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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
Peak whispers her name to the tiny fairy. If looks could kill, Eidolon's distant ancestors would have a suspiciously high mortality rate.
The teeny fairy does not require further help from Eidolon in doing her best to secure this court under her own rule. She issues principally placeholder orders and lets most of the fairies go back about their business, but keeps Peak and Favorite on hand and does a lot of excited zooming around through the air, complete with backflips and squealing, "I got a court I got a whole court it's mine".
Eventually she calms down and goes to have a chat with Eidolon. "Answer everything I ask you honestly and quietly and helpfully and right away and don't leave stuff out. Where'd you learn all that sorcery?"
The teeny fairy does not require further help from Eidolon in doing her best to secure this court under her own rule. She issues principally placeholder orders and lets most of the fairies go back about their business, but keeps Peak and Favorite on hand and does a lot of excited zooming around through the air, complete with backflips and squealing, "I got a court I got a whole court it's mine".
Eventually she calms down and goes to have a chat with Eidolon. "Answer everything I ask you honestly and quietly and helpfully and right away and don't leave stuff out. Where'd you learn all that sorcery?"
whole_new_can
"I don't know any sorcery. On my world some people have what we call parahuman powers. Mine lets me have any three ordinary powers, whatever I need at the time."
whole_new_can
"An ability most people don't have. One person can fire lasers, another is invulnerable and can fly, someone else could build completely impossible machines. Most powers help people fight, one way or another, but a lot do have other uses."
whole_new_can
Eidolon swaps them around. The first slot doesn't seem to settle on anything; whether because there is no such power or because it'd just take more time he has no idea. The second has the same result. The third finds a power quickly. While still searching for the other two, he tries to leave a message in Promise's tree. Where he is, who's in charge of the mass of fairies, and the fact that HELP. He can always erase it later if Cauldron rescues him before Promise sees it.
And then he finds that he can't use the power. Orders.
The tiny fairy has now seen him swap his powers around. It probably didn't look like much of anything.
And then he finds that he can't use the power. Orders.
The tiny fairy has now seen him swap his powers around. It probably didn't look like much of anything.
whole_new_can
"Partly, yes. I dropped three abilities and replaced one. Most powers are undetectable when not being used."
"Oh. Well, that's boring," says the little fairy. She wanders off to do something else. Apparently she has had an idea for an evening's entertainment she wants Imagine and Applause to put together that nobody has ever let her propose before and by golly now she can have it.
whole_new_can
"It's less boring when I use them. Do you want to see what one looks like? The power I've got right now can do fireworks."
"Ooh. Show me that," says the little fairy (who, it may be divined from what the others of the court are calling her, is nicknamed Cozy).
whole_new_can
He does. This power can indeed do fireworks. Green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers, disappearing just before they touched the fairies' upturned faces. Fountains of butterflies flying glittering into the trees; pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air like an embattled army. Each illusion stays until erased.
While Cozy is busy taking him for a conjurer of cheap tricks, Eidolon uses it for its other purpose. He writes his message to Promise at her tree in letters of fire and doesn't erase them.
While Cozy is busy taking him for a conjurer of cheap tricks, Eidolon uses it for its other purpose. He writes his message to Promise at her tree in letters of fire and doesn't erase them.
imeanforever
Meanwhile, Promise has hacked together an anti-Fallen's-hostage-situation power interaction out of two Kept, a rogue from Oklahoma who frequents her forum thread, a Baltimore Ward, and a roll of duct tape. The Kept are a postcog and a (usually-)combat anesthetist to help him operate through the Thinker headaches to scale up as necessary. This assistance prevents him from actually reporting on what he sees - it's impossible, even with fairy orders helping, to speak clearly without being able to feel one's body - but the rogue has the ability to let people she's touching all touch whoever someone also in the handholding chain is thinking of. (She currently monetizes this ability for people in long-distance relationships with modest needs and/or exhibitionist streaks; years ago, she got out of jail time by turning in her past allies from when she hired herself out to supervillain Strikers as a range delimiter.) This allows the Ward, who can remove many kinds of ongoing parahuman effects from others but only after doing them some token injury, to apply tape to the Fallen's victims, rip out a few arm hairs and their little Master problem, and repeat until the postcog accidentally thinks about his ex-girlfriend instead and it seems like they're done.
Then they have a war.
Promise acquires 57 darted Fallen as new Kept. Anybody going to try to stop her from taking them home with her?
Then they have a war.
Promise acquires 57 darted Fallen as new Kept. Anybody going to try to stop her from taking them home with her?
wormcan
Plenty of people disapprove, but at this point it would be like trying to stop Glaistig Uaine. (Which they would love to do, if anyone knew where she was.) And there were far fewer injuries and deaths than there could have been, thanks in part to the overwhelming force that wasn't made entirely of Protectorate heroes.
(The Fallen's doomsday device probably wouldn't have worked anyway. But this way Texas stays definitely on the map. The Chief Director, at least, does not regret having accepted Promise's help.)
(The Fallen's doomsday device probably wouldn't have worked anyway. But this way Texas stays definitely on the map. The Chief Director, at least, does not regret having accepted Promise's help.)
imeanforever
So Promise heals her injured-but-not-dead, tells her Fallen Kept to obey the Hawthorn rules, brings them home, schedules them interviews, and goes back to her Valley Continent tree for lunch. She doesn't mind sleeping in her Hawthorn one but she hasn't started growing any crops there besides haws, and she's in a grains-and-flower-petals mood.
...What is this decor. In her tree. What.
...What is this decor. In her tree. What.
imeanforever
Who the fuck wandered into Fairyland and couldn't handle it and was able to put a note in her tree. Promise is displeased.
She goes back, bumps all the interviews to the next day, and consults Tinkers about a mass juice delivery system. A subtle mass juice delivery system. That they can have done fast.
She goes back, bumps all the interviews to the next day, and consults Tinkers about a mass juice delivery system. A subtle mass juice delivery system. That they can have done fast.
wormcan
Very few Tinkers work with living things. Bonesaw says she could make a mosquito deliver juice and leave a scent behind to avoid reaching the same person twice, but one surgery per mosquito would be slow even for her. But she can recommend someone.
imeanforever
Sigh.
Promise goes and asks Plague and Pestilence if they want to help her with juice-delivering mosquitoes.
Promise goes and asks Plague and Pestilence if they want to help her with juice-delivering mosquitoes.
wormcan
As in, alter insects to deliver foreign substances harmful to the recipient? ...maybe.
Bonesaw constructs one with the tiniest surgical implements anyone ever did see. With that as a model, the Amies turn regular mosquitos into the less evil version in whatever numbers it takes.
Bonesaw constructs one with the tiniest surgical implements anyone ever did see. With that as a model, the Amies turn regular mosquitos into the less evil version in whatever numbers it takes.
imeanforever
Excellent.
Promise puts her mosquitoes in a box, turns it and them invisible, and hopes the mystery idiot's description suffices for a gate.
It does. Lucky mystery idiot. She steps through.
Promise puts her mosquitoes in a box, turns it and them invisible, and hopes the mystery idiot's description suffices for a gate.
It does. Lucky mystery idiot. She steps through.
whole_new_can
The mystery idiot, from whose perspective everything made sense at the time, is Eidolon. She might recognize him from the fact that he's Eidolon.
He, like all the fairies around him, has no idea she's there.
He, like all the fairies around him, has no idea she's there.