Ride home

Emil was sure he had dozed off for just a moment. How could the others have gone while leaving not only him, but also Lalli, behind?
-What's this?
Emil realized the faint voice was coming from the bed, and that it was Lalli's. But how could he…
-Wake up, the boat is here.
Mikkel's large hand, Mikkel's voice, definitely Mikkel's horrible accent. Had he just been dreaming? But how? Even during Lalli's stay, elements from the usual dream that had no reason to change due to his presence had stayed the same. Emil yawned, and turned in Mikkel's direction to see that he wasn't alone: a vaguely familiar-looking dark-haired woman whose hair was arranged into shoulder-length braids was with him. She spoke to him in Norwegian that sounded somewhat accented compared to Sigrun's:
-Could you please move? I would like to examine your friend before we get him on the boat.
From Emil's own experience, being asked to move, especially when it came to people in need of medical attention, tended to mean "and leave the room while you're at it, unless you happen to be some kind of medical professional or there's a blizzard outside". As soon as he went through the door, he realized the reason why the woman's face had given him such a feeling of familiarity: she looked like an older version of Hildur. Emil made it to the harbor just in time to see a boat leaving with Mikkel's brother sat between two muscular men who made the Madsen twins look small in comparison. Emil couldn't help but notice that one of the guards had black hair, and a braid dancing at the back of his head as the small motorboat made it back to the actual cargo ship further down. Sigrun, who was speaking Norwegian with a third Icelander who had stayed ashore, noticed Emil's arrival:
-Here you are. Just convinced them to have you on the same ride as Lalli and their medic. Mikkel and I need to answer a few extra questions before they can get the tag-along on the bigger boat with all the necessary measures.

Once onboard the raft heading for the ship, Emil found out that the medic tending to Lalli was indeed Reynir and Hildur's older sister Guðrún. One of the two people escorting Mikkel's brother also turned out to be the oldest of the five siblings. He, unfortunately, also found out that he was still going to be the person with the most knowledge of Finnish other than Lalli onboard. Guðrún reassured him, saying that mage dream communication should allow the ship's crew to keep Lalli alive and physically well in spite of the physical-world language barrier.

The raft that had been used to transport Michael came back for Mikkel, Sigrun and Reynir. As the boat started rushing towards the ship, Sigrun had a sudden spell of drowsiness, and decided to deal with is by using Mikkel's shoulder as a pillow:
-I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm going to miss not seeing this kid for a couple weeks.
The Norwegian-speaking Icelandic sailor corrected her:
-It's actually going to be one month for everyone, immune or not. We have to make sure you don't have any of the dozens of other things that could be running around out here.
As Sigrun suddenly started protesting the length of the quarantine, Mikkel couldn't help but think of how she had initially reacted to having to keep Reynir around. At the time, he couldn't imagine her ever… his brain suddenly caught on to one of the implications of what Michael had told him earlier: trolls that were currently family, with little to no regard as to how well they had gotten along before their respective transformations. The effects of the Rash had left those trolls no choice but to ignore the past. All this time, Mikkel had been trying to return Michael to his old self. For the first time, he considered that there could be another way he could try approaching Michael's situation, provided he was alright with the idea that was creeping into his mind.

Emil and Lalli, the latter in a wheelchair pushed by a woman who wasn't Guðrún, where leaving the small radio room when he, Sigrun and Reynir were led to it. Each of them said a few words as token proof they were still alive, then Mikkel was kept by Torbjörn to speak about more personal matters. Torbjörn offered him to stay at his house if he ever had lodging-related trouble. He also mentioned having been keeping an eye out for job Mikkel could do while looking for a new babysitter for his children, but having found nothing on either front. Mikkel unfortunately had to agree with Sigrun when she, upon overhearing the conversation, asked how dense a person could be out loud. Mikkel got an idea of the reason for which the job was open when he told Emil the news, and Emil responded with almost deadpan "good luck" despite the fact that he had given every sign of adoring his younger cousins during the mission.

Once the decontamination procedure was over, Reynir ended up having to re-do his braid for the second time in as many days and use a spare drawstring to secure it. He was next brought to his room and took about half an hour to realize that only one of the five bags that he had found on his bed contained the items that had probably been issued to everyone else. Each of the four other bags contained an item that he had recently asked one of his siblings to bring back once they came home if they could. One of them was a copy of a book Ólafur had once borrowed from a colleague and really liked. As he was pondering on whether to read it now or keep for a time of the trip during which he may have literally nothing else to keep himself busy, he heard a knock on the glass:
-Hey.
Reynir looked up, to see Bjarni's face wearing an expression somewhere between relief and awkwardness:
-Sorry about what happened. I shouldn't have given you such a dumb idea. I really thought that seeing Reykjavík would be enough for you.
Once he had expressed his relief to see that Bjarni was on board as well, Reynir first reflex was to correct him:
-It wasn't all your fault. Some of the dumb things I did had nothing to do with what you told me.
One of the things he had shared with Hildur over the past few days had been the exact course of misunderstandings that had made him end up in Denmark with five complete strangers from other countries. If the three others had been on board all this time, Hildur must have told them about some of it.
-I still should have informed you a little better than I did. But… you kind of have a point. Mom and dad thought it was a good idea to ask Hildur to not tell Ólafur, Guðrún and me about the mage thing, and instead let us think they just really, really wanted you to stay at home. We didn't find out about it before we were all on the boat, and Guðrún accidentally found out that one of the things worrying her was something she was trying to keep hidden from the rest of the crew unless she saw a clear reason to do otherwise.
Something crossed Reynir's mind:
-Do you mean you wouldn't have suggested I visit Reykjavík if you had known?
Bjarni seemed to be pondering for a few moments before answering:
-I really don't know. On one hand, I would probably have thought twice before suggesting that you check out the town with a mage school in it. One the other, I think I was starting to get a little annoyed about how they were still treating you like a kid, and wanted to show you had other options. I almost ended up in your position, after all.
Aside from the number to put on letters sent relatively close to his birthday, Reynir had never really paid attention to the fact that Bjarni was actually a couple years younger than Hildur, or realized that he would have been the youngest of the family if he hadn't come along. He had only remembered him being the one whose company he had been able to enjoy the longest before ending up as the only child of the family still living at home.
-It really wasn't that different from home, in some ways. Since I couldn't fight and had no reason to be involved in the work, I had to stay were it was relatively safe and do what I was told. But I could go outside if it was sunny and we a sure there were no trolls near the campsite. And do a lot of things mom and dad had told me would immediately make me sick. So I knew that if I was told to stop making noise and go inside, things were really getting dangerous.
Bjarni finally let something resembling a real smile show up on his face, if only briefly:
-I've always wondered which of the things I heard about the Rash were true, and which ones were scaremongering holdovers from "nobody gets to leave ever" times. Would you mind giving me more detail?

xxxx

This time, the dream was taking place in a strangely empty and lock-free version of the ship's quarantine ward. The only other person in the dream was Lalli, already looking much better than a few hours ago. Emil had found nothing better to do than following him around as he was looking for a way out, which was to him more than enough proof that he was dealing with the real one. Mere seconds after Lalli had told him he could help by keeping an eye out for anything strange on the ceiling, one patch started to look deformed in some way for which he couldn't find words before it tore up like canvas. Emil barely had time to register water coming through the new hole before getting his second shower of the day. Fortunately, he did manage to move before something much more solid, and human-shaped, came through the hole.
-Ouch!
The dripping figure turned out to be Reynir, dressed in the kind of clothes that he would probably own if his family was a little better-off. As he was sitting down, Lalli was placing a stepladder near the hole. As soon as it was somehow sealed with magic, Lalli started interrogating Reynir while settling down on his perch. In spite of understanding the words both of them spoke, Emil was unable to follow the subject of the conversation involving various areas of the sea the interrogation gradually slipped into. The only thing familiar to Emil was the look Lalli was giving Reynir, which was the one that said "I hate you guts, but I have to admit you're somewhat good at what you're supposed to be doing.". The conversation finished, Reynir thanked Emil for the chess games, then left the way he had come with a little assistance from Lalli and a promise to see if his sister or Lalli's cousin had any idea about the nature of their shared dream. Emil was about to utter his surprise at Lalli's cousin being a mage as well, before remembering that Tuuri had already told him, at a time at which he had refused to believe her.

xxxx

The next morning, Onni had to make sure he had correctly heard what Hildur had told him through the radio. The phenomenon she was describing wasn't completely unheard of, but usually required an active effort from both people involved to his knowledge, and the circumstances that could create such shared dream realms dropped to exactly one when one of their residents wasn't a mage. Part of Onni hoped that this was simply a side effect of the process of Lalli staying in Emil's mind for so long, then making it back to his own, that was so far unknown to due this being the first time such a combination of events happened. Another part of him was already resigned to the fact that he was likely going to be seeing more of Torbjörn, Siv and their kids in the future, even once the mission would be completely wrapped up.