When she thinks she can see him without crying again, she holds her baby close and walks silently back to Rana's.
The room has been replaced with - something else. She has no idea what this means. She has nobody to ask but Rana. Everything she asks places her further in his debt, of course, but it hardly matters now.
She steps inside.
"Yes! They're like - if I loved her I wouldn't do it, except we don't expect that to hold, because fairies are different, but she still thinks it's important, but I'm not sure what it's important for, but anyway it'd make her really happy if I promised I intended not to except I can't know whether I want to promise that without trying for a while and this seems like as good a time as any since there's pretty much no one here I can touch anyway?"
"I want you to give Cecelia some space sometimes, is that allowed?"
"Okay, what the hells else gets rid of the magic debt, you can't be a zookeeper until you learn English."
"You were right," he tells Cassie later. "It was a debt thing."
"I kind of assumed he'd say something but he seemed pretty lost on what we'd want as payment so maybe that discouraged him from asking."
"It's kind of uncomfortable to have all of your decisions made by other people because you know you can't take care of yourself or the people you've decided are yours. Like, humans don't have magical debt, but we do have - you're not really your own person if you're living off charity, y'know? And maybe he could stand to be uncomfortable for a bit, but - I probably should've been keeping better track of all the stuff we were doing to cause that. Especially since for him it, like, double-counts, or whatever."
"We had a confusing conversation in which he told me that I shouldn't demand repayment in the form of sex because it would make Cecelia sad for reasons he did not understand at all and explained to me as 'it would mean he didn't love her'. Though they agreed that fairies are different than humans and so it probably would not."
"...okay, setting aside the number of other things that have to be wrong with one's worldview to even bother making this observation - do fairies not have a concept of cheating?"
Sigh.
"I'm not entirely sure how to explain to someone that if someone is in love with you and you have sex with other people then they will be sad. ...although in this situation I think a person with anything resembling healthy attitudes on anything would mostly be concerned. I am not actually sure how much eleventh century English peasants understand, like, consent, or how considering oneself a magical slave might interfere with it."
"I'm guessing not very much? Given that none of the objections he raised had anything to do with consent.
- I'm glad they're not having sex but I'm not clear on why, I don't get the sense he thinks there'd be anything wrong with it."
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