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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
imeanforever
Promise smiles to herself. "I'm not sure," she says, "if I can think of a safe way to do anything. And I might want to wait until the creekpearls are wherever creekpearls care to go. But I have a tree. It is my tree. And sometimes it grows berries."
imeanforever
"The problem is that there are a lot of sunshine tepals and even without the creekpearls there's a lot of other - stuff. But this probably isn't going to get less so over time."
imeanforever
"I think eventually she'll run into something she can't handle, but not necessarily soon, unless," says Promise, "it's me."
imeanforever
"I don't think the Princess could handle the Queen. But the Queen is only - middling, in nastiness, I think. Overall. And she's more than an ocean away."
feel-so-free
"I don't know much about the Queen. But I bet there's plenty of nasty between here and wherever she is."
imeanforever
"...If the Princess goes to that continent, and she's about to tangle with a court run by a fairy called Thorn, maybe warn her. Nobody deserves that."
imeanforever
"...Is there anything else you can tell me before I go find someplace to sleep?"
imeanforever
Promise laughs, and then finds someplace comfy to pass the night where she thinks she'd hear a sunshine tepal approaching to sneak mortal food between her lips. In the morning she gets breakfast for herself and then loiters around the Princess. She continues in this manner for a while.
feel-so-free
Secret sometimes loiters around the Princess too, and sometimes hangs around other places doing nothing in particular. There isn't really anything she can do that she wants to.
imeanforever
And eventually, when the Princess is occupied all day talking privately to some of her sunshine tepals, Promise flies aaaaaaall the way back to her tree.
She leaves a note for Arcane on her kitchen table. He can get into her tree; no one else can.
And then she picks some berries and flies back to the Princess's court.
She leaves a note for Arcane on her kitchen table. He can get into her tree; no one else can.
And then she picks some berries and flies back to the Princess's court.
imeanforever
Promise says hello to the creekpearls. She says hello to Secret. She checks in with the Princess and has dinner and sleeps and wakes up and loiters around the Princess, and when the Princess goes off to do private Princess things, she looks for Secret.
imeanforever
"Hi, Secret." Promise reaches into her bag, rummaging for berries.
"What are you doing?" asks one of the creekpearls. Promise didn't think he'd followed her.
"Huh?"
"What are you doing with Maria? Maria's the Princess's."
"Look -"
"Why did you call her that?"
"It's noth-"
The creekpearl leaps on her. Promise is knocked backwards. "PRINCESS!" hollers the creekpearl. "PRINCESS!"
"What are you doing?" asks one of the creekpearls. Promise didn't think he'd followed her.
"Huh?"
"What are you doing with Maria? Maria's the Princess's."
"Look -"
"Why did you call her that?"
"It's noth-"
The creekpearl leaps on her. Promise is knocked backwards. "PRINCESS!" hollers the creekpearl. "PRINCESS!"