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Promise is on her way from the library, where she has been allowed the privilege of an hour's study of sorcery - directed in topic, but she was allowed to take (relevant) notes, and read (relevant) books, and was only lightly supervised.
Thorn sometimes likes to butter her up, such as it is, before calling her to his room. She thinks he's running elaborate multivariable experiments on what puts her in a marginally more or less cooperative mood. The obvious confounding factor is that after having been buttered up she has to walk to his room. Also, on this particular occasion, she was not allowed to heal herself of her (relatively minor, but still painful) injuries before she went to the library. She did her research with shredded wing-edges and a black eye and an almost decorative crosshatch of bright red cuts down the backs of her legs. This is Thorn, so it wasn't thoughtlessness, but she hasn't speculated much on what it is instead, besides - Thorn.
She walks carefully -
There's a ripple in the air. She walks right into it.
And then she is elsewhere. She can no longer make meaningful progress towards her appointment, so she stops walking. Her eyes flick left, right -
Well. It would be hard for this to be worse.
imeanforever
bright_and_beautiful
"You're not a pet! You're a person!" Jenny objects somewhat automatically, then her brow furrows. "Well. The Bible doesn't exactly cover fairies, but still. You're obviously not an animal, I'm not gonna keep you as a pet, that's twisted."
imeanforever
"Okay, well, since that's established, knowing what to do with me is not the problem. I will decide what to do with me. In the meantime since I'm injured and can't easily go looking for other mortals, it would be nice of you to feed me, and nice of you to explain to me things I may not know about the mortal world so I don't get confused."
bright_and_beautiful
"Oooookay, crazy fairy lady, I am missing the step from 'there is an injured girl secretly living in the shed in my backyard being fed by my eight year old sister and this is something I might need to deal with' to 'I think of you as a puppy'? And I already said I'm not gonna let you starve, geez." She sticks her head out the door. "Anne? You brought food, right?"
Carrots and broccoli are handed through and wordlessly, if mildly annoyedly, offered to Promise.
Carrots and broccoli are handed through and wordlessly, if mildly annoyedly, offered to Promise.
imeanforever
Promise eats them. "You said you didn't know what to do with me. I'm pointing out you don't need to do anything with me," she says.
bright_and_beautiful
Jenny's brain immediately comes up with about seventeen ways in which this is not at all the case, but Promise has already said she doesn't understand the mortal world and it doesn't seem worth the argument. And they do revolve around a relevant unanswered question. "Well, are you planning to stay here?" she asks instead. "Cause then I need to make some choices. If only about grocery shopping."
imeanforever
"It would be nice of you to let me at least until I can fly again. That should be - a few weeks, maybe, I've never had to let my wings heal naturally before," says Promise. "I like vegetables and fruit and nuts, mostly - I don't know how to be sure I'm getting a really good diet in mortal food, but I'm not going to die of it, at any rate."
bright_and_beautiful
"You can stay, seriously, you're injured and alone and I'm not a monster. Plus we wouldn't, like, drag you to a lab to poke at your wings or anything." She shudders. "I'm just worrying that I should try to find you a shelter, or something? But then you might learn people's names, or eat someone's food by accident, or whatever, and I don't know if that's better, for anyone."
bright_and_beautiful
"Oh. Yeah, I meant like buildings that take in people that have nowhere to go? Homeless shelters for people who don't have anywhere to live, or-" don't look at the black eye, don't look at the wings, "women's shelters for women who get beaten up by their husband or whatever. Or the church will take in pretty much anyone if you ask, they've got some extra beds in the back. But... wings. It all sorta falls apart at the wings? I mean. You're fictional, here."
imeanforever
"I don't have any really strong opinions on where I stay, since I can't go home to my tree, or get a cutting of it."
bright_and_beautiful
"Aaaaand this is a tree such that we cannot, say, buy you an acorn and you can grow another, I guess?"
bright_and_beautiful
"Oh good," Jenny mutters. "Today wasn't weird enough, fairies in my back yard and freaky mind control powers, let's add spontaneously appearing people." She stares at Promise uncertainly. "So God just... made you? There's a whole world full of Adams and Eves?"
bright_and_beautiful
"God made everything," Jenny explains absently, still staring somewhat warily. "The universe and people and stuff. And he made the first people from nothing, we call them Adam and Eve. Or that's the story anyway? There's this whole complicated thing about evolution, and- right, off topic- er. It's not quiiiite right, but- but- still. Making things from nothing is what God does." She swallows. "I guess the Bible doesn't say anything about... fairy people, or magic, or... whatever, though."
imeanforever
"If this person made fairies," says Promise, wings quivering, "then they have a lot to answer for."
bright_and_beautiful
"Most people say that even without knowing about fairies," Jenny agrees sadly. "People are sorta horrible sometimes. But that's how free will works, I guess." She grimaces. "At least they have to atone for their sins in Hell when they die."
bright_and_beautiful
"Oh. Sorry, was that not a thing from context? If you do bad things, when you die you go to Hell and are punished until you atone." She shuffles a little, awkwardly. "I guess everyone's bad a little, no one's perfect, but you have to be really bad to go all the way to Hell."
bright_and_beautiful
"It probably doesn't apply to you anyway?" Jenny says uncertainly. "I mean, it's only humans, not animals or anything, and you're- like, sorta human in that you're not a lizard or whatever, but you're also really not human. You probably have your own thing."
imeanforever
"Fairies live forever. But - as it happened the person who had me, before, was a fairy, but he didn't have me so long that a mortal couldn't have done the same thing. If it had been a mortal, punishing him after he died wouldn't do anything useful. I would still have -" She trails off.
bright_and_beautiful
"God made us, and He loves us, but He doesn't interfere, not like you're thinking," Jenny says softly. "I... don't know happened to you, exactly, but... do you want a hug? It sounds horrible, and I'm sorry."