While she had her breakfast, she felt a number of not-quite-friendly eyes upon her back, but none dared approach. Pondering on the state of things as well as her interactions with Fryg and Kyriak only reaffirmed the very intent with which she’d come to Borea. She meant to push things ahead as quickly as she conceivably could rather than risk letting herself be dragged around by the machinations of others. One after the other she would set things into motion before any possible hostile forces could act.

She intended to speak with the Revenant King before the week was out.

A sudden, niggling noise interrupted her lovely breakfast, accompanied by an unpleasant stench. She felt the presence of an angry and malicious other approaching from behind. Their aura was… She would’ve thought of it as quite strong, back in Ikesia, but it barely stood out among the presences of all the other patrons of Wolfblade. She wagered that whoever it was would be a decent fight, if not a thrilling one.

A deep, female voice rumbled from behind: “You. Foreigner. You dared challenge elder Kyriak and thought you could get away with it without consequence?! He may be so gracious as to let your insolence slide, but I, Thorga Buhaug, will not let such disrespect-”

Rather than bother standing up, she tilted her head over her chair’s back, looking at her brutish-looking and unduly hairy challenger upside-down as she spoke. She animated one of her braids and used it to gesticulate as she spoke, using her hands to eat in the meanwhile.

“I’m not in the mood right now, but I’ll accept your holmgang if that’s what you want. Come to the Hulson longhouse tomorrow morning - my condition is no weapons or equipment. That will not be an issue, will it?”

The woman grinned maliciously, then nodded. She said something about Zelsys “crippling her cultivation” if she lost, to which Zel just grumbled in vague agreement as she stuck a whole headless, gutted fish in her mouth and pulled out its stripped skeleton as she chewed the meat.

“Works for me. If I win, you’ll shave yourself head to toe and take a bath, how’s that?” she stated her victory condition. Utter wild-eyed rage flushed the challenger’s face and she stomped off, much to Zel’s amusement.

With her belly filled and muscles still aching from earlier, Zel returned to the Hulson longhouse. Fryg waited for her just past the front door, in a short entryway just short of the main hall. It was more or less just a rectangular forechamber with a door on every wall. Fryg blocked Zel’s passage, staring her down.

Coldly, the crone demanded: “You’ve returned, finally. Now, explain the preposterous claims you made to me earlier.”

Fryg’s every word dripped with such a sense of condescending superiority that Zelsys felt a brief instinctual impulse to spit in the woman’s face. She acted on it in a manner of speaking, though she took care to avoid inserting undue vitriol or hostility into her speech. The only sentiment she allowed to shine through was ironclad intent.

“I meant exactly what I said. Not a word was exaggeration or falsehood. To be perfectly clear, I do respect you and acknowledge that, if you so wished, you could likely stop me by force - but we both know that such an act would have truly grave ramifications both within the honor system and by causing an international incident, considering my status as an agent of the Free Cities Alliance.”

“You dare…” Fryg hissed. The temperature in the room dropped and Zel could suddenly see her own breath.

“Oh, spare me that indignant seething,” Zel sighed, rolling her eyes for the first time in a long while. Briefly gripping the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes, she responded: “I didn’t come to seek your approval, participate in your interfamilial politics as if I were a part of your clan, or to ask you to treat me as one, so for the sake of both our sanities, stop acting as if you were my senior. My respect towards you is that of a clan elder towards another clan elder - even the Smoke Witch understood that basic level of respect when we had to pass through her woods… As did Kyriak Bjorn, just a few minutes ago.”

“Who do you think yourself to be, that you come to us for aid and then flagrantly disrespect our hierarchy?!” the old woman snapped, incensed by the mention of the Smoke Witch.

“A foolish, violent foreigner who imposes herself on the world without regard for the status quo,” Zelsys stated, walking up to Fryg, then stepping past her. As she passed, she stopped and added: “One that will right the wrongs your complacency allowed to take place, no matter how many corpses I have to leave in my wake. Now tell me, Fryg - who do you think yourself to be, that you make a blood-pact meant for equals and then think to treat your ally as a lesser? Are you that conceited, or do you think so little of your grandson that you think to demean me by association?”

“You do not possess the Evil Eye. I am not so old as to fall for obvious bait questions.”

Zel placed her hand on Fryg’s shoulder, ignoring the ache of biting cold that surged into her palm through her gauntlet the moment she touched the crone.

“I didn’t expect an answer. Do not ever speak to me as if I were your lesser, and our relationship will remain amicable. Continue to treat Jorfr as if he were a failure, a traitor, a black sheep, and I will take it as a personal offense. That’s all.”

She let go and entered the great hall, leaving Fryg to stew in place. The sound of furious footsteps followed by a door being opened and slammed with preternatural force reverberated moments later.

Passing through the great hall, Zel headed to the baths. She came across an interesting scene in a hallway after she was done, which she decided to quietly observe from just past the corner. The scene in question was that of an on-edge Jorfr seemingly having cornered a nervous Victor against the wall.