"I think it worked, but I can't actually tell the difference between an enforced order I'm following or have no opportunity to disobey and an unenforced one under the same conditions."

"What's the difference between giving an enforced order and an unenforced one?"

"Meaning to enforce it. It's not audible or anything."

"Do not give anyone orders. Do not give any other fairies names so they can give orders; Tell me if there are other fairies trying to do that, and stop them if they do it to me." Intent might not be audible but he says it rather forcefully anyway. "Yesterday we were trying to make progress on the questions of which variants on a general demand for information I could make without harming you."

"I don't mind telling you how fairies work. It's - stuff about me personally that I don't want to talk about as much. I don't know if you're going to be trying to use me as a strategist or just a fairy, that makes a difference."

"You'd have five hundred years of situational information to catch up on to be useful as a strategist. If you find it more objectionable to be asked to think about problems for me I can -" he flinches - "just use you as a fairy. You do not have to tell me anything personal. If you want to ask compensation for telling me things or doing things for me, I can do that."

"Being under orders to think about a thing is - unpleasant. Being asked to think about a thing isn't. I don't know what I'd ask for. You don't have my tree. You don't have a gate. You're letting me have books and paper and everything."

"In that case I will ask you to think about things but not order it. You could ask for songs, if you like music, or for different varieties of food or company or so forth. I am not good company, not reliably."

"I'm not accustomed to having good company. I don't know if I like it particularly. Music's all right. I don't know what mortal foods taste least weird yet."

"It will involve telling you about a bad situation that I expect you will want to avert, and I expect you will anticipate how I might use you in the situation and I expect that'll scare and anger and -" he shrugs - "I don't know enough about your temperament."

"Well," she says, "are you going to do it anyway?"

"If I can't think of a better solution and no one can stop me, yes."

"...is someone likely to try to stop you?"

"Lots of people will certainly try to stop me, but I have better weapons than them and more experience fighting."

"If you're going to use me on something horrible anyway I would rather have warning and a chance to think of less horrible ways to do it."

"The thing I am sworn to retrieve is held by a young mortal woman who is the ruler of a settlement to the south of here. It's not even really a settlement, more of a refugee camp, filled with the survivors of the collapse of the last kingdoms on this continent. And their children. The Enemy hasn't attacked it yet, perhaps because it's not worth his time, perhaps because he expects me to do it. I have asked her to give back the thing I am sworn to retrieve. She has told me to come and get it. We have an army. We are going to do that."

"Why doesn't she want to give it to you?"

"Before she held it, her father did. We made the same request of him, for the same reason, and he refused. He thought that its blessings would protect his kingdom from the Enemy. They might have done so, for a little while. We attacked her father's kingdom. Her father, her mother, and her brothers, who were young children, were killed in the fighting. As were many tens of thousands of other innocent people. So now she hates us and is eager for us to ride to war so she can avenge them."

"Killing children is considered very wrong because they are very small, and defenseless, and cannot hold weapons or harm anyone. In this world 'mortal' is used to mean people who will die after a certain span of years - we are immortal in that we will never age and can live all the lifetime of the world, but if you drive a sword through us in the right place our body still can be damaged beyond the capacity to sustain us. Does that not happen for you?"

"No. I can't die."

"So what would happen if your body was damaged very badly, or thrown into molten rock, or ground to dust by a powerful enemy?"

"I'd heal eventually if there was a big enough piece. I don't know exactly what would happen if there wasn't but I wouldn't die."