I’m really happy with the tone of this scene. It’s as restful and meditative as it could possibly be, and yet it’s all about the team’s most unflappable member acknowledging the possibility, even the likelihood, of being imprisoned or killed.

Yeah, Chekhov, you can just leave that gun right over there.

We were very conscious and obvious about the way we started each of our first six chapters with an adventurous flash-forward. Here, we seem to be setting up a new and contrasting rhythm of quiet, slow beginnings, though we did not plan to. Like the last chapter, this one begins with one of the characters getting her thoughts down on paper and reviewing events for the benefit of her audience and ours. But this rhythm won’t last much longer, partly because chaotic events are going to overtake it and partly because too many of our characters, especially Frigg, are not writers by nature.