"Where I'm from people are not - nice, to their slaves, slaves don't really matter, at least not - whether they're happy, or get to have things they want, or lives that have good things in them, and I just - I thought maybe fairies were different and maybe I wasn't really the same thing anymore, that maybe I did matter after all, and - I don't know what we are, but whatever we are I want to be - important to you - "

"You are really important to me. I - dunno if that's because fairies are different or because you are."

Nodnod. Hug.

"Don't wanna leave. Don't - know exactly all of what I want, here, but I don't wanna leave."

"Good."

Snuggle. She can't kiss him because this stupid horrible bed is here, but at least she can snuggle him.

Maybe if they just hold each other and eventually fall asleep everything will be less confusing in the morning.

This seems like a good plan.

"Okay," says Karen, arriving back downstairs. "Apparently if I lie or break agreements then it'll hurt her really badly, and they both looked super concerned about everything, but they're up there."

"What a mess."

"Why's he here?"

"She wanted him here. I didn't - I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have told her how to do it, but she really wanted him here."

"She really likes him. Apparently."

"It's impressive, considering he has absolutely nothing going for him."

"He's good-looking."

He sputters at him for a second and doesn't say anything.

"Um, when I talked to her she said she was a slave before she ran into him, and then jumped ship because she thought he might be better than wherever she was before. And still thinks he is." Shrug. "She thinks he's nice. At least comparatively."

"Are the kids his? Or - prior?"

"Um, I think at least one of them's not, she said she was following one of them when she found him in a fairy ring. I dunno about the others."

"How many kids?"

"She said five, earlier. Most of them in his world."

"Probably doesn't wanna leave them, then."

"No.

It just seems sort of upsetting if the best we can do for slaves who walk in here crying with their babies is 'well, that sounds rough'."

"We can't even talk to him because of the fairies thing."

"Yeah."

"Could you guys get her kids? She said he was gonna help her get some of them back, I think, so she must think there's some way to recover them, and then he wouldn't have, like - leverage, or whatever?"