into the woods | Glowfic Constellation

Well.

Emma hasn't been recognized as a person for indeterminate months now; she certainly hasn't seen kindness. She sits for a while, stroking the blanket and crying. (She's very good at silently crying, now.)

Eventually she gathers herself together and tries to find things to do. She folds her blanket and pillow and tucks them on a shelf in the corner. She mixes up a fairly simple mix of nuts in one of the bowls, that River had shown her how to make, and sets it aside for Promise. She finds something vaguely resembling a mop (which seems quieter than sweeping, and she doesn't want to wake Promise) and starts on cleaning the floors.

imeanforever

Promise wakes up a while later. She finds the nuts, eats most of them, and offers Emma some.

Emma eats the nuts, pours herself some water, and then casts around for something to do with herself. Promise saved her, she's helping her go home. She doesn't want to just- sit here.

Once she's cleaned the bowl of nuts, however, she's out of bright ideas. She finally picks a book at near-random and sits in the corner reading.

She peeks at Promise occasionally, half-curious, half-wishing to help.

imeanforever

Promise appears to be reading and diligently taking notes on what she's reading.

When she catches Emma peeping she says, "Do you need something?"

"No, no no, I don't need anything," Emma flushes, embarrassed to be caught. "I just- wish I could be more helpful."

imeanforever

"I could think of things to fill time, if the books are boring you, but they'd be unrelated to the gate."

"I didn't mean- I can be helpful with non-gate things," she clarifies hurriedly. "I just feel- if there's something, anything, I could do to make your life easier, since you're doing all this work to help me..."

imeanforever

"Well, keeping the place clean is helpful, and so is fixing meals, and if you want there's leaves and sewing needles in the basket over there for making dresses and I can always do with more of those."

"I can do those," she says with a tentative smile. She's had lots of practice, she might as well use it for someone she wants to help. Promise has been so nice.

Since she's already done meals and cleaning today, she settles for 'dress'. She starts sorting out the basket. Plain dress first, then something fancier? There's a couple smaller leaves she could use as a decoration, maybe- and the leaves are in enough shades that she could probably sort them out, she could do a dark green fading into lighter shades-

This will keep her occupied for a while.

imeanforever

And over the course of the next few weeks Promise learns how to make a gate, and collects from Emma a complete description of where she wants it to spit her out, and sets the gate to finding this location.

"That could take a while; I can check it a couple of times a day to see if it's settled," Promise says when she's done casting. "Will you tell me how to find you in case I want to visit the mortal world sometime for longer than I can easily bring my own food for?"

"Of course," Emma says instantly. Another person might worry about Promise getting people's names in her world- it vaguely crosses Emma's mind, but she dismisses it. This is Promise. She's wonderful, she rescued her. "It's close to the gate anyway, I don't know that many places-"

She obtains a piece of paper and writes down an address, phone number, and email address. The address includes very detailed directions from the gate to her house; the phone number and email address have shorter explanations, since she expects Promise would need to find a passerby to help her obtain a phone or email account anyway. Then she blinks at Promise. "How would you- people don't have wings, really. Can you hide them somehow...?"

imeanforever

"I could wear a cloak. I might not come by at all, but if the Queen finds me here or something it would be nice to be able to escape. I'm not sure what else I'd do in the mortal world. What's it like?"

Emma's never been asked to explain the world before. She does not know quite where to start. "It's- much more complicated than this, I guess. More- stuff." Realizing this is a terrible description, she improvises. "For me, um. Houses are bigger? There's more kinds of things- more types of food, more types of clothing, that kind of stuff. No magic. No fairies. We- have made things that do things for us?" she tries. How does she explain cars and phones and airplanes and the Internet? "Things we sit in to go places fast, things to talk to people far away. Since there's no magic."

Then part of her brain catches up to her. "Wait, Queen?"

imeanforever

"There's a fairy who knows every other fairy's name, by magic, but there are a lot of fairies and she isn't nearby, so I probably won't get her attention any time soon. She's the Queen."

That sounds horrible. Someone could do what River did to her to Promise. No no no no no. She shivers violently, horrified. "You can come stay with me," she repeats. "Why does she- what does she even... do?"

imeanforever

"She knows the names just because of the kind of fairy she is; some kinds of fairies get magic with our kinds. She has a large court and takes whatever she wants."

Emma curls up around herself, trying desperately not to think about it. This world can be so awful in so many ways. She doesn't say that- or that she wants to go home, or that she wishes she'd never come here, or anything like that. It would be mean to Promise, who's been so nice, and helpful. And she's glad she met Promise, she likes her, it's not like everything about this world has been horrible. (Just a lot of it.) Promise is great.

"She shouldn't be able to do that," she says instead, quiet but firm. "No one should be able to do that."

imeanforever

"I agree, but I don't have her name, so there's not much I can do about it."