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Promise settles in. Her garden grows. Her tree grows; she stores her map and the rest of the notebook in there, first, and after she's been there for seven days, she can fit inside it herself. (At that early stage it's only an improvement over the outdoors when it's raining, but it's her tree. It'll get bigger.) She slowly broadens her diet as she learns the peculiar local plants and which ones she likes. She coaxes her tree into flower, picks one and ensorcels it, wraps cottony fluff from one of her trees in a giant flower petal of the same kind her bag is made of, and she has a pillow. The other flowers turn into haw berries that taste like home. She practices fairylights and then more complicated spells all around her new turf with her map, then without, until she has it memorized by feel and by the response of the magic when she casts.
When she doesn't need to do magic to her plants every single day to get and keep them producing at a rate sufficient to sustain her, she goes to the library and tells them things about the continent she came from in exchange for a half-century's membership. She brings home books. She makes paper to take notes on.
She doesn't have any near neighbors, but she has distant ones, and she trades foreign seeds and candied dewdrops for glass and books. She drinks her stream and writes her thoughts (a lot of her thoughts are about Arcane). She decompresses. She reads and thinks.
Time goes by. It's dark at night; sometimes she watches the stars.
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imeanforever
feel-so-free
"I bet you wouldn't tell me what it is," she says. And she smiles. "If I got to call myself something, I'd call myself Secret."
feel-so-free
"Should I have started knowing what kind I am? I started knowing some things, but not that."
imeanforever
"I did. I don't think breeders do but you said you were the only one of you you've met."
feel-so-free
"Breeders don't start knowing their names, either. They get those from other people. But fairies like us, those all start with names, right?"
imeanforever
It is, isn't it.
"Has the Princess ever," says Promise carefully, "told you that you may not tell anyone else your name?"
"Has the Princess ever," says Promise carefully, "told you that you may not tell anyone else your name?"
imeanforever
"Why the creekpearls and not you," murmurs Promise again. "Do you have any vassals? Technically, I mean."
imeanforever
"Was your first master really careful? I mean, mortals, I've heard, go by their real names, all the time..."
feel-so-free
"Mortals go by their real names all the time. He changed his to something different. And he never called his niece by her real name in front of me, ever."
Secret has mentioned that he had mortal friends, though. His mortal friends are conspicuously absent from this recitation.
Secret has mentioned that he had mortal friends, though. His mortal friends are conspicuously absent from this recitation.
feel-so-free
"It would be really hard to go all that time without hearing any mortal names ever," she agrees. "They even put their names on the books they write, and little pictures of themselves in the back sometimes."
imeanforever
Promise peers at her.
"Did the Princess feed the master sunshine tepal, or get their name?"
"Did the Princess feed the master sunshine tepal, or get their name?"
imeanforever
Of course not.
Hmm.
"By and large I think dying is very sad, which is why I answered the ad. But I thought I'd be de-aging somebody's mortal vassal, ideally a well-treated one. This is not quite what I was expecting."
Hmm.
"By and large I think dying is very sad, which is why I answered the ad. But I thought I'd be de-aging somebody's mortal vassal, ideally a well-treated one. This is not quite what I was expecting."
feel-so-free
"I almost wish you hadn't. If she dies I don't have to listen to her anymore. I don't hate her, but I don't want to be her vassal."
imeanforever
"I haven't de-aged her yet. And I only said I'd do it once, for the creekpearls. But I'm not sure she'd give you up."
imeanforever
"How much does she know about how vassalization works? She hasn't been here very long."
feel-so-free
"I told her about it. Feeding mortals fairy food and feeding fairies mortal food and knowing people's names."