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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
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 -
imeanforever
imeanforever
"...You do have more than one, right? My lawyer implied I'd only need permission from one. What would your non-mom one say?"
wormcan
"He'd probably just defer to her, but they'd definitely at least talk about it.
Between the explanation I told you, and some context they know about, I'd rather avoid that."
Between the explanation I told you, and some context they know about, I'd rather avoid that."
imeanforever
"Okay. ...I am willing to break this law if there is ever a more immediate danger than you being worried or not liking the trend of your thoughts. I will give you my phone number," Promise writes it down, "and you can call me if you're freaking out, or show up to one of my rooftops, or eventually perhaps run into me at the hospital, okay? But nothing today. I'm sorry. The only person you are now truly incapable of harming is me."
wormcan
"And with any luck I won't end up having to heal you any time soon."
She accepts the number. As she does, her hand brushes Promise's.
"What? That's... Um. You're definitely not human. Even less so than you look. Are you a plant?"
She accepts the number. As she does, her hand brushes Promise's.
"What? That's... Um. You're definitely not human. Even less so than you look. Are you a plant?"
wormcan
"You are...somehow more similar to an ambulatory plant than to any kind of animal. Which is completely unheard of, or at least it is here.
Sorry if freaking out is impolite. It's just, it's like seeing a color you were pretty sure was impossible."
Sorry if freaking out is impolite. It's just, it's like seeing a color you were pretty sure was impossible."
imeanforever
"I don't have any etiquette norms around what it is or is not polite to say about my moderate planthood; you're fine."
wormcan
"I'm still not sure how you're even possible. Do plants—regular plants, I guess—ever have muscles and organs and all that in Fairyland? Let alone brains."
imeanforever
"I am possible because magic. Except to the extent that fairies are plants - and this is a limited extent; I'm very much on the plantier end - no. Non-fairy plants do not have those things. I'm sure I'm more similar to other fairies than to local plants, anyway, it's just you've only met one fairy."
wormcan
"Magic, sure, but you don't rely on magic to keep functioning do you? It's all physically possible somehow?
I just hope I never have to heal you."
I just hope I never have to heal you."
imeanforever
"Can't comment on the physics. And, you can't get it too badly wrong, if you do have to try. Can't make anything worse. If you get me conscious and in less than completely incapacitating pain I should be able to finish the job, anyway."
imeanforever
"When I say you couldn't make anything worse by trying to heal me I mean that very specifically. As long as I remember your name, you cannot hurt me. I can't even make you hurt me. You could get someone else to do it; or you could take extremely small risks and have unfortunate luck; but you can't so much as pluck a strand of hair off my head. I know this works on cape powers, too."
imeanforever
"Well, nothing unrecoverable will happen either, but that's for totally unrelated reasons having to do with me being extremely immortal, and 'not unrecoverable' can be very different from 'anywhere within five hundred million years of recoverable'."
imeanforever
"I just made up a large number, but I assume so. Certainly there are fairies who have lived so long that there is no record or memory of when they were new."
wormcan
"With humans, that would happen at much smaller numbers. Our entire history is a few thousand."
imeanforever
"Well, according to the Internet, you had to invent writing, which probably didn't help. That and the sometimes dying."
wormcan
"Even so, our whole world has only been around a few times that. I'd have to look it up, but it wouldn't surprise me if five hundred million years ago there were no such thing as trees."
wormcan
"Maybe. The only one anyone here knows of was completely identical up to about thirty years ago. There are people with duplicates. If they're all the same up to some point they'd have to be the same age, but I don't really know."