The surroundings do include a lake!

And unrecognizable plants, late-summer weather, a sudden distinct absence of bugs, and the sun being over there now.

… What.

He's gonna back away from the weird lake thing now and– what.

There is also a little house right up at the edge of the lake, over there.

He's probably going to… look around to see where the hell he is first. Because this doesn't look anything like a park in a city. A big city. With large buildings. Like skyscrapers. And there's no-one around.

… Then he will make his way in the direction of the little house at the edge of the lake.

Would he care to knock on the door? It has one of those. How nicely normal of it.

That is indeed very nicely normal of the house. He in fact will knock on the door. And look rather confused by the fact that there is a little house by the lake.

He is a very confused humanoid. He's rather tall for one, too, and he has purple eyes.

Purple sclera, that is, and no visible iris.

A person opens the door. The person is short and has brilliantly yellow hair and dragonfly wings.

He blinks at Thario. "Why hello," he says, and, "What's your name?"

"I'm a bit lost," he says, looking at the person's wings rather distractedly. "… Um. I'm Thario."

The winged person beams at him. "Of course you're lost. Don't tell anyone else your name, don't run off, don't do anything that'd inconvenience me," he says. "Come in."

… So he does as such, walking in and looking quite frightened.

But he doesn't make a noise, because that might inconvenience the short yellow-haired person who can apparently force him to do things and so he'd rather not test just how easy he is to inconvenience.

His eyes go a bit more vividly purple, in case that's relevant.

The winged person doesn't even notice the eyes thing. "So where'd you come through?"

'Uh– what?' he doesn't say, still for fear of inconveniencing the person. "– Lake?" he does in fact say.

"Huh. Well. What are you good for, now I've got you?"

"I– math?" he tries, then quiets.

"Go on," says the winged person. "Oh, and pick a nickname."

"Nickname – does it need to be anything in particular, um, I usually go by–" He stops. "… I don't know what you need so I don't know what I can do."

"Just something you'll answer to that isn't your real name or overlapped with it," says the winged person.

"How much overlap isn't allowed, am I allowed letters and sounds the same or do I need to pick it totally without–"

"No syllables the same."

"… Purple?"

"All right. I'm Yellow, my other vassal is Promise, she'll be home any minute now."

He stands there quietly. Trying not to inconvenience the tiny winged person.

"Are you good for anything besides math?"

"… I can do languages? And I'm a Rhune, good at running, uh– I don't know what sort of thing you're looking for so I can't answer that properly."

"Well, I didn't exactly go shopping for you," Yellow says, "I don't have anything in mind yet, stop interrupting yourself when I ask you things."

Purple continues to stand there, quiet and afraid.

"Oh, I'll figure out what to do with you later," sighs Yellow. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

It doesn't count as an interruption if he stops himself from rambling about his day and whether he'd be hungry or not and why not, does it? He doesn't know what definitions this guy is using.

"Don't eat if I'm not around," Yellow adds. "But if you're thirsty you may take water from the pitcher there - not the lake water, don't drink that."

"Ok."

Is it obvious that he's still frightened? (Yes. Yes it is. Because he is very frightened.)

"If there's anything you need for this to go more smoothly," Yellow adds with a slightly barbed smile, "let me know. I let Promise draw, that sort of thing."

"… Do you have a bathroom? Uh, I don't need it, I just mean it would be useful for the future."

"You can bathe in the lake as long as you don't drink the water," says Yellow, waving a hand.

"… I mean to use the toilet?"

Apparently that's not something winged people do, but Yellow says if he needs to he may go out to such and such a place in the woods and dig a hole - "I'll have Promise shape you a shovel" - and be unpleasantly mortal there.

… Are you kidding him?

He stands there, looking somewhat incredulous. And frightened. That too.

"Stop looking at me like that," says Yellow.

So he does. He stops looking both incredulous and frightened. Instead he just looks sort of numb, and he feels rather terrible about it, not that you can tell from looking at him, because he's busy looking sort of numb.

"Would you be any help building an addition to this house?"

"As a manual laborer, probably?"

"I suppose that will have to do. In the meantime you can sleep on the floor in that corner. However much sleep mortals need."

The door opens.

"Promise! I caught a mortal. He's going by Purple. Purple, cooperate with Promise while I'm gone," says Yellow.

Yellow is not yet gone. Purple therefore does not ask Promise about what they might be cooperating on.

(Scared. But looking numb.)

And then Yellow pats Promise on the head and goes out.

"...Hello," says Promise. "How'd he get you?"

"I don't know how 'getting' works."

"Did you eat something, or did he get your name?"

"Name."

"How'd you get here?"

"– Lake?" he tries again.

"Did you walk through a portal of some kind?"

"I don't think so," he says, then decides he should probably elaborate. "Not unless the portal moved through me or I was more off-balance than I thought, or… something?"

"Hm. That's confusing. I'll probably have to make you a new gate to get you home. What orders are you under about your name and food and such?"

"Not to tell anyone else my name, not to eat if he's not here, not to drink the lake water… uh, I'm allowed to drink water in the pitcher? If I'm thirsty." He thinks those are the relevant ones? "I don't know– how any of this works."

He's trying not to seem– whatever he wasn't supposed to. He's a bit confused. Or something.

Well, technically he only can't look at Yellow that way. "Do you have any mortal food with you?"

Technically! But he's not sure how much that actually applies and how much is the intent or anything, because he didn't realize orders like this were a thing and so he's a little frightened.

"… Uh, yes? I think. In my bag," he says, indicating his shoulderbag.

"Okay. I can get us both out, but you need to do what I say."

"I think– I think I have to anyway? I was told to cooperate with you."

"Yeah, Yellow isn't very smart, but you will have to continue to do what I say even after that order is out of the picture, can you do that, can I trust you?"

"I think so? What do you mean– out of the picture, right, you seem to be talking about this like I'm supposed to just know that orders are a thing."

"...right. Sorry. What's confusing you?"

"I appeared– wherever this is after looking in a lake and a person found out my name and apparently he can order me? What can he order me to do, how precise are these orders, does it matter how I interpret them if I interpret them wrong, can I order myself because I know my name, I haven't tried that, what's the food thing, does it act differently, I don't know anything about this."

Breathe. He should probably– breathe.

"He can order you to do whatever he likes. Wording matters, so does what he means, so does what you interpret, the latter two only to a point. You can't order yourself. The food thing works similarly to names but not exactly."

"What happens if I can't do what he says? And when you say whatever he likes, uh, could he make me hurt myself too, because–" he shudders a bit. "And is the food-versus-name thing at all easy to explain or… not…?"

"If you can't, you don't. Yes he could, although Yellow in particular usually doesn't. Food doesn't work in an existing master/vassal relationship - if you slipped Yellow something it wouldn't vassalize him to you - and it doesn't have the option of forgetting like names do, and in some situations food claims are unreliable."

"Unreliable meaning unlikely to actually let you order someone, or unreliable meaning the orders are weaker, or you can only do certain orders, or whether you can do it fluctuates with time…?"

"First thing, but this usually only comes up when a fairy is trying a food claim on another fairy, doesn't apply to you."

"Okay," he says, then thinks that through a bit.

Breathe. "Okay," he repeats. "Um, what do you want me to do and what are we actually– doing?"

"I am under orders from a previous, smarter master that mean I can't currently help you out here, but I can take some of your mortal food, let you rescind all my orders, get your name through some non-'telling' mechanism - write it down maybe - and then rescind your orders and get you out of here and make you a gate."

"Gate?" he asks. "And you can just– take the orders at literal face value and exploit them like that, you don't have to assume it's whatever they meant instead, or something like that?"

He opens his bag and looks around for some food while she answers.

"Yep. If somebody is bad at orders they usually don't hold vassals for very long. A gate from here to the mortal world."

"… Is this some weird magic world, like, I know you have orders and that's pretty creepy but– do you have other magic?"

He in fact does have some food! He gets it out of his bag. A packet of chips, yum.

"This is Fairyland, and I am a sorcerer. I'm not allowed to take the food, you're going to have to feed it to me, I can eat it out of your hand."

"… Okay," he says, opening the packet and getting one out and holding it out to her.

He'll wait until she's done eating before he asks her another question. … After he rescinds her orders.

Munch munch.

"I… rescind your orders? And really hope you don't stab me in the back?"

"Literally can't, vassals can't harm their masters. Okay, now I need your name -" She gets him some paper.

"… Uh, I mean, if I just can't say it aloud, I can lumen it?" he says. "I don't actually– need a pen and paper?"

So he does. Look, wonderful blobby light stuff, currently purple and relatively thin, also quite transparent, hovering in midair, and it spells out "Thario". He has tried to keep it out of sight of any windows if there are any available.

"What is that? - I rescind your orders; never give me an order that I do not expressly request of my own uncommanded will, or that you do not sincerely without mental contortion believe to be in my best interest as you genuinely understand it, except the reciprocal of this one if you so desire."

"I– um, yes, I do wish the reciprocal of that, do I have to say it in full or can I just say that I order you the reciprocal of it?" He frowns. "Aaaand what do you mean what is it?"

He puts the chips away and picks up his bag.

"You can just say 'I order the reciprocal' - and you have to mean it to enforce it - and I mean what is that, it doesn't look like fairylights."

"I order the reciprocal," he says, meaning it. "And– I don't know what fairylights are, so I can't really comment on that, but it's lumen. … Do you not have lumen in weird magical order land – Fairyland or whatever?"

"Suppose not. Fairylights look like this -" The light is sharper, the shape less blobby, more pointilist than anything. "Anyway, let's get out of here, Yellow could be back soon and he flies faster than I do and certainly faster than you can walk."

"Yeah," he says, moving to do as such and getting rid of the lumen spelling his name. "The uncommanded will part of that order – would that mean I can't order you to do anything that you ask for if you've been ordered? And what about if I don't know whether you're commanded, does it do it based on whether I think you've been commanded or whether you actually have been, or does it stop me from ordering you until I find out for sure…?"

"You can't order me to do things that I ask for if I have been ordered to ask for them. Best judgment if you don't know whether I have or not, pretty much."

He nods and asks, "Any particular direction?"

"I need to get you somewhere Yellow won't find you where you can hide while a gate settles. How long can you last on the food you've got?"

"I… uh, I think Rhunes can last like… seven, eight days without food? And I have a small bit on me, so, maybe nine or ten?"

"Okay, that's enough. This way. How fast can you go?"

"Like… 25 miles per hour? If we use the same units of measurement, something like that, maybe more?"

Rhunes are good at running. This one starts moving in the indicated direction.

Promise flings some things into a bag, pauses long enough to turn Yellow's house into a heap of smoldering slag, and flies, keeping pace. "You're faster than I expect a mortal to be."

"… Most mortals, if you just mean people who aren't from fairyland, aren't Rhunes? We're something like a fifth of the population, I think?"

"Never heard of them," says Promise.

"Uh, okay. What have you heard of then? Luna? Thamari?"

"No."

"… People with the strongly colored eyes, we're Rhunes. The ones with the usually-bright hair, they're Luna, and the ones that are kinda bulky and have the stripes, they're Thamari?"

"I've only met one mortal. I'm not sure she was any of those things."

"… It really sounds like we're talking about different mortals, then?"

"Maybe. I didn't think there were two mortal worlds but I guess there could be. Well, as long as you can describe where you want to go well enough it shouldn't matter."

He nods and continues running.

"… Are you sure you don't have lumen? Because, well, I think everyone can do it where I'm from, so, it seems weird."

"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."

"Do you have letters and… syllables?"

"Of course we have syllables. Not letters. I guess I could reproduce something I saw written in letters that way if I wanted to for some reason."

"I assume you wouldn't somehow say something twice if there were two people speaking different languages? So you probably… don't use the syllables I hear?"

"I have no idea what I sound like to you," she shrugs. "But I wouldn't have to repeat myself for anyone at all to understand me."

"If you say the same word twice, do you say it the same way? … And actually, how did you learn to plain speak?"

"Yes. And I didn't, I started able to do it, I'm not a breeder kind."

"… Okay, well, I don't know what that means because I'm pretty sure mortals are– breeders?"

"Yeah, that's my understanding. I was never a child, I don't have any parents, I just started one day."

Well okay then.

He thinks he'll just be quiet for a bit now, on account of the running. He probably doesn't desperately need to know about the weird translation magic right now.

Promise doesn't see an overwhelming need to hold a conversation. She just paces him a little ways ahead.

Eventually: "Where are you going to want your gate to?"

"Description or name?"

"Description, as grounded in geographical features as possible."

"North-east of the main continent on my planet? It's a huge city, I was by a lake that was a similar size to Yellow's, plenty of trees around, a few blocks away from the fifth-tallest building there? I don't know much about the geography since it's a city?"

"Anything else you can tell me about the lake? Altitude? Climate?"

"Temperate, it's currently summer so we don't have much rain? Doesn't get much below like 5°C in the winter, extremely rarely snows, doesn't get droughts, isn't very far above sea level. The lake I really don't know much about. So long as I'm anywhere near that city, I should be okay, I mean, I've been missing for a bit already so it doesn't matter how precisely I'm back where I came from?"

"Aiming for a city would be harder than aiming for a lake. What's the lake shaped like?"

He decides to opt for a lumen diagram for this instead of trying to describe it.

Apparently he can move the lumen with him as he runs, and he's able to do a relatively accurate depiction of the area he came from.

"Is that better, or do you need it, like… zoomed out?"

"Wouldn't hurt."

So he tries to get the overall shape of the other features of the park for her. It's a bit fuzzy; he's not sure of the details and he tells her as such.

"This should be good enough, I think."

He nods, leaving it available for a few moments in case she's still looking at it.

"Is there some minimum distance we need to get, or some place we going, or…?"

"I'm going to stash you in a reasonable hiding place that it will probably take Yellow more than a week to find even if he looks very diligently and where no one else is likely to stumble over you. You'll have to camp out there while waiting for the gate to settle. I'll come back later to close it but in the meantime I need to get a cutting of my tree and go plant it somewhere Yellow and my last master aren't likely to close it; you'll probably want to block off the gate on your end."

He nods and keeps running.

"… How common are masters?"

"'Masters' aren't a specific thing. Any fairy can do that. It's just motivation and opportunity that varies."

"Okay, but… how common are people who actually take other fairies hostage and order them to do things?"

"Pretty common. Mortals sometimes do it too if they get the upper hand on a fairy or a courtful."

"… Is this just a world where everyone hates each other, or what? Uh, I guess you don't actually need that many people to hate everyone else if a single master has lots of subordinates, but–?"

"There's often more subordinates than Yellow had, Yellow couldn't keep a large court. I think the problem is that it's very hard to feel safe when everyone can do this, so..."

He shrugs. "How big's Fairyland?"

"Fairyland goes on forever."

"… Are there infinite fairies, too?"

"I'm not sure. We aren't placed very densely and there might not be fairies on all the continents."

"I'd expect more people to… I don't know, find some friends that seem like decent people and then pack up and try to get far away?"

"Finding friends is not a risk-free activity."

"… I'd expect more people to pack up and move alone, too, but I considered the issue with that of 'feeling lonely'. I mean, either way, I'd expect more people to be trying to get away from populated areas?"

"Like I said, we're not placed very densely, even to begin with. Except breeders and those don't start freely able to move."

"Um, okay," he says. "So. Uh. How did you start then, when and what with? I think you said you started with the ability to speak?"

"I started in my tree, in a hollow in the trunk, and I could talk and write and forage and move and operate the tree and I had common knowledge."

"'Operate the tree'? 'Common knowledge'? And did the tree appear at the same time as you or did you just appear when it'd grown a certain amount?"

"I can reshape my tree how I like it, and I can keep people from entering it. I started knowing various things about fairies and Fairyland. The latter."

"Do all non-breeder fairies start in trees? And how does it prevent people from entering, like, does it physically stop them from damaging it or– uh, cutting it open?"

"Just leaflets. And, no, people can hurt the tree, just not go into it as long as it's mostly intact."

"Even if they cut a hole in the side or something?"

"Yeah, they could see in but not walk in. And if I was there I could shape the wood so it didn't stay cut."

"Weird forcefields on people-owned trees, right."

Ugh.

"Just leaflet trees, not any tree that belongs to anybody."

"What other kinds of fairy are there?"

"I don't have an exhaustive list... Yellow's a shore pixie."

"Anything interesting about them?"

"They're good swimmers," she shrugs.

Sigh.

"Are all fairies small, in comparison to me? And if you know about the mortal world, and there are fairies who seem to like taking away lots of people's free will, why hasn't it been taken over yet? – I assume it hasn't been, mine at least hasn't, I don't think."

"I'm not the tallest fairy, but you would be one of the tallest if not literally the tallest fairy if you were one. Sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world, and it's dangerous for fairies to be there for extended periods because of the food thing."

"Couldn't they just bring food with them? And unless the sorcery thing is related to the orders, I'm pretty sure they could take over quite a lot of it really– quickly?"

He's slowing down a little on the running now and breathing quite heavily, but he's still keeping up a good pace.

"Orders are separate. I'm not really sure why no one seems to want to take over the mortal world. The Queen wouldn't because her major advantage doesn't exist there, but it really should have appealed to someone else and I don't have a better explanation than what I gave you. Bringing food works but it does leave it open to tampering."

"… How much food is actually needed for a claim? Do liquids count?"

"Very little and yes."

"Is this like 'a few grams' very little or like 'literally traces of some substance left on a thing from someone's fingers' very little?"

"Somewhere between those, probably? I don't have an exact measurement."

"You said something about– um, food claims don't work so well on fairies? I think?"

"Fairy-to-fairy claims don't work as well as claims between a fairy and a mortal. Some are strong enough to usually work, but it's generally safe for a fairy to forage without having to do more than cursory checks of the plants."

"… So it's powerful from both sides of a food claim between a fairy and a mortal? A small bit of mortal food is more likely to get a claim on a fairy and vice versa?"

"Yep."

He nods and continues running.

"There's a pretty good spot just a few miles out. We can take a shortcut if you can jump a six foot river."

"Yeah."

"Okay then -" She leads on. Fairyland's really very pretty.

It is. He's curious about some stuff though – "Is everything this colorful here? And where are the animals – ugh, did someone kill them all?"

"Fairyland just doesn't have any animals, except fairies turned into them. This is fairly typical scenery, for a forested area."

He frowns a bit. "Do you know about animals as part of that common knowledge thing, or did people learn about them from mortals, or…?"

"First thing. Fairyland has fairies, and plants, and fungi, and not animals."

"No insects? What about– uh, do you know about bacteria and microorganisms like that, actually that's a good point because I might get sick or something."

"Fairies don't get sick; I don't know what microorganisms are. No insects."

"Do you know much about mortals who've been in Fairyland before? Yellow didn't make it sound like it was really rare."

"It's rare but not unheard of. I met one before, when I was much newer."

"Do you know how long she'd been in Fairyland for? I'm assuming some people just get captured and tortured or something. And how old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I found her before anyone else. She was in Fairyland for a few weeks before we both got captured and tortured and I think she's probably dead now. I have lost track, certainly more than sixty and probably less than a hundred."

"… Years?"

"Yes."

"… I'm eighteen. And, wait, if Fairyland's infinite it's presumably not a planet, so it's not orbiting a sun – how do you have years, or is this just a plain speak thing?"

"When there is a consistent seasonal cycle, that's how long it takes. Not everywhere has a consistent seasonal cycle but places that do have that duration of one."

"Do you have a day cycle? Because I don't think there's necessarily a guarantee that the years thing matches up."

"Not everywhere has a consistent day cycle. Places that do all take the same amount of time."

"I don't actually know what fraction of a day I've been here for so far, so I don't know if that matches up, but a year is– 321 days? Excluding leap years, which I guess you probably don't have?"

"That's not the day/year ratio I remember, but I could have it wrong, I do think it was thereabouts."

He nods and keeps running– then it occurs to him to ask, "Do you know what I mean when I nod? I don't know if that counts as sign language or whatever."

"Yes, I know what you mean when you nod."

"Do you get it for grunting and nonword things, like 'mmhm'?"

"Not quite as clearly, necessarily, but yes."

"Do you hear it as a word or just a sound with a weird meaning attached? I mean, I'm assuming there's a distinction for you?"

"There... isn't really? I'm paying attention almost entirely to meanings when you speak, not how you're underlying them."

"Oh, right," he says. "I pay attention to the meanings but there's a difference between them. For me. Uh. How much of a name is needed for a claim?"

"Whole thing for a fairy, a syllable for a mortal."

"… Does my surname count as part of my name? Surname as in, family name thing – I didn't tell you it."

"Probably, but I don't know in specific."

He nods and keeps running.

How long until they're at the river?

Here it is!

He jumps over it, clearing it with relative ease, and then continues running on the other side.

And then soon enough they are at a fairly anonymous patch of trees, one of which is fairly climbable. "Up here," she says, "there's a hollow bit in the branches where I can put a gate, you can hide in the tree and check the gate now and then."

He's fairly good at climbing, so he manages to scale the tree quite easily, and then he takes some deep breaths because while he's good at running that was still– quite a lot of running.

He also recreates the diagram from before, in case she needs it again.

She does glance at it, and then she -

"That's weird."

"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?"

"Spontaneous fairies start with our names. Breeders and I think also mortals get named by your parents?"

"What is necessary for your name to actually count as your name, is it a name on a body or a personality and does it have to be said aloud, does it have to be clear it's someone's name, what happens if you don't have a name?"

"If you don't have a name that's bad because somebody can name you. I think that process requires it to be said aloud but I'm not sure and spontaneous fairy names usually aren't. I'm not sure when the body and personality would be different?"

"Okay, can you just – cover your ears for a moment, make sure you can't hear me or read my lips?"

"Why?"

"Some new information has come to light and I'd really rather– do something, look, I'm trusting you here. I'll explain after, and I'll even just– sit here or whatever, I don't know, can you make me temporarily immobile with sorcery? I'm just– please? You can order me not to lie, I promise I honestly will not run off, or– whatever."

Leiht, he thinks. In case it matters what he thinks.

"I don't have a way to make you temporarily immobile with sorcery, anything that would qualify like turning you into an animal would constitute harm and vassals can't harm their masters."

"Okay, the order then? You can order me, 'do not lie for the next minute'– just, please?"

"Do not lie for the next minute."

"I honestly think this is really important and it's due to something that just occurred to me and I really really do not think you will object to this and it is really important," he says in a rush. "Now please?"

She turns around and covers her ears.

And he says to himself at a regular volume, covering his mouth to try to stop anyone else from hearing, "I am Leiht," pronouncing the 'h' as a sound that he's pretty sure isn't in his language anywhere.

He feels like he should feel guilty for this. He doesn't, really, not much.

"Done yet?"

"Yes," he says, putting a thumbs-up in front of her face to make it clear.

She turns and drops her hands. "What was so important?"

"You– you seem nice, so I'm going to trust you here," he says. "And I'm going say that I honestly have no idea what happened, and I think what was so important is relevant to what I'm going to do in the future. And I'd like to go to the mortal world at some point but if you don't mind me tagging along with you back to your tree, I'd like to… find out some more about Fairyland."

"My tree is hours of flying at my top speed from here," she says. "I'm more inclined to leave you, go to it, and come back with a branch, and you'll still sharply limit how far away we can get from Yellow and by extension my last master who lives nearby and is much worse. And I don't know what you're up to and that makes me nervous."

"Okay," he says. "I'm really not sure of any good way for me to be of use to you, and I don't expect you'll want to help, but I really do not like this system, and I'm feeling ambitious because I'd really rather not feel scared and go live in the mortal world and wait for it to be conquered – because why the hell hasn't it been conquered yet, that is really weird – and I'd really dislike having to integrate into a culture that I don't know anything about. But I don't know how I could be helpful to you, because I don't know what you actually want, because I know nothing about you."

He sighs. "I can talk while we move, that might be a better idea unless this is the only good hiding spot in the area."

"Moving's more conspicuous than holding still."

"Okay, well…" he shrugs, seeming a bit exasperated. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I don't really think so? I wouldn't object much to keeping you around if I already had a stable place to live but it's the getting to one that's the problem."

"… I've been acting under the assumption that if I disappear into the mortal world I will never get back here again and I will never talk to you ever again. But– I mean, I don't know how long it'd take you to settle down a bit, I don't know how averse you'd be to returning here or making another gate in the future to some specified point, I haven't actually thought about– any of this? Not properly."

"I'd want to come back here to close the gate eventually anyway, leaving gates open isn't nice."

"… Okay, so. I think. That is probably a better idea," he says. "I've been– assuming that the mortals aren't the ones I know, but. I guess. They might be the ones I know. It's not impossible that a Luna dyed their hair? Um."

Ugh.

"I don't remember her hair being dyed but it was a long time ago. But not being able to gate to your lake is suggestive."

"Yeah," he says. "Um, anyway, that's – yeah, that's probably for the best. Do you have any idea when you might be back, then, because it's probably best if we arrange a time in advance."

"I could make it a week? But going to my tree is not risk-free, so I might be held up, possibly indefinitely."

"… Week meaning ten days which are hopefully approximately the same length between here and my world? I could return every couple of mortal-world days after that or something, though."

"...seven, but I can also do ten, and using local daycycle length, I don't know how long yours are or have any very precise timekeeping besides my sleep cycle."

"Do you know if the local days are the same length as mortal world days, or should I– I don't know, leave a note after seven or ten of them?"

"Yeah, they match regular-mortal-world days. A note's fine."

"Okay," he says. "Then I guess– um, if you can aim for somewhere that's got higher levels of technology, that'd be good, but otherwise I think this is probably about it?"

"The only location I know is the one I was trying to get the other mortal to a long time ago."

"Okay," he says. "I guess that has to do, in that case – uh, thanks. For not leaving me trapped with him, or turning around and enslaving me, or… you know. Whatever."

"You're welcome. I'll make the gate just along that branch. You can throw things at it to see if it's settled." She outlines a box with fairylights. "- and there. It may take up to a week."

He nods. "Okay." And then he shrugs. "Bye."

"Bye."

And she takes off.

So he sits there, in the tree, trying not to make much noise in case anyone comes along, and he throws a small twig in the direction of the gate a few minutes later.

He's not sure how often he's supposed to check it.

The twig does not vanish into another universe.

So he gets out his phone, because fortunately he had it on him and it's not particularly low on battery and actually his phone battery life lasts quite a while, and he writes himself a note.

He has approximately zero idea what's going on, and he has the desire to go do something, but there is nothing to do except possibly get himself enslaved or killed, so he is apparently just going to have to explain what happened to him to himself.

And then a few minutes after that, he frowns.

And a few seconds after that, he startles a bit and looks really rather confused about his current position, more specifically the fact that his hand is not in fact against his face, he is not currently talking to Promise, and he seems to have his phone out.

It looks like he has a note. To himself. Wonderful, it would appear he's getting some sort of weird memory loss.

So he looks at the note, reads it, and gets progressively more and more confused, and then he looks around to see if Promise is in evidence, and he decides to throw a twig in the direction indicated, which he has apparently already done but does not remember.

The twig again does not disappear into another universe.

He decides not to retrieve the twigs, in case the portal settles while his hand is through it and that has disastrous results, but fortunately he has more potential twigs around him to throw.

… Also fortunately, he has some books on his phone, so he decides to read them.

In about half an hour, he throws another twig.

No luck!

… In another half hour?

Nope.

Well, he eats some of the chips he has in his bag, because he's getting a little peckish, and then he continues to read.

Fortunately it's a good book. Unfortunately, he's a little on edge because he's in Fairyland.

Does it work after another hour?

No.

… After another forty-five minutes, he decides he needs the toilet. Fortunately it's not– a hugely embarrassing process, due to the lack of people around, so he can just climb down from the tree and get it over and done with and then climb back up?

The tree has no comment.

Then he'll wait another hour and a half and throw through a stick again.

And if that fails, he'll wait another two hours and try again.

And if that fails, he'll probably go to sleep. Or at least try. Seeing as the tree is relatively… uncomfortable.

The tree sees no need to accommodate his comfort in any way.

He will eventually get to sleep. Fortunately he doesn't move about much while sleeping, so fortunately he won't knock himself out of the tree or something like that, and assuming nothing else wakes him, he'll probably decide he's had enough of trying to get any extra sleep about seven hours after that.

The gate's still not settled.

Then he will get up and see if he can stretch out in the tree, because sleeping like that was rather awkward.

And he'll spend another few hours reading and try the gate again.

The gate is settled after he has slept again and waited around some more! Hurray!

So he makes sure he's got all his things and steps through.

Fortunately it is a relatively modern bit of western civilization and he finds himself in– an alleyway! In a city. With smaller buildings than he's used to. And a less cohesive style. And it's night. And there aren't particularly many people around.

But still, he goes up to one and says something in his native language, tries to get across the point that he doesn't know how to speak the local dialect, and could they please help.

He does in fact know that his eyes are weird, yes person, but he looks distressed and he clearly doesn't speak your language, is he going to have to go convey this to another person or are you going to help him?

… You are going to suggest that he take some particular directions, okay, thank you person, he will attempt to understand what directions those are despite the fact he doesn't speak the language, yes, gestures are appreciated, and now he'll follow them and oh look he has to ask another person along the way, he has to try to work out what the weird lights are near some of the roads – oh, they must be traffic lights, weird that they're done like that – and then he finds himself near a tourist information center.

No. He doesn't think he speaks a language you know. He is in fact not sure where he is. He cannot point to where he's from on that map. He is utterly bewildered. Can he get some help? Thanks.

Five days later, he can be found back in the tree for a few hours.

Promise is there. She has some food and is munching on it.

"That world," he says, "is utterly shit at how it handles foreign people who have no idea about approximately anything."

"...uh, sorry. At least they didn't enslave you?"

"They didn't. That is in fact fortunate. Anyway – nice to see you again, sorry for my rude introduction, I hope you've been doing okay, oh and also I rescind any orders you've received that aren't from me and that you don't want."

"You can't actually do that with the wording I used, although it was well thought of and you may reissue it now."

"… Really? Huh, I thought it'd come under the best interest thing, but yeah, I do reissue it now since I apparently can. And I think it'd be in my best interests to allow you to rescind orders from me, so, I think I'm going to allow that unless you can think of a reason not to?"

"Mmm, maybe it would have worked if you thought that - but the rescindment being first means it could be cut off, and there are very occasionally situations where one wants orders on."

"So, would 'excluding any orders you've received from me or that you want, I rescind your orders' work better?"

"Yes, that goes through unproblematically as best interest."

He nods. "So – do you have a tree cutting or a safer place to stay or something?"

"Yeah. It'll be a long trip for you, though, do you have food or should I be expecting to handfeed you fairy food?"

"I've got food," he says. "And – does handfeeding actually affect whether it counts as a claim? I'm not sure you mentioned that before."

"It interrupts other potential claims. If I stole some of your mortal food then mortals involved in producing it could have a claim on me; if I eat it out of your hand then they don't, and you would if you didn't already but you do so it doesn't matter."

"Right," he says. "Uh, do you know anything about weird memory loss?"

"No? Mental sorcery is possible but requires extensive acquaintance with someone in an unordered or near-enough state."

"So. You'd have no idea why I forgot– some of our conversation from last time? Because I remember up to you telling me it'd be better to go to the mortal world, and then I was looking at my phone, you were gone, and I had a note from myself about what'd happened."

"...no, I don't know why that would happen. You did at one point ask me to turn around and cover my ears so you could do something unspecified..."

"Don't remember doing that," he says. "And I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the note. And I'm pretty sure it's not a common thing where I'm from. So." He shrugs.

"That's concerning."

"Yeah. Little bit. If I start acting weird around you– I don't actually know if there's anything you could do to find out what's up with me unless I give you free rein to order me."

"Yeah, I don't know either. I am less sure I should take you to where I live now."

"Okay, well, we could just talk here instead? I should probably go back to the mortal world eventually anyway, I'm not sure I can just stay here all the time."

"It would get annoying to feed you. What did you want to talk about?"

"Um, just checking that you said sorcery can't be done in the mortal world? And– do you have to be a specific kind of fairy to do it, or can all fairies do sorcery, or…?"

"Yeah, it doesn't work there, and anybody can do sorcery as long as they're in Fairyland."

"Uh. Anybody meaning mortals too…?"

"Yes."

"How long does it take to learn?"

"It's not just one thing where you learn it and you're done. A few weeks for fairylights, I guess."

"Oh, right. Uh, you said you were… between sixty and a hundred? Are all fairies immortal, like, I'd guess that from you calling other people 'mortal', but, just checking?"

"Yes, we're immortal."

"… I think you said you can do healing with sorcery? Does that apply to aging too?"

"I don't know how to do that, but yes."

"Would it be difficult to figure out, do you know…? Because it would be really nice if I could live for longer than another like eighty years or whatever."

"I'd need to find a library but it's probably not that hard to pick up."

He nods. "I feel like there was something else I was gonna ask you but I still don't remember that last bit of our conversation, so," he shrugs.

"I don't remember it in much detail, just that you wanted to do something unsupervised and wouldn't tell me what it was."

He gets out his phone and has a look at the note again to see if it mentions anything.

"… Opinions on stopping Yellow?"

"Stopping him from doing what?"

"Taking more people to enslave, I think."

"He got me in trade from a much worse master and you literally told him your name when asked and we were his only vassals, Yellow is just not a big deal."

He shrugs. "Okay. I assume the much worse master would be a lot harder to take, and I'm not suicidal, so I won't suggest trying that. Uh. Anything you think you could use a mortal for?"

"Still haven't really thought of anything. If your weird mortal magic were better I'd probably start entertaining thoughts of taking on Queenscourt but just blobby lights aren't going to do it."

"I'm pretty sure it's actually not magic – people have done tests on it and things, as much as it allows, but I haven't exactly kept up to date on research into it." He frowns a bit. "Are you sure you can't do it? Because, like, it seems unlikely that people would have just never tried and actually they can do it, but it seems really unlikely that people can't do it anyway."

"I can do fairylights. They're different, like I showed you."

"… How does that work? I mean, you said it'd take three weeks to learn or whatever, but is it a gesture or is it just intending for it to happen, or what?"

"It's a matter of knowing enough of the right things about the environment in which you're working. There's no gesturing."

"Then you just… want something to happen and it does?"

"...it's more complicated than that, you still have to know how to shape the result. But yeah mostly."

"Is it like moving a bit of your body physically, or is it like focusing on the right concept, or is it like just wanting a thing really strongly, or…?"

"...more like focusing on the right concept."

"Lumen's more like moving a body part. Except it has a weird sense. It's definitely, uh, got a proprioception thing." He shakes his head. "Still seems weird that you can't do it. It's in my head as a Thing That People Can Do, and you're a person, so." He shrugs.

"Well, I guess it's just a thing mortals or your world's mortals or something can do."

"Didn't see anyone doing it back there, I don't think, so apparently just a thing my world's mortals can do. That one, everyone was kinda like hybrids of the three species I'm used to. Made less vibrant. Or stripey, not that I'd see that. It's weird."

"Huh. So there's at least two mortal worlds, yours can't be gated to - I wonder how you got here."

"I was looking at a lake," he says. "It wasn't like that gate, at least, I just… was looking at a lake, it looked wrong, and then I felt off-balance and I was looking at Yellow's lake instead, and I don't– actually know which components of that were necessary for it."

"So it might be some phenomenon native to your world, but you've never heard of it?"

"Yeah," he says, shrugging. "But I'm– I was pretty sure my world didn't have magic, so."

"How is your blobby light not magic?"

"Because we don't treat it as magic, because magic is– it comes with the default idea of 'fictional', and since lumen isn't fictional, it's therefore not magic? I mean, people would probably look at sorcery and go 'well it does things and despite the fact it looks a lot like our idea of magic, it's real and therefore not magical'. I think? The word, 'magic', is usually used for things of a– certain genre that aren't real."

"Oh. Here magic is about causing things not to obey the laws of physics. Some magic happens on its own, some of it's kind magic, and some of it's sorcery. The laws of physics don't seem to obviously accommodate fairylight-like blobs under the control of a certain sort of mortal."

"I mean, the laws of physics are developed by– looking at what can be done, right, what is, and then forming hypotheses to be tested, theories that predict things and checking if they predict them accurately, going with the one that predicts it accurately and allows you to make other predictions? So, if people can do lumen, that gets involved in the laws of physics, and if you start off with people unable to do lumen, and you get laws for that, and then lumen appears and these laws don't explain it, they don't actually predict– all the physics accurately? They just predict a subset of things that can happen."

"Okay, but how do people do lumen? I have an idea of how I move my arm, what's involved in that - not a very good idea because I haven't studied it but I know there are steps and they probably all make physical sense."

"I haven't actually checked if it's the same for other people, since usually by the time you can talk – takes us like two years to start forming proper sentences, I think? – you can do it rather well, but I– uh, going through the steps individually, focus on a place I want it to appear, it's easier if I try to look at the point, and then I sort of… reach out without actually moving, like I'm just on the edge of moving, and I… aim for a thing to appear?"

He makes a small sphere in front of himself as demonstration, purple at first but then he turns it amber, and then he shrugs. "I don't think that's the best explanation, but it's difficult because it feels kind of intuitive to me? And there's a sort of– proprioceptiony feeling."

"Huh."

He shrugs. "It's weird," he says. "Some people can't do it much but it's usually if they've, I dunno, tried to blind people with it a few too many times, and even then it's not actually that they can't do it, it's just– weak."

"That's really weird, though."

"… What in particular?"