"I - well, honestly probably not that long, my dad would be worried if I disappeared for days again, but I can come back whenever I like."

"It'd probably be best if I knew when you were coming so I could make sure the place was clear. I don't want everyone to know I have a mortal."

"Yeah. I'd really rather not get you unwanted attention just by being shiny and mortal at people. Uh - I just graduated, and when I go to college I'm not sure what my schedule will be, but I'm going to hazard a guess that weekends will be fine. Right now it's the middle of summer, so it's - I've got basically nothing to do for the next month or so."

"Graduated? College? Weekends?"

"Nnnnone of those words made sense to you, sorry, I forgot - uh. When mortals are younger they go to a set of schools with lots of kids their age. Three basic schools. Elementary, middle, and high school. I just graduated high school. I am legally an adult and if I want to, I could go running off to get a job right now. But, there is a - bonus round, I suppose, for school, if you want to focus on something specific instead of the generalized teaching the schools get you earlier. That's called college. I'm doing that. Weekends are - we break up our days into groups of sevens. The standard is five days of work for every two days or not working. The two days of not working are weekends."

"Oh, huh. What are you going to focus on for the rest of your school, then?"

"I was looking into going into social services, which is basically when people are having trouble with things in their lives that aren't physical injuries or something. Which sounds kind of vague, but I want to specialize a bit more than that. I'd like to at least help the whole - adoption system, it's kind of a mess." Pause. "Adoption being when kids are missing their parents or have been taken from them because the parents are terrible, and going to people that are going to take care of them and love them."

"That is the mortalest thing I have ever heard."

"The mortalest?" snorts not-Ted. "I - suppose that makes sense. Do you not have many kids here, what with being all - immortal?"

"New fairies aren't that common. Even breeding kinds don't usually have them frequently."

"... Not all fairies are breeding kinds?"

"Most kinds aren't breeding kinds. It might be that most fairies are breeding kinds because there tend to be more of them, though? I haven't counted."

"So - how do you get the non-breeding kinds...?"

"We just happen. I started in this tree."

"Just. Happen? What, as - as a little tiny baby, alone in a tree, or as a fully functioning adult, or somewhere in between...?"

"As adults. We don't have that awkward... not knowing anything and not having a name yet and not being able to talk, stage, that breeding kinds do."

"I was about to get extremely worried for the non-breeding kinds, little tiny babies alone in trees with no one even knowing they're there..."

"No, I started and I knew how to find food and not to tell anybody my name - and I had one, which is very important. Breeding kinds are born without names, and that means that anybody can name them until they get one. Usually it's their parent or parents."

"That - sounds like it could be bad if the parent or parents are terrible."

"Yes. And it means that they all have long vassal chains. And breeding kinds have less natural magic, most of them, in most cases their magic is just however they go about breeding and that's all they get without learning sorcery."

"Wow. Okay then. Mortals don't have non-breeding kinds, but - we don't have the vassal chains."

"And your ancestors aren't immortal, so it couldn't get that long even if you did."

"Yeah. That." He makes a little 'hmmm' sound. "I'm really glad mortals don't have the vassal thing on our own, by the way, it would mean my mom knew my name and I'd be her vassal. And that would be extremely bad. I'm glad you don't have to worry about it."

"Extremely bad? Like - more than usual amounts of vassal-ing bad? Why?"

"She's not very - mentally healthy. She's in a mental institution, getting help. Social services and my dad intervened when my sister and I were eleven, but really, it wasn't soon enough."