imeanforever | pumpkin princess

Promise settles in. Her garden grows. Her tree grows; she stores her map and the rest of the notebook in there, first, and after she's been there for seven days, she can fit inside it herself. (At that early stage it's only an improvement over the outdoors when it's raining, but it's her tree. It'll get bigger.) She slowly broadens her diet as she learns the peculiar local plants and which ones she likes. She coaxes her tree into flower, picks one and ensorcels it, wraps cottony fluff from one of her trees in a giant flower petal of the same kind her bag is made of, and she has a pillow. The other flowers turn into haw berries that taste like home. She practices fairylights and then more complicated spells all around her new turf with her map, then without, until she has it memorized by feel and by the response of the magic when she casts.

When she doesn't need to do magic to her plants every single day to get and keep them producing at a rate sufficient to sustain her, she goes to the library and tells them things about the continent she came from in exchange for a half-century's membership. She brings home books. She makes paper to take notes on.

She doesn't have any near neighbors, but she has distant ones, and she trades foreign seeds and candied dewdrops for glass and books. She drinks her stream and writes her thoughts (a lot of her thoughts are about Arcane). She decompresses. She reads and thinks.

Time goes by. It's dark at night; sometimes she watches the stars.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

imeanforever

Promise releases the Princess's feet after they've got ahold of her. "One - two - three -"

They toss her.

She lands with an audible thud, and sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world -

"AUNT MARIA, COME BACK -"

From:

feel_so_free

Oh for fuck's sake. Unavoidably, she starts for the gate.

From:

imeanforever

"Ignore her," says Promise hastily, "get away from the gate."

From:

feel_so_free

"Thank you." She gets the fuck away from the gate.

From:

imeanforever

"AUNT MARIA!" sobs the Princess.

Promise marks the locations of the gates with deep clear gouges in the grass. She finds more of those little rocks and spells out ONE WAY GATES - YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TURN BACK - DO NOT ENTER. This is not a good long-term solution because someone will decide it's fun to fling their enemies through, but there's nothing to do about it right now until Arcane comes for a visit.

Having done what she can about that for the time being she takes off in the direction Secret went.

From:

feel_so_free

Secret went pretty much in a straight line. She is not hard to find.

From:

imeanforever

"If you stay away from there until my friend closes the gates you should be fine now," Promise says.

From:

feel_so_free

"Good."

From:

imeanforever

"May I command you to tell me the truth now to double-check your secret?"

From:

feel_so_free

"Okay."

From:

imeanforever

"Answer my next question honestly. What is your magic?"

From:

feel_so_free

"I don't and can't have a name that works to vassal me with, and anytime someone would become my vassal if I was a normal fairy, instead they stop being able to be anyone's vassal ever, even if they already were they're not anymore and can't be again."

From:

imeanforever

"My name's Alisyrrabel," murmurs Promise very softly.

From:

feel_so_free

Secret grins at her. "That's a pretty name."

From:

imeanforever

"Thanks. But I'd prefer it if you called me Promise anyway. Where are you going to go?"

From:

feel_so_free

"I dunno! Somewhere. Around. Turns out being able to do whatever I want doesn't mean I know what that is."

From:

imeanforever

"I have room in my tree if you'd like to stay there to start out while you think of something. You're a little tall for the layout but if you duck it should work."

From:

feel_so_free

"That sounds nice."

From:

imeanforever

Promise takes off and leads the way.

From:

feel_so_free

Secret follows. Whee!

From:

imeanforever

Promise's tree is pretty far away. When they get there, Promise shows the various amenities to Secret and then writes a letter to the Princess's former court, and asks one of her neighbors if he wouldn't mind dropping it off in exchange for a little sorcerous climate control, and he agrees and takes the letter away. Hopefully it will clarify the situation for all those confused fairies. Promise comes back to her tree to have some dinner and go to bed.