"Just fairylights, and they're sorcery, not everyone picks that up."

"What stuff can you do with sorcery?"

"Gates, transmutation, reshaping, growing plants, setting stuff on fire, fairylights, invisibility, turning people into animals, healing, wards, etcetera."

"… When you say turning people into animals, is that a reversible thing? And… are they still, you know, present, or does it basically kill them?"

"It's reversible and their minds are intact but they can't speak, cast spells, or use some varieties of fairy kind magic."

"Can they still hear and take orders? And actually, do orders have to be spoken or could they text me with one– uh, you probably don't have phones, I mean, could I… sign-language or write an order or something?"

"Yes, they can still hear and take orders. Orders can be written or signed but you have to see the writing as it occurs, not just look at a piece of paper later."

"Would lumen orders work? Do they need to understand the language?"

It's weird having a conversation about weird magical orders while running.

"I'm not sure if lumen orders work. Probably, if you can make it sufficiently obvious it's you writing them."

"Do fairylight orders work?"

"Yes, again if it's sufficiently obvious. If they just appear, usually not, but if the sorcerer rendering them demonstrates that they're producing them - matching where they appear with a gesture, say - then yes."

"… If someone else were making it, could I just pretend it was me and try to enforce it? I don't see the point, but still?"

"No, it wouldn't work that way."

"Weird," he says. "… What about the language thing, needing to understand the orders?"

"All master/vassal pairs include at least one fairy so that's not a problem."

"Huh?"

"Fairies don't do languages, we just talk."

"… Um? I don't think that– makes sense unless it's a magic thing? Weird telepathy?"

"...No? I'm speaking aloud. Like, mortals talk in odd codes all the time, and fairies don't do that."

"… For mortals, at least, sounds don't intrinsically have meaning? We have to learn the code, because–" He thinks for a second. "Like, if I wave, that doesn't necessarily… mean anything? Different places have it mean different things?"

"Yes, I know that's how it works for mortals. But, since you can understand me, obviously what I am doing works for fairies."

"Yeah. So. Weird magic thing, I think?"

"If you like. We just plain speak."

"What about sign language? And writing?"

"Same thing."