"I'll need to come and go to forage."
"My court can feed you."
"I'm sure they can. I'll need to come and go to forage." This is a mortal she's dealing with.
"As you like, then."
"No, probably not," says Promise, still looking at Maria. "If you're going to be in here a while and I'm supervising you is there a chair I can have?"
"Maria, go get her a chair," says the Princess.
So she goes and gets Promise a chair and brings it back and puts it down for her. It is a Maria-sized chair; Promise is not quite Maria-sized but she's certainly closer to that than to a sunshine tepal.
Later Promise goes out foraging, and comes back when the Princess is asleep.
Technically she isn't forbidden to talk about Jeff; she usually doesn't anyway. But usually people don't ask about her nickname.
"He was a mortal and he had all mortal friends so he called me a mortal name so they wouldn't know I was a fairy."
"If you don't mind. We're a little too far from where I live for me to commute, so I have to pass the time, but I don't mean to pry."
"When I started, I was in a little field not far from here, and there was a mortal in front of me. He said somebody'd told him not to eat any food here and he wanted to know why, so I told him about vassals, and he said that was a shame because I wouldn't ever get to try his mortal candy, he said it was so good that mortals eat it even though it kills some of them. And I knew he was lying but I was a minute old and I hadn't ever had candy before, so I took the candy. And he took me home and kept me, and made me clean his house and cook his food and have sex with him whenever he wanted, and he wouldn't let me talk to anyone or leave his house."
"She's his niece. He gave me to her when he got sick and was going to die. She asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted to go back to the fairy realm and be free. She decided that she wanted to be a fairy princess instead of letting me go. But she doesn't rape me and she doesn't make me smile when I'm not happy, so she's not as bad as Jeff."
"I had an awful master. But he gave me away to someone else who didn't want to keep me." Which is something of an understatement all around.
"That's good," she says. "I'm glad. The Princess isn't ever going to give me away, though."