Rose has a singular advantage. She is mortal, and therefore shiny and appealing to fairies who like to acquire vassals. And she cannot be vassaled. She can eat their food, she can even give away her true name - and she can pretend to be bound by their orders until the moment she is not.
Rose still wants to choose her faux master carefully. Ensnaring lone fairies won't get her anywhere fast; going after the wrong fairy with the strategy she has in mind will make for a very unpleasant, perhaps impossible, period of time. Not all masters are going to think of her as a charming pet before they let her feed them a sunflower seed from the supply in her pocket. And Rose is still mortal.
She uses her "Aunt Maria" - it's pretty hard to get used to calling her anything else; she has always been Aunt Maria, and it's not like she has a real name - as a spy, of sorts. Feeding Maria fairy food will seldom get anyone anywhere, Maria has no name to give up, and Maria, being a fairy - now supplied with a backless shirt from Rose's closet so her wings can come out and she can fly - is not as interesting a target. Rose parks in Uncle Jeff's house and sends Maria on exquisitely well-defined missions (Rose has a friend who is attending law school and thinks this is a book Rose wants to write) and acquires maps and lists and intel and samples of local fairy food.
Aunt Maria finds some moderately friendly individuals and a nasty-looking small court and she also finds a large colony of "breeder" fairies that has moved into a new home recently (in fairy terms). Their patriarch spends his time sitting on top of a wall of hanging gardens his descendants maintain, being brought news and curiosities, and has a taste for being hand-fed.
Perfect.
It's a hike and Rose is too heavy for Maria to carry her flying, so Rose goes to fairyland with good boots and some emergency food in case foraging is hard and her compiled maps and plenty of water and Maria waiting in the attic to come bail her out if she takes too long.
Fairyland is gorgeous and the hanging gardens, when she gets there after a day and a half of hiking through glorious summer wildflowers, are even better. They're maintained by a swarm of the cutest little fairies. They look like Indian paintbrushes, orange-red or yellow with tufts of matching petals instead of hair, averaging eight inches high, with wings that look like those helicopter seeds. They're so cute, and they look at her when she wanders near, and immediately six of them buzz up to her.
"Mortal?" "Are you lost?" "Who's your master?" "Are you hungry, mortal?" "Thirsty?"
And Rose pretends to be indignant: "Who's my master? Excuse me, who's your master?"
And the fairies mutter to each other and say "He is this way, mortal, come and he'll give you some juice, you look thirsty."
Rose goes with them, marveling openly at the gardens, and she crouches when they bring her to the patriarch, and she smiles and acts dumb. He gives her juice. She drinks it. He tells her to stay right where she is. She does, now letting a little of her lingering apprehension show through. He lets a few of his court also give her juice, and tells her to drink it, and she does. He has someone braid her hair and someone make her flower garlands to pretty her up because she's so drab. He sits on her shoulder.
And when he tells her to give him his supper, she slips a sunflower seed in with it.
And when all the fairies of the court have gone to sleep, she wakes him up.
And she says, "Shush."
He shushes.
"One by one, wake up all the others and don't let them sound any alarms and tell them to eat what I give them."
And he does, because what else can he do?
Rose had three hundred and thirty-five Indian-paintbrush-fairy vassals before the night ends (which, when it occurs, pauses at dawn for an oddly long period of time). She asks them what the Indian-paintbrush-fairy kind is called and they tell her they are called sunshine tepals. She has three hundred and thirty-five sunshine tepals and some of them know magic and they can fit in her backpack six at a time if she's willing to crowd them.
She sends one to tell Maria that all is well and Maria should join them. Rose doesn't plan to go back to the mortal world for a long, long time.
Especially since one of these sunshine tepals has read in a book somewhere that it is possible to de-age mortals with sorcery.
Rose makes them all call her Princess. She is a fairy princess. Everything is wonderful.
no subject
Rose has a singular advantage. She is mortal, and therefore shiny and appealing to fairies who like to acquire vassals. And she cannot be vassaled. She can eat their food, she can even give away her true name - and she can pretend to be bound by their orders until the moment she is not.
Rose still wants to choose her faux master carefully. Ensnaring lone fairies won't get her anywhere fast; going after the wrong fairy with the strategy she has in mind will make for a very unpleasant, perhaps impossible, period of time. Not all masters are going to think of her as a charming pet before they let her feed them a sunflower seed from the supply in her pocket. And Rose is still mortal.
She uses her "Aunt Maria" - it's pretty hard to get used to calling her anything else; she has always been Aunt Maria, and it's not like she has a real name - as a spy, of sorts. Feeding Maria fairy food will seldom get anyone anywhere, Maria has no name to give up, and Maria, being a fairy - now supplied with a backless shirt from Rose's closet so her wings can come out and she can fly - is not as interesting a target. Rose parks in Uncle Jeff's house and sends Maria on exquisitely well-defined missions (Rose has a friend who is attending law school and thinks this is a book Rose wants to write) and acquires maps and lists and intel and samples of local fairy food.
Aunt Maria finds some moderately friendly individuals and a nasty-looking small court and she also finds a large colony of "breeder" fairies that has moved into a new home recently (in fairy terms). Their patriarch spends his time sitting on top of a wall of hanging gardens his descendants maintain, being brought news and curiosities, and has a taste for being hand-fed.
Perfect.
It's a hike and Rose is too heavy for Maria to carry her flying, so Rose goes to fairyland with good boots and some emergency food in case foraging is hard and her compiled maps and plenty of water and Maria waiting in the attic to come bail her out if she takes too long.
Fairyland is gorgeous and the hanging gardens, when she gets there after a day and a half of hiking through glorious summer wildflowers, are even better. They're maintained by a swarm of the cutest little fairies. They look like Indian paintbrushes, orange-red or yellow with tufts of matching petals instead of hair, averaging eight inches high, with wings that look like those helicopter seeds. They're so cute, and they look at her when she wanders near, and immediately six of them buzz up to her.
"Mortal?" "Are you lost?" "Who's your master?" "Are you hungry, mortal?" "Thirsty?"
And Rose pretends to be indignant: "Who's my master? Excuse me, who's your master?"
And the fairies mutter to each other and say "He is this way, mortal, come and he'll give you some juice, you look thirsty."
Rose goes with them, marveling openly at the gardens, and she crouches when they bring her to the patriarch, and she smiles and acts dumb. He gives her juice. She drinks it. He tells her to stay right where she is. She does, now letting a little of her lingering apprehension show through. He lets a few of his court also give her juice, and tells her to drink it, and she does. He has someone braid her hair and someone make her flower garlands to pretty her up because she's so drab. He sits on her shoulder.
And when he tells her to give him his supper, she slips a sunflower seed in with it.
And when all the fairies of the court have gone to sleep, she wakes him up.
And she says, "Shush."
He shushes.
"One by one, wake up all the others and don't let them sound any alarms and tell them to eat what I give them."
And he does, because what else can he do?
Rose had three hundred and thirty-five Indian-paintbrush-fairy vassals before the night ends (which, when it occurs, pauses at dawn for an oddly long period of time). She asks them what the Indian-paintbrush-fairy kind is called and they tell her they are called sunshine tepals. She has three hundred and thirty-five sunshine tepals and some of them know magic and they can fit in her backpack six at a time if she's willing to crowd them.
She sends one to tell Maria that all is well and Maria should join them. Rose doesn't plan to go back to the mortal world for a long, long time.
Especially since one of these sunshine tepals has read in a book somewhere that it is possible to de-age mortals with sorcery.
Rose makes them all call her Princess. She is a fairy princess. Everything is wonderful.
She contemplates her next move...