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]

About fifteen minutes later, two fairies, smaller than Promise and each with long sharp non-foldable wings, land nearby. One of them is carrying a lot of paper. Promise goes into her tree and presents them with two bags of dewdrops, takes the paper, thanks them, and watches them fly away.

[ending_of]

The administrator appears.

"I am unsure of exactly what I might be able to affect within this world," she says, "but I would be able to affect many relevant properties of someone who entered my domain."

[imeanforever]

"What do you mean by relevant properties?"

[ending_of]

"For example, I could make a person unable to be a vassal, or unable to be a master, or both."

[imeanforever]

"Making me immune to being a vassal would give me the ability to do some of what I want to do on my own."

[ending_of]

"I could do that if you entered my domain again."

[imeanforever]

Promise steps back through the gate into the admin's domain.

[ending_of]

Nothing obvious occurs, but: "You are now unable to be a vassal."

[imeanforever]

"Thank you."

Promise doesn't know how to check this, but she'll figure that out later. Maybe she'll go back Downside and find a human who'll perform the experiment with her before she does anything dramatic and queen-related.

And then she shows the admin where the gate to the mortal world may be found.

[ending_of]

The administrator looks through it.

"That place was not connected to my domain. Now it is," she says.

[imeanforever]

"Good."

[ending_of]

All relevant goals having been accomplished, the administrator starts walking back to the Downside gate.

[imeanforever]

Promise doesn't stop her. Promise goes to think of ideas.

Promise makes a few trips Downside. She meets and chats with various humans until she has made a friend, and then she gets her friend to feed her a bit of human food (it is called a "strawberry") and try telling her to do things, and it doesn't work.

Then she goes home.

And she stops being so inconspicuous with her sorcering, and trades aggressively with her created food until someone wonders where she is getting it all, and in not very much time, someone has told the Queen about her as a point of mild interest, and the Queen has come to collect her as an ornament for her court.

Promise pretends that she can be ordered here and there on the strength of her name - by the Queen, by everyone the Queen tells it to - until she has a moment to put a gate Downside in front of a striding Queen.

And close it.

And fly away, ignoring calls from the Queen's other vassals - even her name, out loud, she'd despair of that if it mattered the least bit anymore - until they wonder if they've managed to forget it already and start trying variants and then she's gone.

And go Downside through the other gate and approach the tower, while the Queen is still confusedly trying to find her way back into Fairyland.

[ending_of]

She is transported to the tower almost as soon as she steps out of her gate.

"For what purpose did you send that other fairy here?"

[imeanforever]

"I'd like her unable to be a master, if you don't mind. I don't expect to want to do this again; she's unique."

[ending_of]

"Done, then. How do you mean to return her to your world?"

[imeanforever]

"I'll show her where my first gate is, since I can't reopen hers from this side."

[ending_of]

"I will transport you both to it, and allow her through the barrier."

Now Promise and the queen are both at the Downside gate.

[imeanforever]

"Alisyrrabel!" exclaims the queen. "Explain at once!"

Promise laughs, first, which is enough to have the queen very alarmed. "Right this way," she tells the queen, and leads her through the gate and shuts it.

The queen follows. "Explain!" she repeats.

Promise then she makes a candied dewdrop, well beyond the Queen's ability to cough it up. "Tell no one any names you know," she says.

The Queen opens her mouth, and finds herself unable to speak.

"Find your former vassals who will obey you without enforcement and dissolve your court with their help as best you can," continues Promise.

"Explain!" snaps the Queen.

"No," grins Promise, and she flutters to the top of her tree, and breaks off a branch, and flies and flies and flies and flies.