"There should be enough wood to assemble a raft on the coast. I'm planning to go over the Sapphire and Emerald Seas, and then fly around the desert unless your magic allows outright water conjuration, and then start looking for a place to live."

"I can't conjure water. I can collect it from miles around, though - if there's any moisture at all in the desert I can probably gather enough to survive on, but not enough to wash with, for example."

"Probably better to go around rather than take scarce water from any desert-dwelling fairies."

Promise is packed by then too. "Between carrying all my books and just leaving them in your world is the former really easier?"

"Leaving them in my world is easier, but carrying them through fairyland is safer. My homeland is not particularly stable right now, and I couldn't tell you for sure that nobody will be able to find and break into my home. You should close the gate before we leave, as well."

"I will." She does. She hands Steel all the books (tied into stacks and wrapped up in leaves) and most of the food (in flower-petal bags), and retains one bag of her own, and then sets off, following the river.

It's a very long flight.

Steel asks to stop and rest and eat something before Promise does herself. "Extended magic use is tiring," she explains. But after twenty minutes and a snack, she's back in the air.

Occasionally Promise goes very high into the air to get a look at the lay of the land, but mostly following the river suffices for the first leg of the trip. She appreciates the breaks to rest her wings; when they land near edible plants she picks one or two of some seed-bearing things she doesn't have yet, to plant later.

When they (eventually) reach the edge of the sapphire and emerald seas, Steel asks, "Would you mind making a gate to my world for a few hours? I want to check on things."

"You know I can't destroy these gates, right? I can close them, and in theory no one else can open them, but if there's an application of bluestream, or advanced sorcery I don't know about, that doesn't necessarily help."

"Making gates everywhere would be excessive, I agree. I'm worried, but if you think it's best not to, then don't."

"I just want to make sure that you'd rather have one here than on the other coast."

"If there's only going to be one, it should be on the other coast. Or better yet, within a day's flight of wherever you end up growing your new house."

Steel helps (especially with heavy lifting), but defers to Promise on the actual design of the raft with only a little advice here and there.

Promise has never actually made a raft before, but she's shaped wood, and she thought about this on the flight over. It is not very fancy. It has some pegs on the edges to tie on the bags of objects, attach a tow line, and make it harder to roll off in one's sleep.

All in all, making the raft, talking to the fairy, and loading the cargo takes only a few hours. They're off well before sunset, with Steel sitting at the bow of the raft, telekinetically pushing it along a thin line of edited harmonics at a fairly brisk pace, almost as fast as flying.

Promise flies. They travel at the divide between the sapphire on the one side and the emerald on the other, so they'll be able to orient when they lose directional cues from sunshine.

"Depends on the wind, if we're interrupted on the way - probably at least a week."