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

[infinitely_stranger]

"She's a breeder matriarch with strong feelings about who may have control of her descendants. Her colony has been a subsidiary of the Queenscourt for a very long time because it sits near a few Queenscourt locations, and anytime someone takes a stonecrusher as a vassal - that's the name of the kind - Grandmother Stone finds that person and endeavours to make them forget the stonecrusher's name. It became necessary to absorb her so that she would stop interfering with peripheral members of the Queenscourt. If she ever gains enough favour for the Queen to allow her out on an expedition in search of escaped stonecrushers, this is one of the directions she might go, and if Thorn were to capture one of her scouts she would certainly dissolve his court and might also write down his name; Grandmother Stone's Book is an infamous repository of her descendants and people who have annoyed her by trying to steal them."

[imeanforever]

"I've never met a stonecrusher, but I know what they look like. I'll bear that in mind."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Yes. I've never been able to determine whether or not she is the first stonecrusher, but she certainly likes people to think she is, and considers the entire kind hers whether or not she is lying about being their progenitor."

[imeanforever]

"And if she has any ancestors they're presumably thoroughly neutralized."

[infinitely_stranger]

"One can assume."

[imeanforever]

Promise sighs.

[infinitely_stranger]

"Hm?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm a malcontent."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Reasonable."

[imeanforever]

Promise laughs, a little.

[infinitely_stranger]

"I tolerate the Queenscourt well enough. I find that it is very convenient to be able to truthfully say I have no rebellious inclinations. But if the Queen were someone like Thorn or Grandmother Stone, I would not be able to say that."

[imeanforever]

"Thorn likes - he likes his vassals to be so afraid of him that they stop factoring it in to whether they like him or not," Promise murmurs. "It worked really well on Blossom, you saw her. I think she's gotten to the point where it's an absolute fact that displeasing him is bad and has constructed other reasons to think so besides the part where when he's displeased he starts torturing people more."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Not a mental trick I would be able to pull, I don't think. Good thing the Queen got to me first."

[imeanforever]

"I couldn't do it either. He went to a bit of trouble to catch me so he didn't give up immediately but I don't think he considers me a great loss."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I wasn't expecting him to give up someone he particularly treasured."

[imeanforever]

Shiver.

[infinitely_stranger]

[imeanforever]

"Thank you," she says softly.

[infinitely_stranger]

"You're welcome."

[imeanforever]

Now Promise is quiet again.

[infinitely_stranger]

So is Arcane. Quiet appears to be Arcane's default state.

Look at that landscape go.

[imeanforever]

Eventually Promise falls asleep.

She talks in her sleep.

"Petals. Page. Claws, thorn. Harp."

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane keeps flying. He can fly forever, if there is rain enough to live on, and this trip will go much faster if they never land; therefore he plans to sleep on the wing as soon as Promise wakes up.

[imeanforever]

Promise goes on talking in her sleep for seventeen hours. It is somewhat doubtful that she had been allowed to sleep recently under Thorn's jurisdiction, but sudden freedom may have served as a stimulant.

She wakes up. She startles, but takes stock of the situation and composes herself presently, heart rate calming down.

[infinitely_stranger]

"Hello," says Arcane. "You utter nouns in your sleep."