Oh good. She's in a much better mood for the rest of the day, too.

(Ingolfr plays with the flute, at some point. He can make it make noise, but can't move his fingers well enough to make different notes in succession.)

"I have a brother who learned the flute before he could talk, and got quite good at it, and when he could talk they had to take it away because he'd gotten good enough people'd get indebted listening."

"Aww! Your poor brother."

"Maybe you could tell him stories and he could play for you. Once you feel sure you can talk to people, I mean."

"I hope I get to tell stories to lots of people again. It was the only really good thing about living with the Emperor. I don't know how long it'll take me to learn to talk right, though, I've mostly been - not bothering to worry about it too much, with you."

"I could point out everything you do wrong but it'd probably be annoying. I think it takes people a while. Children don't usually talk to strangers until they're grown five times over, give or take."

"You could point out everything I do wrong sometimes, and if it got tiring I could ask you to stop for a while? Grown five times over is - I don't know that humans even live that long."

"Hmm?"

"Well, I mean, if you count us as grown at sixteen then that's - " she counts again, to herself " - eighty, right, and most people don't live that long."

" - what happens to them?"

"They die?"

"Right but like - how, of what?"

"Of being old. Of sickness, I guess, people get sicker when they get older, and then they die."

"Well that's kind of awful."

"That's - how things are. For people who aren't fairies."

"You're slow and you die. It's like - doubly unfair."

"I guess. - I don't know how fast it'll happen, here. It seems like it's probably happening on the same schedule that makes me get hungry, but I don't know that it is, it could be lots and lots of season cycles."

"It's stupid."

"Well. Sorry?"

Unhappy shrug.

"I don't think I really thought very much about what was going to happen to us after we came here. Just - hoped that it would be better than before."

"I knew that mostly when people take humans they die but I thought that probably that was - negligence. Not just that humans die no matter what you do with them."

"There are stories about humans becoming fairies and fairies becoming human. I don't know whether they're - reputable, at all, but I've heard some."

"I haven't heard stories like that and I can't think how it'd be possible but I don't know much about magic. I don't - There'd be people at my court who'd know for sure."

Nod. "I don't know whether I can talk to other fairies without making a mess, but..."