But the spies hide out in every corner [Sofie]

She shouldn’t have been at all surprised, but it turns out it's rather hard to gather information from complete strangers, when you were in a strange village, and also had three large dog-like animals following you around everywhere, scaring away some of the people who might’ve been more willing to speak to you. However, she was determined to draw as little attention as possible to her relationship to Dómi and Cecilie, not wanting them to get caught up in her situation any more than they already were, and the tavern keeper had been abundantly clear about his thoughts on the animals remaining there without her. Mostly because Aksel spent the whole time whining the one time she’d done that. Which meant they were coming with her whether she liked it or not.

The animals were good for one thing though; If anyone wanted to know what she was doing wandering around the edges of the village, trying to burn the layout permanently into her brain, it was easy enough to point to the beasts and say she was talking them for a walk. So far Yrsa was confident that she had the general idea memorized; Docks, houses, market, great hall, more houses, farms. Skagen was a lot easier to memorize than Kattegat, at least. Not to mention, Gunnvor and Steinar had grown up here. Surely they’d have a decent grasp on the basic layout even without her here. But things could’ve changed in the time since Halfdan took over, so she was determined to do her job well.

She’d spent a good amount of time watching the warriors training. Skagen’s defenses were also going to be important to learn about, and the skill of their fighters seemed the most logical place to start. She was a bit disheartened to recall that Dómi & Elias had been trained here. She’d fought them before, especially Dómi, because he was just as competitive as she was, and she’d lost more times than she cared to admit. But surely all of Skagen’s fighters weren’t as good as he was? Plus, he wasn’t even a viking anymore. She was dying to get in on some of their training sessions, to see for herself just how good they were, and also just because she really missed fighting. She’d only fought once since she’d left Skagerrak, and Dómi had beat her again. But she couldn’t keep pretending to be a thegn when all she wanted to do was jump in and start kicking ass. She’d have to behave like a thegn, which meant pulling punches and letting herself get knocked into the ground; Not something she was looking forward to.

Spying a familiar face, Yrsa slapped a grin on and turned in Sofie’s direction. They’d met briefly in the tavern in Kattegat, and as soon as she’d discovered the younger girl was from Skagen, Yrsa had been determined to befriend her. She felt a bit slimy about the whole thing, to be quite honest. Sofie seemed like a nice person, someone she could probably have been friends with. Spying on her and her family and friends felt pretty low. But she’d left Skagerrak for one reason, and one reason only. To spy on Skagen. So that’s what she was going to do.

“Hey, Sofie,” she greeted brightly when she drew closer, the dogs matching her pace. “I didn’t realize you were already back in Skagen, I’d have looked for you sooner.” Looking from the teenager towards the training yard and back, she nodded towards the pairs of fighters practicing, “You said you’re a thegn, right? Are you done for the day or just taking a break? I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy,” she added with a smile, reaching out to scratch Anja behind the ear when she came to a stop beside Yrsa and nudged her hand.

The younger girl greeted her warmly and Yrsa was happy to see it. They hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know each other in Kattegat, and the shieldmaiden hadn’t wanted to come off as too interested, and unnecessarily prick her curiosity. But it seemed she’d made a positive impression at least, which was what she’d been hoping for. She nodded happily when Sofie said was done for the day. That made this easier, that was certain.

“Oh, great! I wouldn’t want to interrupt,” she answered, nearly repeating herself, but kept the bright smile in place. “And I wasn’t actually planning on coming here, to be honest. But I’ve always wanted to travel and a few of my friends were coming, so I decided to join them,” she told Sofie with a shrug, before lowering her voice and adding, “Slightly poor timing on my part, it turns out. They’re from here, and said they were coming back, and I invited myself along before I’d learned the reason they were coming was a bit tragic.” She didn’t want to come off as sharing too much too quickly, but also was hoping that by adding the bit about it being tragic, Sofie would just let the whole ‘why are you here?’ thing go fairly quickly.

When the conversation turned to her dogs, her smile grew even bigger. “I wish I’d known you were an animal lover, I would have introduced you then!” She took turns pointing towards each of the animals, “This is Aksel, Anja, and Aleksia.” She looked back to Sofie with a grin. “Aksel’s a whiner, and yeah, Anja’s a wolf. I found them all when they were just a few months old, and decided to keep them.” While that was essentially the truth, she was definitely implying she found them together at the same time, and not months apart, which was what had actually happened.

Looking around at the people and buildings nearby for a moment, Yrsa then turned her attention back to the thegn in front of her. “Anything fun to do around here? Or anyone interesting to meet?” Honestly, she’d really love to just hang out with Sofie cause she seemed like a lot of fun and this whole balancing act she needed to perform was going to keep her on her toes. She had to remember she was here for a reason, while also being careful not to let anyone figure that out. It was going to take a bit of skill, that was certain.