Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
"Here?" The humans glance around at the enormous empty room. "If you'd prefer. I'll make sure everyone is warned about the names so you're less confined, but leaving wherever you wait is still going to be a risk."
"If it might be days, you'll presumably want food and furniture and so on. And information, of course, what kinds of things do you most urgently need to know?"
"I was packed for a trip when I fell through. I have never eaten mortal food and don't want to start. If I'm going to come back here later I'd like to know more about how the world is, in general. I don't know enough to know what to ask."
There probably actually is an answer prepared for people who need a ground-up introduction to everything. I haven't handled any of those cases myself, but it comes up more often than never.
And I'd like to know more about Fairyland eventually, but you learning about Earth Bet is higher priority."
"I'm willing to tell you some general things about Fairyland, but I don't have a prepared answer on hand."
"For my own curiosity, why is so much of it in anarchy? Humans have had societies beyond what could be described as someone's court for most of our history, and even capes can be organized. Are most fairies just extremely averse to cooperation?"
"Some fairies do live in largish groups. Mostly breeding kinds. Most individual fairies are breeders, but most kinds of fairies aren't. But there's nowhere as densely populated as the city I just overflew implied. And we can be self-sufficient pretty easily."
But worrying about the details of another world is likely to be above my pay grade, at least as long as my city isn't in danger."
"Definitely. Who can gain powers is an essentially random sample, but powers only activate after some form of trauma. I admit some are perfectly well-adjusted individuals, but they're not exactly selected for that. And then they wind up obviously unique, powerful, and socially expected to bash one another's faces in. The general trend is that parahumans are much more likely than normals to do their own thing and in unpleasantly direct ways."
"About three hundred fifty thousand. Brockton Bay is larger than most cities, but there are fifty or so larger in this country alone."
"For us it was mostly made possible by the industrial and agricultural revolutions. It sounds like Fairyland never had those. But the causes are ancient history now; large cities are just taken for granted."
"I'll dig up some information on how it happened and add it to the list, if you're interested. History in general probably wouldn't even need to be redacted, the owners of any names being safely dead."
"You need to avoid hearing names even if there's no one attached? That sounds more dangerous than before."
"It wouldn't do anything by itself, but if I think of a name in connection with another mortal later and it happens to be right that works just as well as being told about someone's name in particular."
Piggot frowns. "If it's that easy, I may have to reconsider the suggestion about telling you some names. Any criminal who isn't too dangerous to get you close to might not be worth the risk to everyone who happens to share their name."
"Few names are unique, and some are common. I'll make sure everything is as redacted as possible."