Sigh.

"Are all fairies small, in comparison to me? And if you know about the mortal world, and there are fairies who seem to like taking away lots of people's free will, why hasn't it been taken over yet? – I assume it hasn't been, mine at least hasn't, I don't think."

"I'm not the tallest fairy, but you would be one of the tallest if not literally the tallest fairy if you were one. Sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world, and it's dangerous for fairies to be there for extended periods because of the food thing."

"Couldn't they just bring food with them? And unless the sorcery thing is related to the orders, I'm pretty sure they could take over quite a lot of it really– quickly?"

He's slowing down a little on the running now and breathing quite heavily, but he's still keeping up a good pace.

"Orders are separate. I'm not really sure why no one seems to want to take over the mortal world. The Queen wouldn't because her major advantage doesn't exist there, but it really should have appealed to someone else and I don't have a better explanation than what I gave you. Bringing food works but it does leave it open to tampering."

"… How much food is actually needed for a claim? Do liquids count?"

"Very little and yes."

"Is this like 'a few grams' very little or like 'literally traces of some substance left on a thing from someone's fingers' very little?"

"Somewhere between those, probably? I don't have an exact measurement."

"You said something about– um, food claims don't work so well on fairies? I think?"

"Fairy-to-fairy claims don't work as well as claims between a fairy and a mortal. Some are strong enough to usually work, but it's generally safe for a fairy to forage without having to do more than cursory checks of the plants."

"… So it's powerful from both sides of a food claim between a fairy and a mortal? A small bit of mortal food is more likely to get a claim on a fairy and vice versa?"

"Yep."

He nods and continues running.

"There's a pretty good spot just a few miles out. We can take a shortcut if you can jump a six foot river."

"Yeah."

"Okay then -" She leads on. Fairyland's really very pretty.

It is. He's curious about some stuff though – "Is everything this colorful here? And where are the animals – ugh, did someone kill them all?"

"Fairyland just doesn't have any animals, except fairies turned into them. This is fairly typical scenery, for a forested area."

He frowns a bit. "Do you know about animals as part of that common knowledge thing, or did people learn about them from mortals, or…?"

"First thing. Fairyland has fairies, and plants, and fungi, and not animals."

"No insects? What about– uh, do you know about bacteria and microorganisms like that, actually that's a good point because I might get sick or something."

"Fairies don't get sick; I don't know what microorganisms are. No insects."

"Do you know much about mortals who've been in Fairyland before? Yellow didn't make it sound like it was really rare."

"It's rare but not unheard of. I met one before, when I was much newer."

"Do you know how long she'd been in Fairyland for? I'm assuming some people just get captured and tortured or something. And how old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"