space oddity

[rockeye_stonetoe]

One day in fairyland, there is an immensely bright flash of light a about a mile above the ground. Something like a metal house is suddenly flying through as if it came through a portal, faster than all but the fastest fairies.

It's flying, not directly down, but still very much towards the ground. It does not take long for it to stop flying and start carving through earth and trees. Eventually it runs out of momentum near a certain lake. The thing seems to still be in one piece, which is rather miraculous considering the two miles of destroyed trees behind it.

After a few minutes, a mortal covered in unusually bulky clothes emerges from the thing. All that is visible is his face. He starts inspecting the outside of his space oddity.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Yes, I'm being foolish, aren't I? I'm bad at holding my tongue. Honestly I am just barely not crying, and only because crying would not help."

[imeanforever]

"Crying will not help," agrees Promise with subtle emphasis.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Exactly. Can I assume you would also not like to continue being under his thrall?"

[imeanforever]

"Oh, Yellow's so much better than my last master," says Promise, a little loudly.

Yellow's bedroom door cracks open. "Oh, you're home, good! I need you to keep an eye on Liam here. Liam, don't do anything Promise tells you not to do. Promise, answer his questions about sorcery." Yellow waves a hand and then departs the house.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"What is sorcery, how does one sorcer, what kinds of things can sorcery do? I need to know to figure out how to stop it from happening to the ship as ordered."

[imeanforever]

"Sorcery is magic, you do it by paying attention and applying will, light gates water purification fire, I can't not answer your sorcery questions right now but is that really your highest priority?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Sorry, sorry, I am a ball of nervous tension and can't really stop talking." He starts pacing instead. "How do we get out?"

[imeanforever]

"What orders are you under with respect to your name? Don't tell me yet. And do you have any mortal food?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I quote, 'Don't tell anyone that.' And yes. I have some on me that he didn't think to make me throw away, even."

[imeanforever]

"All right. If you give me the food, and then tell me your name, we can both get out of here."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He gives her the food and waits.

[imeanforever]

"When I eat it, tell me I rescind all your orders - unless there's anything preventing you from doing that? And is there any part of your name that isn't part of what you gave Yellow, so you can tell me that part?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Nothing will stop me from doing that. I hate the other half of my name, but that's hardly relevant, is it?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm not going to call you it." She looks apprehensively at the food, hesitates, and then chokes it down.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'm sorry, but I have to be sure. Tell me your name. Tell me if the food thing is true or a lie."

[imeanforever]

She flinches, a nasty whole-body convulsion that leaves her curled up in a ball. "Alisyrrabel," she stammers, "it's true, it's true, you didn't have to do that, why did you do that -"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I rescind all your orders. My last name is Streiss." He shakes his head. "I had to be sure. If you were running some kind of con and he hadn't told you my name yet for some reason. I'm sorry, but I had to be sure."

[imeanforever]

"You could have - you could have made me bite through my hand or something if you - you could have made me do something I could fix," she says, choking back tears. "Never give me an order - that I do not expressly request of my own uncommanded will, or that you do not sincerely without mental contortion believe to be in my best interest as you genuinely understand it. ...Except the reciprocal of this one if you so desire. I rescind Yellow's orders."

And she flings herself into her room and starts stuffing fruit from her fruit bowl into a bag.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He semi-shouts through the door, "Never give me an order that I do not expressly request of my own uncommanded will, or that you do not sincerely without mental contortion believe to be in my best interest as you genuinely understand it."

After a bit more hesitation,

"I understand that you are afraid I'll be vasallized again, and be ordered to tell someone else your name. But you could have actually bitten through your hand if you were sufficiently committed to the con. I've been burned by trust once, my first priority will always be myself."

"I have a month's food in my ship and powerful weapons to keep me safe, and intend to leave this hellish place as soon as possible, so hopefully it will be irrelevant. If you need a lift a few thousand miles in a random direction so you never see Yellow again, my ship can probably do that."

[imeanforever]

"...Can you take me in a nonrandom direction first?" Fruit in bag, fruit in bag.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It can do nonrandom directions too, though it's not particularly subtle."

He pulls out some sort of device from one of his many pockets and consults it. "For your information Yellow is about four miles distant, that way (point), flying away from here."

[imeanforever]

"I need to go that way," she points in a different direction and then shoulders her bag, "and take a cutting of my tree, and after that almost anywhere else will do."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"How far do you need to go? My ship isn't as badly damaged as I implied to Yellow, but it is still damaged. It will take me a couple of hours to get it flying again. I can make it so he can't get close and his voice can't reach inside, at least. Do orders work through sign language?"

[imeanforever]

"If there's a sign language in common, probably. They work through writing if we see him writing it, too. It's less than a thousand miles, closer to five hundred, I haven't flown the straight shot but I can point out landmarks."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It'll probably be faster if you help me restart the power core and engines on my ship instead of, er, flying there yourself. Can I tell you to do things without intending them to be enforceable orders? It would save some annoying verbal maneuvering."