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]

"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.

[feel_so_free]

The fairy sets off.

"I don't wanna be Maria anymore," she says thoughtfully, "I hated being Maria. Call me... call me Secret."

[bitterchill]

"Oh, sure. And my nickname's Winter, you should probably call me that around people."

He chews at his lip for a moment. "D'you want to take over the world and free everyone from everyone? Because I'd be up for that, but I feel like it's one of those things we should establish."

[feel_so_free]

"Maye. Mostly I want to not have to do things I don't wanna do. But... I don't want anybody else to have to do things they don't wanna do, either."

[bitterchill]

"I can appreciate that."

[feel_so_free]

"Yeah."

Flutter flutter. Her wings trail bright rainbow dust that curls in the air like smoke from their disintegrating edges, but the amount of wing that shreds in one beat regrows by the next.

[bitterchill]

"Your wings are interesting. I can hardly tell how they work, are they actually breaking apart as you flap them? Does it hurt at all?"

[feel_so_free]

"Yeah, they are, and yeah, it does."

[bitterchill]

"Doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for you."

[feel_so_free]

"It's great compared to wearing a dress over them."

[bitterchill]

"Works for me. Incidentally, have I mentioned you're very pretty?"

[feel_so_free]

"I don't think you did!"

[bitterchill]

"Well, you're very pretty. And we're reasonably likely to be living together, and you have wonderful socks, so I have to ask, how d'you feel about sex?"

[feel_so_free]

"My socks are the best socks," she says. "I... dunno how I feel about sex. I've never had any that wasn't, you know, Jeff."