finding the way

[msmortal]

She's a four-year-old girl, and people (especially her Dad) insist she's a boy.

Not that she isn't sometimes. She is. But not today! Today she's a girl. And Dad keeps saying that's not true, that God made her body perfect and she shouldn't second-guess God's plan for her. God made her a boy, so she's supposed to be a boy. And on the one hand that kinda makes sense. God doesn't make mistakes, right? So if she were really a girl sometimes, then she'd... what? Her body would change, she guesses. But on the other hand, she knows she's a girl. She's a girl with a peepee, that's obvious. She'd prefer not having a peepee when she's a girl, but it's not the worst thing ever. And if God doesn't make mistakes, God also didn't make her feel like a girl sometimes on accident, right? It must be part of His (because God is always a He, even though God made everyone, boys and girls, in His image, he's always a He, Dad says) plan.

She tells Dad that, today, and Dad gets angry, and yells at her, and she doesn't know why he's yelling. It makes sense to her! But he won't explain why she's wrong, he's just yelling, Dad's so mean, she hates him, and she's not crying, shut up, you're crying!

And now Mum's coming and she's talking to Dad, and that usually makes Dad stop yelling and go away but he won't stop now and Sadde's angry and afraid and hurt and she's running away. A part of her thinks that it doesn't make much sense to run away, the park is pretty open and she can't really hide anywhere, and she'll have to go back because she'll get hungry (not now, though, she just ate a sandwich).

So she runs until she finds some bushes where she can hide, and she hides there, and she doesn't cry, and she spends a long time not crying. Mum and Dad don't come after her, though, and after she's done not crying she doesn't wipe her eyes and her nose, and she comes out the other way of the bushes she was hiding in.

And she's pretty sure that's not the park.

Comments

[mrmortal]

So he disconnects and a few minutes later is back at the hotel.

"Okay, so, headquarters, yes, we'll need a private place for the surveillance equipment, we don't know how many people we'll be vassalising and might need several monitors at the same time, though we should work to minimise this. I'm not sure whether it's best to headquarter in fairyland or here, though..."

[imeanforever]

"In fairyland we can use sorcery, but here we won't be bothered by extraneous fairies and you can - buy - things. Saves foraging time, probably also other time expenditures."

[mrmortal]

"Buying things is pretty good, yep, not to mention having internet access. But we'll also need to have gates open to a couple of points within fairyland, and if anyone finds these gates and decides to come after us, it might be best if we're in fairyland so we can close them instead of sitting ducks here. Maybe we could have a bidimensional HQ."

[imeanforever]

"That helps if we're found on the mortal world side but not if we're found on the Fairyland side, and we have much more limited mobility there than here because we have to travel through all the intervening space and you have to walk. Likely easier to track down if they're looking hard."

[mrmortal]

"Actually I'm thinking our fairyland version of HQ should be far, far away. I'm not going to be able to have everything we need for this plan for at least another month, and I think you could probably cover a lot of ground in that time, and it'd be very unlikely for them to find us then."

[imeanforever]

"Oh, if I'm going off to scout a Fairyland site and we have a month maybe I can get a cutting of my tree, that would be pretty safe."

[mrmortal]

"Your tree? I mean, sure, if you want, but what for?"

[imeanforever]

"People can't get into my tree if I don't want them to. If my tree's still there, I can grow another one somewhere else, and then they'd have to find it and be confident it was mine and that I was worth recapturing and burn it down, and that would give us warning to get a ways away in the mortal world."

[mrmortal]

"Reasonable," he agrees. "So, your tree will be the fairyland side of HQ, I'll find a place here to be the mortal world side of HQ, and we'll have gates open from your tree to other places here and from places here to appropriate places near Thorn's court for fast transportation."

[imeanforever]

"Okay. We might wind up needing Yellow, since Thorn probably doesn't have his name, but he's not really helpful to either of our immediate projects; do you want to keep him or should I bring him with me?"

[mrmortal]

"...up to you? You spent twenty years with him, I'll understand if you don't want to ever see his face again, but I don't personally have a use for him and am opposed to this whole vassal business in principle, and in practice am much less good at orders than you are."

It only occurs to him that he's maybe not completely opposed to this whole vassal business in principle after he's finished speaking, so it wasn't a lie when he said it, and he very very much does not want to tell Promise about this little exception in his brain.

[imeanforever]

"I can be rational about Yellow in a way I'd need a lot more work and time to get to be about Thorn or some of his court. I'm just wondering who he'll practically inconvenience more. Probably you; he's faster in the air than I am, won't actually slow me down."

[mrmortal]

"Again, up to you. Really. I don't mind either way."

[imeanforever]

"I'll take him," she says. "Where am I gating to once I have my new tree growing?"

[mrmortal]

"...good question. I don't know. If I don't have a place by the time you go off to do that you can just gate to the same place you arrived at."

[imeanforever]

"How am I supposed to know from there whether you have the place or not?"

[mrmortal]

"I should probably buy you a phone and teach you how to call me."

[imeanforever]

"That'll work even if I'm far away from the open gates?"

[mrmortal]

"I think in fairyland it won't work at all, except right next to open gates and even then not so sure, but the idea would be you stepping through and calling me there, I'll pick up no matter what time it is."

[imeanforever]

"This came up in response to the question about where I'm gating to once I have a new tree."

[mrmortal]

"Right, you'll have a phone, you'll gate to the same place we arrived here, you'll call me, I'll pick you up to show you the new place."

[imeanforever]

"Okay."

[mrmortal]

"Anyway, this was a detour from planning. We were talking about trapping his place - and for that matter, I'll probably have to hire a mortal to be Thorn's first master."

[imeanforever]

"You don't just already know plenty of mortals?"

[mrmortal]

"Er, yeah, why?"