no sense in sour grapes

[bitterchill]

Ari has been Yellow's vassal for a long time now. Enough sleeps to have been a few decades, maybe. He's gotten to know this world quite well in that time. He's almost fond of it; not as nice as Vancouver, maybe, but better than most of the Nevernever, and Yellow is better than most of the Sidhe. He's wormed his way into some very nice privileges, as well. (It helps that most of them are either innocuous or directly beneficial to Yellow himself, like learning sorcery or never wearing clothes again.)

Currently he's exercising one of those for a trip to the library for a book on harmonics. Or, rather, he's returning from it. With the book. It's a good book, lots of useful words about things.

Comments

[feel_so_free]

Somebody steps out of thin air, about ten feet in front of him.

She is about 6'1", and wearing a pretty blue sundress with short puffy sleeves and knee-high rainbow-striped socks. No shoes. It seems very plausible that she might be a mortal; it sure doesn't look like she's got room for a pair of wings under there, and fairies almost never come in this much tall.

She looks around with... dawning hope?... and then spots Ari, and immediately becomes slightly wary.

[bitterchill]

...Oh! A gate!

"Hello. Who are you?" (One of his standing orders is to ask the identity of anyone plausibly mortal. It's shitty and he hates it, but, y'know, fairies.)

[feel_so_free]

"Hi. I'm Maria," she says. She sounds slightly disgruntled about being Maria. Also, she is way calmer about the sudden... fairy-ness... of her surroundings than most mortals would be.

[bitterchill]

"Cool. Are you a mortal? Because you're kind of tall for a Stormtrooper. I mean fairy."

[feel_so_free]

Disgruntled-about-being-Maria considers this question, and then shakes her head.

[bitterchill]

"Cool."

[feel_so_free]

The not-a-mortal regards him. She is either not inclined to say anything further, or not able. (What was she doing on the other side of that gate?)

[bitterchill]

"Are you somebody's vassal, then? I'm a vassal. As you can probably tell, me being a human in Fairyland and all. Pretty sweet gig, honestly."

[feel_so_free]

"Yeah," she says. "Mortal. Haven't seen him in a while. He's sick."

[bitterchill]

"I don't get the feeling you're too broken up about that."

[feel_so_free]

"Jeff is great," she says, just a little too brightly, with a smile that is just a little - edged.

[bitterchill]

"Mm. I see."

...If Ari were capable of whistling, he'd whistle innocently. "So... what kind of fairy are you? As I said, you're super tall."

[feel_so_free]

Shrug. "Dunno."

[bitterchill]

"That is. Weird. I think you're technically supposed to know that. Do you have any indicative powers?"

[feel_so_free]

...She grins.

"Yeah." And then: "Can't talk much. Orders."

[bitterchill]

"Would you like to have fewer orders?"

[feel_so_free]

Nod.

[bitterchill]

Ari pulls a few Emergency Berries out of his pocket and offers them to her.

[feel_so_free]

She shrugs a little, but doesn't make a move for the berries. Possibly she is ... somewhat ineptly ... prevented from seeking unsafe food.

[bitterchill]

He pushes them at her lips. "Open up for the airplane?"

[feel_so_free]

Giggle.

She is allowed to be hand-fed, it turns out!

[bitterchill]

"This Jeff guy was hilariously bad at this vassalage stuff," Ari muses. "Like, significantly worse than Yellow, and that's saying something. Anyway, I do hereby rescind... wait, no, okay, logic. Tell me, truthfully and to the best of your knowledge, any orders Jeff has given you that you believe, according to your full capacity for reason and your knowledge of me, that I might not want to rescind. I don't want you setting my head on fire or something because Jeff had some sensible restraints on you, sorry."

[feel_so_free]

"No."

[bitterchill]

"Cool. I hereby rescind all of your orders."

[feel_so_free]

The fairy beams. Immediately and with much speed and enthusiasm, she removes her dress; in a puff of brightly coloured dust, her wings materialize, growing from rainbow smears on her back out to their full extension. Then she launches herself at Ari and tacklehugs him.