"Mmm. Those we maybe could get the same way we got the branch, with Fetching and Farsight– Oh!" Sapphire's eyes suddenly go wide. "Just had a thought. Maybe we could steal you some of Thorn's books the same way we got your cutting? Have Leareth Gate a Fetcher-Farseer to a nice hidden spot a mile away, and if you draw us a map he could Farsee inside the library and yoink some books. I guess the trouble is that someone would probably notice, though, even if they didn't notice the last expedition." 

"I... don't think I want Thorn to get the idea that I'm somewhere - in reach. Even if I don't specifically know what he'd do. The tree was worth it and lower risk that anyone would even be there."

Nod. "Of course." Sapphire falls silent again. 

"Sorry."

Crooked smile. "Don't see what you've got to apologize to me about. I'm not a sorcerer who can learn it from books." 

"I mean, you could learn it."

"- Really? You don't have to be a fairy for it?" 

"No."

"Wow. I'm - somehow really surprised that hasn't come up already. Leareth is absolutely going to want to try learning it." 

"I think I'd want to - know more about what he'd be about, with it?"

"Guess that makes sense. You should talk, I'm guessing he's been waiting rather than pushing on that so you can have as much break as you need first." Sapphire tosses another pebble and then stands up. "Anyway, I should head to bed." 

"Goodnight."

The next day she goes looking for Leareth.

Leareth is working, but it's not urgent and he sets it aside to see her. "Yes?" 

"I have been told that everyone's under the impression that mortals can't learn to be sorcerers but they can."

He blinks, then is still for a moment. "Ah. Interesting. I feel rather embarrassed I did not directly ask, now." He doesn't look embarrassed, though, just thoughtful and curious. "Is it something you are interested in teaching to any mortals in this world?" 

"Maybe? I mean, it'd be fun, but I'm still not really clear on what you're about, exactly, or what you'd do with it."

"That is very understandable. And a reason I had wished to speak with you more, at some point when you are ready for it. Unfortunately I am not clear either on what I will do with it, since - conditions have changed even more vastly than I expected they would when I learned of another world. I suspect I will be back to orienting again for quite a long time. I can tell you my previous goals, though, and why I took the actions I did in the past." 

"Wouldn't hurt."

"Do you wish to do that now?" 

"Sure."

Leareth nods, and then is silent for a long time. 

"...Sorry, I am trying to even think what order to go in. I suppose I could go in chronological order. A long time ago, early in my history, I lived in several places which had - copious problems, the kind I think of as stupid problems. Crop failures and famines, high rates of infants and children dying from hunger and treatable illnesses, violence and feuds and poorly run legal systems, the general lack of organization and of any excess capacity that makes it possible to build better things. So I tried very hard to fix that." 

"Specifically children?"

"I mean, all ages were sometimes victims, but mortal babies and children are especially vulnerable - so are the elderly, but I suppose I found the loss of young children especially tragic and wasteful, at the time. In many places, a quarter of all infants born alive - which was not all of them - died before a year of age, and only half of children would live to adulthood." 

"Okay. - I've never seen a child in my life," she clarifies, "I don't have human intuitions about them."

"And fairies presumably do not die of hunger or illness - or of being murdered, for that matter - so your world would have fewer of those particular kinds of stupid problem."