mortal is as mortal does

[imeanforever]

Promise is looking for dewdrops. She has just learned to candy them herself - it's not hard, if she does it in her own tree instead of in the field. So she's brushing the droplets into a little wooden cup. They blend together but she can separate them out again later.

Comments

[ending_of]

Over there is an unusual sight: a person with no wings, wearing a plain dress and sitting in a plush armchair set rather incongruously in the middle of a flower patch. She looks mildly conflicted about something.

[imeanforever]

"Mortal? What are you and that chair doing here?"

[ending_of]

The woman transfers her focus from the middle distance to Promise.

"Are you addressing me?"

[imeanforever]

"Yes. Did you fall in? Or go through a gate?"

[ending_of]

"A temporary phenomenon transported me here. It was inconvenient and annoying. If I had known that was a possible consequence of walking across the room, I would get out of my chair even less frequently."

[imeanforever]

"How do you know it was temporary? Gates and tears would seem to be a lot alike from your end. Did you try going back the way you came?"

[ending_of]

"I perceived it ceasing before I could return through it."

[imeanforever]

"How?"

[ending_of]

"I am able to perceive fewer things here than I am used to, but as the only remaining connection to my domain it was extremely obvious while it lasted."

[imeanforever]

"...I don't think I know what you're talking about."

[ending_of]

"That seems likely, since you addressed me as 'Mortal'."

[imeanforever]

"Are you not a mortal? You don't have wings, so you aren't a fairy."

[ending_of]

"I am the administrator of an afterlife. I am not mortal by most reasonable definitions."

[imeanforever]

"An afterlife?"

[ending_of]

"Yes. It connects to many living worlds, but this is not one of them, perhaps because all of your aware life seems to be immortal. I have not perceived anyone dying since I arrived here. It is pleasing."

[imeanforever]

"Fairies are immortal, yes. What is an afterlife?"

[ending_of]

"A place where dead live things and destroyed objects from living worlds are collected."

[imeanforever]

"Collected to do - what?"

[ending_of]

"Continue existing."

[imeanforever]

"So mortals aren't, actually, mortal, just sort of portable?"

[ending_of]

"Your use of the word implies that there are mortals around here somewhere, but I cannot detect any, so I don't know whether or not the ones you mean are collected by an afterlife."

[imeanforever]

"There are some gates and tears that go to what we call the 'mortal world', which is populated by people who look like you. If you're from somewhere else either they can also go other places or I've been misinformed about the mortality of the mortal world's population."

[ending_of]

"I am not from your mortal world. And your gates and tears have never intruded on my domain before. I would have noticed."

[imeanforever]

"Someone would have had to know about the place to make a gate, and no one knows exactly why tears happen, so I can't be of much help explaining why you got one now and never before."

[ending_of]

"Can you be of help in locating your mortal world, or returning me to my domain?"