“Thank you,” Lottie replied immediately. She might be determined, but her mother had taught her manners, and Tyr was being kind. Even if he was a bit gruff and rough around the edges. It wasn't like she didn't know plenty of other people like that. It wasn't like she wasn't related to plenty of other people like that. And everybody deserved recognition for doing something that was appreciated.
“I know Idun will be able to help him, because she's got all her other little critters, and she probably knows more about what a fawn might need than I would,” she explained. “I would have taken him to Artemis, she was my first choice, obviously, because who would know more about a woodland creature than the goddess of the hunt? I mean, she hunts them, yes, but she also protects them, and I've seen her protect other animals from bad hunters, so she'd know about how to take care of all of them, including baby deer, but since I'm here and she's in Greece, that's really not going to work, and I thought I must be closer to Bifrost than I am to home, so Idun would be a better choice, unless you think that's a bad idea for some reason, after all, you're Norse too, aren't you? I'm sort of assuming you are because you called it 'our' Bridge, rather than 'their' Bridge, so I'm guessing you're Norse, and if there's some Norse thing that says I can't take a fawn there it's better to know now before we get there and Highball says I can't bring it in, because he gets that cranky face, you know that face? The one where he gets the furrows right between his eyebrows and his lips get narrow? He makes that face at me when I talk to him, even the time I tried to bring him muffins, apparently he doesn't like muffins, and I'd rather know now if he's not going to like baby deer, and I mean that in the live sense, not in the tender venison sense, because if he's not going to let the fawn in, then I should just take it and head south now, right? That'd be the back up plan, don't you think?”
Even as she spoke, she'd been walking. Backwards, so that she could watch his face while she talked to him, but she wasn't going to just stand there. She was less worried about the wolves now, because really she hadn't been worried about them for herself to begin with. She'd been concerned that she, by herself, would not be able to adequately defend the fawn from them if they circled her. But with Tyr, they should be able to keep the little animal safe. However, he'd said there were other things in the woods that she should fear, and she wasn't going to question that.