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

[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.

[bitterchill]

Ari heroically restrains his natural reaction to naked hugs. This is a woman who was in the dubious care of some skeevy mortal for a really long time, boners are even more inappropriate than usual.

Instead, he returns the hug. His hand brushes against the edge of one wing as it passes.

[feel_so_free]

Now his hand is smeared with rainbow dust, and the wing-edge is regenerating itself near-instantly. The fairy giggles. She hugs hard enough to lift Ari right off the ground, then lets go, pauses a moment, and kisses him on the cheek.

"You're a good mortal," she says. "I like you."

[bitterchill]

"Well, you're a very good fairy, as far as I can tell. Speaking of which, you said you couldn't tell me your power because of orders?"

[feel_so_free]

"I'm an anti-master," she says, grinning. "If someone would be my vassal, then they're nobody's vassal, ever again, no matter what, even if they were before, even if I forget their name or whatever."

[bitterchill]

"I can't tell my name to a fairy," Ari says. "I have a piece of paper with my name on it in a flowerpot back at Yellow's place, from back when I could write it down. I can give it to you and you can read it and I can be free forever and protect you from all harm forever. How do you feel about this arrangement."

[feel_so_free]

"I feel great about this arrangement."

[bitterchill]

"Great, cool, awesome, cool, let's fucking go. How fast can you fly, is it faster than me walking really fast, can you carry me, you're a six-foot-tall fairy so probably. Flying?"

[feel_so_free]

"I can fly!"

She can also scoop him up. Behold scooping. And she can get in the air like this, and she seems reasonably maneuverable about it.

"Which way?"

[bitterchill]

Ari points! His internal compass is a good internal compass.