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Ari is... so, so lost. He didn't know this amount of lost was physically possible. One minute he's in a briar maze deep in Winter picking frostberries for a pie, then he takes four left turns and he exits the briar and he's in a temperate forest. Not even any snow on the ground. He turns around and there's no thicket to be seen.
He puts the frostberry pouch in his backpack and mutters the incantation to open a Way back to the mortal realm; he might land somewhere dangerous, but better endangered in the mortal realm than completely lost in the Nevernever. And... nothing. Literally nothing happens, no backlash or fizzling or anything that would indicate that he fucked up a spell, but the kind of nothing that happens when you don't have a spell to cast.
In something of a panic, he tests that he still has magic by punching a nearby tree, which splinters and crashes to the ground. "So that's still working, I guess," he mutters. "Punching systems: still online."
So, recap: magic works, he just got snatched out of deep Winter territory and put into something that kind of looks like the Wyld, and the Ways are on the fritz. Either something big is screwing with him or he's very much not in Kansas anymore. Either way, he'd better figure out what the hell is going on.
bitterchill
The forest is pretty and full of a wide variety of trees and shrubs and vines and flowers and mosses and lichens and mushrooms. Some of them smell like food, if weird food. There doesn't seem to be anybody around here.
bitterchill
Weird Nevernever food sounds like an absolutely terrible idea, narrative voice! He's willing to try some after scrying it for poison or weird magic effects if he can't find a way back, but that's only because starving to death sounds like an even worse idea, and raw frostberries are super poisonous. At least he's got bottled water in his bag. Plus some paperbacks, miscellaneous ritual components, and a shiny rock he found.
Ari sets about scrying the distance and direction to Arctis Tor, palace of the Winter Queen, to triangulate roughly where the hell he is in the Nevernever. Since he is in the Nevernever, and that means he can scry stuff like that. Right?
Ari sets about scrying the distance and direction to Arctis Tor, palace of the Winter Queen, to triangulate roughly where the hell he is in the Nevernever. Since he is in the Nevernever, and that means he can scry stuff like that. Right?
Nope!
bitterchill
Shit. He is not in Kansas anymore.
After a cursory scry for the distance to various other landmarks, in case Arctis Tor got firebombed by Titania or something (these also fail, so presumably it has not), and a scry for the distance to Stanley Park to see if he's somehow back in the mortal realm (equally nope), Ari does his best to come to terms with the fact that he is somewhere very, very far from home, and it's unlikely he'll get back any time soon... if at all, really.
Yeah, okay, he's come to terms with it. That was quick.
He'll probably miss Sally and Peter and Donovan and not Garash because Garash is a sparkly little prick, but living in a weird alien forest sounds really, really cool. It'd be nice if there were other people of some description. Not required, though. This looks like a nice weird alien forest. It's got berries.
He performs a quick ritual to check the berries for poison or active curses.
They are not poison or cursed! They are green and seedy.
bitterchill
Ari pops one in his mouth to check if they are delicious. He hopes the answer is yes!
It tastes really weird, but in a delicious way!
bitterchill
Weird delicious berries! Ari is delighted. He takes a handful and sits to snack on them while he comes up with a design for a little earthen cottage. He's so glad he specialized in earth evocations, coming up with an enchantment to keep an ice house frozen would be so much more trouble than it was worth. Thank you, Past Ari, for breaking the Winter stereotype and diversifying your elements.
Somebody with dragonfly wings and highlighter-yellow hair and really big eyes lands in a tree nearby. And peers at Ari.
bitterchill
...Sylphs! This weird alien forest has sylphs for some- no, wait, the wings aren't sharpened. Unspecified faerie-like creatures. Likely sentient ones! Best weird alien forest. "Hi! What the hell are you?" he asks cheerfully, without considering the fact that there is absolutely no reason for an alternate-universe faerie-thing to speak English.
The fairy smiles. He has sharp teeth. "Good question. Tell me your name."
bitterchill
Ari opens his mouth to inform the fairything that there is not the slightest chance that it's getting his name.
His mouth says "Ari Kaltenbaum, sir."
Shit.
His mouth says "Ari Kaltenbaum, sir."
Shit.
The fairy hops out of the tree, still grinning. "Don't tell anyone else that. Follow me. And keep calling me sir."
bitterchill
"Yes, sir," says Ari, as he feels his limbs move.
This is no longer the best weird alien forest. This may be the worst weird alien forest.
This is no longer the best weird alien forest. This may be the worst weird alien forest.
The fairy sometimes walks and sometimes flies and grins over his shoulder at Ari pretty frequently, rubbing his hands together. Eventually they come to a cottage, which is made of stones and near a lake and includes a passage into the water from inside the house.
"Gosh, I don't know where to start," cackles the fairy when he's got Ari home. "So many possibilities! Tell me how you got here. No, first, tell me if you ate anything else or told anybody else your name?"
"Gosh, I don't know where to start," cackles the fairy when he's got Ari home. "So many possibilities! Tell me how you got here. No, first, tell me if you ate anything else or told anybody else your name?"
bitterchill
"I didn't eat anything else, and I know better than to tell anything my name, sir," Ari says mechanically.
"But not better than to eat fey fruit! Tell me how that is."
bitterchill
"Where I'm from, sir, things can do magic to you if they know your name, and faeries can trap you if you accept a gift from them. But there's no... "fey fruit". I tested the berries for poisons and curses, but ownership wouldn't have mattered. If magic acted the way it does back home. Sir."
"Stop looking so sourly at me, that's going to get tiresome," says the fairy. "Do go on about your home, you've got me curious now."
bitterchill
"It's got different faeries, sir. There are lots of different kinds of them, and they're either Summer or Winter or Wyld, and Summer and Winter are always at war. There's the common fae and the Sidhe, those are the nobles, and the Queens, who're, well, the queens, Mother and Queen and Lady, and there's a set of those for Summer and Winter both. I was raised by a Winter Sidhe. Very nice lady, which is strange because Sidhe are usually backstabbing bastards, that's in her own words. She got killed by centaurs. Centaurs are assholes."
"How peculiar. How'd you wind up here?"
If Ari doesn't want to answer a question posed like that, he doesn't have to, although this has a predictable range of possible results.
If Ari doesn't want to answer a question posed like that, he doesn't have to, although this has a predictable range of possible results.
bitterchill
Ari is well aware of that! He plans not to antagonize this little creep, and in fact to be as helpful and polite as possible, because there are definitely worse things than enslavement to someone who likes you, and that list includes enslavement to someone who doesn't. He might see about getting some Stockholm syndrome going, that'd be a blessing considering this binding seems pretty airtight and he'll live for quite a while. Ari would like to strike the "little creep" comment from the record. Possibly to be replaced by "generous benefactor", though he's not sure how far he can go down that path without gagging at this point in time.
"I was wandering through the Nevernever- that's the faerie realm - when suddenly I wasn't wandering through the Nevernever anymore so much as standing just about where you found me, sir. I did enough magic to figure out I wasn't in any part of my world, then took some of your berries to eat while I thought about what to do. Which is when you found me, sir."
"I was wandering through the Nevernever- that's the faerie realm - when suddenly I wasn't wandering through the Nevernever anymore so much as standing just about where you found me, sir. I did enough magic to figure out I wasn't in any part of my world, then took some of your berries to eat while I thought about what to do. Which is when you found me, sir."
"Tell me what kind of magic you can do," purrs the fairy. "Oh, and by the way, never lie to me."
bitterchill
Ari hadn't actually realized that he could lie to his master, but he's not sure he would've taken the opportunity in the first place. Seems like the kind of thing that might piss him off. Which is bad.
"Well, I'm really, really good at combat magic. I can make my fists hit hard enough to dent steel plate or knock down a moderately sized tree, and I can shield myself or another person from- I'm not sure how to describe the amount I can protect from without comparisons that don't exist here. I can protect them from something a bit less strong than my fists, I guess. I'm very good at commanding earth and stone, I can do some cunning things with lightning and wind, and I'm competent with water and ice. With at least a few minutes and up to a few days and the right components, I can get some very interesting things done with ritual magic, though I'm not sure I can get the right components in your weird alien world, damn. But I can definitely do some basic stuff, finding things or people and warding locations and some other small magic. And I might have enough stuff in my bag for a few larger rituals, though I'd have to check what I've got."
"Go ahead and check. If you get thirsty you can take water from that basin there -" the fairy points out a bowl attached to one of the walls, partly full of water - "don't drink the lake water, tell me if you get hungry, don't eat any fey food I don't feed you, don't go outside or in the water without express permission, don't break things, don't make a racket, hmmmm, don't make me regret not thinking of something to put on that list."