"I bet it's great. Did it take a long time to learn to fly on - made wings?"

"It wasn't so bad! Spider-gifts are nice like that. Maybe a week from the first time I put them on until I could keep up with the squad on 'em? A little longer before I was maneuvering like a real flyer."

"That is awesome. There are ways at home for humans to fly but they're all really cumbersome and most of them are either dangerous or not properly fun at all."

"Well, flying with these is no picnic if you get it wrong, but if you're sensible about it you can learn without getting in much trouble. I could, anyway. Flying's easier for smaller creatures, we don't fall so hard."

"That makes sense."

"Why, d'you want a set yourself?"

"Maybe!"

"Snowfall liked making mine, if she gets to know you maybe she'll offer." Flap flap. There does not really seem to be enough solid substance in those wings for them to work - strands of barely-visible spiderweb bind together a skeletal array of feathers haloed by a soft silver glow - but nevertheless they are demonstrably functional. "Hungry yet? What do your folk eat?"

"Humans eat lots of things. So far none of the same species that are people here are things I eat, fortunately, I feel like that would be awkward. Bread and broccoli and cheese and rice and chocolate and potatoes and cabbage and apples and strawberries and certain species of mushrooms I could not confidently identify in the wild and eggs and a whole bunch of stuff."

"Sounds about like the commonest sorts of fey, then, that's good. If you'd said you subsist exclusively on figs or something we'd have been in trouble."

"I'm not sure I have ever eaten a fig, although they are edible to humans!"

Charm giggles. "I had one once. You can get them down by the borderlands. It'd be a real trick to find one this far north."

"I know nothing about the Earthly growing climates of figs but that seems reasonable enough. About how much area is this world?"

"Good question. You could ask our geography expert, next break."

"How long a trip are we looking at?"

"At this pace, we'll sleep one day in the wilds along the way and get there by midnight tomorrow."

"Okay. I hope it doesn't rain."

"Probably won't."

"What do you do when it does?"

"I huddle up under Ebb's wing - there'd be room for you too, I bet - if it's a short downpour. Longer than that and we'd find or build a shelter. If we were out on something serious we'd have brought a tent, but it's hard to carry one that'll fit us all, and these hills are nice for packing light in. Good forage, not much rain."

"I don't know how to forage, what do you find?"

"This time of year, plenty of nuts and berries for you plant-munching folk, a reasonable supply of moths and crickets for me and Snowfall - Ebb ate last week, she's fine - if Starlight's lucky we'll catch a rabbit, otherwise it's crickets for him too - if we're feeling leisurely we roast the crickets. I don't mind rabbit myself if it's going spare, but wild-caught roast cricket, that's my favourite."

"Some humans eat crickets but not me."

"More for me then," Charm says cheerfully. "Do you go in for rabbit, if we find some?"

"I haven't tried it but if it's cooked I would."