"I could maybe carry both of them and we could go faster?"

"Yeah. Okay. Thank you."

This doesn't actually make them that much faster, but it helps some. He gives her the rest of the food he's carrying when they stop to rest. "We can make it there tomorrow."

Nod.

She's not very good at feeding her baby but she tries anyway.

Hug.

Hug.

"It'll be all right tomorrow. Probably."

"Yeah. If we need to stay there a couple days while you recover, it's not the end of the world." But he glances at the sky.

Nodnod.

And they keep going in the morning.

Then they should be able to make it the rest of the way.

He talks to three more groups of fairies along the way, and carries both children, and eventually says, "there, up ahead." 

The forest looks the same as the rest of the forest.

"I don't see anything."

"Well that's our territory so the next batch of people to stop us will be ours and also it's not a disaster if we eat or crush anything."

"Ah. Okay."

"We'll be there there in not too long."

Nodnod.

On she trudges.

And they run into others. 

This conversation lasts a fair bit longer and sounds slightly less friendly.

"Hey. I have a human and a few puzzles for our father and she needs food, somewhat urgently, kind of a lot of it, can you send ahead and tell them to have it ready?"

      "Sure." He nods at the woman accompanying him. "Looks like you have three humans?"

"Two. And a baby. You had the language mostly right, I figure you'd rather talk to her herself than get my corrections, but food first."

      "She doesn't look about to keel over."

"The baby. She can make food for it herself but only if she's eating more than she needs and she needs a lot."

      "Maitimo will be delighted."

"I can pay for it."

       "That's more surprising than the guests."

"Well, she can pay for it, she's got a lot of stories. Lovely stories. Once there's food -"

       "How bad is it if the baby dies?"

"I don't know? I don't think the baby'll die as long as we feed her, which is what, you know, I asked you to do, before you decided to settle all our debts right now while she stands around -"

        "It's not a good idea to get this attached to a human, you know, they die even if you feed them."

"I know that."

        "Before winter."

"I know that."

"This way," he says to her after a while, and they're off again.

"Okay."

She walks.

The path goes through a clearing and across a stream and winds down into a hollow log and then she can see it. 

There's a path, made of little stones of every color meticulously fitted together, and flowers are growing on all sides of it, bright excessively healthy excessively flowering ones. There are bright golden and silver lights at the center, both of them dimly lit at present, and three or four dozen houses built into the wood around them, all of them intricate and different and lovingly detailed and strung with tiny twinkling lights of their own. The overall effect is bright and glittery and makes it slightly hard to track anything in particular. And there are fairies, sitting on the flowers and on the porches and walking down the paths and turning, fascinated, to stare at all of them.

A dozen half-remembered stories from her childhood, all of them laced with dire warnings about not entering fairy territory or interfering with fairies in any way, flit through her head. 

But she's come this far. No turning back now. And it's the only way she has to maybe, possibly, recover her children.

She won't have to be here for very long.

She follows Rána.

He squeezes her hand. 

People stare. 

The man he was speaking with earlier leads them up to one of the little houses.

She's gonna be OK. Rána's gonna stay with her mostly and keep being nice to her, and she will tell people some stories and answer some questions and nothing terrible will happen.

She's just gonna kind of look at the ground and follow him around until he tells her to do something else.

They're escorted into the house. It's fancier on the inside; the wood has been very carefully encouraged into growing into an elaborate banquet hall which opens on an even more elaborate throne room. There are doors to other rooms all around the edges. 

There's a table set full of food; stuffed birds and pies and baked things and meats on sticks and meats in sauces and fruits and vegetables and sauces.