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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
imeanforever
wormcan
"Not in any way we know. And that's what we do, with many of them. We use the slug only when adding case fifty-threes to Earth Bet."
imeanforever
Promise paces more.
"People are terrible," she mutters. "Where do I meet better people? I can't be the only one. Don't answer that unless you have a really good idea."
Pace. Pace.
"I do not consider," she says, "continuing to mind-wipe people on a routine basis a legitimate option. I do not consider allowing villains to run rampant in order to cause trigger events - especially when you fucking have trigger events in a can - to be a legitimate option; you don't have to be the police of the world but you have to stop making it worse on purpose. Colonizing Fairyland is a legitimate option, but I need to know ahead of time so I can make it less hilariously dangerous. Colonizing non-Earth planets in the mortal world is an option. Me politely asking Scion to leave is an option. Acquiring an army of fairies is a bad but legitimate option and requires similar prep to colonizing Fairyland. Comments?"
"People are terrible," she mutters. "Where do I meet better people? I can't be the only one. Don't answer that unless you have a really good idea."
Pace. Pace.
"I do not consider," she says, "continuing to mind-wipe people on a routine basis a legitimate option. I do not consider allowing villains to run rampant in order to cause trigger events - especially when you fucking have trigger events in a can - to be a legitimate option; you don't have to be the police of the world but you have to stop making it worse on purpose. Colonizing Fairyland is a legitimate option, but I need to know ahead of time so I can make it less hilariously dangerous. Colonizing non-Earth planets in the mortal world is an option. Me politely asking Scion to leave is an option. Acquiring an army of fairies is a bad but legitimate option and requires similar prep to colonizing Fairyland. Comments?"
wormcan
"Don't talk to Scion. We don't know what causes him to rampage, and his mind isn't even approximately like a human one. Something innocuous might be the trigger he needs."
Eidolon adds that "an army of fairies is better than it sounds. Scion prepared for the possibility that we might fight him, and weakened what we can do. Most powers have built-in safeguards to be unable to seriously hurt him. Sorcery doesn't."
Eidolon adds that "an army of fairies is better than it sounds. Scion prepared for the possibility that we might fight him, and weakened what we can do. Most powers have built-in safeguards to be unable to seriously hurt him. Sorcery doesn't."
imeanforever
"I meant that it is a bad option because I cannot acquire a substantial number of volunteers, you ethically myopic, reckless, clumsy imbecile."
whole_new_can
"Right now I'm the only one who might—might—be able to fight him. And I'm losing my powers. A source of powers that doesn't rely on what we can scavenge from the entities themselves is the best hope we've seen in a long time."
The Doctor has a different objection. "Do I need to remind you that the fate of our world is at stake? Followed by every other world except this one?"
The Doctor has a different objection. "Do I need to remind you that the fate of our world is at stake? Followed by every other world except this one?"
imeanforever
"The world is made of people. Appallingly, tragically mortal people, who you're parasitizing without a shred of guilt in whatever quantity is convenient for your gappy, untrustworthy planning power's numbers to line up optimistically. I cannot currently solve the problem where they are all going to die and neither can you! But you could make it a little less of a misery pit while they live!" exclaims Promise. "Did you - oh, just off the top of my head, you could have recruited Mannequin before the Simurgh got him and set him up on an Earth that didn't have the Simurgh on it and gotten into space."
To Eidolon: "That's unfortunate. Two questions: one, Glaistig Uaine is rumored to be on par with you and I have her name, if you bring her to me with her hearing working I can get her help. Two, your power doesn't recurse?"
To Eidolon: "That's unfortunate. Two questions: one, Glaistig Uaine is rumored to be on par with you and I have her name, if you bring her to me with her hearing working I can get her help. Two, your power doesn't recurse?"
whole_new_can
"Part of it is my power," says the Number Man. "It's very good at numbers. While we don't know what fraction of earths are populated or how many of those Scion could attack before running out of power if he runs out of power, there are septenvigintillions of worlds. I can understand wanting to sacrifice less, but there's nothing we could do that would cause more harm than failing to stop Scion."
Eidolon is confused by Promise's sudden willingness to use orders to secure cooperation of soldiers, but is more confused by the other question. "Recurse?"
Eidolon is confused by Promise's sudden willingness to use orders to secure cooperation of soldiers, but is more confused by the other question. "Recurse?"
imeanforever
Promise ignores the Number Man for the time being. "Your power doesn't let you dig things up to recharge itself? ...You have to have tried it. Please have tried it. I didn't think my estimate of your ability to ignore non-horrifying ways to accomplish things could get lower."
imeanforever
"You didn't try it. You are all so reliant on some combination of self-righteous confidence in your cause and your powers that you have atrophied your collective ability to actually think of things, evaluate plans by other metrics... and with this handicap you're still acting like the only hope for your species. I'm going to have to do your jobs for you! I can't even delegate substantial parts of it to somebody else because everyone is terrible! Why is everyone terrible!"
whole_new_can
No comment. What's worse is that they actually are the only hope for their species, unless there's another one no one told them about.
imeanforever
Well, there's the person who just said she'd do their jobs.
"Ugh."
Pace, pace. "This is going to require at least a few hours of thinking and order-checking before I can let you move around and do things without minute-to-minute micromanagement again. Are any of you going to be missed or get hungry or anything in the interim in a way I should address?"
"Ugh."
Pace, pace. "This is going to require at least a few hours of thinking and order-checking before I can let you move around and do things without minute-to-minute micromanagement again. Are any of you going to be missed or get hungry or anything in the interim in a way I should address?"
wormcan
"Depending on how many hours you had in mind we will eventually become hungry enough to be uncomfortable but not urgently. Legend will be missed but the Doctor, Contessa, and I won't be. Alexandria has doubles who can substitute when she disappears, and Eidolon is already absent."
imeanforever
"You are probably the least terrible of the bunch," Promise remarks to Legend, "I can probably lock you down gentler than them with fewer twisty contingencies, call it forty-five minutes, will that be fast enough for you to get back seamlessly?"
imeanforever
"Right then."
So Promise obtains some paper to think on, quizzes Legend about what he needs to be allowed to do, and has him back through the gate after forty minutes.
So Promise obtains some paper to think on, quizzes Legend about what he needs to be allowed to do, and has him back through the gate after forty minutes.
whole_new_can
He disappears to go take credit on behalf of his organization for the defeat of the Fallen, or whatever it is that the Protectorate head is supposed to be doing today. The other five get left to take dictation.
imeanforever
Promise thinks up orders. She detours to Hawthorn to get them all lunch and let them eat it while she thinks more.
"I'm debating," she says, "whether I should let you have my name. I mean, I don't have any precision amnestics so it seems a little heavy handed, I'd probably have to wind up letting Bonesaw think of something if I didn't want to use your own mechanism to wipe you all entirely and either one might just fail to work on Alexandria, and I wouldn't be thrilled about Bonesaw knowing such a secret even exists, but you really shouldn't know it. I was originally going to end this entire mess with you and I under reciprocal orders to not give each other further orders but then the news turned out to be worse than expected. Are any of you envisioning futures where you use my name, to disclose elsewhere or to give me orders that I wouldn't like?"
"I'm debating," she says, "whether I should let you have my name. I mean, I don't have any precision amnestics so it seems a little heavy handed, I'd probably have to wind up letting Bonesaw think of something if I didn't want to use your own mechanism to wipe you all entirely and either one might just fail to work on Alexandria, and I wouldn't be thrilled about Bonesaw knowing such a secret even exists, but you really shouldn't know it. I was originally going to end this entire mess with you and I under reciprocal orders to not give each other further orders but then the news turned out to be worse than expected. Are any of you envisioning futures where you use my name, to disclose elsewhere or to give me orders that I wouldn't like?"
wormcan
"We never planned to, and it's unlikely that using your name would be the most effective way to reach any goals; you've succeeded in making that very clear."
The Number Man agrees, and adds that "we're capable of deciding not to use your name even in the unlikely event that Contessa suggests it. You can have her directly check that we'd follow through if it came up, for all of us except Eidolon."
The Number Man agrees, and adds that "we're capable of deciding not to use your name even in the unlikely event that Contessa suggests it. You can have her directly check that we'd follow through if it came up, for all of us except Eidolon."
imeanforever
"What a surprisingly non-terrible idea."
Promise implements it.
She shuts down the particularly unethical behaviors of their organization, addresses various information security concerns, makes an appointment to go see if she or possibly one of Peak's less time-strapped sorcerers can heal their incarcerated victims, forbids them to share her name or give her orders anyway just to have an extra layer of security, sharply narrows how they may use their powers, puts them on one of the most rigorous check-ins-for-order-updates schedules that she ever uses for released Kept, makes sure that they have not withheld anything more important than their favorite colors (she learns that they were considering having her gate to the likely-intractably-numerous sites of Scion's real body so that it may be more effectively shot at), has one of Peak's sorcerers come along and stare at them all for fifteen minutes in case Promise needs to kill them and finds the Kept an inefficient means of doing it (except Eidolon, who has already vassaled all of Peak's sorcerers); mutters darkly about how terrible everyone is some more; and lets them go home.
Promise implements it.
She shuts down the particularly unethical behaviors of their organization, addresses various information security concerns, makes an appointment to go see if she or possibly one of Peak's less time-strapped sorcerers can heal their incarcerated victims, forbids them to share her name or give her orders anyway just to have an extra layer of security, sharply narrows how they may use their powers, puts them on one of the most rigorous check-ins-for-order-updates schedules that she ever uses for released Kept, makes sure that they have not withheld anything more important than their favorite colors (she learns that they were considering having her gate to the likely-intractably-numerous sites of Scion's real body so that it may be more effectively shot at), has one of Peak's sorcerers come along and stare at them all for fifteen minutes in case Promise needs to kill them and finds the Kept an inefficient means of doing it (except Eidolon, who has already vassaled all of Peak's sorcerers); mutters darkly about how terrible everyone is some more; and lets them go home.
wormcan
Well that was...a loss. Definitely. But went about as well as a loss of that scale possibly could, in retrospect. They get back to doing shadowy conspiracy things.
imeanforever
And Promise goes and hashes out long-term orders for Peak's court, takes pictures of a few of the fairies from it, has a dinner and a sleep and a breakfast and interviews with fifty-seven ex-Fallen new Kept, posts a portrait of Peak to her photo blog captioned I met friendlier-than-average fairies yesterday! This is Peak; she's a shining splicer. Pictures of her girlfriend tomorrow., sends Dragon some emails, and investigates what portions of the internet are good for finding people to hire who are not terrible in any way.
whole_new_can
For the first time in forever, she gets left alone. No catastrophes knocking on her door or worlds falling apart in a way that calls for her intervention.
And then Glaistig Uaine shows up. She walks in to the Hawthorn settlement, intimidating capes by her presence and not being shy about threatening them with her spirits but also not killing anyone. (All the cowering might be contributing to that decision.)
"Where is Promise?"
And then Glaistig Uaine shows up. She walks in to the Hawthorn settlement, intimidating capes by her presence and not being shy about threatening them with her spirits but also not killing anyone. (All the cowering might be contributing to that decision.)
"Where is Promise?"
imeanforever
Promise was in her tree drawing up plans to sweep the Queenscourt without having to get the Queen's name from Contessa or make it too overtly obvious to assisting Kept that fairies being vassals is a thing, but the Kept know how to get ahold of her in emergencies and this is one. Out she comes.
She is surprised, but not too surprised to hit Glaistig Uaine with a "Stop. You may, deploying no powers, speak."
She is surprised, but not too surprised to hit Glaistig Uaine with a "Stop. You may, deploying no powers, speak."
whole_new_can
The Faerie Queen waves a hand. "It is not for you to give orders to me unsolicited. And you need not defend, I am not here to kill you or your vassals."