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One day in fairyland, there is an immensely bright flash of light a about a mile above the ground. Something like a metal house is suddenly flying through as if it came through a portal, faster than all but the fastest fairies.
It's flying, not directly down, but still very much towards the ground. It does not take long for it to stop flying and start carving through earth and trees. Eventually it runs out of momentum near a certain lake. The thing seems to still be in one piece, which is rather miraculous considering the two miles of destroyed trees behind it.
After a few minutes, a mortal covered in unusually bulky clothes emerges from the thing. All that is visible is his face. He starts inspecting the outside of his space oddity.
And the ship continues moving at high speed away from queenscontinent. Liam asks her to make more fuel once every few hours (moving this fast burns through a lot of the stuff), and tells her every 250 miles of distance they put behind them. He also asks for sorcery lessons, if she doesn't mind giving them.
imeanforever
She doesn't mind, exactly, but:
"It takes a while to get anything to happen the first time you try. Even if you know your workspace like the back of your hand."
"It takes a while to get anything to happen the first time you try. Even if you know your workspace like the back of your hand."
"I don't have anything better to do. Most of my sensors can link directly into my mind, will they help?"
imeanforever
"...Maybe. I'm not sure. All right, so the usual introduction is a fairylight." She makes one: a little point of light in midair. "To make that, I had to note all the existing light sources and reflections that are passing through that space, pay attention to all the air currents passing through that space, and note the temperature and humidity. A lot of this gets automatic with practice, and doing this your first time in a moving vehicle isn't ideal because it means we're passing through a lot of different harmonics - you can't see those, nobody can, but they also affect casting, which means that when you're used to an area you can have a sense for how the harmonics are laid out there and factor them in."
"Interesting. So I should practice being aware of the local environment as much as possible? Is there any way to tell if I'm doing it right?"
imeanforever
"Well, if you do it right enough, you'll be able to make a light. You concentrate on all the things that are going on in the target space, and then you concentrate as hard as you can on adding just one simple thing to it."
"I'm good at awareness, not so much concentration."
He concentrates. He tries different mental configurations - which is the most important? The light? The temperature? The precise location of his light-to-be?
He doesn't get much of anywhere. About an hour and a half later, he takes a break to attend to some chores that need doing to keep the ship in the air.
He concentrates. He tries different mental configurations - which is the most important? The light? The temperature? The precise location of his light-to-be?
He doesn't get much of anywhere. About an hour and a half later, he takes a break to attend to some chores that need doing to keep the ship in the air.
They're getting farther away by the minute. Current count is 4750 miles.
The next day, Liam gives a sudden victorious shout. "I had it! Just for a moment, but it wasn't a trick of the mind, the camera saw it."
The next day, Liam gives a sudden victorious shout. "I had it! Just for a moment, but it wasn't a trick of the mind, the camera saw it."
imeanforever
"The moving vehicle definitely won't help, but now you've done it at all you should be able to do it again."
"Yes, I think it was just a matter of holding everything in my head in the right order." He glares at the empty air of the workshop. A light appears, then disappears, then appears again before going out for good.
"How much further do you want to go? We made lots of progress overnight, I suspect we're at least 12000 miles from the starting point. As long as you keep making me fuel I can keep going, but if it's going to be weeks we'll need to stop for maintenance."
"How much further do you want to go? We made lots of progress overnight, I suspect we're at least 12000 miles from the starting point. As long as you keep making me fuel I can keep going, but if it's going to be weeks we'll need to stop for maintenance."
imeanforever
"I mean, what are we over right now? I don't want to be dropped in the ocean or anything."
"We are, in fact, over an ocean right now. Here, I'll show you how to access the external cameras..."
If she touches this panel over here and mentally asks it for vision, it will feel as though she has an extra pair of eyes looking out from the front of the ship. Clouds pass below them, beyond the clouds is a sea of very purple water.
"Let me know when you see a good place?"
If she touches this panel over here and mentally asks it for vision, it will feel as though she has an extra pair of eyes looking out from the front of the ship. Clouds pass below them, beyond the clouds is a sea of very purple water.
"Let me know when you see a good place?"
imeanforever
"Any sufficiently sparsely populated land should do, but a forest would be most comfortable. I'll keep an eye out."
"I'll go back to trying to sorcer, then."
The ocean will last for a while. Then desert, mountain, swamp, scrubland, cliffy hills, a tiny, sickly-looking forest squeezed between a series of lakes and another mountain, more desert, more scrubland...
The next day, Liam has gotten pretty good at making lights dance about, though they still tend to suddenly extinguish themselves when the ship flies through particularly unfriendly harmonics. He asks for more advanced sorcery exercises.
The ocean will last for a while. Then desert, mountain, swamp, scrubland, cliffy hills, a tiny, sickly-looking forest squeezed between a series of lakes and another mountain, more desert, more scrubland...
The next day, Liam has gotten pretty good at making lights dance about, though they still tend to suddenly extinguish themselves when the ship flies through particularly unfriendly harmonics. He asks for more advanced sorcery exercises.
"I tried two at once. I got up to five, but couldn't keep them dancing around. They don't have to be points? Geometry could be interesting." And he goes back to playing with light.
After a while he experiments with fire, reasoning that it must be fairly easy since Promise lit up Yellow's house with a thought. He manages to light up a piece of wood after three hours' concentration.
And finally, below them is a decent-sized forest with a river running through it, not surrounded by any particularly harsh terrain features. Nick estimates they are more than 20000 miles from where they started. He sounds vaguely irritated about it.
After a while he experiments with fire, reasoning that it must be fairly easy since Promise lit up Yellow's house with a thought. He manages to light up a piece of wood after three hours' concentration.
And finally, below them is a decent-sized forest with a river running through it, not surrounded by any particularly harsh terrain features. Nick estimates they are more than 20000 miles from where they started. He sounds vaguely irritated about it.
"And I figured out the jump constants to acceptable error yesterday. I can say goodbye to this slave-making non-planet. No offense to you, of course."
He drops her off. He flies a circuit and prints a detailed map of the surrounding few hundred miles. He offers to use his ship's mining laser to do some landscaping.
And he asks, "Are you probably going to still be here in a hundred years? I might try to come back and hopefully get de-aged at that time."
He drops her off. He flies a circuit and prints a detailed map of the surrounding few hundred miles. He offers to use his ship's mining laser to do some landscaping.
And he asks, "Are you probably going to still be here in a hundred years? I might try to come back and hopefully get de-aged at that time."
imeanforever
"Assuming nothing horrible happens and the place doesn't turn out to have unfriendly neighbors, yes, I could easily be here in a century. I would be much obliged if you'd forget my name before coming back."
"Alas, I can't predict whether that will happen. Selective amnesia is not a thing humans can do. The best chance will be if I don't think about you at all. I'll give you a communicator. It'll be useless without another communicator to talk to, but if you do have to move please tell it to record a message and bury it somewhere out of the way. I'll be able to find it."
"Farewell." He hands her the communicator. He goes into the ship. The ship climbs high, high above the clouds. There is a flash of light, and that's all she hears of Liam for a long time.
imeanforever
Plenty of time to plant her tree and food plants and learn her surroundings and generally recover her equilibrium.
Some sixty years later, she hears rumors of a flying palace that appears and disappears in a brilliant flash of light, wandering around queenscontinent and blasting any fairies who don't leave when it tells them to. It sounds an awful lot like Liam's ship, if a bit bigger.
Five years after that, the flying palace approaches her forest. Does she still have that communicator? If she does, it beeps insistently.
Five years after that, the flying palace approaches her forest. Does she still have that communicator? If she does, it beeps insistently.