Twitch. "If you say 'would you do this' and don't specify under what conditions it leaves me partly free to imagine conditions on my own but you couldn't accidentally let me to say I'd do something I'd never do. With that phrasing I could use my current model of what you care about, I wouldn't have to think hard about making sure it was good, but I couldn't deliberately worsen my model by anything other than carelessness; I could do anything I wasn't otherwise forbidden to do in the hopes of adjusting my model but I wouldn't have a very long window to do it in before I had to answer."

"Am I going to cause you tremendous harm if I do the obvious thing, which is asking you to tell me everything you know in the order it should be of interest to me?"

"Yes, even compared to a lot of the other things you might do with me."

"Is there a way to get most of the value from that question while not causing you much harm?"

"Yes, but how depends on what I'd think about your interests if I knew more about them."

She takes a breath. She thinks for a moment. "Mutual vassalization is possible and if it were in place I'd be less afraid of you because vassals can't hurt their masters, although not by very much because plenty of things don't count as 'hurting'. If anybody mentioned your name I'd listen and remember it but I don't know yet what a good opportunity to learn it would look like. I'm currently free to speak and enforce orders if I obtain any vassals, of whom I presently have none at all, and I can also put my ears out if I get my hands on tools, which would make it prohibitively difficult to control me with orders, although my existing orders would stand and it wouldn't make me any more physically imposing. If you're under an oath like you described that means I have to think about this entire situation in terms of it being your master and thus mine at one remove and that affects how decent a master I can expect you to be on the general spectrum of people who keep slaves. It seems unlikely that you're a good source of unbiased information on someone who you've nicknamed 'the Enemy'."

"You may not give anyone any orders. Do orders have to be spoken? Giving them telepathically doesn't count? If you can't give orders, what changes if you learn someone's name, do you have other forms of power over them?" He isn't willing to stop her from putting her ears out. "Mutual vassalization is not acceptable to me but I am more than willing to give my word not to 'hurt' you if by that you mean physical violence. Are there other commitments that would make this situation less harmful to you without putting my people at risk?"

"Orders can be written if the vassal watches the master write it out but not at any degree of temporal remove. I don't know if telepathy counts but it probably does. If I can't enforce orders then the only thing someone being my vassal changes is whether they can hurt me or not and whether we can feed each other without adding new claims on the fed party. I - I don't want to be touched. Or ordered to hurt myself or anyone else. Or deprived of sleep. Or addressed by name even if you make me give my name which doesn't give you anything you don't already have unless you want to turn me over to another fairy, food works fine for nonfairies, are you sure you're not mortals you said the Enemy was going to kill everyone? If you're going to try to use me for any mental work more complicated than answering basic questions like this I will function better if I have time to - draw. If anybody ever finds a gate to Fairyland you probably won't let me go and get a cutting from my tree, will you."

"I will not touch you, or let anyone touch you, or order you to hurt yourself." He does not promise not to order her to hurt other people. There is a Silmaril, there is an Oath, they are moving towards Sirion as slowly as they can but they are headed there. "Or deprive you of sleep, or address you by name. You can draw. We don't have much paper but you can certainly use it. I cannot think why I wouldn't let you go and get a cutting from your tree, is there a reason I ought to hesitate to do that?"

"The gate might not be anywhere near it. I'd be away a long time finding it and bringing the cutting back and if there was a loophole in my orders I'd have time to find it and if you gave me a self-incapacitating contingency for that case I'd be hard to collect."

"I do not actually want a prisoner and am not trying to close loopholes so that you cannot escape me. I think the tree is fine. Do you require rest or - drawing time, I suppose - right now?"

"Depends on what you mean by require."

She shivers. She looks for somewhere to go lie down.

He would love to avoid her until the Oath drowns out all else but by then he'll be much much less safe to be around. He finds some plant-based things. He goes back upstairs. He knocks on the door.

She's awake by then. She looks dubiously at her knee and more dubiously at the ceiling clearance. "Um, you can come in?"

He does. "How are you? There's an important constraint I didn't mention yesterday. Delaying action on an Oath numbs all the things you care about that aren't the Oath, after a while you can't want anything else or remember exactly why you did. We are not going to delay action on the Oath that far, but the next action it demands of us is terrible so we have been delaying. That means it may be wise for me to find a solution with you that's safe for all parties, in the next few weeks, and then commit myself to it before I lose sight of it. Otherwise I would be inclined to leave you alone for much longer. I still can."

"I'm rested, my injuries are going to take a long time to heal without sorcery but they're not so bad I can't think around them, this is still probably a lot better than having arrived where I was going when I went through the tear. I do need to eat, just avoiding me isn't a great idea," she points out. "I can get by without much but not comfortably. ...what are you thinking in terms of a, a solution with me...?"

"I have food. I want to make sure you don't end up in Enemy hands and don't go flitting around making slaves of everyone who gives you their name, those are the only really important features of a solution but they need to be airtight." He puts his head in his hands. "If you could help us that would also be good but I think we are beyond helping."

"You said you knew the Enemy's name," she says. "I don't know how to best keep me out of his hands if I don't know if that would even work or not. I don't want to keep slaves. I had a vassal once because a mortal was stuck in Fairyland and she was starving and Thorn caught us both before I could gate her home. That's the only one. You can phrase it as a question if you want to be surer of my honesty."

"Have you lied to me about anything since you got here?"

"I don't remember everything I said to you since I got here but I don't think so and I am sure I haven't lied to you today."