Absolutely nothing happens except for the slow, ponderous slide of patterns against patterns.

The patterns here aren't ideal for flying, but they're good enough. When her senses come back, she flies (a bit slowly) through the trees, looking for some sign of civilization.

There are signs of wilderness. There's a forest, there, with a river running through it. Puffy white clouds. Nippy autumn air, afternoon sunshine.

"Being very confused by this place. I was flying to Opri, took a right and ended up here. Nice wings, by the by, whoever made them for you is very good."

"I'll say you're confused. Is that food you brought with you?"

"...Yes? What about it?" If she's going to have a conversation, she might as well land and spare the weird antifeeling using too much magic causes.

The leaf-winged girl lands too. "Good. Don't eat anything from here. You might want to save that for later, if you don't have a way home. And don't tell anyone your name."

"And why are you telling me these completely arbitrary-sounding rules?"

"Because this is Fairyland and if someone knows your name, or claims the food you eat, you will have to do whatever they say."

"Who, precisely, enforces such a sadistic law?"

"No one. It's just a property of fairies. It happens between fairies, too, but you're a mortal and especially vulnerable."

"I'll admit that your story sounds a lot more likely than someone going through the effort of making all these pointless patterns in the bluestream, but do you have any, you know, proof?"

"Not unless you want to tell me your name," says Promise, "which I honestly do not recommend. These wings are attached, though. No one made them for me. And I don't know what you're talking about with respect to the bluestream."

"The bluestream- the patterns in the magic. They're weird and don't do much of anything useful, I could barely fly, and I can't see any reason why someone would have made them that way when it costs so much to move them around."

"The patterns in the...? I don't think we have your kind of magic here."

"If you say so. Any recommendations on how to get home? And if I grow food will it be safe under your weird capricious rules?"

"Safer, anyway. Maybe not completely safe if someone has a claim on the land. You might want to water the plants with purified water, too. And if you don't know how you got here - well, I can make you a gate to the mortal world, but I'll have to learn how."

"I could try going back to where I arrived, but if that doesn't work I suppose your gate is the next best bet on offer, so thank you for offering to help."

"You're welcome."

She starts flying again. "Before I go, where can I find you if that patch of orange grass doesn't give me any hints?"

"Have you been traveling away from it for long? I could just come with you and show you to my tree if you can't get home from there."

"If you like." She flies back to the clearing, following a strangely irregular and wobbly path.

The fairy follows her. "You look like you've got a tank of cider in you, wobbling like that. Are you new to flying?"

"No, I'm following the patterns in the bluestream. I can only fly if there's enough aligned threads, but they're all tangled up in this world so I have to go back and forth and back again or just give up and walk."

"Huh. Well, at least your magic works here. Sorcery supposedly doesn't work in the mortal world at all."

"I imagine I'd have to see some sorcery to even start to guess why."

"If you come back to my tree I can show you some."

"Um, mortal?"

She does not respond. After about fifteen seconds, she snaps out of it. "Damn, I can't make heads or tails of this place. Even if there's something important here, I can't tell what it is."

"If there's a gate here and that's what got you, you'd want to go back the way you came, across wherever you arrived. Can you retrace your steps...?"

"I have paper at home."

"My memory will have to do, then. Lead the way?"

"How is my 'real name' defined, exactly? I already have my trade name - the name I use whenever I'm doing magic."

"The first full name you were ever named."

"Ah. Then my trade name will do just fine. It's 'Steel'. Nice to meet you, Promise."

"Likewise. Although I do hope I can get you home soon. It's dangerous here for mortals."

"It definitely sounds that way. It would be a really nice place to live if not for the slave thing. The bluestream is so much easier to work with here. I bent it a little to help me fly - it was almost effortless compared to pushing back the endless fog it wants to be back home."

"I wonder why. What is the bluestream?"

"It's... The framework that lets shapers do magic. It's everywhere, you just can't see it unless you're a shaper and you sacrifice your ability to see the physical world for a little bit. We can't do anything with the stream when it's just fog, but by sacrificing some or all of our ability to use muscles for a while we can shape it in ways that allow almost anyone to use magic. Roads have flying-shaped bluestream, hospitals have healing-shaped bluestream, and so on. That's why I was complaining about the stream here - it's in patterns, not fog, but the patterns are close to useless. I was wondering why someone bothered making them. Now I think they're naturally occurring."

"Maybe they're the same thing. What are harmonics?"

"Harmonics are a sorcery-affecting feature of locations which vary depending on what's nearby and other factors. But nobody can see them. There's a way to map them but I don't know it - I mean, I don't know the conventions to write it down usefully; I know the lay of the harmonics around my tree and foraging grounds."

"Will you be much inconvenienced if the harmonics change? Because if not, there's an obvious test here."

"Before you go changing the harmonics I'm used to around my tree I'd rather see if we can confirm this some other way, like seeing if you can detect the structures I'm familiar with or see resonances around the tree or eddies from sorcery I do."

"I don't think I perceive them in a way that will make much sense to you, but yes, that's a better plan."

"I mean, you can tell when they're - changing more or less quickly over a given distance? Tell where they're complicated and where they're simple?"

"Yes. If I sit and watch them for a while I'll be blind for much longer than that, though. Acceptable drawback, but I wouldn't want to do it all day."

"Inconvenient, but not prohibitively. Maybe best to do this inside the tree, which is not as roomy for a mortal-sized person as the outside but is safer to be blind in."

"It's safer to be blind in your house than out only so long as one trusts you, though. I don't necessarily think you're up to no good, but I'm a stranger in a strange land and I still only have your word for the food thing and the name thing."

"If you'd rather do it outside we can."

"I would." She hits a particularly unfriendly patch of bluestream and has to land and start walking.

Promise flies on.

"Are there no animals at all in this forest? Most non-plant living things give off some noise when I listen to the bluestream, but there's nothing except you and me and... Sliding sounds from that pattern to the right, for the nearest 200 meters or so."

"You can hear the 'bluestream' too? But anyway, no, there aren't animals in Fairyland unless they wander through the way you did, which isn't common. Or if they used to be fairies."

"Yes, sight and hearing both. They give different sets of information - sight is better at seeing the way things are structured, hearing is better for detecting change. I can also smell and taste it by losing those senses for a little bit, but that's almost useless."

"What does it look and sound like? Or for that matter smell or taste like."

"This sounds interesting just as a recreational sensory variant, to say nothing of the practical applications."

"It's a bit less interesting when you have to give up your physical senses for five times as long."

"Cute tree. Alright, let me sit down on something and then say what to look at and when."

There's not really a great place to sit, but there's leaf litter, which isn't too terribly uncomfortable. "Look at the surface of the tree, and I'll write down where the knots in the harmonics are, and you can do the same, and then we'll see if we match."

"I can already do magic with the stream, all it costs is some of your brainpower and emotions for a few seconds. Is sorcery meaningfully different? Stronger? Able to do different things? And, would you like your harmonics changed? If you showed me examples of what would be better and what would be worse I could do that over a tree-sized area without going all limp."

"Sorcery doesn't normally affect the emotions. And what matters is if you know what the harmonics are, not what, in fact, they are - I mean, to a point, but only to a point. I'm used to mine, so please leave them alone. I'm not sure what all your magic can do."

"Sorcery does a different but overlapping set of things. I'm not actually sure if there's a sorcerous way to do flight; fairies all have wings. We can do light and heat but your distributed system is - not something I know how to do, possibly only because we don't live in groups that large. Transmutation is doable and doesn't seem as hard as you describe, although I haven't learned it. Healing's doable and I haven't heard of it having a risk of hurting the person. I'm not sure about diseases in people because that isn't a fairy problem, but we can cure plant diseases. And I know how to make plants grow fast. Plus, gates."

"Yes, gates. I'm going to explore the local area for a patch of land with a certain kind of harmonics, where you hopefully don't mind me changing them. I have maybe a week of short rations in my backpack. Leaving those for travel or emergencies, I can sustain myself with sunlight and water. But I have to set up the bluestream for it, and it's easier to find someplace already most of the way there."

"How far do you estimate you'll have to go? There aren't any other fairies very close by but someone might wander through my usual range."

"If I don't find something close to perfect within a mile or two of here, I'll just work with the best patch within that range."

"Okay. I should probably come with you just in case, unless you'd rather risk running into someone."

"What are they likely to try to do to me? I know not to say names or touch food, if necessary I'm capable of flying away, force-shelling my body, and lots of fire no matter what the bluestream is like. It hurts a lot and costs way more if the patterns aren't friendly, but I can still do it."

"That'll... probably do for anyone you'd meet around here, unless they manage to conversationally trick you somehow."

"I think I'll be alright. You don't have to babysit me. Anyone in my world who does magic for a living makes up a trade name and goes by it for half the day, I'm used to using Steel."

"That'll help too."

The forest is still pretty deserted. No birds, no squirrels, no bugs, no snails: just plants. A variety of trees, a diverse understory, assorted parasitic vines and lichens, moss and mushrooms.

Eventually, she covers the stated two-mile radius. None of the patterns are the right color is the problem, this whole area is dominated by green. She heads in a straight line for a few miles instead, and eventually sees something that looks almost perfect near a river. She lands to investigate it.

A ways downriver, there is a little stone house.

She notes the house and makes sure to listen to the redstream every minute or so. She'll 'hear' anyone approaching. And she starts to draw a map of the local stream on the back of that sketch of Promise's tree.

Someone: approaches.

Steel looks at the direction the someone is approaching from. When they get close, "Hello! I don't mean to bother you, I just thought this spot looked interesting."

"Whose mortal are you?" wonders the someone.

"I couldn't say, if you understand what I mean."

"I certainly need to know who's sending their mortals in my direction," huffs the fairy. "Loitering around my house! Go away. Unless they've been careless and you can just have me for a master instead?"

"Very well, I'm leaving. Have a nice day." And she flies off back the way she came.

"You're a flying mortal?" exclaims the fairy, giving chase. "How are you doing that?"

"Magic. If you're not going to let me look at your river please leave me alone. You made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me."

"That was before I knew you could fly! How do you fly?"

She lands again, invisible force-shell up. She can always bolt if the fairy starts getting aggressive. "It's called bluestream - I can only do it in some places, though. Someone else told me it's nothing like sorcery, so I don't know how else to explain it."

"Who've you been talking to?"

"If you're going to keep asking questions, let's make a deal - I ask one question every time I answer one. I've answered two so far, so, what's your nickname? And what's your kind of fairy called?"

"I'm River and I'm a painted tailwing," she says.

"It was this leaf-girl, Promise, I think. I showed up in the middle of her forest randomly, we chatted about magic. Say, you have any ideas how I can get home?"

"To Promise's tree?"

"Uh, no, back to where I came from. I was flying to Opri but popped out here, very annoying."

"I don't know where Opri is," says River. "How'd Promise get you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean. I showed up, had a look at her tree, wandered around a bit, came here. Would you mind if I get some water from your river? I'm kinda thirsty."

"Oh, help yourself," says River.

So she warps the bluestream around, making a pure-water-funnel out of the pale cyan threads flowing through it. It takes a good ten seconds and she sags a bit from the cost. Then, a thin stream of water rushes up through the newly made harmonic swirl and into her mouth.

"That seems a lot of trouble for a drink of water," remarks River. "You could have just scooped some up in your hands."

"It could have had anything in it. Better safe than sorry."

"I drink straight from it all the time."

"What's in it for me?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I'll just go back to Promise. Some of the places near her tree were okay."

"Did she feed you?" wonders River.

She declines to answer and flies off.

River chases her.

Steel speeds up. The wonky patterns might be mistaken for dodging.

"You are chasing me. That is not a friendly behavior."

"I won't hurt you," River repeats, and she attempts to land on Steel's shoulder.

Steel shoves the fairy away with a burst of telekinetic force, and flies faster. The extra speed seems to hurt her.

"C'mon, I just want to know who's got you and your orders. Did your master send you to learn sorcery from Promise? She's new, she barely knows any even if she's talented."

"I don't belong to anybody. Leave me alone or I will set you on fire."

River's having trouble keeping up anyway. She falls back.

Steel keeps flying, a little more slowly. When she gets to Promise's tree, she flops onto the ground, grimacing.

Promise is sitting in her tree's branches, picking berries. "Are you all right?"

"I found a river with nice harmonics, and also another fairy. Who is also a river, apparently. She was friendly enough at first, but when I tried to leave wouldn't leave me alone until I threatened to set her on fire. I used too much magic trying to fly faster than her. I'll be fine in half an hour."

"River isn't a river, she just lives by one. She didn't manage to slip you anything?"

"I drank from her river, but purified it first like you said. I probably would have purified it anyway, water safety is part of not-dying-in-the-wilderness 101. I'm starting to believe you about the food thing, she totally acted like it was a thing. The way she was acting it sounds like the river's got something of hers in it."

"I think she cultivates some underwater plants."

"That'd probably do it, huh. Well, I purified it. I'm starting to dislike this place. There's no bluestream infrastructure, I can't do things nearly as easily as I'm used to."

"You know, if harmonics and bluestream are really exactly the same thing I wonder why there's a rumor that sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world. Weird mutable harmonics shouldn't make it impossible, just awkward."

"Maybe the fog makes it completely impossible, and weird patterns just make it hard? I can make a little patch of fog off in the forest if you want to try, and disappear it after too. In a few minutes. Still recovering."

"I'd definitely be curious to try it. No rush. I'm going to need to fly to the library to get books on how to make gates; do you want me to let you into my tree first or would you rather stay out here?"

"Tree's probably safer. If River found me right now, she could probably force-feed me."

"All right. Please do not break anything or rearrange my books. The water in the pitcher's pure. If you leave the tree you won't be able to get back in without me. You might fit in my bed above the bookshelf if you scrunched up, if you want a nap." Promise lets her into the tree.

"Oh, I don't need a bed to sleep." Into the tree she goes. She's taller than average, which makes it a bit difficult, but she manages. "Mind if I read the books? I'll try to put them back in the right order."

"You can read the ones on the shelf, sure. If you find any that aren't there don't read those."

"Got it." For now, though, she's apparently going to close her eyes and stay absolutely still.

Promise lets herself out and flies away.

Steel naps, and reads some books, and maps the bluestream of the tree (it's good for light and not much else). She's still there when Promise comes back.

"How are you doing?" Promise asks, putting her bag of books on her table and going to the kitchen to get some nuts and eat them.

"Well enough. I've got all my muscles back. Getting a bit hungry, but I'm saving my food. If there's at least a few hours of sunshine left today, I can go build the pattern I need to take in sunlight. Was your library visit productive?"

"...hours of...? It's usually afternoon here, we don't have a regular day cycle. And yes, I have all the books I should need."

"No day/night cycle? That makes no sense. Does the planet just stop most of the time?"

"The what?"

"The planet. The giant ball of rock that orbits the sun, the place where everything important is. D'you guys have telescopes?"

"No. But I don't think this is a planet."

"With no regular day cycle, I don't see how it could be. Horray for weird physics."

Promise shrugs.

Steel stands up. "Is it time to try sorcering in the middle of some fog?"

"If you're up for it, sure."

She walks out of the tree and into the forest. A few hundred feet out, she finds a particularly ugly harmonic tangle. She leans on a tree and turns it into fog. "There's some fog right there, between the rock and the mushrooms."

She undoes the fog. In fact, she removes the bluestream from the area completely - the mushrooms are already filling it back in, but it's a lot emptier than anything in the area for now. "Try it now."

A bright light glows in the spot. "Whoa, that went easy. What did you do?"

"I cleared out the bluestream completely, it was ugly there. The grass and mushrooms and even the rock are already filling it back in, though. Empty stream is almost as useless to me as fog, but apparently sorcery likes it."

"Sorcery loves it. It'd eliminate eighty percent of home turf advantage just like that if it were like that everywhere."

"Well, if I haven't gone home, and you suddenly have a good reason to fight another sorcerer on her turf, and I agree with that reason..."

Promise giggles. "Not likely, but not impossible."

"Would you mind if I built some stream-things in this clearing? It's as good as any other place around here for my sun-absorbing circle."

"This place is all right, I don't come through here often. For preference leave it at least close to how you found it. If you can't do that, fog is better than blank."

"No, I need to build specific structures for me to not start starving in a week. They're pretty different than what's here, River's river had a spot that was already close but I'm not going near her again. Should I find someplace further away?"

"I mean when you're all done, not while you're using it."

"Undoing it is almost as hard as doing it in the first place. They're supposed to be permanent. I can put in the extra effort to reverse it when you have a portal for me, though."

"Drawing me a map would also work. I got a book on those while I was at the library anyway."

"I could draw you lots of maps if I made a drawstream wherever you want me to map. That's a spot that makes it easy to manipulate liquids in fine detail, for example, ink. They're relatively easy to do and undo, I can make 'em wherever. And I can read the book later so it's in the format you expect. I want to learn sorcery in exchange, though."

"Sure. It takes a while to pick up, though, and the more things I'm trying to do the longer it will take me to learn to make a gate."

"I have some food, I'll have sunlight energy in a few hours, I wasn't particularly needed at my current job, my parents barely remember I exist. Staying here for a while is an acceptable drawback to learning an entirely new sort of magic."

"All right."

"For now I've gotta make the suneater array, though." So Steel walks in circles around the clearing, glancing at trees and rocks and doing nothing particularly visible.

Promise gets to studying.

After a while, she comes back to Promise's tree, munching something mostly still wrapped in a shiny foil package. "Any chance I could get Intro to Sorcery now?"

"Sure. You'll have a substantial advantage being able to look at harmonics, because most of the hard part of sorcery, at least in the beginning stages, is accounting for everything affecting the space in which you hope to do the magic. So, if I make a fairylight -" She makes one, hovering above her hand. "I need to know what other light sources are going through this space, and the temperature and humidity and air currents, and then I need to make my best guess about the harmonics based on the fact that I am familiar with my tree and what putting a sorcerous working close to myself does and so on. But you can just look right at the harmonics - please don't change them inside my tree, I'm used to them and I'm not sure if the tree would like it - and account for them like you can everything else; most sorcerers have to map them in familiar locations by trial and error or deal with them as an invisible factor."

"I wouldn't say... willpower... but, uh, it seems to be working for you? Unless that's your own kind of magic."

"Yes, I ended up just using bluestream there. What would you say, if not willpower?"

"Clarity of intent? If you have that right you don't need to force it, it just goes."

"All right." Promise hands her the book.

Steel takes the book. "What do fairies do for fun anyway? There's hardly anybody around, no interesting shops to visit or good restaurants... Come to think of it, fairies can't do restaurants, can they? The food thing. That's a bit terrible, so much good food comes from places other than one's own cooking."

"Fairies are actually in much less danger from the food thing than mortals are, at least relative to fairy food that isn't special in some way. I can forage safely, I just wouldn't go to someone's house and eat what they served. When I'm not gathering food I read and practice sorcery and I fly. Sometimes I sing or draw."

"Do fairies do sports? The different body types might throw a wrench in that, huh. I could really go for a good soccer match right now."

"I suppose larger courts might have some kind of sport activity, but not me. What's soccer?"

"It's a game where two teams of eleven mortals try to kick a small ball past each other and into a goal on either side of a flat grass field. You're not allowed to use your arms or magic, which makes footwork very important. There's flying or telekinetic versions of it, but they're not as popular since actively using magic kinda saps the fun out of doing things. Flying without feeling a little dead inside sounds really nice."

"I would be terrible at this game."

Steel starts flipping through the harmonic mapping book. "How so?"

"I'm not very good at footwork. I fly when I can and even when I walk I use my wings for balance a lot."

"Nobody says you have to be good at sports to talk to me. Hey, this book has some pretty interesting stuff, it's almost as complicated as bluestream manipulation."

"Yeah, I read a little of it on the flight. The book is a compilation of some of the common ways sorcerers draw maps of the harmonics - there's no absolute standard, but these are the popular ones. I think I find the first one mentioned most intuitive."

"Yeah, I can see how the different notations are good for different kinds of thinking. First one it is. I wonder if the stone circles would work on you?"

"Stone circles?"

"They're how you become a shaper. For some reason that we can't quite figure out, it has to be done inside a ring of large stones arranged just so. You sign a liability release, go in and sit there in a sensory-deprived fugue state for half a week, and then you're a shaper. Some people can't do it, and if they try it just hurts like hell for a few minutes, but I bet you can try if you manage to hide your wings somehow."

"The wings being a problem in terms of whether I'd be allowed and not whether it'd work?"

"The wings are a problem for being allowed. You not being a human is why it might not work. We have different biology, probably. Not to mention fairies are very magic, and humans not at all until they become shapers."

"Why wouldn't I be allowed with visible wings?"

"Because only people who already have it can safely withstand any significant body-mods. They'll ask lots of weird questions and it'll just be a massive pain. Much easier to hide them."

"Well, I could turn them invisible, but that'll leave its own harmonic marks if anyone happens to look."

"Yeah, that's a problem. I wonder if I could build one. We don't have that many because they're a limited amount of useful, not because they're hard to build. Is there any bluestone around here?"

"I'm not exactly up on kinds of stone. There are stones that are blue..."

"Sounds like a research project. I'd need books from home anyway. I'll go try to sorcer lights and let you ponder gate-making, for now."

Steel leaves. Promise won't hear from her for two days or until she goes looking.

Promise frets a little, but not enough to go looking, in that time.

And then she's back, reporting, "I managed to get the sorcerous light thing working. I tried fire next, and that was easy." A circle of fire appears above her head as a demonstration. "It feels weird how it doesn't cost emotions to do sorcery."

"I'm pretty disturbed at the idea of any magic costing emotions to do. I still want to try going in a stone circle if I can, but only so I can see and flatten and fog harmonics for my convenience."

"I still say it doesn't hurt you if you don't overdo it, it just calms you down very thoroughly. There's been studies of people who used magic all day, every day for decades and they don't have a higher risk for depression or anger issues or anything like that. The cost is actually really useful if you're anxious and scared."

"...Point. But I wouldn't want to get into the habit of relying on it."

Shrug. "Your choice, of course. Now, I've got lightshows and fire down, what's next in terms of sorcering?"

"Do you want to learn to candy dewdrops, or patch clothes, or purify water, or what?"

"I want to learn all the things. Maybe I should just read some more of your sorcery books? Oh, and I'll need paper and ink if you want those maps."

Promise hands her a book, and some paper and ink.

Steel goes back outside with her book, returning every few hours for a new one. Read, read, read. (draw, draw, draw)

Study, study, study. Quite the bookworms.

"...What happened? And is my book okay?"

"Your book's fine, I was holding it inside my force-shell. I wasn't careful enough with the floaty stuff you can turn water into with bluestream. It's flammable, but it shouldn't have been that flammable."

"Floaty stuff?"

"I haven't quite finished college yet, but high-level bluestream does a lot of, mm, matter manipulation. They can change materials around in creative ways, make stone act like a liquid for a few minutes and then put it back, that kind of thing. The thing is, you can turn water into two not-water gases, one that is flammable and likes to float, and one that is the same thing that humans need to breathe and fires need to burn. The flammable stuff exploded and ruined my desire to experiment, so this definitely won't happen again."

"Ah."

"Incidentally, here's a harmonic map of that berry patch over that way."

"Thanks. This makes up for the tasty roots that used to grow here," Promise says dryly.

"Oops. I thought I'd picked a spot without anything useful."

"Maybe the roots will have partially escaped, being underground, and grow back."

She closes her eyes. "They're still alive, they're pouring a little disturbance into the bluestream. Maybe you should water and fast-grow them. Or I can try, I got fast-grow to work on a flower."

Promise goes and gets some water. "What do the harmonics look like where the roots are?"

"Orange Euler arcs interfacing green slow-flows... Wait, that's my notation, not yours." She waves a hand at the dirt. "Well, they're empty now."

Steel gives a short bark of a laugh. "Yeah, we established that yesterday. I can get almost the same results in anything except dense tangles or fog, though. Is it just because of that extra unknown factor to account for, you think?"

"I don't think it's just that. I know my tree really, really well, and that just now was still markedly better results than coaxing my tree into growing faster."

"Candied dewdrops are unusually safe - the dew is unowned to begin with and sorcerous adjustment doesn't guarantee a claim - but from a mortal to a fairy, yeah, safer not to. I can make my own. Do you like them?"

"They're a convenient way to carry water. I've been purifying them first - do they taste like something if you use real dew?"

"I like them best if I get the dew off my tree, because then it tastes a little like the haws, but it's not a strong flavor."

Nod, nod. "Does the gate need to be anywhere in particular? And where will it lead? I might want to visit this place again, carefully of course. If you can put it wherever on this end I want to make an underground house-ish thing deep enough that it doesn't disturb any plants."

"I don't know where I'll put it yet, I haven't finished the gate book. But I should be able to aim it wherever you want."

"If it needs a certain kind of harmonics, well, I can do harmonics. I need to go back to my suneater circle now, though, I'm getting tired. See you later?"

"Later."

Steel goes back to her suneater circle, simultaneously sleeping and eating sunlight. When she wakes up, she tries to find River, hoping to apologize for threatening her with fire.

River is not in her house, but she's close by, picking flowers.

Steel makes herself obvious a fair bit off. It's rude to sneak up. "Hello, River! I want to apologize for the other day. I was upset and scared, but you didn't deserve to be shoved around and threatened."

River looks up from her flower picking. "Oh - uh, no harm done," she blinks. "Are you going to tell me what's going on with you today?"

"I appeared here through, apparently, a temporary gate. Promise warned me about food and names, she's kind. And it turns out I can see harmonics, it's part of the bluestream magic, so she taught me sorcery and she's going to make a gate to send me back home in exchange for some harmonic maps. That's really it."

"You can see harmonics?" says River, eyes wide.

"Yeah. I can change 'em, too. I'll make a map of a smallish area as apology for hitting you the other day, if you like. Just remember that I don't intend to belong to anybody. Try to catch me and I might get mean again."

"Oh, I'm not a sorcerer. I'm just surprised Promise didn't catch you to keep or sell."

"It's called 'not wanting other people to suffer.' Back home, keeping a vassal would be one of the worst crimes you could do, because it stops a person's body and mind from being their own. Or maybe she thinks if she doesn't do anything attention-getting nobody will come and bother her."

"You'd be really useful to a sorcerer, though. And she wouldn't have to worry about you trying to feed her."

"Why wouldn't she need to worry? Mortal food is especially vassal-y compared to fairies feeding fairies, or so she said. You can call me Steel, by the way, I don't think I told you my nickname yet."

"Food from vassals is safe," says River, waving a hand. "If she had your name or fed you she could eat straight out of your hand and be fine."

"That is... Good to know. Hmm. I can't think of some way withholding that from me benefits her, so maybe she just forgot to mention it."

"I don't know what's going through her head," snorts River.

"Most people don't know what's going through their own heads, not really. Well, I've apologized, you don't want a map, I don't actually have any other reason to be here. Goodbye, at least for now?"

"Bye."

"If I fed you, then you couldn't envassal me with food but my name would still work. If I knew your name, then if I also fed you it would mean that you'd still be my vassal if I forgot your name but wouldn't otherwise do anything, and if you fed me it wouldn't envassal me."

"So I can fully believe you about these rules unless you and River are actually close friends running some sort of elaborate con, which is frankly rather absurd why did I even think of it."

"I barely know River and don't like her to the extent I know her, and this isn't going to come up in the first place."

"Exactly. This place is really pretty compared to home, you know, but as much as I want to go exploring I don't much like the idea of finding more fairies who will all want my name. Would I pass more or less unremarked if I had wings of my own and pretended to fly with them?"

"Not necessarily. You're very tall for a fairy and I'm not sure off the top of my head of a kind you could pass for, even with specially-made wings, so you might not look like a mortal but you'd still look interesting."

"Could I pretend to be a kind from very far away that they'll never actually hear of?"

"I mean, yes, but you'd still be interesting."

"Being an interesting fairy seems like a better deal than being a very interesting mortal. I'll do fake wings if my wanderlust beats my caution."

"Mm - it means that people won't try to feed you. Well, most of them, it depends. Leaflets like me have a decent shot at vassaling another fairy with food because of how strong the claims on our tree are. But while that would be less likely you'd also look more useful. As a mortal you're a temporary curiosity until you do magic and look really interesting; as a weird foreign fairy you're potentially very valuable and could be kept permanently."

"In other words, 'heads I win, tails you lose.' Lovely. How goes gatecraft?"

"I think it'll take me a couple of weeks to know what I'm doing enough to start one, even on flat harmonics. The flat harmonics should let it settle immediately, though."

"Back to sitting in my sun-circle and practicing sorcery and resisting the urge to experiment, then."

"Sorry."

"...Not very much. But if you can stab them you could probably also just incapacitate them and run away without doing that."

"I'm not sure I can damage someone enough to put them down for the count without putting them in danger of actually dying."

"You can if it's a fairy. We're immortal."

"Well, it would still be highly unpleasant to be fireballed, so beware collateral damage."

Promise hands her another book.

"A bit," admits Promise.

"Oh well, what's fun about life without a little silly now and then? I want to get as many fun things and as much silliness as possible done when I'm still young so I don't end up as a stereotypical crotchety eighty-year-old complaining about how kids these days waste their youth."

Giggle.

"You don't have to worry about that, now do you? Fairies are immortal, lucky little *mumble* Anyway! When I get back home I'm going to buy a big old copper globe, turn it to gold, and probably roll on the floor laughing at the face of the first jeweler I try to sell it to."

"Sounds like a good time."

"One would hope, yes. And in exchange for these sorcery lessons, I'll go to the library and look up all the known information about the stone circles in hope of making you one. I doubt I'll find a book that's directly about how to make them, not at a branch library like mine. Maybe I'll have to go to the capital city."

"I wouldn't know."

"Would you like to visit for a few hours, see what it's like? Wait, everyone uses original names over there, that seems pretty risky. If you only talked to bluestream shapers, they'll probably use their trade names, but still."

"Pretty risky. I could go deaf, but I'm not sure it's worth it."

"Yeah, that sounds painful and inconvenient. Hmm. Indulge my weirdness, please. Would you say we qualify as friends now? I'm bad at - social categories like that."

"I don't really know. I'm sure to have even less practice than you at it, considering."

"Low population density will do that, I guess. See you later, I'll be in my sun-circle, reading this." She pats the book and walks into the forest.

"See you."

"How well does the location have to be defined? And can it be somewhere out of the way on this end? I don't want to pop up in your front garden every time I want to visit fairyland, and other fairies coming through would be a problem."

"Well, and ideally with geographical features rather than relative to anything else. I can put it wherever you like on this end. I can also close the gate until some specified time, if you're worried about unauthorized traffic."

"Geographic features... Could it reference a certain bridge? And can I make a deep hole with a room at the bottom in my sun-circle clearing? If I cover it up after, probably nobody will manage to stumble in even if you leave it open."

"Mountains or rivers or coastline would be better than a bridge. And yeah, go ahead."

"That should do it - if I understand you correctly, that was quite a sentence, do you maybe want to draw me a map?"

"All right. Do you want me to leave it open or close it for a while once you've gone? Is there anything you want to do beforehand?"

"I've got all my stuff, you've got your books back, I can send up a flare and pretend to have been lost in the canyon for two weeks. The old food wrappers will help with that story. And - you should probably close it for a week or so. I'll be back around then. It shouldn't be hard for you to get in and out of here, but please move the camouflage back over the entrance when you leave."

"See ya later." Steel steps through.

Promise is out foraging when she arrives.

She listens for life-forms, finds where Promise is, and goes there. "Hello again, Promise! It took a bit of an adventure and some weird political nonsense, but I got my hands on the books I need to make you a stone circle."

"Hi! That's good news. That stone you mentioned, you have some of that?"

"Unfortunately not, at least not yet. It comes from a certain quarry hundreds of miles away on my end and buying or trying to steal some would be too suspicious. I'm hoping I can find something close enough here and transmute it."

"Okay. Well, there are rocks around."

"I'll have to wander around and investigate some rocks, find one that's already close. You're better at sorcery than me, if I give you the books maybe you can get it easier. By the way, I decided to pretend to be a fairy. I'll be doing magic anyway, better to pretend to be a fairy sorcerer than a fascinating mortal-with-magic. Do I look fairlylike enough?" She spins around, the dozens of pockets on her pants and coat-with-wing-holes rustling like paper.

"You don't look like a mortal, anyway. Fairies might want to know what kind you are."

"Should I make something up? Do fairies all know what kind they are?"

"As far as I know, yes. When I started I knew I was a leaflet."

Hmm. The wings are metallic. "What if I claimed I was an ironwing? Is there already a kind like that?"

"Not that I've heard of but I don't know all the kinds. It's a plausible name, anyway."

"I'll go look at some rocks, then. I'll probably want to explore a little, if rock from this forest is no good, rock from another part of the forest is probably also no good. Don't worry if I'm gone for a while - I've gotten pretty good at combining bluestream stuff and basic sorcery, and I've got like a month's worth of food in these clothes."

"Okay. Make sure your food's stashed carefully, though, someone could sneak something into it while you sleep."

"Sealed packages all. If it's got a hole in it, I won't touch it, and I can tell if they sorcered it from the eddies' aftereffects."

"Sounds good. And - probably better to leave a fairy's territory if asked rather than get into an attention-getting sorcerous fight. You don't want the Queen's attention."

"If I'm on someone's turf and they want me off, of course I'll leave. Who's the Queen?"

"...Have I not mentioned the Queen? I haven't, have I. The Queen is a one-of-a-kind fairy whose kind magic is to know the names of every fairy that exists. She wouldn't know yours, but she wouldn't need it; she has her pick of all the best sorcerers in the world and more who wouldn't need sorcery to threaten you."

"Oh my. Yes, that's to be avoided, especially since she'll be wondering why she can't find my name. I can fly six or seven times as fast as River now, if I really push hard - What would you give my chances of escaping long enough to find a gate to somewhere that isn't fairyland?"

"I don't know. I've never tangled directly with her court and hope to avoid it indefinitely. Actually, once you've bluestoned me, if it works, I'm probably going to take a cutting of my tree and move to another continent."

Fairyland contains rocks. Quartz and mica. Marble and granite. Moss-covered boulders and colorful gravel. Limestone and smooth river rocks and veins of gem in a cliff-face and ragged columns of a ruined old architecture.

"Master will not be here for some time, but one of his higher ranked vassals will make rounds soon," squeaks the tiny fairy.

"Do you think anyone would mind if I waited here and talked to this person? I don't intend harm on anyone here except in self-defense."

"You may wait there by the bleeding tree," says the tiny fairy, indicating a tree with red resin in globs all along its bark.

Steel's face pretty clearly shows her opinion of the bleeding tree, but she waits patiently by it.

"It's between the waterfall and the grove of pine trees, off that way." (point) "I would want about two tons of it. I can handle transportation. I'm not sure what your master would like in return. I don't have these things with me right now, but I can provide a large amount of candied dewdrops, some paper and ink, a few books."

"Master prefers to take trade in vassals but may also be interested in books."

"I don't trade in vassals. It'll have to be books. I think copies of twenty sorcery books he hasn't heard of would be fine payment for some rock he wasn't using anyway, but of course it's up to him. I can also get a few books from the mortal realm - I met one a few years ago."

"Two tons of rock might easily spoil the view until someone can sculpt what's left nicely," says the fairy. "If you can find twenty sorcery books we don't have in our court then that will be very impressive and I provisionally accept on Master's behalf. Mortal books - it might depend on what they are."

"It sounds like you have a very impressive library. I had assumed my books would be new to you simply by virtue of my being from far away, but perhaps not. The mortal books are fiction, mostly."

"Each mortal fiction book will count for one-fourth of an unfamiliar sorcery book."

Steel nods. "Shall I go retrieve my books, or will your master want to speak to me in person first? Actually, I should list my sorcery books now, to see which ones are new to you." She lists the books Promise has, planning to copy them.

"We have all of those."

"Disappointing. I don't think I can get you eighty mortal fiction books, at least not easily. Is there anything other than books or vassals your master might be interested in?"

"Services, if you can do things that the court can't supply."

Steel thinks for a moment. She doesn't want to be interesting. What can the bluestream do that sorcery finds difficult? She lies, "My kind can lift extremely heavy loads, many times greater than the two tons of stone I want, and I can fly relatively quickly carrying them. I am also a sorcerer, though admittedly of little experience and unfamiliar with the harmonics here."

"I will speak with my master about anything he might want transported. Perhaps you should fetch as many books as you can get and when you return we can discuss making up the rest of the trade with heavy lifting. Do you need the loads balanced and contiguous or can you, say, lift a lot of dirt out of the ground?"

"Balancing them is not strictly necessary but will help. Non-contiguous loads must be smaller than the largest contiguous ones I can handle, but are still doable. I expect to return in approximately three weeks. Is there anything else we should discuss before I go?"

"What are you called? I'm Verve."

"Steel." She gives a polite little bow. "Shall I be off, then?"

"In three weeks if I don't happen to be here when you arrive any of the lesser vassals will know when I'm expected," says Verve, nodding.

Promise is in her tree, fixing lunch. "Hi, how was your trip?"

"It was fun. Lots of pretty scenery out there. I eventually found the correct sort of rock, but it was within a court's territory. I had to promise them some 'mortal fiction books' and heavy lifting services to secure permission to take it, but I was very careful not to imply that I could see or affect harmonics, they might try have tried to capture me if I did. They might still try, but I'll come prepared for an ambush."

"Well done, then. So you're going to go get a lot of books, then?"

"That's the plan. I was planning on bringing fifty for them, too many more will get awkward to carry. You want some too? Using and changing the bluestream, theory and practice?"

"Yes please."

"Promise, Promise me another month or two's sorcery lessons and you'll get your books. Sorry about the pun, I had to do it at least once."

Promise snorts. "Sorcery lessons are all yours."

So Steel bows sarcastically and goes to her camouflaged gate room, finds it unchanged, and visits a bookstore and a survival food store and takes care of miscellaneous chores on the other side. Three days later, she comes back, drops off Promise's books, and hauls the rest back to that court, arriving two days short of her three-week prediction.

Where Verve is waiting.

Before she moves to land, Steel notes every nearby fairy and every change in the harmonics that looks like it might mean sorcery. Is there anything suspicious here?

Verve has some sorceries active on her; so do some of the small fairies tending the garden, so does the garden itself. They are not readily identified from Steel's perspective.

She lands, force-shell active and giant bag o' books flopping onto the ground beside her. "Hello, Verve."

"Hello, Steel. How many mortal books did you bring?"

"I ended up getting forty-eight mortal fiction books, and four more story-books that are not fiction, but stories of real mortals' lives. Is there anything around here that can be usefully lifted and carried to make up the difference?"

"That depends; can you divert a river on your own?"

"I've done rivers before, but they can be tricky. It will also take some planning to do without causing water to rush into undesired areas. Perhaps I should see the river and the new path it should take first."

"I can show you." Verve takes to the air.

Steel follows. Her flight path doesn't quite match Verve's, but it's smooth enough that it doesn't look like she's drunk.

There is a river that currently switchbacks its way along a plain half an hour west. "Master would like this river to form a waterfall here - removing part of this hill and turning the water over it should do and it will run into a lake from there which should drain out its normal channels, just slightly faster."

Steel settles to the ground and studies the river, the hill, the lake. She gets out some paper and sketches plans and calculations. "Where should the removed dirt and stone go?"

"Border the river after its splashdown, on the south side, to encourage it towards the lake - it should go there on its own but it can't hurt."

"Alright. This will take at least two days to do properly, I have to plan it out and I'll have to stop for rest during. But I can sleep anywhere and I've brought food, so no need for me to impose on your hospitality."

"If you'll give me the books now, I'll leave someone to watch the river diversion and assuming they don't have anything alarming to tell me you can simply take the stone you want without pausing afterwards."

Verve turns out not to be able to carry that many books. She flits away, comes back with three vassals, leaves one perched somewhere to watch Steel, and divides the books between herself and the other two.

(Someone brings her bag back and leaves it with the tiny fairy who is watching her.)

Steel checks something wrapped in paper for tampering, and finding none eats it. She informs the tiny fairy, "Time for me to sleep. I prefer not to be watched while I sleep."

"I've been told to stay here and watch you," the tiny fairy says. "Until I'm relieved by someone who'll have the same order."