STAND STILL IS BREAKING MY HEART.
I just… I need to talk about this, because it’s seriously heartbreaking.
Lalli’s always been sort of the odd man out. Between the language barrier and the necessary reversed sleeping schedule, he doesn’t interact much with the rest of the crew. A lot of how he feels about the various members is conveyed via body language, which is further complicated by the fact that he’s just really awkward around people. We got some basis for his underlying pride and insecurity with the flashback, but these recent pages are just a huge punch in the gut.
Everyone else, we have some knowledge of their personalities and motivations through how they interact with everyone else. Lalli? We get it through a dream. A painful wish-fulfillment dream.
Where Lalli can understand everybody and doesn’t need to rely on his cousin to translate for him. As much as he appreciates her assistance, and apparently understands how much she abridges and sugarcoats, his wish isn’t “translate better,” it’s “I don’t want you to have to be my translator.”
Where he’s done his job well and made his commanding officer proud, and she’s respecting him enough to not show her approval with her characteristic arm-punching but is instead patting him on the shoulder.
Where Emil is not only the first person Lalli sees upon waking, but is the only one to stand close to him, even when he’s not directly interacting with him. Where even though everyone else is praising him, Lalli is only looking at Emil, who hasn’t praised him because he doesn’t need to. Because Lalli understands that his value to most people comes from his competency, except for Emil, who has always valued him as a human being. And even across awkwardness and a language barrier, Lalli has managed to understand that Emil sees “Lalli,” not “the mage,” not “the night scout,” not “the cousin that only speaks Finnish,” not “the weirdo” - Lalli, the human being.
And this is the thing that Lalli appreciates the most, and Emil is the person that Lalli appreciates the most as he is. (Tuuri being the only other person who didn’t get changed in the dream, but Lalli’s relationship with her did - whereas his relationship with Emil stayed exactly the same, except now they could communicate with each other. Which also says something about how much Lalli trusts that his relationship with Emil won’t crumble if they could talk, that Emil isn’t being nice to him on account of being the weird mage night scout, but is friendly to him because he views him as an equal.)
So with all of that given to us in two pages, having it shattered with the reality of nobody being there when he wakes up is just awful. There is a distressingly good chance that not only will nothing in his dream come true, but it won’t be true in some of the worst ways.
Obviously Mikkel’s food is still going to be crap, and Reynir will still have his stupid braid, and Tuuri will still need to translate for him…so it stands to reason that the absolute worst of it for Lalli is going to be a) that Sigrun is still in the tank, forced off the field because of her arm, and utterly unhappy at both this fact and the entire situation that lead to it (which wasn’t technically Lalli’s fault, but he’s aware that it doesn’t matter - it’s his job to get them to a safe camping spot, and that job didn’t get fully done, and he’s going to take the blame), and b) Emil is not only not going to be there, but will be the last person to know that Lalli is awake, and may not be in any condition to be excited about this new development or worry over Lalli’s health when he gets back.
The worst part about all of this is that Lalli nearly killed himself to fix his mistake, not only because he didn’t want to admit that he might’ve fucked up, but because there was nothing to be done about the situation except try to make it right. He literally could not admit defeat - there was no other way out that he could see. But because of all the trouble that they’re in, all the danger they’ve had to face because of it, his efforts are going to go unnoticed. Nobody is going to thank him for his hard work.
Except maybe Emil, who was the only person who was actually worried about Lalli - everyone else was distressingly blasé or annoyed at his passing out. So of course Emil is going to be the only person who isn’t there to greet Lalli. Because why would Lalli get anything he wants?
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