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Ronan is back. He asked the Custodian preparing him for reëntry if he could
return with extra supplies, and she said that he could, since that wasn’t
the reason he walked out in the first place. Had he simply been out of what
he needed, it would have been against the rules. He considers it
compensation for what he endured, even though it wasn’t Castlebourne’s
fault. They don’t make him go through the sunken boat trial again. He simply
exits a regular elevator, and carries his new stuff through. He recognizes
this part of the woods. It is surprisingly close to where he lives, but it’s
not the same elevator he took to leave a few weeks ago. Just before the new
elevator sank back into the ground, the Custodian warned him that they would
be dismantling it immediately. Which is fine, and it’s obvious that they
will replace it with a new one later somewhere else, so they are no more
trapped than they were for the last several years.
Not wanting to lug all this stuff, he whistles. It’s the sound of a bird
that Ronan studied before they came here. The nightingale thrush doesn’t
exist in the simulation, for whatever reason, so he uses it as a signal to
the people he knows and trusts. Mayumi and both versions of Talus,
therefore, also know it, but he doesn’t see them coming here, especially not
the one who is on his way to virtual prison. He has to find a way to push
that out of his mind. To be fair, however, it’s about to come up. Gia never
had the chance to say goodbye to the boy she raised. Isavet didn’t either.
Vith probably won’t care. He could see the darkness in Talus from the
beginning. He just didn’t know how to help.
Vith walks up now, having heard the song. He’s holding his bow, having
presumably been hunting. Ronan asks him how things have been, and Vith
assures him that they have been okay. Isavet has been a great help with the
baby, which makes Ronan smile. Yumo—wait, that’s right, another
complication. Oh, that is maybe a problem now. They named Yumo after Mayumi,
but she is no longer a bright star in Ronan’s past. It certainly isn’t too
late. The little guy doesn’t know his own name yet. They still have time to
come up with something better. But what, and what would Gia think of it?
He’s afraid to even mention it, after all this.
They must have been through so much, waiting for him to come back. It’s good
that the child’s siblings helped, but the boy needed his father. At some
point, Ronan is going to have to leave. That’s what he has always planned on
doing, after the farming portion of the experience is over. Every second
away from his family not at least fighting for them is a second wasted. Then
again, that trial was his way of fighting for them. That doesn’t mean he
wants to go back and do it all over again, but it’s taught him some things.
It’s taught him what kind of father, and what kind of Norseman, he wants to
be. And a true Norseman would face his wife. He would tell her what needed
to be done, and while he probably wouldn’t necessarily listen to her input,
that is what Ronan is going to do. He and Vith return to the house. It looks
the same as it always did. He half-expected to come back to it having been
burned to the ground, just to throw a wrench into the game. But it’s fine.
He can pick up where he left off.
After he tells Gia how the excursion went, he brings up the point about
Yumo’s name. She’s receptive to his position. She’s a little
too receptive. “Actually, I’ve not been calling him Yumo since you
left,” she admits, seemingly worried about his reaction.
“Well, what have you been calling him?” Ronan asks.
“Leif.” A bit dark, given what it’s a homophone of, but okay.
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