blood sweat tear

[imeanforever]

He's moving her to a different court to see if it'll improve her attitude. She's allowed to fly. It's been a long, long time since she was allowed to -

She is only allowed to fly to her destination, not anywhere else. She notices that she is not where she should be, that she cannot progress to where she was told to go, and she careens out of control when her wings won't flap anymore, and she crashes.

---

with Miles (kappa)

with Minus (kappa)

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"I don't yearn to be a sparrow. It's just - well, slightly unsettling but also kind of intriguing that turning people into sparrows is an option," he says. "And very interesting that it's defined as harm."

[imeanforever]

"Animals can't talk. Or use most of the active fairy kind magics. Or do sorcery. And are pretty physically harmless."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes, I see what you mean. I suppose that where killing someone is not even theoretically possible, that tactical role gets filled with things like 'turn into sparrow'."

[imeanforever]

"Well. More often 'turn into snail'. But yes."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Is it possible to turn a mortal into a fairy...? I'm asking mostly out of theoretical curiosity; I'm not at all sure I'd like the tradeoffs."

[imeanforever]

"I've never heard of it being done. I doubt it, but it could be theoretically possible somehow."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'd also be fairly surprised if it turned out to qualify as harm, especially given the reasons why turning someone into a sparrow does," he says. "On the other hand - turning someone into a sparrow doesn't make them mortal, right? Which sparrows traditionally are. So turning a mortal into a fairy might not accomplish the reverse, in which case it would be a much less useful trick. Still handy if you really want wings, I guess. Hmm, is it possible to turn a fairy into a different kind of fairy, with a different set of wings?"

[imeanforever]

"Not that I know of, but maybe. It might just be cosmetic, though, I would be more likely to have heard of it if it did something more potentially useful like change fairy kind magics around."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah. Which seems to me to imply that turning mortals immortal won't work, or at least won't work like that."

He lands the lightflyer.

[imeanforever]

Promise gets out and pokes her gate. It is not settled yet.

[thisvorlunatic]

Silver goes into the house.

[imeanforever]

Promise considers, then follows him.

[thisvorlunatic]

He sits at his comconsole and starts playing that game again. It's very fast and shiny.

[imeanforever]

It is very fast and shiny!

Promise watches him for two and a half minutes, then goes elsewhere to do her own shiny thing. (It is thinking. With fairylights. That is her shiny thing.)

[thisvorlunatic]

Silver plays his fast shiny game.



He plays a lot of his fast shiny game.

[imeanforever]

Promise checks her gate.

It's open. She closes it. She goes to where Silver is. "The gate settled."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Okay, good," he says. "Then I guess you can get your stuff."

Pause. Small sigh.

"I'm eventually going to need to tell other mortals you exist. Sooner rather than later would be somewhat preferable. If I approach the problem from the optimal direction I think can limit the number of people who find out about you to my mother, my father, my emperor, and my boss. Having one of these people find out about you accidentally would be... awkward. But I don't want to go around informing people of your existence without your knowledge and permission."

[imeanforever]

"What are they going to want to do about me, and can they make you do anything about me?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, the Emperor's going to want to trade for those portals but he'll be perfectly content to wait for them; out of everyone I know, I think he has the strongest understanding of the inherent responsibilities of a situation like this. My boss will freak out about the fact that you could fairly casually conquer the planet by wandering around asking people politely for their names, but while he can tell me to do things about that and by custom I am supposed to do as he says, in practice this wouldn't be the first time I disagreed with the decisions of someone whose orders I am supposed to follow. As long as you do not actually proceed to conquer the planet, I don't think he'll even threaten me with particularly dire consequences if I tell him to fuck off."

[imeanforever]

"I could buy a planet, apparently, if I want a planet I wouldn't go for conquest as a first choice. Mostly I want a tree. I should probably go get a branch now."

[thisvorlunatic]

"A completely reasonable set of priorities."

[imeanforever]

Promise smiles a little, and then goes and hops through her gate. To outward observation she just vanishes.

Ten minutes later she is back with a tree branch and a full bag that looks like it was made of a flower petal.

[thisvorlunatic]

Silver has played a bunch more of his game in this time.

"Everything all right?"

[imeanforever]

"I didn't look outside the tree, but it didn't seem to have been damaged. And I got a branch to grow on the inside for me to take off."

[thisvorlunatic]

"That seems like it went as well as can be expected, then. Where do you think you'll put the tree?"