There's something over there that doesn't look quite like the surrounding plants. It does look plantish but the leaves are giant.

...Huh.

He doesn't deheadphones for that but he does wander over to check it out.

It's breathing.

Holy shit that's startling.

Pause.  Back 30s.  Headphones off.

"Uh - hello??"

"Are you... okay?"

"Sorry.  Uh, is there something I can do to help you?"

"Should I call 911 or should I... not.  Do that."

"I am going to try transporting you out of the woods unless you communicate to me that you don't want that."  He starts taking off his jacket.

"...I'm counting that as communication.  Uh.  .....Uh.  Hm."

"You want to stay in the woods?"

"You don't want to stay in the woods but you don't want me to move you.  ...You're afraid I'm going to exacerbate your - injuries?  Problems?"

"Where are you most hurt?"

(It's probably the tear in her wing, if that's a serious injury on a wing, which, how would he know, or else the twisted ankle.)

"I was going to put you prone on my jacket and try to drag you in a minimally bumping way..."

"I have... water?"

There's not much left in his bottle but she can have the rest of it.  To the extent that he can get it in her mouth.

Sure okay she'll swallow some water.

He runs his hands through his hair a few times, then abruptly feels for his pockets - "Also a Clif bar?"

"It's uh, peanut butter banana."  He unwraps it and shows it to her.

She is capable of opening her mouth in response to this but not really moving in other ways.

If he puts it near enough to her can she eat it on her own?

If he puts a piece right in between her lips she can chew it, and swallow it,

, and wait to see what he does.

"Speak to me."

"You might be looking for the phrase 'I rescind all your orders'."

"I rescind all your orders."

She shifts position, and then slowly sits up. "Thank you."

"You're welcome!!  You're a fairy?"

"Yes, I am."

"My name is Xander Elias Sherman."

She is taken aback for a moment, then in a rush replies: "- never give me an order that I do not request of my own uncommanded will unless it is a rescindment."

Pause.

"Why did you do that?"

He tries to think of a harmless order - probably just 'speak to me' again will do fine, right -

- and can't.  He can't say it.

"You're a fairy and you're real - how could I not?"

"...very easily. You could very easily not have given me your name. If you'd done that before you'd fed me we'd have been in a pickle but fortunately it was in the other order."

"I think I'm just a strange person, then, is the best answer I can give."

"...a strange person who wants to envassal himself to the first random fairy he meets."

"You're not random!  You're injured and in some sort of predicament and I already had power over you!  It's just squaring up," he lies.

"Being injured and in some sort of predicament and vulnerable does not actually tell you anything about how good a master I am!"

He shrugs.

"You are so lucky you got me and if my most recent master before you shows up you might want to immediately commit suicide rather than let him get his hands on you but fortunately I think he isn't going to do that." She twitches her torn wing, and winces. "...he had me in condition to fly before but falling through the trees didn't improve me. I will take you up on carrying me somewhere if there's a suitable place to go."

"What would I want to commit suicide about!"

"He goes in for torture."

"Well, I can carry you.  To my house?  If that sounds like a place you'd like to go."

"I don't exactly have a better idea of what there is around here. And I haven't eaten anything but that Clif bar in a long time and if I'm going to eat safely in the mortal world I need you to be the one to feed me."

"I can do that."  He says it very quickly.  "What do you think of the jacket dragging idea, does that sound reasonable?"

"I can probably get myself onto the jacket now, and then yes."

He lays it out for her, trying to balance doing a careful job against not looking like he's being freakily reverent.

She scoots herself on, favoring the ankle and hissing softly a couple times, and then is fully curled up on the coat.

He attempts to drag her, and can - mostly do that, but something keeps preventing him from specific implementations, which is confusing because that's not ordering her even a little bit -  "Can you hold onto the sleeves?  I'm worried you're going to fall off."

She grabs the sleeves.

"Thank you."

He drags her a ways and develops the guess that he's being prevented from hurting her.  He tries to appear neutral about this, which is harder than it would be if he were facing forwards instead of pulling her backwards.  Where does he look.  At her face?  - No, vaguely behind them and sometimes over his shoulder.

"Do you live alone, in your house?"

"I live with my parents.  It might be smart to hide you from them but I think that will be possible."

"Do - no, mortals don't work that way - why would it be smart to hide me from them?"

"My parents are... fine, but not really more than fine."

"I don't know what that means. I have never met a parent in my life."

"...For example they probably wouldn't want to let you stay in our house for very long and would probably try to send you somewhere which might be somewhat worse but could for all I know be a lot worse."

"Why wouldn't they let you have me in the house?"

"...There are kind of a few angles I could come at this from, I feel like.  One is that most people probably don't want a fairy to stay in their house, especially but maybe not only because you're apparently scary, and then there's a thing where they mostly don't want to let me have big things that I want that aren't normal, and then there's also something where maybe they want to give you over to the government because the existence of fairies is an important thing they don't feel equipped to handle, whereas I feel that the existence of fairies is an important thing that I don't trust the government to handle well, or something."

"The... government?"

"...Do you not know what one is or do you wonder what human ones are like?"

"I understand the word but it's not a thing fairies have in any but the most trivial sense so I have very little idea of what one looks like in practice."

"Relevantly to this, a thing that happens in a lot of stories is - or, okay, it almost never happens in stories, but characters are often worried about nonhumans getting taken to the government who would then cut them up in order to learn more about how they function.  And I've looked into it some, and I'm pretty much certain that wouldn't happen, but it's actually pretty hard to make a sure prediction of what would happen instead and how much better it might or might fail to be."

"I take it asking would be suspicious?"

"Not so much suspicious as no one would believe me and probably no one would entertain the hypothetical enough to get close to a real answer.  There aren't protocols for magic being real - at least as far as I can find out without presenting evidence - so I suspect it would just be kind of a mad scramble."

"This can't be the only time a fairy has wound up in the mortal world, we do, like, know mortals exist, I've met one in Fairyland."

"Huh.

"I still don't think I would get to know what the protocols that presumably do exist are without presenting evidence, though."

"I suppose I'll take your word for it."

"We can try and figure out a better long term plan later.  I just think hiding you in my house is the safest plan that keeps us - or, you - having the most choices once we figure out more."

"Okay. ...what else needs figuring out?"

"I barely know anything about how you work!  And I get the impression that you don't know very much about how things work here.  Like, in society."

"Okay, do you have... questions?"

"Is it true that I can't hurt you now?"

"Yes. And vice-versa. That's directly, though, I could make you hurt yourself. - you may issue the reciprocal of the order I gave you, if you want." Unspoken is "but you seem weird as fuck so maybe you don't."

"I don't remember the phrasing," he chippers.  "That's good, though; I don't want to hurt you.  What does it feel like to be magically made to do something instead of prevented?"

"It feels just like doing it because you decided to without the decision."

"May I try it?"

"...sure. What do you want me to tell you to do?"

"Oh, something harmless.  But otherwise whatever you want."

"...okay, uh, pat yourself on the head three times."

He transfers both sleeves to one hand in a way that he can apparently be sure won't jostle her and pats his head three times.  - He thinks of patting on the head as implying the top pretty strongly, but she didn't say that - he only develops the desire to try during the first one but by the third can he be aiming for the back?

Yes, he can do that.

"Wow.  That's amazing."

"Are a lot of mortals like you?"

"...There are a lot of mortals and I don't think I'm that weird so there are probably lots of us even though most mortals aren't very much like me.  About this."

"Huh. I've met one before but only once."

"How did they get to Fairyland?"

"Same way I got here, they walked through a tear. A tear is like a gate but it's not stable, once someone goes through it's gone. That's why nobody chased me when I came through."

"Woah."  He switches back to the two-handed jacket-pulling configuration.  "...Actually, should I be carrying you?  You're much lighter than I thought you'd be when I suggested dragging."

"I don't want to be touched."

"Maybe I could make... a sling?  Or a swing, rather, out of the jacket."

"...I don't envision that working particularly well."

"As you wish."  He resumes (carefully!) dragging her along.

"You can call me Promise. You should have a nickname too, even if I already know yours it's weird to use it."

"Sure.  Hello, Promise."  Drag drag.  "Are nicknames usually words that mean things, as opposed to other people's names or something?"

"For fairies yes. I guess you can use someone else's meaningless name if you don't expect me to ever meet them?"

"...There aren't any specific Marks in my life but it's a name that exists and that people have it, sometimes.  That would still be bad for this purpose?"

"Only if I meet one and entertain the hypothesis that they're named Mark. Which is now something that might happen whether you use the nickname or not."

"That is fascinating.  ...Hmmmm.  How about 'Zeal', do you think."

"That's a perfectly good nickname. Hi, Zeal. Thanks for finding me, I could have been there a really long time otherwise."

"You're welcome," he would have found you immediately if he could have - no, say something normal, "of course.  How long were you stuck there?"

"I don't know, I stopped counting sunrises after a while. I had time for a lot of my injuries to heal noticeably even without any food and now when we get wherever we're going I should be able to set my ankle and maybe stitch my wing. I think it was - hm - the mortal world has days and years that are always the same, right?"

"...Yes."

"So I guess less than a season."

"- I'm so sorry.  There's a lot more food at my house, and, and you can sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the floor, and - do you sleep?"

"Yes, I sleep. I could just sleep when you're awake."

"Oh yeah, maybe.  And you eat, and like to, but just don't die if you don't?"

"I don't die. At all. Of anything. But yes, eating is good for me."

"Woah."

"I'm really sorry you had such an awful time and couldn't die about it.  But I'm going to do everything in my power to make it worth it for you to have lived through all that."

"...thank you. That's very sweet."

"...Would you have wanted to die?  If you could?"

"Sometimes."

"Well.  As I said.  ...Do you want to listen to music?"

"That sounds nice."

"I can give you my headphones, which would mean you can't hear anything else as well, or I can just blast it from my phone, which will sound worse but we'll both be able to hear it and talk over it."  He sets down the jacket (carefully!) and fishes his phone out of his jeans pocket.

"...how does that work?"

"If you want an explanation of how the technology actually, hm, exists, I can get that for you, but how it causes there to be music is that I tap some stuff on here, and it either comes out of this - oh, these are still connected, hold on -"  He turns them off, and fiddles until there's a Best of Tchaikovsky playlist coming from the speaker.  "Or you can put these over your ears," he demonstrates, "and I can make the sound come out of them instead."  Headphones back off.

"...no headphones for now."

"You got it."  He repockets the phone such that it sticks out a bit and is liable to keep jamming him in the hip, but the speaker at least won't be muffled by fabric.  Draaaaaaaaag.

It's nice music.

Yay it looks like he picked a good thing for the supernatural entity's ??first introduction to recorded music??.  Yay.  Tchaikovsky, he figured, is good because it's probably not best to overwhelm someone with indie emo or something else modern, but Tchaikovsky is the sort of thing that some people who're into classical music complain is too poppy and broad-appeal, which to Xander Zeal??  He kind of really likes 'Zeal' and will maybe think of himself as that from now on - which to Zeal is another way of saying that the oeuvre is just kinda full of bangers.

"It's impressive that such a little thing can make the music so loud."

"- Is it too loud?  I can turn it down."

"No, it's fine, it's just impressive."

"Oh, yeah.  Technology can do many really impressive things and it's going to be really exciting to show them to you.  - How old are you?"

"I don't know. Sixty or seventy something, I think."

"Wow!"

"...why is that worth wowing about?"

"I think I just expected either an answer that matched with about how old a human who looks like you would be, or one that was older than humans can be.  Because I would expect them to either stay somewhat in sync, or for you to be from somewhere farther back in the lot-of-past that you could be from if you don't age.  ...Do you age very slowly or not at all?"

"I don't age. I've always looked like this. Some fairies are children first, but not my kind."

"What's the oldest fairy you know of?"

"Asking people their ages is not normal fairy small talk so I don't know a lot. I think the Queen is at least ten thousand."

"Woahhhh.  How did you come to exist?"

"The right kind of tree got big enough to have room for me in the trunk."

"So - no, you said you've never met a parent.  ...But did the tree you came from have someone else's tree produce its seed?  Even if you never met them?"

"I think it grew from a seed but probably not a seed of a tree that was some other leaflet's tree; there weren't any other leaflets or any other trees big enough near mine. That's the kind of fairy I am, a leaflet."

"Did it come from a smaller tree, then, do you think?"

"Probably. Most trees don't live long enough to get that big."

"Do you want to try and have - well, make there be new adults, someday?"

"...no? Why would I want that?"

"Oh, I don't know.  I think most humans do.  Or, they want to have kids, which is different, but I thought fairies might also want to do something similar.  Mostly I'm trying to figure out how likely it was, given that I met you, that you're the age you are; I'm sorry if that's leading me to insensitive questions."

"There are breeding kinds of fairies but I'm not one."

"Really!  Are they also immortal?"

"All fairies are, yes."

"Woah.

"Do most fairies have as rough a time of it as you, do you know?"

"I think he's unusually bad, or - at least an unusual combination of competent and bad."

"That's good.  Do you have any idea - how many?"

"How many fairies there are? No idea. More all the time, of course."

"Of course," he echoes.  "...Okay, I know we can't see the house yet, but we're getting kind of close and I think I should go ahead and make sure my parents haven't gotten home yet.  Will you be okay to stay here for a few minutes?"

"Should be."

"Okay.  Where does this go wrong.....  I'm going to take my jacket back in a minute, because my parents saw me go out with it and they might want to come out here to look for it with me if I don't have it.  And we should move you out of sight of the path just in case..."  He pauses the music.  "Do fairies have any special problems with animals?  We have a cat."

"...Fairyland doesn't have animals so I don't really know."

"...Woah.  Uh, I mostly don't expect him to bother you behaviorally - do you know what allergies are?  And whether you can have them?"

"I don't recognize the term."

"That's probably a good sign.  If you start feeling sick while in my house it might be that, and we'll have to figure someplace else for you to be."

"Okay." Sigh. "I wish I had a cutting of my tree."

"I also wish you had that.  ...How would it help?"

"Well, sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world, but eventually it'd grow big enough for me to live in again, the way I can reshape it isn't sorcery."

"...Yeah, I wish you could have that.  Is it okay if I move you over there?  I think that'll be out of sight."

"Yeah, that's fine."

Zeal is more limited in the ways he can harmlessly drag her on the non-trail ground.  He tries not to look too delighted about this.

"There.  I think here's good."

She scoots off his jacket.

"Thank you."  He drapes it over his arm.  "...You don't have anything with, I don't know, funky time stuff where if I leave you alone you'll disappear forever or something, do you?"

"...no."

"That's good.  Okay, I'll most likely be back in a few minutes, some chance I get caught up and can't bring you inside until night.  If that happens I will probably be able to come bring you some food and hang out with you for a while, just not bring you inside without my parents seeing.  Do... if my parents come home while I'm bringing you inside do you want me to carry you?"

"...why would that make me want you to carry me?"

"For speed, so they won't see you."

"I wish I could just turn invisible. Fine."

"I also also wish you could do that.  Any other thoughts?"

Headshake.

Okay.  Nod, back to the path, deep breath.

He scratches a small rut in the ground to mark approximately where she's hiding, and goes to the house.  No parents yet.  ........It occurs to him that he could have simply texted them.  He asks if they're still out at Costco and if so could they bring him a bag of beef jerky?  He's really craving it.  Teriyaki please.

His mom responds pretty quickly that they're still there but they already went past that section and she'll swing back and pick it up for him but could he please try and think of these things in advance next time?  Maybe even at any of the times when she asks him for what he wants!

He sends that he'll try and he loves her and he's thankful, and treks back out to Promise.  "We have plenty of time, it turns out."  Jacket goes back on the ground in front of her.

Scootch.

Pull.  Puuuullllll.  ...Music back on, actually.

Zeal's parents' house is built into a hill, with the main entrance upstairs and a back one in the basement, with a deck over it.  Getting Promise over the threshold requires some extra care, but at least his room is on the lower floor and he doesn't have to decide between stairs and the exposed hill.

"Uh, so this is what a human house looks like," he notes, hitting a light switch with his shoulder, "if you have any questions I'd be very happy to answer them."  He feels kind of self-conscious about the number of objects lying around in the common areas, but he thinks his room is actually pretty clean for the moment?  They'll find out in a moment, he guesses.

She looks around in rather open bewilderment at most everything. "How do the lights work?" she asks, squinting up.

"Domesticated lightning!  Same as in my phone, and also a lot of other things.  It's really useful."

"Wow. Nice if you can't do sorcery lights."

"Yeah.  Can sorcery play music?"  The carpet's making the movement situation a lot easier; he can slide her across the floor pretty quickly.  Here's his room.  - Right, good, he made his bed because he was folding laundry on it earlier.  There's a little pile of clothes that he'll have to shove in the hamper once he's gotten her situated but this is basically fine.  Thank God.

"Not that I know of, though I didn't have all that long to study before I got captured." Does he have... books.

He has books!  They have titles like Leviathan Wakes and Frostbite and Frankenstein.  Many of them have photographs printed on the spines.

Neat. "If I'm staying up while you sleep, can I have enough light to read by?"

"Yes, absolutely.  And you can listen to music in headphones and go on my laptop and stuff.  Which is like a phone but bigger.  It can do a lot of things but we'll get there - do you, uh, want to climb up on the bed?  Or should I try and..."

"...I can probably do it, I only have one busted ankle." She hauls herself up.

Once she's settled he sits on the floor next to the bed.

"...Oh.  You probably want food now?  Do you have anything in mind that you'd like?  I mean, I don't know that we'll have it but obviously you can ask."

"I have no idea what mortals eat."

"Uh, well, Clif bars for one..."

"The Clif bar was pretty good."

"Oh good.  I'll be right back."  He leaves her the phone and its Tchaikovsky this time, and returns a few minutes later with more Clif bars in that flavor and another one, a pack of cheese slices, a plastic container of turkey slices, a bag of sour cream and onion chips, an apple, and an empty plastic cup.

"I don't recognize most of that. - you're going to have to feed me, if I just pick up mortal food and eat it I'm open to claims from anyone involved."

"Okay."  Look normal about that, feel normal about that; it's purely practical - okay, thinking about the fact that it's practical doesn't help, because the fact that it is has to do with the fact that she's MAGIC and that's the part he doesn't feel normal about - "Right, you'd said that.  Uh, which do you want to try first?"

"Maybe if you cut up that fruit?"

"Sure.  Uh, and, do you want anything to drink?  I have more water, or if you want milk or, I think we have orange juice.  Too."

"I have no idea what milk is. Juice sounds nice, water is good - I can actually safely drink water without help if it's definitely just water and doesn't have anything extraneous in it."

"....Milk probably sounds really weird if I try to explain it.  I mean it's actually really good, but - juice for now, yeah, how about.  I would have to check up on the water situation."  Hup, back to the kitchen, apple cut up and juice obtained, back to his room.

"Uh.  Should I... sit on the bed with you?"

"Sure, that seems sensible."

"Yeah, right, I mean, kind of how would I reach you otherwise -"  He sits down.  And then here is an apple chunk vaguely near her face.

She bites it out of his hand without putting her face in contact with his skin at all.

He tries really hard to hold perfectly still to enable this, and doesn't really succeed by his standards although he at least does manage not to bump anything into her face.

Chew chew. "That's pretty good."

"Oh good!  I'm glad you like it.  Apples have gotten a lot better within my lifetime."

"People are breeding them?"

"Mmhm!"

"We do that with plants we like too. - how long is your lifetime so far?"

"Eighteen years and a couple months."

"Is that done growing?"

"Pretty much!  My uncle likes to talk about how the prefrontal cortex isn't done developing until you're 25, and I'll probably fill out some more," (he hopes) "but this is basically it."

"I imagine that must be a relief to no longer be very slowly shapeshifting all the time."

"- That's a delightful way to put that.  I kind of liked it because I liked becoming bigger and stronger, although maybe I would have felt differently if I'd known starting out that way was an option.  I still kind of hope I'm not done, though."

"Not big and strong enough for your taste?"

"Never."  Thinking about the existence of his birthday makes his brain catch up with some context and some basic math - "Oh crap, were you out there in the snow‽"

"For a while."

"I'm so sorry - do you want a bath, or something?  After this?  - In, uh, uh uh - if you think you can handle that fine by yourself.  I just - you should have a nice, luxury experience, with - warm -"

"...maybe after my wing's better. I think it'd sting."

"Yeah!  Yeah, of course.  I can find sewing supplies, if you want.  After food?  Do you want juice now."

"Yes please. - I'm not actually sure I'll be able to stitch it up, it's really sensitive and I'm not so certain it will speed up the healing that I want to have you make me do it."

Yes okay juice.

"...Or have me do it?"

"Or that."

"There are painkillers but I don't know whether they'd work on fairies."

"...huh. I don't know either."

"It's probably not safe to...

"I mean, I guess it's not like you could die of them.  Is it.  But they could make you really sick or something, for all I know."

"Maybe, if they're poisonous to fairies or something. In Fairyland I could just heal myself."

"I really wish everything about this situation was better for you."

"Thank you."

She likes orange juice, and finishes the apple, and tastes but does not care for the cheese or the turkey, though the chips are okay.

Zeal tries to focus really hard on figuring out fairy population growth over time based on the knowledge he has so far, and doesn't come to any conclusions but at least hopefully manages to look like he's having a basically normal reaction to the hand-feeding situation.  If perhaps coming across as somewhat distant.

"...Still hungry?" he asks once he realizes they've run out of the food she's liked.

"A little but it might be smart to digest what I've got so far anyway."

"Yeah.  Yeah, smart.  ...Do you want sewing stuff or not?  And painkillers."

"...not today, I think. I've never actually tried stitching a wing, and it is healing on its own, just slowly."

"...How long do you think it might take to heal?"

"I couldn't see the damage before you let me move but I think it's more than half done? And the edge should be faster than the center."

"But if it would take me a few days to get some materials that were safer for stitches in bodies than regular sewing stuff, maybe I should do that?"

"...I guess it's possible I'll change my mind but it doesn't presently feel likely.

"...I draw, do you have any paper I can draw on?"

"Yes, definitely.  Here -"  Looseleaf, mechanical pencil, pen, the random MDF board he keeps around as a lap desk.

She takes a bit to figure out these implements and then starts drawing an evergreen tree.

He goes to put away the remaining food items.  Finds Hawk and scoops him up and gives him a kiss on his gray little kitty forehead and brings him downstairs to show Promise.  He knocks, and projects from the other side of the door, "Do you want to meet the cat?"

"To meet it? Does it talk?"

"No, but he's, y'know, a creature and stuff."

"I guess I can encounter the cat."

He opens the door!  And closes it behind him!  "So, this is a cat."  Said cat has his paws lined up over Zeal's shoulder such that Zeal has to turn most of his back to Promise in order for her to see him.  He's stripey and has big green eyes.  "His name is Hawk."

"Is it a problem if I turn out not to like the cat?"

"...No-o.  It might be convenient if you did but I don't think - it's not a problem.  It wouldn't be."

"Because it seems... uncanny... and I do not know if I will get used to it."

"I definitely don't personally care whether you like cats.  It would be logistically convenient if you did, because he normally hangs out in my room, sometimes, and if he's in here with me then that covers some small amounts of noise you might make.  To my parents."

"If you were to put it down would it touch me?"

"Probably not; he's not very lovey with strangers."

"Then I guess it's worth seeing if I get used to it."

Zeal pulls out the chair that goes with his desk and sits in it.  Hawk backs down off his shoulder and into his lap.

Zeal pets him contemplatively.  "...Do you have night terrors or anything?"

"I am generally asleep when I'm asleep so I don't really know if I have them conspicuously."

"Ehhhhgh.  ...Do you normally sleep about a third of the time?"

"Yes."

"Okay, maybe we can get you on a schedule where you're asleep while my parents are at work, so even if you're noisy they'll never hear you."

"That makes sense. Where do they go?"

"They manage a motel, or - an inn?  If you know what inns are?"

"I think I'm getting a loose sense from the word but fairies don't have those that I know of."

"It gives people travelling a place to stay overnight."

Nod.

"So that covers five days out of seven, once we get on that schedule.  The rest of the time... I can try to be around, to - intervene, in whatever way you'd prefer, before they could hear you."

"...what happens on the other two days out of seven?"

"They don't have to go to work.  Sometimes they go other places, like right now they're out getting food, and tomorrow morning all three of us will go to church for a few hours, but in general the schedule is much less of a sure thing."

"What's a church?"

"...Oh boy.  Church is where we go to learn about and worship God, who created this universe and - probably also yours but I'm less sure of that?  And he gave us an afterlife and stuff."

"What's worshiping?"

"It's kind of like going, 'wow, you're really cool' or something.  It's more serious than that, but - fundamentally."

"This person, you think, made Fairyland, and you think that's cool."

He flinches.  "I mean - if he did that he probably also included a way for things to be okay for you guys eventually - even if nothing else kills you you probably get to be a part of the apocalypse and go to heaven.  Which is, uh, a nice place where nothing bad ever happens again.  - But I don't know that he did that; maybe he didn't."

"I guess I don't know if this place is nice enough for creating it like this to be cool."

"I mean - I'm going to be really bad at explaining this and maybe I should just find you some stuff to read, but the basic idea is that the world was created perfect and then humans messed it up, but then also God did some things to fix it so now things are... fundamentally okay, pretty much."

"...it was perfect but it wasn't stable against the things that were in it?"

"Because of free will, yeah."

"I don't really get it."

"Yeah, it's really complicated and confusing and no one gets it, basically.  But suffice to say the whole family will go someplace for a few hours every Sunday morning."

"...okay. Uh, maybe on days when they don't have work I can sleep in the woods some more, if you can haul me out." She's starting to fingercomb her hair.

"I would not want to sleep out in the woods if I had other options but I guess I'm not a fairy.  Uh, just wondering, what happens if someone is ordered to do something they can't do?  And is refraining from making noise in their sleep one of those things."

"If it's completely involuntary orders can't change it, or I would've suggested that."

"What do they feel like?"

"...orders? You already asked to try one... If you mean orders to do something you can't do, sometimes you start trying if you don't know you can't, but otherwise it feels like nothing."

"Yeah, ones you can't do."

"Do you want me to order you to recite one of your books from memory, or something?"

"Yes!"

She glances at the shelf. "Recite Frankenstein from memory."

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

"Uh.  ...Huh.  Yeah, I super just don't have any idea how that actually - starts.  - What about something that you can kind of do but not really?"

"If it just takes a really long time there is no particular limit to how long you can be trapped trying to brute force the cube root of seven billion."

"Oh no.  ...I do have a calculator, though.  Which is to say - I mean, if you ordered me to fly, would I start trying to book an airplane?  If I didn't have the money for it would I start applying to jobs - I guess realistically I would probably go for stealing from my parents first, wouldn't I -"

"I don't know what an airplane is or how complicated it would be for you to get one."

"They're machines that can fit a couple hundred people in them and then fly.  You don't get them yourself, you pay for a spot on one that's going to do that.  I've never booked one but it can't be that hard once you know how; some people do it all the time."  Phone phone here's a picture.

"...well, if I were trying to order you to fly I'm not sure sitting in that would count. - you may refrain from reciting Frankenstein."

"Oh, would have that trapped me later I'd learned more of it?"

"Might've. They don't expire."

"Woah."

"Or, well, it'd wear off if I forgot your name, but mortals don't live that long."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"The fact that I'm really weird and keep being insensitive is probably my fault."

"You're only the second mortal I've ever met, I don't know what you're supposed to be like."

"I think - generally more considerate and less accidentally poking people in their wounds.  Emotionally."

"Well, you know, it was most of my life, it's big, hard to miss."

"Okay.  Well, I'm still sorry."

"Thanks."

"I should explain the bathroom to you.  This one's kinda weird, in that most don't have two doors, at least in houses, but this one does: that one there connecting to my room and another one out in the hallway.  I'm the main one who uses it, but not the only one.  They do lock but you should mostly leave them unlocked when you're not using it.  But, uh, you can get water from there, and take a bath once you're well enough, and, yeah."

"Were you going to do some kind of water related research?"

"- Yes.  Do you know, if I had fed you some metal or a rock, would that have done anything?"

"It would not."

"Okay, it's probably safe, then - in towns I think they put fluor-something in the water because it's good for your teeth - or humans' teeth, at least - fluoride, I think?  But we're on well water, and we do add rocks to it in the water softener, I think, to kind of cancel out other rocks that are in it naturally, and I don't think there's anything else but - probably I should just ask my dad."

"...cancel out... the rocks...?"

"Rocks!  Humans need rocks to live.  Also metals.  But bits of them that are too small to see, mostly, and - I'm gonna look this up."  Phone.  Phoooooone.  Phone.  "Okay, it looks like, yeah, we put salt or something in our water and even though the result doesn't taste like saltwater I think there are still particles in there, they're just bonded to whatever more-annoying minerals were in there to begin with."

"...I think that is probably fine? Drinking saltwater is not dangerous in this way for us."

"Even though we're adding it on purpose?"

"Right."

"...How bad is it to get this wrong?"

"Well, probably, nothing will happen, but possibly, I would one day meet a random mortal who puts slightly more nutritious rocks in the water and they'd be able to give me orders."

"I mean.  I can give you water by hand forever if you want."  No!!  Sound more normal than that!  "Or I can start buying distilled.  I don't know how expensive that is but it's probably fine."

"Distilled water would be safe."

"I will buy you distilled water at least until we've done enough research to be sure tap water is safe."

"Thank you. ...how does buying things work?"

"Either you go to a store, which stores things for people to buy, and give the people there an amount of money that will let you take the thing you want - is there money in Fairyland?"

"No."

"Okay, well basically it's a thing that you can give to people in exchange for things, which works because those people can also give it to other people in exchange for things they want."

"...is it good for anything else?"

"Not really."

"Why wouldn't you use something that is?"

"Uh, because then people would use it up instead of having money?  You can look at my Gov/Ec textbook if you want, or the internet.  Money is, kind of one of the big things in human society, for good or for ill, and so everything about it is pretty important.  But not in a way where I, a regular person, understand all the reasons why it is the way it is."

"The textbook might be neat if it doesn't assume too much background knowledge."

"...It would probably do that."  He stabilizes Hawk with one hand and shifts his chair to face the desk a bit more.  Laptop open, Simple Wikipedia, money.  He passes it to Promise.  "- Oh, you can scroll by - you can make it show text that's lower, like with turning page, by... probably the mouse is the easiest way."  He turns that on.  "By moving this wheel."

"Why is it written like... that."

"There's one that's in regular English but I thought it might assume too much background knowledge so I went with the simple one."

"It's not the words that are likely to trip me up. Or, not the kinds of words this is avoiding - I don't know what a cow is."

"A cow is an animal that both produces and is a thing that humans can eat.  Here, let me -"  He takes the laptop back and replaces the 'simple' in the address bar with 'en'.  "...I'll be surprised if this is more illuminating than the other one but of course you can look at it."  He passes it back to the bed.

"Why is some of it blue?" is her next question.

"Each of the blue bits connects to another page like this on that subject."  He squints at the screen.  "Or, well, some of them are citations or other things that'll hop you to stuff within this same page.  You can use the mouse to interact with them, by... hm, I'm going to put the cat out so I have more freedom of movement."  He does that.

She waits patiently.

And then he can sit on the bed next to her and drag the MDF board to where it's most useful as a mousepad and show her how to click on things.

In that case she will soon have a tabsplosion on her hands.

And not long after that there are noises associated with his parents coming home.

While they're still in the garage: "- Can you write?"

"Of course I can."

"Can you type?"

"I don't know what that is."

"Okay.  I will try to be back in not very many minutes, and then we're going to need to communicate mostly by text for a while.  Does that sound okay?"

"Yes."

Nod.

He goes and helps his parents unload the groceries, and he thinks succeeds at acting mostly casual.  His mom nags him about whether he's done his homework, and normally he would lie and say it's done but actually the excuse to hang out undisturbed in his room for a while is very welcome, here.

So he's back after not too long, with beef jerky in hand to wordlessly offer Promise.

She looks at it quizzically. Opens her mouth, though she looks confused about it.