Promise steps into the room. Her wings roll up behind her and she finds a corner to sit in, tucked out of the way.

"...Um, hello," the room's other occupant says. "You, uh, don't have to sit like that, I'm sure we can find you a chair at least."

"Backless chair?" asks Promise, looking at the chairs currently in the room.

"...Squashy stool at the very least. Hi, I'm Overbite."

"I'm Promise."

"I gathered from the exchange at the door. So what kind of fairy gets dominion over someone from hearing their birth name?"

"All the kinds of fairies I've ever heard of. Do you have kinds that don't have that property here?"

"All the kinds of fairies I've ever heard of don't have that property, and I've met a lot of them."

"Weird. Maybe there are some fairies who moved to the mortal world permanently and... lost it? Maybe it takes a long time to stop working unlike sorcery but still does... or there are breeders here and if they're born here they have mortal name properties and their ancestors left them...?"

"Most of the fairies I've met were originally from the Fey Realms. I'm not sure what you mean by breeders."

"Fairies that breed, instead of just starting. I have no idea how they'd have lost the name thing if they came from Fairyland. Maybe they were pretending, to be polite."

"Just...starting? Fey don't have children very often but they make new ones just the same as anyone else. I am beginning to suspect we are talking at cross purposes. And I have known fey who knew my name and would have commanded me if they could."

"Well, they could also have been under orders not to use it. And plenty of fairies are breeders, maybe even most of them, but not most kinds. I'm not a breeder."

"I cannot imagine why the Winter Queen would have ordered Imlaiss the Bright not to order me to put a stake through my own heart."

"It wouldn't have had to be her. Anyone with the fairy's name, or who'd fed them. There's someone calling herself the Winter Queen? Really? Presumptuous."

"If Imlaiss the Bright answered to any but the Winter Queen I would be shocked. And--I really do think we're dealing with some kind of misunderstanding, I had you pegged for a Summer and to be fair the two courts aren't terribly reverent of each other, but you seem surprised."

"...I'm not currently affiliated with a court, I started in a forest that's usually autumn, and anyone with even a medium-sized court who called herself something with 'Queen' in it would get some attention from the actual Queen if they did it in Fairyland, although it could be safe enough here."

"There are two Fey Courts and two Fey Queens, Summer and Winter. If you don't know this I think something very strange is going on."

"...I have no explanation. In Fairyland, there is a Queen, she knows all fairies' names but maintains a finite actual court for reasons of practicality, and other fairies collect names or feed one another and form smaller courts elsewhere with whoever the Queen doesn't want. There's no... seasonal division, and the names thing works with every kind of fairy."

"I think we may be working based on different definitions of fairy."

"I suppose we must be, although it's really something that I've never heard of this entire other kind of mortal-world seasonal breeders."

"Well, they don't live in the mortal world, they live in the Fey Realms, which I suspect is a rather different beast than your Fairyland."

"I suppose. How do you get from here to there?"

"There are doorways--mostly in hilled areas, but not exclusively--that open and close based on things like the position of the stars and the turn of the seasons and the pull of the tides. I have heard that truly powerful fey mages can open new ones, and that all the doorways that exist were once created in this manner."