This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
She's a four-year-old girl, and people (especially her Dad) insist she's a boy.
Not that she isn't sometimes. She is. But not today! Today she's a girl. And Dad keeps saying that's not true, that God made her body perfect and she shouldn't second-guess God's plan for her. God made her a boy, so she's supposed to be a boy. And on the one hand that kinda makes sense. God doesn't make mistakes, right? So if she were really a girl sometimes, then she'd... what? Her body would change, she guesses. But on the other hand, she knows she's a girl. She's a girl with a peepee, that's obvious. She'd prefer not having a peepee when she's a girl, but it's not the worst thing ever. And if God doesn't make mistakes, God also didn't make her feel like a girl sometimes on accident, right? It must be part of His (because God is always a He, even though God made everyone, boys and girls, in His image, he's always a He, Dad says) plan.
She tells Dad that, today, and Dad gets angry, and yells at her, and she doesn't know why he's yelling. It makes sense to her! But he won't explain why she's wrong, he's just yelling, Dad's so mean, she hates him, and she's not crying, shut up, you're crying!
And now Mum's coming and she's talking to Dad, and that usually makes Dad stop yelling and go away but he won't stop now and Sadde's angry and afraid and hurt and she's running away. A part of her thinks that it doesn't make much sense to run away, the park is pretty open and she can't really hide anywhere, and she'll have to go back because she'll get hungry (not now, though, she just ate a sandwich).
So she runs until she finds some bushes where she can hide, and she hides there, and she doesn't cry, and she spends a long time not crying. Mum and Dad don't come after her, though, and after she's done not crying she doesn't wipe her eyes and her nose, and she comes out the other way of the bushes she was hiding in.
And she's pretty sure that's not the park.
"I don't expect to physically transport any mortals to Thorn's court, but we'll need to transport trap materials. And, why day trip distance?"
"Someone may notice I've moved in, he might hear about it. Less likely to happen in the relevant time frame the farther away I am. Are the materials going to be too heavy to fly with?"
"So I don't have to sleep on the way, delivering things, and spend time asleep, outside my tree, without a gate ready, near the court."
"...I'm confused about the logistics and I think we're miscommunicating. What I'm picturing here is we'll make a gate somewhere near Thorn's court to a safe place here, which will be how we'll transport our gear, and then there'll be another gate very far away from Thorn's court, in your new tree, that opens to a different safe place here, one that'll be our proper HQ, and a third gate from your new tree or somewhere around it to the first safe place so we can go there if we need to."
"Yup, really far away from Thorn is the best idea. And the gate near Thorn's court doesn't need to be made now, either, we already have the one we came through that's a few hours from him and we can use that once stuff on my end's done."
"Well, yes, presumably one of you would do it while invisible. And we still need to figure out how exactly we'll capture our first vassal and how that'll fail and so on so forth so we can know where to put that gate anyway."
"I'm thinking we might nab one of the lower-ranked fairies when they're not around powerful sorcerers, as a first step in the ladder."
"But on the other hand more powerful sorcerers are more likely to give us trouble... Well, I suppose you can order them well enough."
"...right. Do you know how the internal dynamics of his courts work? You mentioned ranks aren't set in stone and stuff, there might be some sweet spot of rank and accessibility, someone who's high enough to give us access to a place where we can trap Thorn but low enough that we'll be able to properly capture them if we need to."
"Nothing comes to mind. Like - anyone could be sent to the torturers if Thorn didn't want to attend to them personally, but the torturers don't get to go around ordering anyone around and it would be obvious if one were wandering outside their rooms, and they know some names but other people are just ordered to obey them. They're hard to rank; they have a fair number of names but few privileges in using them."
"Depended on what he was trying to get me broken in. At most I'd be allowed to go to the court library and study, or do sorcery he wanted done."
"But you didn't get to see the social dynamics? Who came and who went, how often, who did what, should I stop asking questions?"
"I heard things. I saw some things. I was his project, he didn't keep me in a cupboard. But I don't know as much as a more cooperative vassal would have picked up."
"Okay, so, what can you tell me about power and stuff in there? How many people would usually stay around the court, how many were permanent—do people travel often between courts? That would maybe be a prime situation to capture someone."
"There's regular messengers, delivering things and information. You could get one of those, maybe, they travel alone... They're not good sources of names but they can move around pretty freely."
"Yes. I mean, maybe not right now, if Thorn's being paranoid about you based on your mother's information."
"I... don't know if my mother would necessarily presume I'd try to capture a messenger, but having messengers go here and there all on their lonesome by default... Are the paths between his courts warded? Because even if he sends more fairies it's probably possible to overwhelm them there."