...yeah he got this. Harmonics are fiddly, moving one part affects other parts nearby, but if his guess is right flatter is better so he can aim for that and keep his actions contained to a specific area—

"It's settled," he announces.

Rock toss. "Congratulations," she says when it disappears.

"How long do you think you'll need to find a place and make a gate?"

"Few days, maybe a week. Especially if I'm planning on growing a tree there."

"Okay, so I'll be back on the other side of this gate in, let's say three weeks?"

"Okay. - Can you safely be deaf when you do that? If I'm caught."

"—yeah, I can. Might be a good idea for me to say I rescind all orders you got from anyone but me as soon as I arrive?"

"If you're going to make cunning plans like that for goodness sake don't tell me about them."

"...right. Sorry, I'm not used to thinking in—these terms. Even while talking about these terms."

"Probably doesn't come very naturally to mortals."

"Does it to fairies? I'm unclear how—" Pause. "Might be a better idea to talk later, the gate's here, I shouldn't hold you."

"I was prepared to wait here for a week and I'll probably eat and sleep before I move anyway. If something does happen to me before I open a new one you might need to know more. But keep it to the essentials and not my favorite color maybe."

"Problem is I'm not sure what the essentials are. I figured out that humans could do orders too by looking at the magic, the fairy who captured me only told me fairies could do it, but I didn't know the food thing until you told me. You said you 'started'—did you just, start existing as a baby or something?"

"No, I was never a child."

"And did you know how to speak and all that when you—actually how do you speak my language if you didn't even know about my world?"

"Fairies don't use languages, they seem like more trouble than they're worth, we just talk. I knew how to talk."

Blink.

"What?"

"—that's probably not essential, I'll ask later. Where'd your name come from, if you just started?"

"I just knew it. Breeder fairies are children and get named though."

"...sounds like another nonessential thing. Can you tell me more about the mechanics of orders? Like, how they resolve conflicts, or partial conflicts, what sort of media can be used to transmit orders, whether they ever expire..."

"Recency always takes precedence. They can be written in principle but only if you watch them being written; looking at preexisting writing is safe. If you're name vassalized the orders expire if your name is forgotten but fairies are good at remembering names. If your master is mortal and dies, the orders expire. Otherwise no."

He nods. "How do ambiguous orders decide which meaning to go with?"

"You have a very little room for interpretation but not very much, seldom enough to make a difference. Exact words matter but not as much as you might hope."

"Does master intent matter at all?"