"I haven't started that one yet. But I'm not sure how that answers my question."

"Mm... Like, for any given change or invention or thing-that-could-be-true, there are very few ways it could be that would leave the world more-or-less the same as it is, equally desirable, or whatever. The vast majority of changes make things better or make things worse. And after enough time has passed, or enough consequences of a change have been explored, you'll either be in a much better or a much worse place because of it. Or, well, maybe not much, but then you have narrative biases that want to tell an entertaining story, not necessarily a realistic one."

"Huh."

"Vorkosigan Saga's interesting 'cause various different cultures have various different relevant things-that-change, and cultural differences, and some of them are kinda horrifying and others are kinda awesome."

"I can read that next then."

He grins. "I'm really glad you like the e-reader."

"It's so little and it has so much stuff!"

"I think I haven't filled it even to ten percent capacity."

"Wow!"

"Yep! There are probably other things that will make you happy like this but they don't spring to mind."

"I wasn't expecting there to be oodles."

"There might be. ...and I just remembered I promised to get you lots of mortal foods."

"Mortals do have some nice foods!"

"Yeah! I'd suggest taking you to a restaurant on my birthday but there's a bunch of logistic issues with that."

"People would notice I was a fairy and/or introduce themselves? And why your birthday?"

"That, and also I'd have to feed you and that signals romantic relationships which you might not be comfortable with. And mortals tend to celebrate birthdays, throw parties or dinners or what-have-you, sometimes gift-giving is involved, some restaurants give people free dessert on their birthday, and it sounded like as good a time as any since it's soon anyway."

"Oh, right, I guess it would be really weird to mortal onlookers that you were feeding me."

"I mean, I don't care what other people think, but I do care what you think."

"They wouldn't do anything about finding it weird?"

"No, some might even find it cute, but in any case they'd hardly meddle, it's not their business."

"Ah."

"The wings shouldn't be hard to deal with, either, especially if we went somewhere cold where it makes sense for you to keep a jacket or a coat on or something. You overhearing people's names would be a bigger problem, though, it's the main reason I haven't given you any movies to watch yet, they're harder to edit than electronic books."

"Movies?"

"Ooh, okay, so, you know plays?"

"Not especially..."