"Huh?" he asks, still focusing on his breathing.

"The gate's not working. If the description weren't good enough I'd get a gate, it just might not put you where you had in mind, but I can't make a gate to this place at all."

"Uh," he says. "Okay. Uh. … So now what?"

"Good question. Do you want to go to somewhere else in the mortal world and take your chances there?"

"… I think I would prefer finding some mortal place?" he says. Breathe. "On account of the lack of, you know, anything modern here?" Breathe. "And apparently you don't have toilets."

"...no, we don't. Okay, I can get you a gate to a place near civilization in the mortal world and I'm pretty sure it has toilets."

"Yeah. But– if it's the other mortal world, I think you said they don't look like me? I mean, I don't know if I'll look like some weird freakazoid alien or what, so I might not– be able to fit in?"

"...I do suppose your eyes are unusual? But you definitely look more like a regular mortal than like a fairy and it would be safer there..."

"If it's just my eyes I can… probably get contact lenses? And I'm pretty good at languages, I should be able to pick that up, and if they have civilization, it's hopefully at least somewhat like my world?" He rubs his face with his hands. "I don't know."

"I'm afraid I've never been there and can't tell you that much about what it's like."

"… Do they also not have lumen? Any idea?"

"I had never heard of lumen before."

"Right," he says. "If I look mostly like them, then we hopefully have some similar animals? Similar evolutionary history, that sort of thing, uh." He rubs his face again. "That'd be part of your common knowledge thing, too?"

"Common knowledge includes a very little information about mortals and their world."

"But– you know about some animals? Like, what sorts of animals do you turn people into, keriols? Kutsiar? Do you even know the names of the animals or am I just throwing words out pointlessly?"

"I don't know those kinds, but I don't know much about animals. The classic things to turn people into are snails and frogs and sparrows."

"… Are those Fairyland-native names for them? Because I'm not sure I can even pronounce those properly."

"...no, there aren't Fairyland-specific names for things."

"Wonderful," he says. "So I probably don't know about the animals that live on that planet, let alone the language, let alone the culture."

He runs his hand through his hair and makes a quiet noise of frustration.

"I don't think staying here is really a better option but if you prefer it I'm hardly going to stop you. You'll slow me down getting to my tree and away from it if you want to tag along, though."

"I'm sorry, um." He puts a hand to his face and tries to think. "I just– I'd worry about Fairyland, just that it exists, and it seems horrible that people– ugh."

It seems more like he's burying his face in his hand at this stage.

"...well, it's going to continue existing wherever you go but you don't have to be in it."

"Yeah," he says, blinking a few times.

"Mortal world gate or figuring out how you can stay here least unsafely?"

"I– what name counts for a claim, how do you name things? It might– it might be really important, okay?"