A forest that was not there yesterday

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The Lord Ruler is in his palace, when he sees a sight he hasn't seen in centuries. Trees, sunlight...is he hallucinating? The fact that there's a forest in his living room isn't the surprising part. The fact that there's a forest on his planet is. As soon as he walks through the door to where his living room isn't, it's definitely not a hallucination.

His stores of Allomantic metals abruptly disappear. They're still physically there, but the power is completely gone. He immediately turns to go back, only to see more forest.

At least his Feruchemy still works—he can tell because he's still alive—but that won't last him forever. He only has so much stored youth, and without both sets of abilities he can't replenish it. He hasn't been in so much danger since the beheading that one time. Returning to Scadrial is the highest and currently only priority. If spontaneous forests are a thing, he needs to find someone who can explain them and more importantly how to get back.

The next few hours are spent walking in an essentially randomly chosen direction, with the sun to his right. He's quite certain that suns are supposed to be moving across the sky, but that's not a pressing emergency. He already knew he wasn't on his own planet when he saw proper trees and plants instead of ash-covered monstrosities. Whenever he calls out, nobody responds. If it's an empty spontaneous forest, he's probably doomed.

After some time, he hears his stomach growl. He hasn't seen much that looks edible, but possibly that's just because he's not used to real plants. Berries. Berries used to exist. Those berries look tasty, and if they're poisonous it's not like he needs to worry about it. As always, he has a truly ridiculous amount of stored health in his gold jewelry. Tapping gold just in case, he eats a handful.

Comments

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"If it's size that's the problem, can't we just send you against any noticeable courts?"

The Lord Ruler can't immediately think of any reason the Queen hasn't done this already, if only to award positions at the top of different courts to loyal vassals, but there could be one.

[imeanforever]

"Yes. But I do not know how many there may be far-flung across Fairyland," the Queen says.

"We're in a very defensively viable position right now and unless we," Promise diplomatically pluralizes, "do something dumb we won't get any worse off offensively; Arcane and the Flight and the Nine will go on existing until we've got things consolidated among the huge number of vassals we've already acquired, most of whom are standing stock-still where they were when the Queen recently yelled at them. We need to - or at least I need to; feel free to delegate" she says diplomatically "this entirely to me - need to figure out the structure of the Queenscourt and be able to handle it less clumsily and with less indiscriminate hold orders."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"That sounds entirely uninteresting. Make sure everyone ends up answerable to me and send me some sorcerers, and you can consider as much of it delegated as you like."

[imeanforever]

"You want them for weather and transmuting, right? How many?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Depends on the scale they can do. There's a lot of planet, so probably as many as aren't needed somewhere else.
And at least one or two mind sorcerers, just in case."

[imeanforever]

"All right. This may take me a few days. You may as well park in Scadrial while I figure it out."

Promise nips through the gate and comes back with Yellow, who she parks with the line of Thorn's vassals.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'll announce victory to the masses, then."

He parks.

[imeanforever]

And Promise gets to work.

Four days later she sends to Alendi a batch of ten sorcerers, which do not include any of the major firepower of the Queenscourt (especially not Nighteyes or Spellwhip) and also don't include Verve or Blossom, but are quite competent. They are all under orders to do as he asks of them, except that they must not produce their names or eat anything but the fey food that will be delivered to them by other fairies (they are to justify this on the grounds that someone might be invisible nearby, hoping to poach the Queenscourt with snuck food or eavesdropping; same with the wards courtesy of Arcane that will fend off darts), are allowed to make whatever needs they have for their functionality and comfort known regardless of what Alendi says if he tries to mistreat or neglect them, and are allowed to come straight back to Promise if they encounter something she would probably not like. Plus they're not supposed to volunteer the information about those exceptions, although since they'll rapidly become obvious if Alendi stumbles across them they're allowed to describe them if cornered. They've all got her anti-emotion-bubble spell on. They assure Alendi that there will be more sorcerers on the way soon.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi doesn't bother immediately asking for their names.

He assigns most of the sorcerers to try to make Scadrial more habitable. Decreasing temperature directly, creating a reflective sheet in orbit and increasing the size until it's big enough to matter, or even making the ash spread farther from the volcanoes in order to protect more area. Nothing he can think of is going to make it look like it used to, but he can at least try to make the planet better. He may have to explain the concept of a "planet" first.

Two of the minions get set to creating things. Metals, of course, as well as materials for his kingdom's manufacturers. It occurs to him that he can't safely use those metals for Allomancy without the names of the fairies who made them, but it wasn't too urgent anyway.

And they cycle through the chamber where the Well of Ascension is, writing messages to Ruin and inviting it to change words to leave a response. Always under strict secrecy orders, of course, and orders preventing them from actually touching the Well.
No progress on that front.

[imeanforever]

Promise learns the organization of the Queenscourt. She tucks Thorn's people into it. She goes through the dungeons and assesses who there needs to be endungeoned; she determines that nobody needs to be endungeoned, turns the legitimately threatening prisoners into sparrows, and soon has a row of generously-sized birdcages which she keeps full of novels to read and birdseed. Those who are not threats, and have been languishing under cruel orders or in pits, she loosens their bindings and finds them useful things to do. She starts keeping track of morale assessments from fairies who would be able to tell. She is not universally popular, but some people like her much better than the Queen already.

Promise goes to her own beloved long-ago tree; the trip barely takes three minutes with Arcane's help. She takes a cutting and puts it in the Queenspalace garden. The palace is nice and all but she wants her tree. With sorcerous help (little dollops of it here and there when she has time to spare) it is soon large enough to live in.

Promise is doing enough sorcery - and enough work for which mental speed is incidentally helpful - that when she sends the second batch of sorcerers (still no one vassalized to Alendi) she comes along with them to ask for refills on her earrings.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He refills them, and sends them back with the message that she seems to have told the fairies not to reveal their names, and that means he can't safely use any metals they produce for magic.

Aside from the ongoing attempts to improve the climate, he's using the fairies mostly to increase the empire's standard of living. They oversupply any segment of the economy other than food and whatever is currently run by a House that pays him enough. Soon most people (excepting the losing Noble Houses) notice that they are much better off since the announcement that the Lord Ruler defeated the fairies.

[imeanforever]

Promise says that she'll export metals transmuted by sorcerers with whom Alendi is in a vassal relationship; there are several of those. She just needs a shopping list and raw materials, ore being a pain to find in quantity in Fairyland.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He provides both, with materials being varying degrees of similarity. Most of the metals are rare on Scadrial too.

The planet gets better, not as fast as he'd hoped, but enough that the borders of what's habitable increase and agriculture works gradually better.

[imeanforever]

Promise sends him sorcerers as she finds herself with spares. Promise absorbs courts. Promise runs things. Promise definitely has a crush on Arcane and no idea how to act on that. But since Arcane has a crush on her too, when she eventually figures out something to do, all is resolved to their satisfaction.

Time passes.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

When it's been a few decades, the Lord Ruler order to keep all new children's names secret starts to matter. The names of a noticeable fraction of the population are known only to their parents, so it's safe to start the emigration. There's already a portal to the steppes of course, to help with making absolutely sure there aren't any fairies occupying it, and Alendi sends out a call for (young) settlers. More and more people move, growing their own food before long, and in a few years there's a very successful colony.

[imeanforever]

With administrative help delegated to Promise?

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Of course; the Lord Ruler wouldn't want to do any actual ruling when he can avoid it.

(Over subsequent years the colony's population increases more and more. Moving isn't mandatory yet, but there's an empire-wide propaganda campaign based entirely on true information.)

[imeanforever]

And Fairyland is so pretty. And Promise and those she commands are so much nicer than the nobles.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

In less than a century, nearly everyone has left. Including the Lord Ruler, though he and some of his Inquisitors need to make frequent visits back for magical reasons. (Some of those had, apparently, gone to the Terris Dominance after finding out about Compounding in order to find and kill some Feruchemists. The Lord Ruler is no longer the only immortal mortal, but he finds the idea interesting enough that he doesn't kill the offenders for showing initiative.)

While the second Final Empire is being established, the inhabitants of Scadrial's South Pole get invited to join. The planet will be completely empty in relatively short order.

[imeanforever]

The planet should still probably be the site of some mining operations conducted by introverted sorcerers handling their own climate control, and there is occasional reason to use gates for rapid transit across Fairyland, but otherwise Fairyland can handle all their needs.

(Promise discovers, about a hundred years after the Usurpation, that Scadrial is not in fact "the mortal world". The gate she made for the mortal she was trying to help back when Thorn caught her goes somewhere else. She doesn't tell anyone.)

There are minor hiccups and issues; they get fixed. The ex-queen starts calling herself Whisper. Promise and Arcane are adorably enamored of each other. Thorn continues to be a heavily restricted sparrow. Civilization creeps across the Steppes.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The Lord Ruler is mostly concerned with watching his borders expand and scaring away the occasional fairy who looks at them wrong. The humans are multiplying much faster than fairies do, and expand fast enough that they aren't likely to be considered good neighbors anyway.

Over the centuries, the numbers of Inquisitors decrease. (Nobody's being killed for Hemalurgy, and there are only so many useful spikes to be passed on when existing ones die or retire.) But since some of the humans are learning sorcery, and much more collaboratively than most fairies, moving to Fairyland comes with a net gain in minion usefulness.

Alendi even finds out that his immortal minion, a man going by Dorian, was the donor for one of Promise's spikes. And that she has used tinminds he filled. And while that charge could theoretically be replaced, it can never be returned.

[imeanforever]

This has not occurred to Promise, or she probably would have taken some action about it.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Eventually the one thousand and twenty four years are up. The Lord Ruler directs anyone currently on Scadrial to evacuate, and sorcerers to close all gates. In case he can't put down the Shard in time, he explains to Promise, it'll only be an empty world being Preserved.

A Queenscourt sorcerer makes a gate to the hidden room under the now empty palace.

[imeanforever]

Promise approves of letting Alendi handle this. He's done it before. And if he doesn't come back most of his useful features can be taken over by some other mortal.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi goes through and approaches the Well.

And then Promise hears a voice she probably doesn't recognize say "No tin. No sorcery. Go through the gate. And quiet—but tell the Lord Ruler he can act freely."