information. For around 15 minutes he just sat there staring off into space. Meira moved around the table and sat across from him, she grabbed ahold of his hands which had been sitting on the table. When she grabbed his hands there was no real reaction. He had a glassy, thousand yard stare as he sat there.
She was starting to get worried when the barest flicker of a reaction showed on his face. It was nearly an hour before he had recovered from the transfer of information. A half an hour into the recovery Bjorn began to recover his ability to speak.
“What was that?”
“I gained a talent from my mage profession that allows me to teach my spells to anyone who can learn them without needing to be a journeyman in my profession skill. It did warn me that the transfer of information was going to be rougher than if I was a journeyman, but I didn’t realize it would be this bad.”
It took several tries before Bjorn gave any indication that he actually heard what Meira was saying. At first when she started speaking his eyes would start to drift as his mind wandered through the massive amount of new information that got imparted to him. Then it progressed to after a few words his eyes would get a glassy stare as if it was too much new information.
By the end of that hour Bjorn was able to understand small 10 word sentences. Their conversation was slow and stunted due to Bjorn’s diminished capabilities. They ultimately decided to put a pause on Meira teaching Bjorn spells for the time being. With how adverse his reaction was they wanted to wait. For the rest of the day Bjorn’s mind felt as if there was a fog that settled on it. His thoughts were sluggish and his reactions dulled, all in all it was a rather unpleasant feeling.
In the morning it felt as if the fog that had settled itself over his brain had finally lifted. He wasn’t fully himself yet but it was definitely better than it had been the day before. Throughout the day it got better and better until that evening it felt 100% again. So that night they decided to try again, this time with only 1 spell instead of 2.
The effect was nowhere near as extreme as it had been the day before. The now familiar haze settled over Bjorn’s mind as it began to process all the new information that it was given. It wasn’t as if his mind was racing a mile a minute. It was as if his subconscious mind was digesting a meal given to it, slowly turning the new information into instinctual knowledge. After Meira taught Bjorn a new spell they went to bed, letting Bjorn get over the more extreme part of the haze.
Over the course of the next week Meira taught Bjorn a new spell every evening. For the time being Bjorn only learned the water spells from Meira. They debated teaching him life magic at first. They thought having an extra healer would be great, the only problem was that Meira would always be a better mage that Bjorn ever would be. Her abilities were literally designed to make her a better mage.
Bjorn on the other hand was too diverse. He suffered from the old adage, a jack of all trades and master of none. He currently didn’t get enough stat points to offset how diverse he was being with someday he could probably tip the tables back into his favor, but for the time being it would be better if he was more of a front liner for Meira and let her be the damage dealer.
So instead of fitting them both into a single role they ultimately decided to diversify. They had 1 other option currently to teach Bjorn to be better at wielding magic. With him having access to a 5th basic elemental magic they finally decided it was time to use one of fire spellbooks that came with his bag of holding.
Bjorn pulled out the only level 1 fire spell book that was inside his bag of holding and at first he was going to just read the book and try and gain the spell. Meira actually made a good point. “I only know 3 basic elemental magics, I still have room for 1 more. I also have the ability to pass on any magical spell that my recipient can learn. Why don’t I read that spell book and then pass the spell onto you? We basically will get a 2 for 1 special on spells.”
Bjorn was proud of Meira with that. During their time together Bjorn was slowly introducing earth’s idioms to her. The fact that she used an idiom and in the correct context filled his heart with pride. “You're right of course. We should have you read the spell book.” Bjorn said a little dejected as he handed over the book.
She took it with a smile and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks love.” She said with sugar dripping in her voice. Without any further hesitation she opened the book and initiated the process to absorb spells. Barely 1 minute later the book slammed shut and crumpled to dust. She sat back with a self satisfied smile for a moment before she decided to share her new knowledge with Bjorn.
With Meira learning fire magic they could have actually given Bjorn access to life magic, but Bjorn decided he wanted to have access to fire magic. When given the choice between healing people, which he could already do due to being an alchemist, and being a fire bender? It was little wonder which choice Bjorn went with. Based on the spell that he learned he began to think that there was a bolt spell for each different elemental school, or something of the sort.
As for the water spells that Meira knew, Bjorn learned them all. It had been a while since she got her hands on a new water spell. The one with the highest requirements was water breathing, which required a skill level of 16 in water magic. With the new influx of spells the magic he had the most spells for, as well as the highest skill level was water magic.
Bjorn began working on his sonic magic as well. It was something that had gone kind of by the wayside for the time being. He had a spell book that required 6 in sonic magic and one in 8 that he wanted to try and learn. Though mentally he didn't think of it as try as much as he would learn it. He and Meira have had great luck when it came to learning spells from spell books as they haven’t really had any failures.
In the evening Bjorn would cast his silence spell and over the course of the hour he and Meira would talk. He found out that he only got progression with his sonic magic when there was something for the spell to filter out. Otherwise he would cast it and it would sit there and not do anything, thus gaining no experience to progress his skill level. It seemed that all of his magics only ever progressed when they accomplished something. As always it progressed faster from combat. Everything always seemed to point back to fighting.
Bjorn didn’t care though as he just continued to take the slow way to progress his skills instead of taking a life. He was getting better than he had been. After two years of not killing creatures he had begun to miss meat. They would occasionally get meat when Meira would kill an animal on occasion, but it was still rare. Even though Bjorn didn’t enjoy killing, he like eating meat more than he disliked killing. So Bjorn slowly killed more and more woodland creatures that he came across. It wasn’t often by any means, but it still happened often enough so that they could supplement their diet with meat.
This time when spring finally began to hit Bjorn, Meira, and Alaric made their way into Leefside so that they could partake in the trade caravan again. Their progress into town was slow going. Alaric finally took his first steps a month ago and since then turned into a walking fool. Almost everywhere he wanted to go he had to walk on his own, under his own power. He still had to use assistance while standing upright but that didn't matter to him. If he was going somewhere he wanted to be walking. The only exception to that was when he was tired, he wouldn’t mind being carried then.
Over the last several months Alaric had grown in leaps and bounds. He was close to 20 lbs and nearly 2 and a half feet tall. He had hit most of the major milestones for children already, he rolled over, sat himself up, crawled, stood, and finally walked all within 6 months. He began smiling, cooing, and even showed signs of recognizing people. No matter who was looking after him he would always get excited when mom or dad walked into the room.
Bjorn even began trying to get Alaric to say papa. He heard somewhere that young babies struggle to make sounds without using their lips, so instead of trying to get him to say dada, he went with papa. It eventually became a bet between him and Meira, as she at the same time was trying to get Alaric to say mama first.
A bet which Bjorn ultimately lost. A week before they were making their trip into Leefside Alaric finally said mama, his first word. Meira celebrated and danced around as she had won the bet. Bjorn never would tell her but whenever he was with Alaric he was working on getting him to say mama. As he watched Meira’s elation and her dance with joy he knew that he had made the right choice.
The wager of the bet was that whoever lost had to get dunked in the river once it thawed. Bjorn was fine betting something benign like a kiss or a backrub. Meira was the one who insisted that it had to be something with some substance. She was the one who came up with the dunking bet.
One early morning Meira woke Bjorn up just before dawn. “It is time for you to pay up. I won the bet fair and square, it is time for you to pay up your end of the bargain.”
He blearily opened his eyes and looked up at his ecstatic wife. “Is it even dawn yet?”
“Nope.” She said with a wicked smile. “Now it’s time for you to get your ass out of bed and down to the river. We made a bet and it is time for you to pay up.”
Grumbling Bjorn rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes. Once he was fully prepared to deal with the cold late winter air they made their way down to the water. The day before the layer of ice that had been covering the river finally melted all the way through. Now in the early morning a thin layer of ice had formed on the surface of the water again.
Stifling a yawn Bjorn made his way down to the waters edge and put the tip of his boot on the ice. It groaned briefly before a crack sounded and the thin layer of ice broke. “Are you sure you want me to do this now? I already had one run in with hypothermia this winter, are you sure you want me to have another?”
For the first time since she woke up he could see that she contemplated backing down. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of him having another run in with hypothermia. The hesitation lasted a brief moment before she shook her head. “No, you'll be fine. You aren’t getting out of it that easily. Now strip sexy man”
Bjorn just gave her a smile and then stripped all the way down to his underwear. Meira cleared her throat and gave him a look that said, ‘Those too big boy.’ Rolling his eyes Bjorn lost his underwear as well. He made his way down to the water and took his frostbitten foot and dipped it into the water. He quickly pulled his foot back and turned to Meira.
“The water is too cold, I don’t think this is a good idea.” In a teasing tone. What both he and Meira were well aware of was the fact that he had no feeling in the frostbitten foot. Therefore he literally couldn’t tell the temperature of the water just by touching it with his foot.
“The longer you wait the colder you will be before you go in.” Meira said
“I was hoping to accumulate to the cold first, making the cold water not nearly as bad.” He lied, he was just stalling as he didn’t want to go in.
“Chicken.”
“Fine, I’ll go.” Bjorn finally gave up on waiting and jumped right into the water, sinking up to his chest. The bet was to be fully submerged so it wasn’t over yet. As soon as his body hit the frigid water his breath caught in his throat and his entire body tensed up. Immediately the cold he felt while fighting the bhuer hag set into his body. Wanting to get this over as soon as possible Bjorn dunked his head into the cold water before he burst out of the water. He was gasping for air when he came back up, even though he was barely under the water for a second he didn’t have a full lungful when he went under.
He quickly scrambled out of the water to Meira’s laughter and soaking wet he began pulling on his clothes. Those too very quickly soaked through as they absorbed the water that coated his skin. He felt as the clothes started to grow stiff as they began to freeze in the cold morning air. Once he was fully dressed he activated ‘who needs warmth’ and his clothes immediately dried out as the magic inside his body expelled the water off his body and the clothes he was wearing.
The shivering that he felt stopped as well as his body felt like it was in an 80 degree room. Knowing that this brief respite was a falsehood, he and Meira made their way back up to the house quickly and Bjorn got inside. He made his way over to the fire that Meira had built in the main room and plopped himself down right next to it. When the timer of the buff hit 0 he felt as if the cold slammed back into his body.
Even though it wasn’t as bad as it had been when they fought the hag it was still cold and his body began to shiver once again. It only took a few minutes though for him to recover from the chills and he was sitting next to the fire almost pleasantly warm. It was still a while before he no longer felt chilled.
Meira was very self satisfied in both winning the bet and getting to witness the pay out. At that moment Bjorn thought about telling her that he actually helped her win, but he decided against it. Even though he felt like being petty, he decided that watching Meira be happy was well worth losing the bet. He wasn’t petty enough to take that joy away from her.
It was midday when they finally made it into Leefside. The only reason for that was they weren’t in a rush to get to town, they didn’t have anything pressing to do so they let Alaric walk along at his own pace and be happy. It turned into a nice leisurely walk into town for the adults.
The multi-hour walk had them getting passed by nearly everyone between their farm and Leefside. When they made it to town they got a view of the customary clearing that housed events that happened in town. It was a little more full than it had been the year prior. Apparently the townsfolk liked what Bjorn and Meira did the year prior and more stands and stalls filled the clearing.
With a smile they set up their booth just as they had done the year prior and sat down to start to sell the potions that they brought along. Their stall actually had a line form before they even set up to sell. Over the last year Bjorn’s potions had become the talk of the town. Not just the stock standard healing and stamina potions that could turn a wound from a month long recovery to just a few days, but also his medicines and remedies.
Time and time again Bjorn's potions proved to be worth their weight in silver. It would normally be gold, but he still wasn't going to scalp his fellow townsfolk for a quick buck. Even so they turned a tidy profit. Throughout the year they had people making the trek to Meira's and Bjorn’s farm to either try and get Bjorn to brew them a potion or use Meira's healing abilities.
The requests he got strayed more towards medicines for sicknesses and illnesses. Occasionally he would get requests for pain killers, or even stamina potions. Rarely he got requests for healing potions as someone was on their way out of town. Each time he complied, working to whip something up that suited their needs, for the medicines and healing potions he would charge little, if at all for his services. For the stamina potion he would charge more, as the only reason people tended to ask for those was to hopefully stave off exhaustion, or eek a little more productivity out of the day.
Meira on the other hand gladly and freely handed out her magical healing. She didn't see the need when she normally sat at maximum mana anyways, and that she was getting more practice with her healing magic. Either way she got called on considerably less often than Bjorn did. The main difference was that when she was called on the situation was a lot more dire.
By the time the suns were going down Bjorn and Meira had sold through both the surplus food and the potions that Bjorn brought into town to sell. Even though the potions took considerably less time and effort to make, they made more money on the potions than they did on the farm goods. Not that it overly mattered to them, they were by far the richest people in town because of the time they spent adventuring. They liked their lifestyle that they had created for themselves and honestly farmed for farmings sake.
Bjorn briefly entertained the notion that growing and selling farm goods in a town where almost half of the population were farmers was not likely the best business practice. Supply and demand and all of that. But he ultimately brushed that notion aside, deciding that he didn’t care.
After they finished selling all of their goods they ended up spending the night with the Perkins who they had befriended during their many trips to town. The next morning they did some trading with the caravan seeing what if anything that they wanted to buy.
They ended up picking up a few items that would be useful. Meira picked up some practical tools that will help around the house and in particular the garden and the kitchen. Bjorn got less practical items but ones that would be just as useful hopefully. One of the major problems of their basement was that it was hard to get light down there. It wasn't a problem for Bjorn as he could cast simple light and he would gain enough light to see by as long as he was down there. Meira had no such ability or spell. So there were two things that he picked up that could remedy that issue.
The first one was an enchanted lamp. The lamp could be turned on and off and would produce roughly the same amount of light as Bjorn's simple light spell. It also had charges that would slowly deplete as it was in use. It was also fairly efficient with how it used its charges, only losing one every 10 or 15 minutes or so. With the 25 base charges it could provide light for several hours before it needed to be recharged. Its nature meant that they could expend soul stones to extend the duration of light.
The second item was actually the more expensive of the two items that he bought. It was a light stone. Much like the earth stone that he found and the ice stone that he bought the year prior, the light stone was a condensed form of an expression of one of the basic elements. The benefit of the light stone was the fact that it A) never ran out, and B) provided more light constantly than his simple light spell did.
The only other items that he picked up was a new set of chisels from Chrome. Over the last two years the constant use on the chisels had worn down the metal to the point where they were starting to lose effectiveness while crafting his stone blocks. Bjorn's three items and the 5 that Meira picked up ended up costing more than they managed to make from their crops and Bjorn’s potions, with Bjorn's two light producing items costing the lion's share of that price.
With their pockets heavier than they had been with goods and not coin they left Leefside and made their way back home. It was just as slow and leisurely as it had been on the way into town, Alaric threw a fit when they tried to pick him up. By the time they got home it was close to evening so their day was basically shot.
The next day they spent the entire time finishing prepping their fields for planting. So they could get ready to plant the day after, once finished they settled in for the night. In the morning they were greeted by an unexpected sight.
Caiden and Adriana were sitting at the foot of the hill talking quietly between themselves. Bjorn made his way down to the siblings and took a seat next to Adriana. “Good morning, what are you doing here so early?” Bjorn asked.
Caiden spoke up. “Good morning Bjorn. We finished with spring planting yesterday and dad got drunk. He will probably be on this bender for a few days, so we made ourselves scarce. We were wondering if you could use help.”
The question caught Bjorn off guard, normally every spring when he and Meira started with planting Caiden avoided their farm like the plague. He tried everything he could to try and avoid work. It was so out of line for Caiden’s personality that Bjorn did a double take. He looked over to where the boy sat and looked at him for the first time, really looked at him.
For the last several years that Caiden hung around their farm the boy had been just that, a boy. He played in the river catching frogs and crickets. He would hang around Bjorn and Meira asking a thousand different questions, not all of them polite, as his curiosity ran wild. He was constantly moving, and never really stopping to take in his surroundings.
Now Caiden was sitting still talking peacefully with his older sister. They normally didn’t have the best of relationships and them talking without weedling her was something that rarely happened. More than that though Bjorn could see on his face both determination and resignation. It was the first time that Bjorn could tell that Caiden realized who and what his father was. All of that and the way that Caiden had set his shoulders made Bjorn realize that Caiden wasn’t a boy any longer, he was turning into a young man.
“Of course you are welcome around here as much as you want. Instead of starting on the fields we ran into town yesterday so we are a little behind, but thats alright our magic will let us quickly catch up.”
Bjorn moved to stand up and Adriana put her hand on his knee. The gesture was very unexpected, normally for her she avoided touching Bjorn, she sometimes would touch Meira. Her touch was so out of character that Bjorn stopped moving and sat back down looking at the pair.
“I was wondering if it would be alright for us to spend a few days here with you. Father gets a little cruel while he is on one of his benders. I think it would be best for us if we stay away for a few days.”
Bjorn didn’t have to think about his answer, he knew what his answer would be right away. There was a moment of silence though, it stretched for long seconds. As the silence continued to grow the siblings slowly grew more crestfallen and certain that Bjorn was going to reject their request. In reality Bjorn didn’t speak for a few long moments because he was trying to bite down on the anger that began to rise in his throat at Aiden. The way that the man treated his kids sickened Bjorn. They were good, friendly, kind kids and they had a piece of shit for a father.
“As I said earlier you are welcome here as much as you want. You are more than welcome to stay for a few days, hell even a few weeks if you need. We would gladly take your help for a few days.” He saw relief flood through the siblings. In a quiet voice he continued speaking. “Are the two of you alright? Do you need us to do anything for you?”
The smile that Adriana put on her face didn't convince Bjorn of anything. “Yeah we are fine, we just want a place to stay away from dad for a few days.”
“It's alright, we will be fine.” Caiden agreed.
Instead of pushing the point, Bjorn moved on with a mental note to talk to Meira about their behavior. “Anyways, we still have both of the open rooms, as well as the whole second floor. One is Alaric’s room, but he still isn't quite old enough to where we trust him to be alone at night. So you guys can pick whichever one you want, we might have to move some stuff but that shouldn't be a problem.”
The forced smile on Adriana’s face soon turned genuine. “Thank you, you're the best.”
“Thanks Bjorn.” Caiden echoed.
“Of course, you guys go get yourselves settled in, we have a lot of work to do. While you're up there, do you mind sending Meira down? She said she would be down in a few minutes 5ish minutes ago.”
“I get her for you.” Caiden said as he picked himself up and started to haul himself up the hill.
Adriana turned to follow after her brother and Bjorn held out his hand placing it on her elbow. He watched her shrink under his touch briefly, before she got an embarrassed look on her face and she stopped pulling away.
“You guys didn't bring anything with you. Do you need one of us to go back with you to get the stuff that you will need?”
At first Adriana started to shake her head. Then she thought about the offer and the shake turned into a nod. “That would be great, we should head back tonight to get a few things.”
“Very well, should we go in the evening or at night?”
She thought about the question for a moment. “Actually tomorrow morning would be great, and honestly preferred.”
“Alright, you better get up there before your brother lays claim to the better space.” His words were a convenient excuse for her to escape their conversation as well as a dismissal, Meira was making her way down the hill, her eyes locked upon the pair.
Adriana nodded and turned to leave, making her way up the hill. When she drew level with Meira she stopped and they started to talk to one another. Their conversation lasted less than a minute before she continued her way up the hill, and Meira down the hill.
When she drew up next to Bjorn she gave him a quizzical look. “Aiden is going on a drunk bender and the kids are wanting to stay here for a few days to get away from him while he is on a bender.”
“How bad is it? Do you think we should step in?”
“I asked but didn't push. They told me that it was normal and not to worry about it. They will go back in a few days. But the look on her face when she told me that told me a different story. I think even if they don't want us to interfere I think it is something we should look into doing. Adriana might tell you more if you push, but she clammed up when I asked.”
“That's fair and a good idea. I'll be delicate and step carefully while talking to her. I do think I can get her to open up a little if I push just a little bit. I swear if I find that he hurt them or laid his hands on either of them I will make him pay.” She took a deep breath and let it out, her voice had started to become thick with anger. “Sorry.”
“That's okay, I understand what you are saying and where it is coming from. I care deeply for them as well. I promise you we will make sure they are taken care of.” She relaxed a little bit at Bjorn’s words. “Oh one more thing. We are going to their house in the morning to retrieve some of their items.”
A wicked smile spread across Meira’s face. “Sounds like it's time for us to pay Aiden a little visit.”
