Yellow and orange are not Emma's colors, but she does her best. She's better at sewing now, at least. But being forced to run, run, run through the woods does nothing for the dress she made- She said pretty, what did She think would happen, pretty means dress, pretty means skirt, it doesn't mean hiking clothes. But except for the hem she looks nice.

Nice skirt, nice top, nice braids.

As long as you don't mind the tears.

The fairy directs her conveyance (who has been told somewhere along the line to quit singing) to a gathering of fairies in a little glen. There are other fairies there. Most of them don't seem to be the same species. They've all got wings, all generally more like insect wings of some kind than like birds' or bats' wings, but not necessarily very like - one has wings like curtains that happen to be able to move, one looks like he's got fish fins attached down his spine in a flying-friendly manner, one's got leaves, one's got a beetle casing on his back. They're mostly shorter than Emma, although the curtains one is an inch taller and the leaf one isn't that much shorter. They look at Emma. They look at the fairy who owns Emma.

"Hello everybody," says the blue-haired fairy sitting on Emma. "Am I very late? I hurt my wing and this useless creature doesn't run very fast."

"You are late," comments leaf-wings.

"Sorry," says the blue-haired fairy.

"You missed the opening remarks. The representative is gone now," says leaf-wings.

"Well, you didn't come to a decision without me, did you?" exclaims blue-hair.

"We did not," says leaf-wings.

Emma stops as ordered when they arrive. She stays put. She isn't crying- she's too tired, too dehydrated, still somehow too shy. But she's clearly exhausted and red eyed and quiet.

Very, very quiet, as ordered.

She has no idea what's going on. She can't really bring herself to care.

"Well, did the representative say anything interesting?" asks blue-hair.

"Nothing substantive," says fishfins.

"Then my position's what it always was, I don't want them here."

"Which you'll enforce how?" wonders leafwings.

"Well - well, you're a sorceress, aren't you?"

"I am."

"I thought you didn't want them here either."

"I didn't make up my mind. And you'd need me on board to keep them out. And then you were late. Why did I not want them here again...?" muses leafwings.

"That makes the vote tied," says beetle-shell. "That's no good. And we need Promise even if it were more against than in favor. Curses, River, you couldn't leave earlier?"

"I didn't know how slow my useless vassal was going to be!" shrieks, apparently, River, kicking Emma hard in the collarbone.

Promise's wings flutter a little. She inspects her fingernails.

"Rain Dice for your vote," River suggests.

Promise snorts derisively.

"What do you want?" shrieks River, kicking Emma again.

"Maybe I just want neighbors."

"You don't want neighbors!"

"He was cute," insinuates Promise, "the representative."

"You're just deliberately antagonizing me. I don't want them here - they'll be upstream, where they want to go!"

"I guess you'd better figure out what I want, then," says Promise, fussing with her hair.

"Just tell me!"

Promise thinks.

Promise peers at Emma.

Promise says, "I'd take your human."

Emma can't curl up into a ball. She was told to stay still. She can just- whimper. Quietly.

(Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.)

She mostly succeeds.

When Promise requests "your human", it takes her a few minutes to even realize what that means. When she associates it to herself, she just stares at Promise, slightly questioningly. She's not hopeful, exactly. She's been here for months, controlled by a spoiled, selfish creature she doesn't even have a name for. But she supposes it would be nice, to be away from this one.

If the next one's not worse, at least.

(What do you want a human for?)

(Probably not anything good.)

"But - but she's mine! I caught her myself fair and square!" screeches River.

"Well, I'm going to have to do something to occupy myself if I don't ingratiate myself with the cute sorcerer breeder -"

"I wouldn't have figured you for touching breeders," snorts curtains.

"I'm new, I don't know what I like yet," shrugs Promise.

"Maybe you don't think you can keep them out," sneers fishfins.

"I can keep them out. I'm better than he is and it's my turf. Question is whether I'm motivated," says Promise.

"You're just being mean to me," whimpers River.

"You were late."

"Because you've always cared so much about punctuality," sneers beetle-wings.

"I'm new," repeats Promise, "I don't know what I like yet."

"Fine!" says River. "She's useless anyway! I'll give you her name after the others go if you'll keep the breeders away."

"If you don't follow though I'll let them move right in, right upstream from you," Promise warns.

"I know, I'll actually do it."

"And you can't just tell me her name and fight with me over her, either -"

"Free and clear," growls River. She kicks Emma again.

"Fine, then. Breeders will have to find someplace else to settle down," says Promise.

And the fairies except for River disperse.

Emma still has no idea what's going on. She can't decide whether a transfer is good for her, or bad- after a few nightmare scenarios that her brains helpfully invents for her, she focuses on trying to follow the rest of the conversation.

Breeders? What are those? Sorcerers?

"Everybody gone?" says Promise.

Nobody answers.

"Okay. Give."

River grumbles. "At least let me make her take me home first."

"Oh no you don't. You'll just keep inventing excuses until I'm working for free."

River scowls. "Put me on the ground," she tells Emma.

"Give. Me. Her. Name," says Promise, when River is still delaying.

"You're going to make me walk all the way home?"

"That sounds to me like your problem," says Promise. "I really don't care."

The fairy grumbles, but then approaches Promise and murmurs, "Emma."

And the teeny blue-haired fairy storms away, grumbling.

Promise watches her go.

Then looks up at Emma and says, "I rescind all her orders."

She should flee, she should run away, she should go home-

But she doesn't have the willpower to do that right now. She just crumples to the ground and starts to sob again.

(She's favoring one side, a bit; River was small, but she kicks hard.)

Promise sits down on the moss and wraps her arms around her knees and waits.

"When you can walk for about half an hour without having to be ordered to do it, we can go to my house," she says.

This is neither phrased nor enforced as a command.

This- is the first thing since she arrived here that Emma has heard that wasn't an order.

It's strange enough that she looks up.

"You-" sniffle, "-that-" sniffle, "-not an order?" she manages to get out.

Emma will give her nicer, at least so far. But "nice" when combined with "fairy" is, in her opinion, a pretty low bar, so she'll hold off on ultimate judgment for a bit. (Not that she has a large sample size here.)

That said, she did allow Emma at least brief freedom. "Thanks," she manages to gulp.

Also, the weird winged people are in fact called fairies. She's learned more about them in the past ten minutes than she has in months living here. She's not sure if that's a good thing, but she'll take it.

After thinking for a minute, she adds, "...um, half an hour. Maybe an hour." She's not in great shape, she spends most of her time cooking and sewing, but a half hour walk shouldn't be too bad, if she doesn't get forced faster, faster, faster.

That gives Emma some pause. Her name doesn't really lend itself to nicknames, except when her parents started calling her "Emdy" as a pretense at combining Emma M.D., and that's too close to her real name for comfort.

So- she'll pick something. She feels like she should come up with something clever, but she's too emotionally worn out for that, and it should probably be something she recognizes. Not her mom's name, just in case, but her grandmother's would work? Grandma's been dead for years.

"Ruth?"

Responding to that will be weird, but it's better than the alternative.

("Better" is not a thing she's had recently. For months, actually. It's a strange feeling.)

She recovers faster than she thought. She'd forgotten what it was like to simply- rest, of your own accord. Not enforced by a careless fairy who just wants you quiet and behaving in a corner. So it's only about twenty minutes later when Emma pulls herself together and says hesitantly, "I'm, um, okay to walk now, I think."

"Okay." Promise gets up and flutters into this air. "This way, let me know if you need to slow down."

Also not enforced.

It actually takes her some time, to sort things out in her head enough to follow. A small part of her is still screaming go home there's no order now, but she still doesn't know how, and making the so-far-nicer fairy angry doesn't seem helpful.

So she follows without complaint. It's a little fast for her, but she decides it's not a problem; she doesn't want to bother the fairy into ordering her. It's not that fast.

And in about half an hour, there is a tree, which opens up and is much closer to being the right size for Emma than River's house was. It is cute and tidy inside.

"Help yourself to water. Are you hungry?"

She has to think about it. She hasn't been able to feed herself for months, she's gotten to a place where she just- ignores it until she's fed. She's not at 'my orders consider me Hungry Enough to remind River about food', but she has to sort things out past that.

"...a little?" she finally decides. "But, um, at least a day before it's a problem, I think?"