From above, London looked a bit like a porcupine. Harbour hadn’t seen a porcupine in a while, but London was spiky and curled in on itself, porcupines did that, didn’t they? Whatever they looked like, they felt like London.

Being in this world was an odd feeling, It was like all your joints were sticking in the wrong places. Like you could move how you wanted to but that it just wouldn’t be comfortable. But it was easy to travel, in this world, the humans thought she had tiny fluttering wings. In this world, she could fly.

Harbour tried to pinpoint exactly where she needed to go, her world hung over this one like an afterimage, stretched and squashed on some spaces to fit the odd shapes of this world. They called it earth, which to be fair, was an apt descriptor. If you looked in one direction it was all earth, as far as you could see, till the planet curved in on itself and you couldn’t see anymore. But if you looked the other way, it was all water. Probably even more water than it was earth, maybe they should have called it that. Or mud. Water and earth made mud, after all.

How much of it was water? Harbour wondered, and started to fly upwards. Upwards till she could see the jagged coastline of the island, till she could trace a finger around it and end up in the same place, till the air grew thin and she didn’t even have to beat her wings to fly. It really was all water, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t even be proper mud at this point, just sludge.

The ball turned beneath her, and Harbour turned with it. She could feel herself start to fray at the edges, this far away from the perception of the humans was a risky place to be, for better or for worse, each world needed the minds of the others in order to fully exist. Without humans to think of her, Harbour would just simply not exist, be pulled back into the fabric of the universe, meted out, reformed. But she still had a few moments. This world was inconvenient, it made her smaller than a mouse and stifled her ability to change, but it was also fascinating. It was a world where every ounce of change took effort, took intent. It was a world that, despite itself and its own rules, had created wonders. Islands, flowers, buildings. Porcupines.

Harbour stayed up there as long as she could bear it till she felt her essence begin to blur away, then dropped. That was another wonder of this world, gravity. Exhilaratingly fast, permanent, nonconsensual gravity. They had it back in Harbour’s world, of course, but that was more like a mutual agreement. This gravity didn’t care about Harbour, it only wanted her, and it wanted her now. The air started to thicken as she got closer to Sludge, slowing her. That was annoying, tangibility was a double-edged sword, but this sort of speed, sluggish as it was back home, still made Harbour giddy.

Harbour hit the ground and her skirts sprawled out around her, stretching just a little bit far out before snapping back to their original lengths. She stood up and brushed her knees of what would be grass if her knees were able to stain with grass.

Hyde Park. A centre of human imagination and thought, and an important outpost for the Upper Court of London. Hyde Park was known the world over, it was like a well of power, whoever controlled it in the human world could draw that power in Harbour’s world, whoever could do that would… well Harbour wasn’t exactly sure, that was the job of people more important than her. Harbour simply did as she was charged, and had some fun in the human world while she did.

The outpost in question was dug into a tree, it was passably ornate, enough to suit any courtly nobles who chose to visit the front, but not excessively decorative. It was a military outpost after all. Harbour flew in through a knot in the tree and felt the odd stickiness in her joints disappear as she returned to her world. Hyde Park in the human world was cultivated, clean almost, an odd look for nature, but here it was as wild and chaotic as ever. It was scarred from a year and a half of fighting, the upper court had just been pushed out and Harbour’s people were healing the land as best they could. But it was slow, there hadn’t been humans for a while. That was how it worked, each world affected the other, and each relied on the other to exist.

“Harbour, sixth daughter of the fourteenth Caste of the Lower Court of Londinium, Emissary to Deloran, first son of the seventh Caste of the Lower Court of Londinium, State your aim and business at this honourable outpost of the Hyde Park!” Justain, one of the two guards at the entrance to the Hyde Park Fort, hollered. He was slacking, but then again this was a new post for him. Harbour straightened and replied with equal fervour

“Justain, Nineteenth Son of the Fifteenth Caste of the Lower Court of Londinium, Loyal Protector of Deloran, first son of the seventh Caste of the Lower Court of Londinium and guardian of this honourable outpost belonging to the Lower King of Hyde Park!” Justain grimaced under his helm remembering the call he’d missed, but Harbour continued. “I bring urgent news that may help bring the war to an end!”

“Very well, you may proceed.” Save the one missed call, it was the same words they had spoken to each other a thousand times before and that they would a thousand times again. The lower court, even among fairies, were sticklers for decorum and Harbour wasn’t the one to try and change that. She hazarded a quick wink at Justain to allay any fears he would have and went in

The inside of the fortress was prim as ever and orderly. Fairies bustled around in their pre-approved paths and not a scrap of space went unused, the same design for fortresses had been replicated countless times, always redesigned to be yet more efficient. In ten years, Harbour thought, All this might seem horrifically tedious and slow, but for now it was the pinnacle of swiftness.

The walls were white and shimmered with reflections, with arches every so often leading down to other, equally prim corridors, or sometimes even to a garden, where fairies of sufficient rank could grow things for fun. That couldn’t be fun, could it? Harbour would miss her kind of fun when she ranked high enough to grow rubies and diamonds, but that wouldn’t be for a while yet. She finally got to the study, Deloran’s study, Harbour straightened her back and willed her breastplate tighter, her dresses straighter, before marching in.

The moment her foot hit the ground she began to speak, clear and loud, but not shouting. “Deloran, first son of the seventh Caste of the Lower Court of Londinium! I bring news that may help bring the war to an end!” three steps in, freeze on the spot, wait for Deloran.

“What? Yes, of course, come in.” Deloran peaked his head from around a corner of the study, which was really more of a workshop. Deloran had banned anyone but his personal emissaries from entering the study, and that included the fortress cleaners. Even Harbour had never taken more than three steps into the place, for all she knew the entire Upper Court could be hiding behind each bookshelf.

Thinking of a higher ranking fairy as a traitor, that was dangerous. Harbour was glad her thoughts didn’t leak as much as humans’ did.

Deloran was one of those few fairies that both desired to eschew decorum and had lived long enough to accrue a rank that permitted him to do so, and he made sure everyone knew. His clothes were bedraggled and his face streaked with some thick black goo.

“Motor oil, specially imported from the human world, fascinating stuff.” Harbour caught her gaze and extended an open hand.

“A message, passed to me by Rust, twenty-third son of the fourteenth caste of the Lower Court of Londinium, gives instructions for battle,” A small white scroll materialised in Harbour’s hand and Deloran took it, smudging it and turning it a dark grey wherever he held. He read it, somberly, before folding it up and setting it on a table.

“Very well. Send word to Janine, err, second daughter of the seventh caste,” Another scroll, blank pearlescent cloth, appeared floating above Harbour’s hand, and as Deloran spoke, gold lettering burned itself into the cloth. “If this really is true then we may have to hold our noses and go with it. I don’t like Efrit-among-the-jinn any more than you do, but a full and competent half-human could be a powerful ally” He wiped his hands clean, “Or,” he added with wistful interest. “An invaluable specimen”

A half-human? That was certainly intriguing. Usually, the dispatching of those was handled by those of the eleventh, the lowest warrior caste. For word of one to reach someone of the seventh… Harbour was intrigued. But her face remained a mask of serenity as she walked in lockstep with the rest of the fortress out of the study, out of the building, and eventually towards the strangest type of freedom Harbour felt.