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in which karen teller saves expat fairy celegorm from zombies
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"Maybe it's a human thing."

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" - what're you?"

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"I'm a fairy."

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"Is this a magical debt bondage thing?"

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"- did you think it was just because we thought it was funny?"

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"I thought you were, like, recent immigrants from some place in eastern Europe I've probably never heard of who were, like, bizarrely hardcore about not forgetting the old ways, or something. How am I supposed to get 'fairies', just because I know zombies and ghosts and werewolves exist doesn't mean I automatically assume that, I dunno, Santa Claus and frost giants and vampires and mermaids and androids passing for human are all real, I don't just know everything already - "

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"Okay! Well, I don't know if those things exist. But fairies do. My dad's a fairy. That makes me half a fairy technically but I'll be able to live normally among fairies once I'm grown up."

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"Okay! Well! Good to know!"

She sits at the table and rests her head in her hands.

"How does the magical debt thing work."

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"Well, when people do things for each other, they create debt. Debt ties peoples' fates together. You mostly don't want to be in debt to people who you barely know, and you mostly don't want to have people you barely know in your debt either. - I'm not a bad person to have, though. I haven't done something wrong since I was five."

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"I'm pretty sure everybody does wrong things? No offense."

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"I mean things the universe cares about, not - ditching school, or whatever. Lying. Stealing. Destroying things that aren't yours. Hurting someone you're indebted to. Breaking promises."

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"I'm pretty sure everybody does wrong things even if we ignore legality as a criterion. But - whatever, in what sense does it tie people's fates together?"

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"If you do something bad, you get misfortune, and so does everyone who is entangled with you - by debt, or among full fairies by knowing your real name. If you do something good, you get good fortune and the universe is a little friendlier to you."

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"Good like what?"

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"Mostly just not doing anything bad. Courts have good fortune when they go a long time without any members doing bad things."

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"Okay. Well. Fine. Where I come from saving people's lives is a good thing and you do it just because it's good, not because you expect stuff, but we'll - see if we can figure this out. Do you know how much it is in dollars right now?"

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"It's not much different than it was when my father offered."

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"Is it any different?"

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"It's a couple dollars less, I think? I can't guess how much it is in dollars as precisely as he can. I played with Zana and took out the trash but you made lunch and dinner. Maybe ten dollars less."

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Ugh.

"So you have to generate more than eight hundred thousand dollars of net value before you're allowed to go home?"

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"it's not - money's not the best unit for the thing. Some things you wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for count for well more than a hundred dollars. But - a lot, yeah. It's a life."

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"I guess that makes sense," she says, tiredly. 

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"I can watch Zana and cook things."

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"How much of that before you can go home?"

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"I mean, at this rate it'll be your whole life but probably we'll think of more things before then."

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