How It All Goes Down
- Laurel does, in fact, get upset at Tamani for using magic on her. He explains that he had to entice her when she visited last time in order to get her to listen to him about her heritage.
- Enticing isn't the flashy kind of magic; Tamani explains that faerie magic just helps them do stuff that helps them perform their roles in life. So as a sentry, he can make an intruder in the woods come to him, then give him a memory elixir, and send him off clueless.
- Laurel makes Tamani promise that he won't use his magic on her again, and he says it wouldn't work anyway, now that she's aware of it (apparently it's also harder to entice another faerie).
- When Laurel offers to give Tamani a can of Sprite, the conversation turns to food. Since she eats a lot of different fruits and veggies, plus colorless stuff like Sprite, that's why her hair and eyes don't have much color. Tamani, on the other hand, eats mostly dark green moss, which is why his hair and eyes are green.
- Next, Laurel asks about the pollen-looking stuff Tamani left on her hand at the last visit. Turns out it actually was pollen, and he just carelessly got some on her.
- Time for the birds and the bees talk, faerie version. When female faeries develop a blossom, male faeries produce pollen. If a guy pollinates the girl, then she has a seedling that will become a baby faerie. But according to Tamani, faeries can still have sex like humans do—it's just for fun, not for reproduction.
- Laurel asks if she's a changeling, which is a term from her research, and Tamani explains that she's more like a scion, a plant taken from one plant and grafted on to another. She's supposed to be a bridge between the human and faerie worlds.
- As they talk, Tamani reveals that faeries age more slowly than humans, so Laurel was around seven years old when she came to her human parents. Apparently she agreed to go to them, and then had her memories erased.
- She gets kind of mad—the faeries took away seven years of her life and put her in danger. What if her human parents had tried to feed her food that was dangerous to her? What if they'd found out she didn't have a heart or blood?
- Tamani tries to calm her down, saying that Fall faeries intuitively know what to eat and what not to eat, so even as a child she would've been fine, and her parents never force-fed her (the faeries watched to be sure).
- Laurel chills, and reveals that her parents are trying to sell the land; Tamani says she needs to stall for time however she can.
- Before she leaves, Tamani gives her a tiny ring to wear on a necklace, saying it's from a seedling, a baby faerie. He wants her to wear it and think of him. She agrees, and leaves.