repeat after me

[imeanforever]

Promise is on her way home when she hears something just about crashing through the woods. What could that be?

She lands in a nearby tree, relaxes her wings, and peers at the source of the sound.

Comments

[morethanimaginary]

Crashing is an appropriate description, certainly. The people responsible haven't been here before.

"It's so pretty!" says a female voice, brightly, to her apparent companion.

[castmyown]

"Are you not worried about getting home? Is that not a thing we're doing? No? Okay, looking at scenery, yes."

[imeanforever]

"Mortals?" exclaims Promise aloud. "What are you doing here?"

[morethanimaginary]

"Walking!" declares the female mortal, brightly. "Hi, we are hilariously lost."

[imeanforever]

"You're lost, but it's hardly hilarious. Do you have any idea how to get home from here?" asks Promise, alighting on the forest floor and relaxing her wings again. They look like hawthorn leaves and somewhat constrain the cut of her outfit, which works around the extra extremities and is made of gossamer with leaves stitched to it.

[castmyown]

"No idea. Our first idea was doubling back, and that didn't work. I'd be more fascinated and less scared witless if there was a nice neon sign that said, 'Way home, this way, you're not stuck here for the rest of forever.'"

[imeanforever]

"I think the usual way of things is that you'll find another gap sooner or later, but it's by no means guaranteed. But anyway you won't be stuck here forever. You're still mortals."

[castmyown]

"Being stuck here until we die of old age is really not very tempting, either."

[imeanforever]

"I really wouldn't expect you to make it to old age here. That takes - decades, right?"

[morethanimaginary]

"Six to ten decades, yeah. Usually around eight."

[castmyown]

"Also! That sentence was alarming, why are we not expected to make it to old age here?"

[imeanforever]

"Because it's dangerous here for you! I'm a harmless leaflet, but there's plenty of kinds of fairies who are less harmless, and think mortals are fun exotic disposable toys."

[castmyown]

"Fun, exotic, disposable toys. Oh, joy. Uh - okay, clarify how we are re-purposed to be 'fun,' and how we are made disposable. Is it just our natural mortality playing out, or - please tell me I do not have to worry about murderers, I do not want to have to deal with murderers."

[imeanforever]

"Fairies are immortal, good and proper. Somebody could decide I'd be a fun toy, but I cannot be permanently got rid of, so there's some prudential limit to how much of a grudge other fairies want me to have against them. You don't have that, which is - novel, unusual. I can't promise you aren't going to run into any murderers."

[castmyown]

"Right, less scenery, more - 'let's go home right this instant' because this place is extremely alarming."

[morethanimaginary]

"Okay, question, fairy lady. Defenses, are there defenses?"

[imeanforever]

"Don't call me 'fairy lady', please - Promise will be fine - and, yes, but not perfect ones or instantly acquireable ones."

[morethanimaginary]

"Savannah for me," says, apparently, Savannah, absently. "I want them anyway, because defenses."

[imeanforever]

"You blithering idiot, was that your real - that was your real name - you," she says, pointing at Savannah's brother, "do not do what she just did, do not tell fairies your real names - you catastrophically stupid mortal -"

[castmyown]

Savannah's brother is alarmed!



"What."

[morethanimaginary]

"Catastrophically stupid? What the fuck, when I asked for some fucking defenses, 'don't tell people your name' should have topped the fucking list, like - how in the hell was I supposed to know that, what did I just do?!"

[imeanforever]

"You gave me your name! And any other fairies within earshot - I think we're alone but - hang on, I'll check, better to sort that out now rather than later - Anybody else who heard this mortal's name, I'll play Rain Dice for her free and clear - no? - okay, so just me, but now you're my vassal - it didn't occur to me that you knew that little -"

[morethanimaginary]

"Vassal? Vassal! What in the hell does it mean being a vassal, do I have to fetch your fucking horse in the morning or some shit?!"

[imeanforever]

"I don't have a horse. It means you have to do whatever I say, if I mean to make it an instruction, and that you can't act directly against me."

[morethanimaginary]

"... What in the fuck. What in the fuck! D- TED. Ted, you are now nicknamed Ted, bro, congrats. Fucking Ted, if she starts doing bad things, your job is to pick me up and drag me the fuck off, got it?"