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

[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?"

[imeanforever]

"I could learn to make a gate."

[ending_of]

"Which would accomplish one or perhaps both of those goals?" she asks by way of clarification.

[imeanforever]

"At least locating the mortal world, probably also finding your - thing. If there can be a tear there, there can probably be a gate there."

[ending_of]

"Then I would like you to do that," she says.

[imeanforever]

"It will take me a while and you'd probably be safer in my tree than sitting out here where anybody might try to catch you and take you home. Oh - by the way - accepting food from or telling your name to a fairy will make you their vassal."

[ending_of]

"I do not eat or use a name," she says.

[imeanforever]

"...Then you're probably safe unless your lack of name makes you nameable, in which case the first fairy who thinks of calling you something of their choice gets you."

[ending_of]

"That sounds inconvenient. What exactly is a vassal?"

[imeanforever]

"A vassal is someone with a master. Vassals cannot harm their masters, at least not by themselves, and must follow any enforced commands they are capable of obeying issued by the master."

[ending_of]

"That sounds extremely inconvenient."

[imeanforever]

"Well, yes. I don't know any way to check if you're nameable besides trying to name you, though."

[ending_of]

"Is one only nameable if one has never used a name, or does one's name expire if one ignores it for long enough?"

[imeanforever]

"I think that if you've only forgotten your name it's still your name for this purpose. But you're unprecedented."

[ending_of]

She considers this information.

"I suppose I will come to your tree, then, so that no one has the chance to test it."

[imeanforever]

"This way." Promise puts the lid on her cup of dewdrops and takes off, flying slowly.