sugar berry

[imeanforever]

Near a stream that pours off a high cliff and then snakes away is a garden, carefully tended, and a house, built of wood and stone and transmuted pearl. Fairies weed the plants. One is fixing the roof. A berrybush, hair atangle with spidery branches, is painting gold stripes onto her purple arms.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

Too late.

"Take no new action," calls the berrybush. "Land."

[infinitely_stranger]

He lands, gracefully. His wings drift behind him, light enough to float on the merest breeze, their stars twinkling. For some reason, he is smiling a very small ironic smile.

[alicornucopia]

The berrybush approaches. "Too quiet for the others to hear, whisper your name in my ear."

[infinitely_stranger]

He has to crouch down to get on her level; he is very tall for a fairy, five and a half feet.

"Sierulyperinon," he murmurs.

[alicornucopia]

"Tell me your nickname," continues the berrybush.

[infinitely_stranger]

"Arcane," he says, very dryly.

[alicornucopia]

The berrybush does not recognize this nickname.

"Follow me," she says, and she takes off and flies.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane follows.

[alicornucopia]

The berrybush has a pretty pokey flight speed. It takes hours to get where they're going, and she stops to rest and pick a fruit for herself on the way. She does not offer Arcane any.

Eventually they reach their destination.

"I got one!" the berrybush calls.

[infinitely_stranger]

Naturally, Arcane stops where she stops.

He is smiling that smile again, or some close cousin thereof.

[alicornucopia]

The berrybush has little to no interest in Arcane's facial expressions at this time.

The door opens, revealing a four-foot-tall fairy with metallic lace for wings. "Hello, Sugar."

"Hello, Verve! I got one! May I take him to Thorn?"

"I'll do it, Sugar. Tell me his name and go back."

"Yes Verve." Sugar whispers Arcane's name to Verve, Verve says, "Stay put" to Arcane, and then Sugar turns and flies away.

"What has Sugar told you to do so far? Tell me," Verve says to Arcane.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane regards Verve with mild amusement, and recites in a remarkably accurate imitation of Sugar:

"'Take no new action.' 'Land.' 'Too quiet for the others to hear, whisper your name in my ear.' 'Tell me your nickname.' 'Follow me.'"

[alicornucopia]

"Tell me, is there anything I would want to know that you could share before I bring you to Thorn?"

[infinitely_stranger]

"Yes," says Arcane, smirking.

[alicornucopia]

Verve looks exceedingly exasperated with him. "That you're obnoxious," she surmises. "Follow me. Wipe that smirk off your face."

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane follows Verve and ceases to smirk.

[alicornucopia]

And Verve brings him to Thorn, who is sitting with a book in a room with a smiling dewflower resting her head in her lap while he gives her scritches that would look rather affectionate if he weren't scratching her up with his claws. Thorn sets the book down.

"Master, this is Sierulyperinon," Verve says. "Sugar got him. He's obnoxious."

"Oh? What has he done that's so obnoxious?" asks Thorn.

"I asked him the caution question and he just said 'yes'. Smirking."

"And when you asked him what exactly the content of his yes was, Verve?"

"I - didn't."

"You didn't."

"No master."

"Go and tell Sunstroke that you've earned thirty minutes."

"Yes master," squeaks Verve, and she slinks away.

Thorn regards Arcane. "Tell me your nickname and what Verve would have liked to know before she brought you here."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I am called Arcane, sorcerer of the Queenscourt," Arcane says serenely. "I have been traveling for one hundred and sixty-one days out of a two-hundred-day leave. In thirty-nine days, if I am not back where the Queen expects me to be, she will send others to retrieve me. If you try to keep me from her, or interfere with me otherwise, she is likely to be annoyed with you."

[alicornucopia]

The dewflower with her head in Thorn's lap is suddenly bleeding a lot more. Probably that involuntary hand-clenching problem Thorn has. He should get that checked out. She makes a squeaking noise and heals herself.

"Tell me," says Thorn, "the best way to ensure no attention from the Queen or her court after this incident."

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane smiles.

"If you rescind all orders from me and let me go, with some appropriate compensation, then I will not mention this incident unnecessarily at the Queenscourt and if it should come up I will advise her that you were very cooperative and need not be punished, nor is your court remarkable in any way that would make it worth capturing for her purposes. A vassal would qualify as appropriate compensation. One with some sorcerous skill, partcularly."

[alicornucopia]

Thorn thinks for a moment.

Then he removes his claws from his dewflower's head and says, "Go make the leaflet presentable and bring her here."

The dewflower gets up, bows, and trots out of the room to obey.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane, of course, waits.

[imeanforever]

Blossom returns with a pale hawthorn-winged leaflet. The leaflet is presently uninjured, but there's a lingering smell of blood and general misfortune about her and she doesn't seem to be walking very well, having to place each foot carefully in front of the other as she follows Blossom in.

"Arcane, this is Alisyrrabel, called Promise, a sorcerer of some talent if few years. She can show you beyond the edges of my property, whereupon you may consider all orders you received within my court rescinded for yourself and do as you like with her. As described the pair of you may go."

Promise nods shakily and turns to lead Arcane out of the building.

[infinitely_stranger]

He smiles again, and nods graciously to Thorn, and follows Promise.

[imeanforever]

Promise manages to fly, when they're out in the open. She flies until they are at an unremarkable bit of swamp and then she lands in a tree. This is presumably the edge of the property, although Promise does not seem to be able to speak.