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May is rolling her way to the library. It's not icy - in point of fact it's summer - but she's got an unhappy ankle from tripping yesterday and it's an accessible library and it's downhill on the way there and Ren will pick her up after. So, rolling.
a may in the moon kingdom
maybeso
"Is it just a matter of the army not being likely to cooperate? You don't seem to have standard chains of command, admittedly, but they're your army, you could probably shuffle them around some."
of-secret-night
She tilts her head thoughtfully and regards May from across the very long room.
"No," she says, after a pause. "It is not just that."
maybeso
"I'm not really sure how best to extrapolate from the characteristics of a magical dualist Canadian-kidnapping flatland and I'm also not sure why you're asking me."
of-secret-night
"I'm interested in your perspective," she says. "New perspectives are often very valuable."
maybeso
"Is that why even though outworlders show up every few centuries or so everyone still knows to bring them to you earliest convenience?"
of-secret-night
"It's among the reasons, yes. I also find that sometimes they have trouble adjusting. Everyone else in my Kingdom is as well provided for as I can manage; I would like to be able to offer guests as much, and I can't do that if I don't know they're here."
of-secret-night
"I would not be confident in saying it's always possible. More outworlders land in the Kingdom of Day than here, and the news of those that reaches north is often scant. And some of my own visitors chose to stay."
of-secret-night
"Because it's possible I might discuss matters with you that my subjects should not hear."
of-secret-night
"Outworlders have a capacity to affect this world beyond any person from within it," she says. "If you tried, you could win this war for whichever side you chose. It would not be easy, but it would be possible in a way that it ordinarily is not. But it seems that instead you would prefer a ceasefire. As it happens, so would I."
of-secret-night
"It's not easy to explain," she says. "And in some ways it can be harder to use once you know how it works, unless you happen to be very good at directing your own mind."
of-secret-night
"If there are worlds other than Earth, it doesn't seem to draw from them; it never chooses anyone less than eight years old or more than sixteen; and it has a moderately strong preference for the northern hemisphere. Besides that, I haven't detected any firm patterns. Why do you ask?"
of-secret-night
"As far as I know, that is probably a coincidence. But it is promising to hear," she says. "The clearest example I have is how visitors can use their power to leave, because I've helped them do it many times. Do you want the explanation, even though if you are wrong about how easily you can adjust, you might find it much more difficult to go home once you've heard it?"
of-secret-night
The Queen nods.
"When a visitor tells me they want to leave, I suggest that they travel to the edge of the world," she says. "I tell them that if they reach the right spot at the right time, they will see a doorway there, and the door will lead them home. And then I give them an escort and send them on their way, and I arrange for daunting but surmountable obstacles between them and their goal. It has worked every time but twice. The doorway does not otherwise exist. What creates it is their sustained, focused, directed effort to reach it, and their expectation that it will be there if they succeed. Once, I failed to stop a storm in time and it sank their boat. The other failure was when someone dawdled on the way and arrived a day late. He knew he was too late to find the door, so it wasn't there; and he was so upset that he impulsively ran out past the edge of the world."