- maybe she should be rethinking this, honestly, it's not, like, super obvious that trying to live by some insane system and living in fear that if she ever smoothes the truth down wrong she'll burst into flame is that much better than where she's at now.

"OK, so, I'm sure that sounds reassuring to you, but I don't know which things count as betrayals, and I don't have total certainty about which people I'm indebted to, and I don't have very much confidence that I'd always realize it if I had made a bargain with someone."

"- well, I don't go home more than once a century anyway, we can set up somewhere nice and out of the way and not take you around hostile people until you're very sure you've got it."

" - can I - ask why you're helping me?"

"I'm acquiring you. This is helpful to you mostly because you are currently the prisoner of an evil body-hopping king of humans who has some kind of human sort of claim to your kids."

Ohhhhh. A lot of things make more sense now. 

Well. She wasn't a lot more than a slave anyway, this doesn't necessarily change her calculus very much.

"Oh."

"And I'm not really very worried that you'll light yourself on fire, I think it takes - big things, if that makes any sense, dramatic moments, it'd be appropriate - but I don't know that with any certainty and it doesn't seem like it'd do you any good to spend all your time worrying about being on fire even if there's no real risk of it. So we'll stay clear of people until you're sure of yourself, if you ever are."

Nodnod.

"The other important thing is that you can bring misfortune down, not just on you, but on anyone you're indebted to, and anyone in your debt. More strongly the more indebtedness in your relationship."

"Okay. I'm not super clear on how I tell which things make me indebted to people or make people indebted to me. That's the thing about questions, right, I'm placing myself in your debt by asking for all of this information?"

"Lots of things cause debt but important information is one of the weightier ones. That's why I said it was no wonder that all of the humans were doomed, see - if they asked and got an answer then they'd given themselves up already, and if they didn't ask then they'd get something wrong sooner or later by accident. 

Fairies can tell. Both when thinking of actions and when thinking of relationships, you just know - some people more precisely than others - where you stand."

"Okay. I don't have any sense of that. Or - I can guess, I assume that a story is worth something but everything you've told me is worth a lot more than my story, but I don't know how those things weigh against each other. And there are a bunch of things you've said that I don't know whether they counted towards the total at all."

"Stories are important. Art, beauty, creation, inventiveness. If you watch people dance you will be in their debt, a little, if it's beautiful, if it defied your expectations. Your story was very good. Not worth an explanation of the whole of morality, quite, but a good half of it. 

Destroying things incurs debt. More so if they're difficult to replace, much moreso if they're irreplaceable. Violence incurs debt. The human king wouldn't do very well, I don't think, with his current tactics, he'd be running up debts to every place where he sent out his armies. Courts do conquer others but very very carefully and very rarely with much use of swords. Doing someone a favor, obviously, puts them in your debt. 

And children are indebted to their creators. That's the largest debt, for most people. It's nearly impossible even for thousands of years of service to erase it. I know someone who did draw it even, once, but he was the most talented person I've ever met, and his mother already dead. Repaying the father is much easier. Mostly everyone belongs to their family and if that makes them sad -"

Demonstrative shrug. 

Nodnod.

"And this is why it was a good thing that you didn't tell my son a story even though he asked. I'm indebted to you, but he's not?"

"I wouldn't say it was a good thing," he says, in fact looking startled at the idea. "It was indicative of my intentions. I didn't know that humans can't even tell when things indebt them but it was fairly obvious that he wasn't - evaluating what he could afford to ask of me. It would've been possible for me to give him a hug and a blanket and a story and a song, but I did not do that, and he's not in my debt."

Hm.

" - so you don't try to avoid being indebted to people?"

"Well, that depends what you want, doesn't it? In most interactions the polite thing is to avoid any debt either way. That means less for either family to worry about, right? And sometimes people are trying to get you in debt for some reason or trying to pretend they're incompetently avoiding debt while actually aiming for some, but mostly you'll do all right if you just try for interactions to work out so that everyone's still even.

And if someone is useful to be entangled with and not, by temperament, a bad person to be indebted to, then you might seek that out on purpose. Because entanglements with family of good fortune are good for you, they'll lift your fortune too."

Nodnod. This sounds potentially more complicated than that but that's probably enough to go on for now. 

"You won't have to worry about that one very much if we're living in the woods ignoring polite society."

"That makes sense."

"Some things about being in debt - violence against someone indebted to you isn't counted against you. And if someone in your debt refuses a reasonable request that counts as more debt. So you want to - I said earlier, not that you shouldn't ask me questions, but that you didn't know anything about me. It's not very hard to get hurt, if you're indebted to someone and no one's backing you. So you should either know who you're dealing with or have backers. Or preferably both."

Nodnod.

He collapses in the grass, apparently satisfied there. 

"I suppose if I'm going to stay here I'll have to eat something. At some point."

"I suppose so." He rolls over, stands up, crosses the rest of the difference between them. The bird reappears in his hands out of apparent nothingness again. 

He offers her some raw meat.

Mrrgh.

" - fairies don't cook things?"