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]

"Send people through the gate, obviously, and I imagine you'll probably want me to enact some of the things you strongly implied you planned to order me to do, and oh. Act as normal as possible so nobody guesses at the hostile mind control."

[imeanforever]

"I am not controlling your mind," says Promise. "That would be very different and probably either much less or much more pleasant. Do you remember where the gate is exactly?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Not very precisely. It's in the air above the city several hundred yards to the south and east of here."

[imeanforever]

"Can you fly to it without being particularly remarked upon?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Yes. At worst I might be noticed, but not questioned."

[imeanforever]

"Then I'll show you where it is and I'll open it, and then you can show me someplace reasonable to sleep in." She goes to the window and investigates its mechanism.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You rotate this thing that way," Alendi demonstrates, not volunteering the fact that it's designed to be easy for him to control without having to bother moving. He opens it by hand.

[imeanforever]

"Aha."

And Promise, invisible, hops out the window. She's got spikes in her arms now so he should probably be able to follow her even without being able to see her.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He jumps out after her, and follows southeast.

[imeanforever]

And she goes to the gate, and opens it.

"If there's anyone on the other side it's Thorn's people, not Yellow's, so it's safer for you to check if the coast is clear than me."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He pushes against a piece of metal below him, and sails through the gate at the top of his parabola. And finds himself standing at ground level in Fairyland.

"Nobody's here," he says, and steps back through. "I'll send some people through who don't already have a fairy who knows their name. I don't want to stay there longer than I have to."

[imeanforever]

"Understandable. Okay. Where am I sleeping?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I have a palace. There are always open guest bedrooms; you can just lock one from the inside and you're safe."
He heads back toward a different tower of the palace than the one they came from.

[imeanforever]

Where she is ensconced in a guest bedroom.

"You may," she says, "send people through the gate to retrieve food. You may perform actions intended first and foremost to deflect suspicion about my presence and activity from people, as warranted to serve that purpose. You may otherwise generally act as you otherwise would except that when governing or in a position to harm people you may not act in ways your best sincere model of me would not approve, taking into account the desire to minimize suspicion by avoiding abrupt unexplainable changes. Where will you be in about eight hours?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Usually down in the throne room, but that's full of people and you might want to avoid it. I could meet you back here or somewhere else if you had any reason for asking other than just keeping track of me."

[imeanforever]

"I might need to find you in a hurry, even if it's not likely. And I would like an idea of how progress on the fairy food project is coming, when I wake up - I'll need to pick up or sit on containers of or otherwise interact with it all for it to work."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Very well, I'll stick to predictable places.
If I'm not in the throne room eight hours from now, my study's the next best guess.

In any case, good night."

[imeanforever]

"Good night."

And when he has left her be, she locks the door and goes to sleep.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi has no need for sleep.

Ordering Inquisitors to carry skaa through an invisible hole in the sky, so that they can collect anything that looks edible. This is probably the strangest order he has ever given, but at least it won't point to Promise. Ordering minions and servants around probably counts as governing. Would Promise approve of reassigning servants to a potentially dangerous mission in the middle of the night? Under the circumstances, he concludes, probably. She did know he was going to send people through.

He finds the order compelling him to drop the emotion bubble. Or at least, ramp it slowly down. This is terrible; there's got to be something he can do...

He notices a coppermind that he was pretty sure was empty. He draws on it, and suddenly remembers, he can use Feruchemy to selectively forget things.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He's prohibited from doing things his "best sincere model" of Promise would do if it involves governance or hurting people. Selective amnesia isn't something his model of her would do, but it's not in either of those categories.

He remembers Promise saying she wanted to make her previous masters forget her name and prevent them from ever collecting another vassal. And he remembers her helping him get free from that fairy who needed destroying, and her willingness to take drastic measures against Yellow if necessary...
He stores all his knowledge of her incredibly annoying moral code in the coppermind, along with the knowledge that he has done so. Suddenly, his sincere best model of her is all in favor of capturing Yellow. Conveniently, that's the one fairy whose address he remembers.

He doesn't send Inquisitors. They'd be blind in Fairyland where Allomancy doesn't work, and besides, they're the only way the people on Fairyland-food-collecting duty can get there and back. He sends a squad of Hazekillers instead. They're trained to fight people with superpowers, and would have the best chance of capturing a fairy. He even has some Inquisitors lend them some Hemalurgic spikes before flying them through the gate.

Shortly afterward, his minions return with a bound and gagged Yellow. Once they've locked his former master in a dungeon and force-fed him something suitably unpalatable, Alendi walks in to the cell and says, "You are going to remove all orders from me."

[alicornucopia]

"Mmf!" says Yellow.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'm going to assume that was a 'yes, Lord Ruler.'" Alendi takes off the gag. "After you've removed all orders, I am going to test a method of permanently killing fairies. Scientific curiosity, you understand."

He burns zinc, brass, and atium. It's expensive, but Yellow is likely to be about to give him the best reaction anyone ever has.

[alicornucopia]

"Release me at once!" exclaims Yellow.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No."

(Burning atium lets the Allomancer see what their opponent does before it happens.)
(Storing hearing makes the Feruchemist temporarily deaf.)
(It didn't take a genius to know what Yellow was going to say as soon as his mouth started moving.)

[alicornucopia]

"Stop doing whatever is letting you ignore me!" snarls Yellow. "Rashek!"

(Alendi may have picked up from his exposure to fairies that using a name aloud is not usually done.)