"Mmhmm. If you want to do something else, let me know, and I'll see if we can, but for now you don't need to do anything."

"I- o-okay."

He's still not entirely comfortable doing this. But... But the lure of this is... (He's always been bad for wanting things he's not allowed.)

He curls up on the bench, leaning against the table a little, and chooses one of the discs to listen to.

That one is full of adventure stories, set in a world with powers that work a little differently than the Force, though still with groups that are clearly meant to mirror the Sith and Jedi; a Sith-equivalent villain features in the first one on the disc.

(Daisy sits at the table, making little paper jackets for all the discs. She's done well before he first story is, and switches to writing something.)

Nova is apparently enthralled enough that he's paying surprisingly little attention to what Daisy is doing. Instead, he is staring intently at the datapad, and smiling slightly as he listens. (He's also enthralled enough that the passage of time doesn't seem to be something he's noticing.)

After a couple hours, she goes and pours a bowl of sunflower seeds.

Her moving does make him flinch and look up with wide eyes, which turn curious as he watches what she's doing.

She brings them over. "Have you had these before?"

He pauses the story, and licks his lips. Then he nods. "Could sneak them sometimes during planting," he admits quietly, flinching a tiny bit and looking around like Pradnakt might appear to punish him for that.

"That's good, that you did that. Taking care of yourself is important."

He looks up at her, disbelief warring with something that might be hope that someone doesn't think that was bad. "Didn't want to steal." (It's important she knows he's not a thief.)

Nod. "But it's different when you're a slave - they were stealing from you, you were just taking a little of what should have been yours back."

He blinks at her, "I- I...was? How? It was- You- I didn't have anything? Wasn't supposed to?"

"They told you that, because they didn't want to let you have anything and didn't want you to do anything about it, but it's not true. When you work, you should get to keep what you make, or you should be paid for it." She's not angry, not even bitter, but she's very firm.

"I-" he starts, clearly going to argue, and then just...can't think of an argument beyond 'that's just how it is'. He's pretty sure Daisy will be able to out-argue him, even if he doesn't understand why she thinks that way. "O-okay," he agrees instead.

Nod. "And you aren't a slave here; we aren't going to try to do that. It's part of why we aren't expecting you to do any chores around the house. It's already not really okay that we aren't letting you leave; if we're going to keep you here, we're responsible for making sure you're okay while you are."

He stares, and although he barely hears anything after the first part. "Not a-? I- If- if m'not, then-then what?"

"Just a person, like anybody else."

"I-" he shakes his head, half-denial, half-helpless. "Nonono. I. M-not. Can't be?" He wraps his hands over his head and rocks. (He sounds more lost and helpless than actually panicked.)

She steps around and crouches to hug him again, leaving the bowl on the table. "It's okay that it's hard. But that doesn't mean that it's not true."

He, again, goes tense when she hugs him, but leans into her, shaking. "M'sorry."

"It's okay. You don't need to be sorry, you're doing fine."

He wants to apologise again, but she just told him not to (that he didn't have to?). Instead, he just stays leaning against her until the shaking subsides. (It is, he thinks, nice to not have to worry about the flames, although he misses them a little.)

She holds him through it, and when he's done, she gives him another little squeeze. "That was really bad, I can tell. But we don't want any more bad things to happen to you, and we're pretty good at getting what we want, okay? You're not going to be a slave any more, we'll make sure of it."

He nods, a little mechanically, into her shoulder. "O-Okay," he agrees, still a little more because agreement is the path of least resistance than any belief in the words.

"Okay." She lets go and waits for him to pull away.