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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 -
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imeanforever
wormcan
They give her as much information as they can. The creatures are autonomous, and are not likely to be included in her control of Nilbog. What Ellisburg used to look like, the powers of the creatures during the disastrous raid ten years ago, aerial photographs of the current city with his likely location marked. It looks surprisingly neat, for a place ruled by a goblin king.
They're sending her in with a force field for protection, and have two redundant teleporters on standby to get her out if she presses a panic button. Another device to disintegrate whatever's immediately above and launch her upward, if she wouldn't rather trust her own wings in an emergency. And multiple harmonic flatteners, just in case. Other capes are available to fight the creatures if necessary, but if anything goes that wrong they no longer have assurances about what Nilbog will do.
They're sending her in with a force field for protection, and have two redundant teleporters on standby to get her out if she presses a panic button. Another device to disintegrate whatever's immediately above and launch her upward, if she wouldn't rather trust her own wings in an emergency. And multiple harmonic flatteners, just in case. Other capes are available to fight the creatures if necessary, but if anything goes that wrong they no longer have assurances about what Nilbog will do.
imeanforever
This is an acceptable number of redundant precautions. Pity they don't know any of the creatures' names.
She studies the materials supplied, puts on all her snazzy articles... on a hunch gets a long-sleeved leaf dress so they're less conspicuous... and then she supposes she's ready to go.
She studies the materials supplied, puts on all her snazzy articles... on a hunch gets a long-sleeved leaf dress so they're less conspicuous... and then she supposes she's ready to go.
wormcan
Ellisburg post-Nilbog has been redesigned. The architect was unconcerned with functionality, attaching floorboards or doors to exterior walls in order to add extra spires and structures in whatever combination Nilbog found interesting. The trees are all perfectly regular: some are perfect cubes, others perfect spheres, others forming arches. Even the grass has been designed with care: flowers grow at seemingly random points on the lawns, but the grass is trimmed perfectly level right up to the stalk of anything growing. A scarecrow stands in front of one house, with its dog skull head facing upward and holding a rake in its child-sized human hand. Nothing alive is visible.
imeanforever
Promise, descending from the helicopter above, lands on a street, has a long look around, and, when not accosted, proceeds into the town.
wormcan
On her way, she will notice a creature about a foot shorter than she is. Reptilian, with brown scales and small black eyes. It's also wearing clothes. Less so than the humans she's seen, but a pair of shorts and suspenders is more than any nonhuman mortals so far. It opens its mouth impossibly wide when it encounters her force field from behind, and hisses.
imeanforever
"Hello," says Promise. "I wish to speak with your master."
(This city is not a fairy court. But it is more like a fairy court than anything else she's run into in this world, as far as she knows.)
wormcan
He or it stops hissing, but starts pawing at the force field. Another creation joins and does the same.
wormcan
They back off, briefly. A few hisses from the reptilian creation and grunts from the piglike one. One of them starts removing a few small objects from a pocket and dropping them, then taps on the field again.
If Promise looks closely at the windows of the buildings, she might see misshapen silhouettes or reflective eyes.
If Promise looks closely at the windows of the buildings, she might see misshapen silhouettes or reflective eyes.
imeanforever
"I don't know what you're getting at, unfortunately, or I'm sure we could come to some agreement."
wormcan
After a few more hisses and whistles, a third creature joins the other two. It's carrying tools, possibly designed for use in building or gardening but also very threatening-looking. It brandishes a long serrated blade, then steps back. It drops the weapon, pointing at Promise. The smaller creatures resume scratching at Promise's bubble.
imeanforever
"I'm not carrying any weapons. I have some things that will help me move around, and my personal space bubble, and something to help me use fairy magic, and that's all."
imeanforever
"If you want to look at everything I'm carrying, I can do that. I just don't like being touched." She rolls up her sleeves, identifies, the objects, pulls up the leafy hem of her dress enough to display shoeless feet and ankle-worn objects.
wormcan
They stop pressing on the force field, but resume making a show of emphatically dropping objects.
imeanforever
"I need all my things. To make sure that nobody touches me, since I don't like being touched, and to make sure fairy magic works because a fairy should have her fairy magic, and to make sure I can go when I want."
wormcan
More creatures appear out of the woodwork, some of them literally.
An enormous quadruped, almost symmetrical with no head. A tall, long-limbed man with very fine fur and a wide, toothless mouth. An irradiated land-going sea cucumber.
They don't make any move against her, but block her progress as long as she's carrying unknown potentially dangerous things. Other creatures run into the building Promise is trying to get to, to inform their king of the intruder.
An enormous quadruped, almost symmetrical with no head. A tall, long-limbed man with very fine fur and a wide, toothless mouth. An irradiated land-going sea cucumber.
They don't make any move against her, but block her progress as long as she's carrying unknown potentially dangerous things. Other creatures run into the building Promise is trying to get to, to inform their king of the intruder.
imeanforever
That's okay. He's the person she wants to talk to, and if he would rather talk out here than show her wherever he's hanging out, that's fine. The force field is doing its job very well.
wormcan
A large figure lumbers out of what is probably the palace. It raises its trunk and trumpets loudly, or, presumably loudly. It's far outside normal hearing range. An enormous crowd of creatures surrounds Promise, but they open a narrow path between her and the door.
wormcan
They're all watching her, with more kinds of eyes than she knew existed, and some are making sounds that might be cheering or applauding or anticipation of her being destroyed. Who knows.
Inside, an enormously fat humanoid sits on a throne cobbled together from furniture. A cloth crown flops around his ears. Other monsters are seated around the room, watching a gladiatorial combat between two creatures.
The large one speaks.
"Who enters my domain? I must warn you, it is an act against all etiquette to come armed in the presence of a king."
Inside, an enormously fat humanoid sits on a throne cobbled together from furniture. A cloth crown flops around his ears. Other monsters are seated around the room, watching a gladiatorial combat between two creatures.
The large one speaks.
"Who enters my domain? I must warn you, it is an act against all etiquette to come armed in the presence of a king."
imeanforever
"I am not armed. I have explained to your vassals" (...they're close enough) "that the things I brought with me only ensure my personal space, let me move, and allow my fairy magic to work in the mortal world. I am called Promise."
wormcan
"And I Nilbog. But those are only names. Who are you, that you come uninvited and do not bow to me?"
imeanforever
"I'm a fairy. I didn't realize bowing was customary here; my apologies." She sketches a bow as best she can without falling over.
wormcan
"A fairy! There have been no fairies in my kingdom for a hundred years!" He seems to have forgotten he's supposed to be angry at her. "Welcome, and why have you come?"