"Because I didn't know stuff."

"Well. That wasn't very nice of him, but I guess if he thought you were an adult human who'd been around for a few decades..."

"Yes, he thought I was a magician. I explained I am not."

"Did you tell him what you really are instead? How did he react?"

"I told him. He's never heard of elementals before either."

"I'm glad he didn't react badly."

Nod.

Hug.

Hug.

"I'm going to turn in now. Good night."

"Good night."

She goes to sleep.

Water burrows in river mud until she's good and stuck, and sleeps there.

Elsewhere, in a neighboring kingdom, a young queen is poring over tax records in the palace garden.

A person, with chestnut hair and amber-colored translucent wings that move like honey suspended in air, comes into existence at the edge of a greenhouse. He blinks at the garden and the greenhouse and the queen.

She looks up. "Hello."

"Hello."

"Who are you, and why are you here?"

"I'm Amber. I don't have anywhere else to be."

"And how did you get here?"

"I don't know, it just seems to have happened."

"Are you alright? Do you think someone might have sent you here?"

"I'm fine. I don't think so but I don't know how it works."

"How what works?"

"Anything. Being places. Existing."