What a cooperative prisoner. Eventually (if he's tracking how far they've travelled, they're in northern Germany now) he'll be tugged out of his cage to a fascinated audience in a glittering inside-of-an-enormous tree trunk.

"Awww, I like him! Thank you!"

"My pleasure."

"Well. Isn't this an adventure."

"I don't see what he's doing at all," he says, putting on a pair of eyeglasses for a better look.

"Maybe you can only see it when he does it? I don't want you to kill him yet, though, I've just met him."

"How very thoughtful of you."

"Well, we can't take too long, it'd get too hard to keep the kids out of the way. But you're welcome to dinner first, if you'd like."

"Mmm. And what do fairies eat?"

"We mostly don't. We can live drinking dew off of leaves. But we have feasts for special occasions, and this surely must be one."

"I suppose so. Who am I to deny my hosts the opportunity to celebrate."

They bring out lots of plates of food. There's singing.

Well, he figures he might as well eat before they kill him.

He should! The food and the wine and the ...flower nectar... and everything else is delicious.

Oh cool. He compliments the food.

The fairies seem delighted. They drink. Some of them pet his hair and clothes.

Thaaat's kind of weird but whatev - 

- the last thing he remembers is being in Scania, teaching his ten-year-old son how to fire a bow. His hands weren't so weathered, a moment ago, and his eyesight was a little sharper, and he didn't have an ache in his shoulder. More importantly, he wasn't in a beautifully sculpted cage, surrounded by a bunch of people he doesn't recognize in a room he's never seen.

"Excuse me," he says to the nearest fairy, "I don't believe I know where I am."

"I think that's just too bad, really, but I'll ask - hey, is he allowed to know where he is?"

"Hmm? No. He'll take it back with him when he dies and if all goes well he won't have much opportunity to retaliate but I'd rather not rely on it."

"Could you tell me how I got here."

The man turns and looks at him more seriously, squints, looks intensely puzzled.

He's really puzzled too!

"Rána -"

"That's not him."