Snuggle snuggle snuggle snuggle. She can get her company from some other people.

Mhmmm.

Fairies decide after some discussion that they do not want to learn how 'do what this person wants' magic interacts with debt.

"Did you talk it over with Cecelia's fairy? Or does someone still need to do that?"

"I went over to ask. Cecelia and her sister were out, talking; I don't think they've been asked, yet."

"He probably won't want to leave her alone. But I guess - man, I don't know if we should go find her and talk to her or wait for her to make it back to him."

"She'll go with him, I suspect. It's still better to ask, but we're not going to pull off separating them."

"Not planning to, right now. Just - be better for her if he eventually stops thinking we're awful."

"It really would, yeah. I - people might contemplate apologizing. I think he thinks no one took it at all seriously until you got his house burned down with his family in it. Fairies don't really do apologies, the debt system sort of replaces it, but he's not allowed to do any of the things fairies would do so maybe he'd want one."

"That's good to know. I'd apologize if I thought it would help. Just - kind of figure that if you want to run off into the woods and be left alone then people ought to leave you alone. But I guess we're not leaving him alone very well anyway."

"Not really your fault. But - yeah. Until the two of them can be actually separate from everyone it matters to him a lot whether everyone is sorry. Not that I really think you have anything to be sorry for, to be clear, it's really hard to follow the fairy rules without innate intuitions for it."

"I probably could have tried harder to get other people to take them seriously? I don't know if I could have caught the sarcasm but I could have - I dunno, talked to Hagan the second time he slipped up, at least."

"I guess you could've done that but it's not really on you." He glances at Hagan.

"Yes, sorry, I didn't take him seriously at all and people got hurt as a result and I can tell him so even though I don't like his - is one permitted to use the phrase 'his stupid face' or is that somehow lying."

"Thank you for checking. I would expect 'I hate his stupid face' to be a fine thing to say if you in fact hate his stupid face but an ill-advised thing to say if you think he's hot and hate his personality."

"Fine."

"Might go over better if you apologized, then. Probably without any particular mention of his face."

He does a very precise Osirian bow. "I shall say, 'your fairyness of no particular face, I apologize. I think I'm probably sincerely apologizing but I don't wanna commit on that front since if I lie while apologizing that'd be really bad.'"

Snicker.

"I don't know what I was expecting. Sure, do that."

- aw, right, actual serious problem.

"Someone should actually give them an actual apology for not taking things seriously before it got their house burnt down, though."

"I feel pretty sincere about how much that would've sucked."

She almost pats him on the back, and then remembers everything about Osirians and aborts the motion halfway through to sort of awkwardly clap her hands together.

" - maybe we can workshop it or something."

"I guess. Uh, your fairyness, it must have been very alarming when we fucked up and got your house burned down, and none of us wanted that, and if we'd understood what you were risking I would hope we'd have reacted more sympathetically and worked harder to prevent it, and we are working harder now, and if you want a new house I guess we owe you one?"

"Closer."