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Hey Mash, didn't you call me by some weird name when we first met?

I-I, um, guess I did... I'm sorry!

You, um, looked so much like someone else I know that it just slipped out!

Really!? There's someone out there who looks just like me!? What are they like!?

I only spent a little time with her, but that was enough for me to know she's a wonderful person.

She's brave, and kind, and dependable, and she spent a lot of time in her workshop making all sorts of clothes.

Her name is Habetrot. She's a very happy faerie who wants nothing more than to be a friend to brides everywhere.

Whoa, so there's a faerie like that in the future, huh!? I guess her name does sound a lot like mine!

Maybe it's a fake name, like Aesc's! Maybe she's trying to cover up her True Name!

...

That's enough, Mash. You agreed not to tell us too much about the future, remember?

You're right. I'm sorry. I thought it would make Totorot happy, and I didn't stop to think about what I was doing...

G-gotcha. You can be pretty careless sometimes, huh, Mash? I'm sorry, too.

Still...

I like the idea of being a friend to brides everywhere, too! That sounds like a great life to me!

There, the needlework's all done! All I have to do now is make the embroidery motifs!

I think I'll make a purple rose for Aesc, and a blue rose for Mash!

Let me see... Hmm, you did a good job. I have no complaints.

You've gone from crybaby to expert. This is why I love handicrafts.

Although, I'm not sure about using embroidery for the brooch.

Aesc's going to be a queen, so she should have something that shines. I think a pattern of beads modeled after the world tree should do the trick.

Here, give me that. Let me show you how it's done.

Whoa, have you always been that good with your hands, Black Knight!? You're like some sort of sewing master!

Totorot's changed so much since you came along, Mash. And it's all thanks to you.

We've been together for hundreds of years, but I've never seen this side of her before.

Ugh, I really am a terrible friend. I was so caught in the fighting, I never even noticed what Totorot was going through, and she's always been there for me.

Oh no, it was nothing. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, that's all.

And the only reason Totorot got interested in making clothes in the first place is the upcoming coronation.

She said she wanted to make you a gown so pretty that you'd be the fairest faerie in all of Britain.

So I'm sure she would have gone on to become a great tailor even if I'd never shown up.

...

Aesc...?

...All right. I think you deserve to know at least a little of how I really feel.

I'm no savior, Mash. All I want to do is keep Britain itself alive.

I no longer have any intention of saving all its faeries, or of protecting humans like you.

...Huh!?

What are you saying? You ARE protecting everyone. I've seen it myself.

...Here's the thing, Mash.

For the last thirty-six hundred years, I've been dispelling the calamities that appear every hundred years, and the Great Calamities that appear every thousand.

...Before, when I said I would let the faeries handle the aftermath and go to sleep in a coffin... Well, it wasn't the whole truth.

The truth is, every time I saved them from a calamity...the faeries would come after me.

I've never known a moment of true peace. The only thing I could ever do was run for my life and hibernate for years at a time.

I'm sure that, at the start, I really did want to build an ideal nation.

But not now. Not anymore.

Every time I decide to work harder and finally get it right next time, I only ever end up having more stones thrown at me.

I've been imprisoned, crucified, beheaded, drowned, burned... The only thing they haven't done is poison me.

So, by now, I've stopped putting my hopes in faeries.

My only companions are Totorot, the Black Knight, and Wryneck. I'm not even sure about Uther.

Even they only see me as an important tool. Nothing more.

So I only fight to protect Britain for myself. It's the only place I belong.

That's why I'm going to unify the faeries and give humans the right to build a kingdom.

That's the Britain I wantthe sort of story Proper Human History would never allow.

I've never been Aesc the Savior. I'm just Aesc the Witch.

But... But surely there must have been at least one good faerie, right?

One who believed in you, and understood you?

Wasn't there ever a single faerie you genuinely wanted to help?

No, there wasn't. Not a single one. That's why things turned out this way.

...

Mash, you came here from the Era of the High Queen. I don't know which faction you belong to in that time.

I can never know, for if I did, that would change what happens in the future.

I've been vacillating for a long time now about whether to kill you or save you...

...but I don't think it matters now. This is the Fae Eraa history entirely of the Tree of Emptiness's making.

And as long as that tree exists, anything goes in its Lostbelt.

No matter what may be added to this world, it will simply adjust its history to match.

Things don't have to make sense in a world with a Tree of Emptiness.

The reason Morgan was so cavalier about using the water mirror to send things back in time to the Fae Era...

...is her awareness that nothing which changed in the Fae Era will affect the start of the Era of the High Queen.

...So, you're saying worlds created by Trees of Emptiness can tolerate a fair number of discrepancies without falling apart?

That's right. That's why I'm here. The Fae Era is the last point in time where things can be so wibbly-wobbly.

The moment you spoke of the Era of the High Queen, I had a flash of insight as to how the future must have played out.

She must have used all the magical energy stored inside the Tree of Emptiness to transform this Lostbelt into a Singularity.

I still won't know why she chooses to do that until the time comes, of course...

But in the meantime, Mash, I can tell you that you can only exist while the Fae Era lasts.

In four hundred years, at the start of the Era of the High Queen, you'll disappear whether you're still alive or dead.

You do understand that, right?

...Yes. I arrived in Britain in year 2019 of the Era of the High Queen.

Since I didn't exist in that era before that date, when the Tree of Emptiness dies...

Ugh, I swear. Just because Fae Era's history can be changed...

...that doesn't give her the right to send every problem she can't handle back to the past to let nature disappear it for her.

And now she's started sending Servants as well as calamities? Unbelievable.

That's just pathetic, is what it is.

So I guess the least I can do is make things right.

Since I'm mixed up in all of this too, it's my responsibility to send you back to the future you came from.

A-are you sure? No, wait. Is that even possible!?

...In a way, yes.

It should work as long as there aren't any historical inconsistencies leading up to the calamity of Norwich in year 2019 of the Era of the High Queen.

So, how would you feel about hiding out at the farthest edge of the world, where no one would ever see you?