"They did. That's not the weird part. I can usually be summoned. Apparently people around here who know how to do it can usually summon. But usually I'd get summoned somewhere else - I don't mean 'not to faery'. I mean 'to the year of our lord 2179'."

" - wow. 

Do you think being sped up messed it up somehow?"

"I don't think so. I wasn't sped up before I got summoned here."

"Huh.

Do all humans who die become apsels, in 2179?"

"No. Just some of the ones who are summoners. Other summoners become one of the other two magic things."

"Huh."

"Non-summoner humans still become indestructible but can't be summoned and don't get powers."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"When does...that start happening."

"Uh, about fifty thousand years before Christ."

"Is there anything for babies who aren't born?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

Nod.

"- Uh. If you wanted to like, eventually start over, with - I don't want to say 'the same baby', that encodes some assumptions we don't necessarily share, but one that is the same like - like identical twins are the same? Then I can do that. - uh, I might need the faery who summoned me, before I can do it, but in principle."

"I don't really -

- I guess it's really the same mistake I was making in a lot of other ways, I thought I knew enough about how the universe worked to be pretty sure what might happen and then it turned out there were a lot of things that I could be wrong about that I didn't even know were the kind of things a person could be wrong about, and actually I was doing something really different than what I thought I was doing. Not that I thought I was doing the right thing in the first place. And I still don't - I think maybe I just actually shouldn't do things - because I'm so very stupid, you see -"

"On the whole I'm actually really impressed with you? And the thing's not obligatory or anything at all, I just thought I'd mention."

"I'm glad you mentioned. I just - think maybe if I keep being this wrong about things then that's concerning about my prospects of figuring out anything important."

"I don't think 'not knowing very easy-to-miss faeries had all the properties they turn out to have' is a mistake that reflects on you much!"

"They were really nice at first."

"I guess that's how they get you."

"I had been told that faeries were terrible and dangerous, it's not like no one ever warned me."

"Well, believing everything you were ever told isn't quite the right answer either. I dunno what to tell you here."

"It's not anything you need to trouble yourself with anyway. You're very good, I'm not so stupid I'm confused about that, and probably when I've thought about it enough I'll figure out the rest of it too. There's a bit that feels important about - the thing you said about feeding people who don't work."

Wag wag.