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

[imeanforever]

"Good. Lead the way."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

He does.

They arrive at a high-ceilinged room with bookcases along two walls and a large fireplace (currently with live embers but no flames) in another. The window has a latticed screen that keeps the ash out. The chairs are purple velvet, and there are marble busts of old mythological figures.

[imeanforever]

"It's very ashy out there," Promise remarks. "Is it like that everywhere?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Everywhere habitable. The planet is closer to its star than it's supposed to be, so the ashmounts are designed to block some of the light. They only cover the area around the North Pole, where we are, and there's another set at the South. Everywhere else is unprotected from the sun and is descriptively called the burnlands."

[imeanforever]

"Do people live underground?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Nobody lives there at all. It might be possible to survive underground, but there'd be no way of growing food or even safely replenishing air."

[imeanforever]

"Are you going to put the planet back where it belongs next time?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'm going to try," he answers. "I do have some information, from my last trials and errors. I can at least be sure I won't make it worse."

"One second; food's here."
He gets up and opens the door, thanks the servant so as to sound gratuitously non-evil, and then carries the tray in. It contains the types of fruits that exist here, breads of a kind and quality that Fairyland almost certainly doesn't have, and sausages and other such meats that come to think of it Promise probably won't be very interested in.

[imeanforever]

Promise peers at it, then opens her mouth.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi picks up a piece of summerfruit and feeds it to her.

"Remember, you can make your sense of taste more or less sensitive now if you want to."

[imeanforever]

She takes the summerfruit and chews it. "It's not bad," she says.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Well, thank you," he says. "It was the best imitation I could manage of a kind of fruit from before the world was like this."

He continues feeding her the mortal food, and eats some of it himself.

[imeanforever]

Promise eats what he gives her and doesn't try to make much conversation.

After that she peers at his books, trying to orient herself more intelligibly in this world that she's suddenly planning to interfere with a lot. She'll need to sleep soon; if she's missing anything she wants to know it sooner rather than later.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

After some time passes, the Lord Ruler interrupts her reading. "I don't suppose you have any fairy food on you for mass-dosing the population. If not, how hard is it to obtain?"

[imeanforever]

"Nothing on me. Anything will do, really, as long as it's from Fairyland and passes through my possession on the way to being eaten."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It might be hard to get a kingdom's worth of anything to do that. I guess it might depend on how much of it they have to eat.
But if you open the gate, I can send people to find something that looks edible and easily divisible."

[imeanforever]

"Thorn's vassals are probably gone from the area by now and as long as you and I aren't personally along your people will be safe if they don't eat the food or tell any fairies their names... okay, I can go open the gate, but after that it's about time I got some sleep. What are you going to need to be able to do while I'm sleeping?"

[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.