rip tear shred

[imeanforever]

Promise is on her way from the library, where she has been allowed the privilege of an hour's study of sorcery - directed in topic, but she was allowed to take (relevant) notes, and read (relevant) books, and was only lightly supervised.

Thorn sometimes likes to butter her up, such as it is, before calling her to his room. She thinks he's running elaborate multivariable experiments on what puts her in a marginally more or less cooperative mood. The obvious confounding factor is that after having been buttered up she has to walk to his room. Also, on this particular occasion, she was not allowed to heal herself of her (relatively minor, but still painful) injuries before she went to the library. She did her research with shredded wing-edges and a black eye and an almost decorative crosshatch of bright red cuts down the backs of her legs. This is Thorn, so it wasn't thoughtlessness, but she hasn't speculated much on what it is instead, besides - Thorn.

She walks carefully -

There's a ripple in the air. She walks right into it.

And then she is elsewhere. She can no longer make meaningful progress towards her appointment, so she stops walking. Her eyes flick left, right -

Well. It would be hard for this to be worse.

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[marrinikari]

She's definitely no longer inside. The time of day hasn't changed noticeably, at least; it's a bit later in the afternoon, but not by much. There's grass growing patchily on the ground around her, hemmed in by a worn grey wooden fence delimiting a large rectangular area, and there's an equally worn wooden shed in one corner. Behind her is a reasonably sized house, more functional than attractive, with the door propped open.

And to her sides are children.

On her right, two boys and a girl are kicking a yellow and black ball around without any discernible purpose (except giggling and shrieking). To her left, a sullen older boy is sitting, focused intently on his book.

The girl is the first to notice her. She bounces over excitedly, abandoning her game. "Oh my gosh oh my gosh are you a fairy? Hi fairy lady!"

"Anne, fairies don't-" the reading boy starts, raising his head. His expression changes from exasperated to shocked when he spots the new arrival. "Aah!"

[imeanforever]

Mortals. One of whom she now has the name of. Not that she can do anything with it. She's not permitted to speak. Mortal children. Her instructions if she encounters any mortal say that she's supposed to bring them to a trusted member of the court - that she may suspend a fair number of her less important orders in order to accomplish this, even - but she cannot bring them to the court, so no orders are relaxed, and, perhaps more importantly, these children will not spend the rest of their lives as property of Thorn.

[marrinikari]

"Fairy lady?" Anne asks again, not particularly deterred by her silence.

The other two boys walk over to join her. They refuse to admit to excitement, but they don't mind acting curious. "Can you fly?" the youngest boy demands. "I wanna fly!"

[imeanforever]

Well, she's allowed to twitch her wings. This is ostensibly for balance, but since tripping takes less time than consciously evaluating whether she needs a particular small wing-twitch, she isn't restricted on when she can do that and that alone. Maybe these children will pass her along to someone with the wit to assign simple meanings to various numbers of flutters. For now: twitch.

[marrinikari]

The youngest boy jumps up and down. "She moved her wings! She did! I bet she can fly!"

The oldest boy puts down his book reluctantly and comes to join his siblings. He walks around Promise, muttering thoughtfully to himself. "They don't look strong enough to fly with," he says doubtfully. "But she also shouldn't exist."

"But she does," Anne points out smugly. "I told you fairies exist." She smiles brightly at the fairy. "Do you need anything, fairy lady? I can get you food!"

[imeanforever]

It would be safe to take food from Anne. (For a value of "safe" that means "Anne would not become able to release Promise from her orders" - which is a consideration very much operative in Thorn's instructions.) Promise is allowed to, honestly, nod or shake her head in response to direct questions by court members; since Anne is her vassal, she loosely qualifies as a court member. It's a stretch. But Promise nods once, jerkily (yes, she does need something; it's not food, but that wasn't technically part of the question). Her hair slides over and away from her blacked eye.

[marrinikari]

Anne yelps. "You need a band-aid!"

"You don't use a band-aid for black eyes," the oldest says. "Don't you know anything? You need ice!"

"She needs help," Anne says, annoyed. "I'm trying, not just... just... being a knowitall!" She pats the fairy tentatively on the shoulder. "I can get food and ice."

One of her brothers has moved enough to catch sigh of the fairy's back. "Band-aids too," he says, sounding horrified. "Guys, look at her legs."

"I'm going, I'm going!" Anne darts into the house. She considers running straight to Jenny, but decides against it- what if Jenny told her parents? Adults don't understand about fairies. So she goes around the back bathroom where Jenny's doing laundry and comes back with a couple of pieces of bread, an ice pack and some bandages.

(Everyone related to or passingly familiar with Patrick knows where all first aid items in the Marino house are. Everyone.)

"Here, fairy lady," she says anxiously. "Do you want help with your legs? We can help."

Michael rolls his eyes. This means he will help, in all likelihood.

[imeanforever]

Nod. She does want help with her legs. This is the mortal world, so she can't heal herself and everything wrong with her is going to have to recover the long way.

[marrinikari]

Michael sighs and holds out his hand. Anne deposits the first aid supplies in his hand, gives him a quick hug and a "thank yoooou," and then offers the bread to the fairy. "Look, fairy lady, I brought food!"

Michael, meanwhile, winces at the sight of her legs and decides to start with the antibiotic cream. "I'm gonna put Neosporin on this, okay? Don't freak out?" She nodded at the questions earlier, she probably speaks English. He starts to bandage up her legs. Who would do this? Michael bandages, thinking dark thoughts at the nameless leg-slicing villain.

[imeanforever]

She can't nod at the questions from the children she doesn't have names for. (She can assume Anne knows their names, but they're all mortals so that doesn't mean anything.) But she doesn't flinch when the Neosporin is applied, nor the bandages.

The food prep fairy has been on a kick of mealtime protocol. Promise is not allowed to eat with her hands. However, no one's allowed to interfere with Thorn's hand-feeding kink; so she is allowed to open her mouth. Hopefully Anne will get the hint.

[marrinikari]

Anne giggles. "Are fairies like birds? Look, look, I'm mama bird!" But food will be deposited in acceptably bite sized pieces.

"You're weird," Thomas contributes.

"I'm helping," Anne points out loftily.

He sticks his tongue out at her. "Still weird."

[imeanforever]

Chew. Chew. Headshake: fairies are not like birds.

[marrinikari]

"Hah! See? Fairy lady doesn't think I'm weird," Anne tells Thomas triumphantly.

"She could have shook her head at you!" Thomas objects.

"But I am helping. So you're wrong."

"Nuh-uh!"

"No fighting," Michael says sharply. "I'm trying to focus!"

Anne and Patrick subside, grumbling.

[imeanforever]

Promise continues chewing bread and submitting to leg treatment.

[marrinikari]

Michael finishes up and stands. "...now what?"

Anne blinks at him, then turns back to the fairy. "Do you want to stay here, fairy lady?" She thinks. She doesn't want to tell Jenny, or her parents, so she can't go in the house, and the house is sort of cramped anyway. "You can stay in the shed! I can get you blankets and stuff."

"Wouldn't the couch be nicer?" Thomas asks, confused.

"But Auntie Rosa is staying on the couch this weekend. What if she's..." Anne waves her hands vaguely, "here for... fairy... stuff... till then?"

Thomas shrugs. "Guess so."

Anne looks at the fairy expectantly. "Do you want to stay here, fairy lady? Is the shed okay?"

[imeanforever]

Nod nod. She can't fly until her wings heal (well, maybe she could, but it would be hard and she'd likely crash and wind up hurt worse). These mortal children seems nice enough that she isn't optimistic whoever she'd crash nearest would be better.

[marrinikari]

Arranging this promptly becomes a game. Thomas, Patrick and Anne take turns sneaking into the house to fetch blankets and pillows without being spotted by their sister, while Michael proclaims himself having 'already done the bandaging, thanks,' and returns to his book. Before long the shed is reorganized for occupancy.

"There!" Anne says, satisfied. "Now you have a nest... fort... pillow... thing."

[imeanforever]

Now she does have a nest fort pillow thing. Promise is not currently on heavy punishment restrictions, so, since she cannot make progress to her appointment, she can go sit in her nest fort pillow thing. Lying on her stomach, since the backs of her legs and her wings are beat up.

[marrinikari]

"Is she going to sleep?" Anne whispers to Thomas. Her voice isn't actually noticeably quieter, but her voice timbre changes, so it must be a whisper.

"She looks like it," Thomas whispers back, rather more successfully.

"Okay," Anne sighs, then returns to her normal voice. "Good night, fairy lady! I'll come back with food later!"

"But I wanted to go flyingggg," Patrick complains as she drags him away.

Anne rolls her eyes. "The fairy lady is tired and hurt," she tells him. "And we don't even know if she can fly."

"She has wings!"

"She hasn't used them, has she?"

In the face of this inescapable logic, Patrick yields, but reluctantly. "'m gonna ask her later," he grumbles.

"When she's better and awake!"

"Fiiiiine."

[imeanforever]

The fairy lady is so tired and hurt. And she can't talk to these children, and they seem more than interested enough in her to come back when they think of more things to do that might let her communicate with them.

She puts her head down, good eye to the pillow, and sighs silently.

[marrinikari]

Anne manages to convince her brothers not to tell Jenny just yet, with some combination of fast talking and the inarguable point "but she's our secret fairy lady!" She suspects Michael isn't so much going along with it as simply not caring, but Thomas and Patrick are willing enough co-conspirators for the time being. It will do.

She wakes up before Jenny, so she goes to sneak back outside, but all the food is put away in the pantry. Her parents sleep next to the kitchen; they'll hear her if she starts taking things out. And then they might ask questions! Mentally apologizing to her sister, Anne steals a pack of gummy bears from Jenny's not-very-secret candy stash in the living room bookshelf and goes outside to the shed.

She knocks lightly on the door. "Fairy lady? I have food!"

[imeanforever]

Can Promise open the door? She's tried to keep a good mental tally of what applies and what doesn't and the exact words, on the eternal lookout for loopholes, but she hasn't been allowed to take personal notes and there's so many. She doesn't know if she can open the door for Anne until she successfully sits up and does it.

[marrinikari]

Her prize is a beaming Anne with a box of gummy bears. "Food!" She holds it out, then frowns. "Do I need to be a mama bird again?"

[imeanforever]

Promise doesn't actually know anything about the habits of birds, but she's pretty sure that means "do I need to hand-feed you", so. Nod.

[marrinikari]

Then she may have some gummy bears. Anne picks them out in color order, because why not. Red first, then yellow, and so forth. Gummies!