Fey Wizard Name Generator

The story

The seat knocked for the fourth time while Is was saying her brother had not actually refused it. He had said no, of course, but in the hurried way of somebody arranging a move. He had said there was nowhere to put it, which was the sort of practical problem a beautiful present might improve by existing. He had also said please take it home. Is preferred to regard that as a request for further discussion. On the doorstep the enchanted garden seat folded its four carved feet beneath itself, rose, and knocked again with the little brass striker attached to its back.

Orrin opened the upper window rather than the door. He asked whether she intended to stop it. She could. The return phrase was written on a card in her pocket, and the seat would immediately follow her home. It had no command over his doorway or his departure. He could walk around it, leave by the side path, or have it held in the carter's yard at Is's expense until she collected it. These were genuine available choices, not loopholes he had to win from a curse. Is nevertheless hoped that opening the window meant he was reconsidering the gift. He said he was trying to speak without having the seat walk into his hallway.

Their relationship had grown careful after an argument over their mother's move. Is remembered the help she gave. Orrin remembered being told precisely how grateful to be for it. Since then they met on birthdays and exchanged messages with the weather placed conveniently before any important subject. Now he was leaving for a small rented home in another town. Is had bought the garden seat from a carver and added a walking charm so it could follow an accepting owner into a garden. She had imagined him sitting there and thinking kindly of the sister who had supplied it. She had not asked whether the new home had a garden. It did not.

Her spoken name was short under the marginal notation she used for research. In her notebook the full form was Is, Inquirer into Returning Furnishings. A long written byname held the inquiry while people could still call to her across a street. The seat's walking behavior had been tested. It followed its intended recipient while acceptance remained pending, but ownership and storage costs stayed with the donor until an actual yes. Its repeated knocking was new. Is had not ordered a reminder that sounded quite so much like her own insistence. She recorded the unexpected behavior without deciding it proved that furniture understood family tension.

Orrin came down with one ordinary box. He placed it on the step and lifted the lid so she could see the books inside. This, he said, was what he had actually chosen to take. The garden seat occupied more space than his new cooking corner. It would cost money to transport and more to store. He was not willing to pay either cost. Is said she had intended the seat to make the place feel less bare. He said a bare space could be useful when somebody knew what he wanted to put there later. The seat knocked while he was speaking. He looked at it. She looked at the return card in her pocket and left it there.

A passing neighbor admired the carving. Is began explaining that it was a farewell gift. Orrin said it was an offered farewell gift he had declined. The neighbor made a small sympathetic sound that could have belonged to either person and continued walking. Is felt publicly rejected by an account that was entirely accurate. She had spent six weeks of spare earnings on the carving and several evenings fitting the motion. She wanted those costs to be visible enough that his refusal would become difficult. Realizing this did not make her generous. It made her stop describing the problem as a shortage of appreciation for beautiful things.

They went toward the carter's yard because Orrin needed to check his actual box reservation. The seat followed at a respectful and extraordinarily conspicuous distance. At each place they paused, it knocked against its own back. A child asked whether they were taking a bench for a walk because it had misbehaved. Orrin almost laughed and then glanced at his sister. She told him he could laugh. He did, though not unkindly. The clerk confirmed his box space and the departure already arranged. No present, magical or ordinary, was required before he could use it. Is paid nothing toward his reservation and acquired no authority over where he went next.

Outside, Orrin asked whether she would carry one end of the book box to the loading place later. It was a request, not an exchange for accepting the seat. He would use the carter's porter if she did not want to help. Is asked whether that was really all he wanted from her today. He said he would also like her to believe him when he said he did not want the seat. The answer left nowhere grand to stand. She took the return card out and spoke its known phrase. The seat turned at once. It followed her to the waiting space where she had left her own overfilled bag, ready to go wherever she actually led it.

She put the bag on the seat for its return journey, keeping the load within the walking charm's already tried use. Giving it her own work did not erase the costly failed gift. It simply returned responsibility to the person who had chosen it. Then she helped Orrin carry the book box under his separate request. He told her which end had the loose board; she listened and took the other. At the loading place he showed her an old card he kept among the books. It contained a bad drawing she had made of him years earlier, with a joke neither now found as funny as they remembered. He had chosen to bring it. She did not ask whether that meant he secretly wanted the seat as well.

Orrin left at the arranged time. He thanked her for carrying the box and did not promise weekly letters or an early return to make the refusal easier. Is took the seat home. It occupied the room where she had intended to keep her study table, and she had to move the table rather than magically make the cost belong to someone else. In the notebook she recorded the successful recall, the declined transfer, and the unresolved knocking. The next evening she sat on the expensive carving to mend a torn bag. It was comfortable. That did not make it the right gift. When she later wrote to Orrin, she asked how much room the new home had, and left the answer for him to supply.