Note: On one hand, many aspects of this story quite deliberately diverge from canon and what Minna has revealed in streams over the summer, as the idea was to imagine how the last chapter could have gone if some of my long-held personal theories were true. On the other, the story progressed in short chunks for a good part of the second half, and canon itself was sometimes what got the ideas rolling again, and acted as a glue between the last personal ideas wanted to put in.

Those left behind

Mikkel decided that the complete overhaul this conversation had just given his world view had at least two positive aspects to it. The first, and the most obvious, was that if he understood the situation correctly, Lalli would be able survive until the boat's arrival. His chances of a full recovery were also as good as they could be, given both the crew's circumstances and the fact that he had spent several days unconscious with extremely minimal care. The second good aspect was that the prospect of going back to the showers and speaking to the all-too-familiar face that had turned out to be hiding under ten years' worth of dirty hair and beard now seemed more bearable to Mikkel than it had less than an hour ago. Sigrun had offered to speak with the new arrival instead of Mikkel the second she had grasped the situation in which he was. However, her offer hadn't been completely selfless; both Mikkel's medical knowledge and his understanding of Icelandic had suddenly become needed in the barracks while he was giving their new arrival an initial clean-up and haircut. Trying to talk with said new arrival, meanwhile, was something that Sigrun could do. But now that he had come to somewhat accepting that Reynir could use magic to rouse Lalli's body sufficiently to enable him eat and drink a little for a few minutes at a time, he felt that he and Sigrun should swap places. The woman who had spent her life working with mages should be the one talking with Emil about his claim that Lalli's mind was somehow currently in his body. Mikkel should be the one talking with his brother.

As he walked back to the showers, Mikkel realized he was probably going to need to put Michael somewhere else than the barracks they were all using. Strenuous circumstances could damage the mind even more than the body. The worst case Mikkel had ever run into before this had lasted "only" a few weeks, yet had been more than enough to leave the person with persistent reflexes much more suited for a hostile environment than a friendly one. The IV system that he had managed to rig for Lalli was extremely fragile and some of the pieces were the last remaining working ones from larger reserves that had been neglected for ten years. They would be able to hold for the week, but he couldn't afford to have any of them damaged in the meantime. I was also a very bad idea to have the others, especially Reynir, in the same room as someone who could potentially hurt them without meaning to. As for Emil, Michael had come to the outpost following him from wherever he had spent the last ten years, which had likely involved feeling safe doing so on some level. For all Mikkel knew, Emil's face could currently be more reassuring to Michael than his own; it wasn't rare for someone to initially trust only the first person they met among a group of complete strangers, and Michael having forgotten about their family was entirely possible. As he was about to enter the showers, Mikkel's brain caught up with the fact that it hadn't been given proper time to process some of the implications that came with the fact that Michael was still alive. By comparison, accepting the same for Emil and Lalli had been extremely easy. Those two had only been missing and presumed dead for a few days. The Madsen household had finished grieving for Michael ten years ago. Mikkel decided to lean against the showers' wall for a few moments before going inside and took time to reconcile with as much as he could before knowingly getting into another conversation that more likely to be straining than not.

Whatever time he had ended up taking, Sigrun had decided to leave the showers before Mikkel got around going inside them:
-Ah, I was just about to get you. Look, I tried everything I could think of, but I've found that when people stay alone for too long, all languages they didn't grow up with become like Finnish to them. And you're the only Dane who's here besides him right now.
-I was going to get you to watch the boys while I tried talking to him. I just needed a moment before doing so. Long story short on my side it that Reynir can revive Lalli for short spurts during which we'll be able to give him food and more water. Emil also asked about something for which you're much more likely to have the answer than I am.
-Sounds good. I'll go make sure nobody sets the barracks on fire.
Mikkel briefly realized that if magic was real, setting the barracks on fire could very well be a hazard from all three of the boys.

He had forgotten what his face looked like after all this time. Now that the woman had left, he was able to give a good look to himself in the mirror from the stool on which he was sitting and notice he had definitely become older. It took a few moments for him to realize that if he were a little heavier, he would look a lot like the man who had cut his hair, shaved him, washed him and given him a clean set of clothes. Then he remembered. He had a family back home. A family that he had given up on ever seeing again, and had simply stopped thinking about at some point, as he had done for many other things. Could the man have been one of his family members? Which one, then? He realized that while he remembered many people and an even larger number of animals, they all blurred together. He was in the middle of trying to mentally reconstruct at least one individual person from that hazy crowd when the man who had washed him came back and greeted him. He hadn't quite understood what that the woman had been telling him, leaving him with no idea what to answer. This time, he didn't hesitate upon simply returning the greeting he just heard. The other man came to sit on the empty stool facing his own.
-Do you remember your name?
This was a good question, he realized. Unfortunately, his mind returned a blank slate.

The trolls had never cared what his name was, and his means of survival had devolved into mindlessly reciting the same story each time he was prompted for it. At the beginning, he had told a different story each evening. When he had run out of stories and decided to loop back to the first one, the trolls hadn't noticed, and continued giving him food so they could get another story the next day. After a while, it became hard for him to tell the most elaborate one, as he had stopped being able understand it himself. He had abandoned another one upon noticing that the trolls seemed to like it much less than the others. His repertoire has progressively dwindled, without the trolls noticing he was using the same handful of stories over and over again. It eventually got reduced to two, both of which were greeted as if they were new each time they were told. The now sole remaining tale was the one from which he had semi-accidentally borrowed his means of survival. The story of a powerful man who couldn't stand the idea of his wife bedding other men than himself and solved it by keeping his spouses for one day at a time before having them executed. The number of unmarried young women dwindling until the next woman in line was a storyteller whose only request was to work her trade one last time before she died. The last story she wanted to tell being so long that she couldn't go from its beginning to its end in a single evening. A new story getting started right after that one ended but requiring a few extra evenings to be finished as well. The trick lasting long enough that by the time she ran out of stories, her husband had become a better man from listening to them and ended his policy of systematically having his wives executed among many positive changes to the lands he ruled.

It took him a few moments to realize that he hadn't answered the other man while he was visiting his memories. He finally settled for letting a barely audible "no" out.
-Do you remember any of your family members or people you worked with?
He was honest about the current state of his memories on the subject and took advantage of his answer to hesitantly ask the other man if he knew him. It turned out to be the case. His name being Michael sounded about right, as did the other man being his brother and him having been among the trolls for ten years. After that, he was encouraged to ask his own questions. This was how he found how long he had been with the trolls, the reason Mikkel and his companions had come to this outpost after all this time, and who the other people were. By the time Mikkel finished mentioning that they had had a skald who was now dead, Michael had suddenly gotten extremely tired and wanted nothing more that to go to sleep. He was brought to the infirmary, the only place besides the barracks with beds. Mikkel explained about having to keep his current crewmates safe first and foremost, and the protocol for the situation in which Michael was entailed treating him as potential risk to others until someone with "psychiatric expertise" gave a proper evaluation of his mental state. He also mentioned that he was doing this for Michael's own safety as well; at this point, anyone hurting any of the boys, even accidentally, was likely going to be on the receiving end of their captain's fist.

Trond was quite certain that this was the first time Onni was talking without being spoken to first in an entire week. In such circumstances, he made sure to listen:
-I thought I quite clearly told you to not come back.
Trond barely had time to realize that Onni must have spoken Icelandic for him to understand him before a voice that was definitely not that of one of the house's occupants echoed in the entire living room:
-Fine! If you're not interested, other people will definitely be!
Some sort of light blob jumped out of Onni, landed on the floor and took a gradually more distinct and animal-like shape until it was definitely a dog sporting a combination of red and white fur. Trond immediately knew what it meant: a mage's fylgja. Luck had it that while the voice had made the three other adult occupants of the come to the living room, Taru had been the only one to make it in time to see part of the transition from light blob to dog. Torbjörn and Siv, on the other hand, arrived just in time to wonder how a dog had gotten into their house and fail to notice the slight glow emanating from it. The dog gave the room a quick survey and seemed satisfied upon seeing the three that had just made their way to the door. The same voice as before reverberated through the living room, while the dog's mouth didn't move at all:
-So uh… We made it to the pick-up spot yesterday and Emil and Lalli caught up with us just this morning. On their way to join us, they accidentally woke up a giant and killed it, but they made a big mess while doing it. The big mess forced them to take another route to the pick-up point, made Sigrun think they were dead when she went looking for them and did something to Lalli that kept me from contacting him, so he couldn't tell me he and Emil were still alive. But now they're both here and both okay.
Trond quickly understood what Onni had probably been sitting on for the past few days. In the present case, Lalli's fate had been connected to Emil's, while Torbjörn and Siv would have refused to believe such news if Onni had told him he had gotten it via a channel in which they didn't believe. Onni crossed his arms and very purposefully sat on the couch in such a way that his back was to the dog:
-I fail to see any difference with the news you had last time. If Lalli has been in any situation that would keep you from contacting him for an entire week, he's good as dead, regardless of what state his body may currently be in.
The dog briefly glanced at Onni before speaking again:
-Actually, Lalli isn't completely lost. I'm not sure how it happened, but it looks like he's in Emil's dream realm right now. He has no idea how to get back to his body and I was hoping someone here would be able to help. Uh… by the way, I don't think I'll be able to continue doing this much longer. Is there anything else you want to know?
That one, at least, was easy. Trond interjected before any of the Swedes or Finns could speak:
-What is Tuuri's status? The rescue boat needs that information.
The dog jerked its head in Onni's direction:
-You didn't tell them?
The dog vanished into thin air.