"Yeah. I really should've thought of this earlier, but it's hard to think on a cosmic scale. What seems likeliest to me is that planets capture gates in a straightforward way, and then I have no idea what happens if you open a gate on a moon or a jumpship. But since it's conceivable that all gates in this world are now anchored to the rotation of this particular planet, or something similarly inconvenient, the first gate you open not on this planet should probably be in an uninhabited system just in case."

"Gates have been opened to the mortal world before. I don't know what planet they were to, but I would've maybe heard of it if the mortal world had a lot of red plants?"

"It's possible that different planets or solar systems have different harmonic properties and this one in particular just happens to have the property of convenient flatness, but it's also possible that there are multiple mortal worlds in this picture, and if that's so, maybe there has never been a gate to a different planet in this - galaxy, universe, what have you. I suppose if you like you could make a test gate to Earth and test its harmonic properties - Earth is definitely the strongest candidate for 'planet in this galaxy that fairies have been to before' - but I'd still prefer to soothe my worries about gate locations relative to planets-in-general first."

"Doing tests sounds reasonable."

"Yeah. So. What sort of information do you need in order to make a gate? Would I have to show you pictures of a suitable test location, or actually take you there, or what?"

"You mean if you want me to make the gate from the Fairyland end? I was planning on having the Fairyland ends all be too high up to fly to prevent accidents, as long as I can make them from here at all."

"Travel time to the nearest other inhabited planet we might want to gate to is a week. Making the Fairyland ends all too high to fly to is a good idea, but if you can make a gate from Fairyland to a desired location with some amount of information, it'll be a whole lot faster to make the gates from the Fairyland side anyway, perhaps by taking a lightflyer or small shuttle through to Fairyland so you have somewhere to sit while you construct them. For testing purposes, though, I can probably take you to an uninhabited planet that's as close as a few hours' travel away."

"Lightflyers don't need much air to fly in?"

"They need some air, but I could look for one that didn't need as much. Or use a shuttle, which is bigger but has no air-related requirements."

"I don't know exactly how much air there is at various altitudes so a shuttle's probably better."

"Logical. And... hm. Making gates across pressure differentials seems like it might lead to things like my planet losing a lot of air. Maybe we should be testing that in a nearby uninhabited system, unless you happens to know for sure that air doesn't cross gates by itself...?"

"...I don't think it does. I can check. My tree is airtight. If you have a candle I can leave it in there and go check on it later."

"...because they're leaves?"

"Yes."

"Well, that... makes sense."

"But if it's still going in another fifteen or twenty minutes that will mean it's getting air from here, even though it's definitely not enough of it to make a noticeable draft."

"Yeah."

"My tree here doesn't have windows either. I hope you didn't think I was suffocating in my sleep."

Snort. "I assumed that you had some solution or other. You don't strike me as the sort of person who would forget to include air holes in your dwellings if you needed them."

"Okay, that's a very comforting result."