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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
The Birdcage has six hundred inmates. This won't be instant. But they're being let in to cell block W a few at a time, so at least everything on this side is orderly. A few people try lying about their names, but it quickly becomes common knowledge that this doesn't work. Very soon everyone ends up in Fairyland.
imeanforever
"I'll email you," Promise tells Dragon. "I'll probably be willing to completely rescind your orders but I will need a little while to think about it and to also not be in the Birdcage at the time."
And then Promise's bodyguard goes invisibly through, Promise follows and collects the flattener she hid in the crystal, and she leads them all to Hawthorn.
And then Promise's bodyguard goes invisibly through, Promise follows and collects the flattener she hid in the crystal, and she leads them all to Hawthorn.
wormcan
Leaving only Marquis and Dragon behind.
Everyone else finds Hawthorn preferable to the Birdcage (mostly because it's not the Birdcage), but a large majority are curious about Promise's conditions for returning to Bet.
Everyone else finds Hawthorn preferable to the Birdcage (mostly because it's not the Birdcage), but a large majority are curious about Promise's conditions for returning to Bet.
imeanforever
"I'm going to want to interview each of you," Promise says when she has them all assembled, "learn your cape names if you prefer them, learn your powers, learn what you want to do with yourselves - including if that's 'go home'. It's possible some of you cannot be made safe to my standards of safety to go back to Bet, but that probably won't apply to most people. You are also welcome to stay, and either lounge around the colony or volunteer to help me with constructive projects of one sort or another; I have a list of things that I'll post publicly after I've reshuffled the priorities in light of the interviews. If you are interested in helping me organize the other people here, raise your hands?"
wormcan
Hands go up. All the former cell block leaders present, and a few per block who weren't. One block leader, a short man introducing himself as Teacher, volunteers his students to help with the construction.
imeanforever
The look Promise gives Teacher is eloquent. "Ah," she says. "There you are. You can be interviewed first."
She starts a list of interview time slots (in Hawthorn time), names some things that should increase priority, estimates a ballpark of ten minutes per person on average, and sends the volunteers except Teacher to prioritize everybody.
wormcan
The results are going to be questionably valuable, since most don't know each other and those who don't have any kind of agenda probably didn't volunteer, but the priority list won't be useless.
Teacher shows up first, looking as inoffensive as supervillainly possible.
Teacher shows up first, looking as inoffensive as supervillainly possible.
imeanforever
Promise extrudes a desk from her tree and pulls a notebook out of it.
"You're why I finally decided to empty the Birdcage," Promise remarks, writing Teacher and his real name.
"You're why I finally decided to empty the Birdcage," Promise remarks, writing Teacher and his real name.
wormcan
"Really? I hadn't thought I was that notable yet. Thanks, I suppose."
She's not exactly hiding that this isn't because she thinks he was unjustly sent there.
She's not exactly hiding that this isn't because she thinks he was unjustly sent there.
imeanforever
"Summarize your power for me, please, I have it only secondhand."
wormcan
"I give others mental powers. Skill in a field, sensory abilities, limited forms of precognition. While they have the powers they are absolutely loyal to me, and even afterward they retain negative effects. The more powerful I make them, the shorter it lasts and the worse the effects. They lose other abilities, become less intelligent, in extreme cases they could become a vegetable. It can be used only on subjects who permit it.
Nobody comes to me unless desperate. There were a lot of desperates in the Birdcage."
Nobody comes to me unless desperate. There were a lot of desperates in the Birdcage."
imeanforever
Promise jots down notes. "Summarize the states of your current 'students'."
wormcan
"Most are as close to their normal faculties as I can manage. I prefer working with people rather than invalids. This means lesser powers, mostly mechanical or medical specialties to keep the Birdcage supplied, refreshed on as great a delay as possible.
They are all still themselves, but many become more passive than before and some have lost noticeable amounts of intelligence."
They are all still themselves, but many become more passive than before and some have lost noticeable amounts of intelligence."
wormcan
"It's always a general power. Touch, willpower, a language, vision in another wavelength. But the end result is what I and the student expect it to be. I might be able to give someone the ability to know people's real names, if that's what you're asking."
imeanforever
"That is not what I am asking. I do not plan to use your power for anything except, possibly, incapacitating other fairies who are too immortal to be permanently dealt with in other ways, and for the foreseeable future I'm just avoiding other fairies entirely. I just want a sense of what I'd be working with in some kind of emergency. Use of your power is purely voluntary on your part?"
wormcan
"My current students will disapprove of that last order. Many of them are likely to want their powers returned when they lose them.
Whether you amend that or not, yes, I would."
Whether you amend that or not, yes, I would."
imeanforever
"They're all capable of expressing that in the interviews themselves?" Promise asks. She adds Teacher to a separate list.
wormcan
"They are. Almost all of them will be able to express opinions even without my power helping them. I can remove it early if you want to interview them in their natural state."
wormcan
"They regain most of what they lost, but lose everything they gained. They'll end up with less independence or willpower or whatever the trade was than they started with. And they will go to some lengths to get the powers back, most of them. This may be an effect of my power or just of becoming accustomed to having it, but it's an effect one way or another."
imeanforever
"Noted. Please list everyone I have who has been one of your students by cape name."
wormcan
He lists about two dozen. It's all those and only those who arrived from his cell block.