"Hmm?"

"Before that she told me to give her a massage, and it was an enforced order without any prior discussion even though I could talk by then, so I followed through with the bare minimum and flew away and didn't come back till I'd put out my ears and made her communicate in writing so I didn't have to watch in real time."

"And you were in her debt at this point?"

"I assume so. I was perfectly willing to sing to her!"

"I guess I would've had to be there? If you communicated as soon as you got back that the problem was only with that specific order and you were fine with settling in general and didn't plan to fly off again then it seems like an overreaction to me."

"I didn't want to explain to her exactly how much power she had and had no idea what she was thinking with suddenly bossing me around."

"So you didn't say that you didn't mean to fly off again and didn't say you were fine with settling up and didn't explain what'd been wrong?"

"I don't remember precisely what I said but it was probably not that calculated to be reassuring, no."

"Then - I'm not saying she couldn't have done better or even that most people wouldn't have done better but - that describes a set of circumstances under which fairies would not perceive disabling violence as an escalation.  If you were running a child through what to do in various weird situations and you described that one that's the response you'd teach them, mostly."

"If I'd known she was going to do that or that she'd consider it reasonable I probably wouldn't have come back at all, ears out or no."

"Yes, she was an idiot not to secure your agreement not to run away if you were that badly in her debt."

"My agreement also wouldn't have meant as much as she would have assumed."

"No?"

"No, it would have just presumably done more of the completely invisible thing that I already had no way to evaluate. I would have construed it as an expression of plans, and that would have been shot to hell as soon as she attacked me, since I was able to heal enough to leave after that."

"You get misfortune, for breaking agreements. - admittedly this only helps her so much since it very well might've killed you both, but."

"Wouldn't have."

"Depends on the phrasing, probably?"

She shakes her head.

"I'm not mortal."

" - neither are we."

"Yes you are."

"Mortals are slow and all die."

"How fast you are has nothing to do with whether you can die. You can die. I can't."

" - you mean you've never heard of any of your kind dying?"

"I mean it can't be done."

"How would you possibly know that?"