Can a parent kill their child whenever they want, here?

Well, you're generally not supposed to kill people, unless they get arrested and sentenced to death in which case the government does it.

"You can do what you want to things you own. You're not supposed to kill free people but there's no reason you can't destroy your own property. Why can't you do that where you're from?"

As noted, in the Empire she comes from children are not owned, they are free people who are children.

The law on killing slaves is odd in some sense. It's not properly legal to outright kill your slave. If a slave happens to die as a result of your treatment, this is fine. If this happens an absolutely absurd amount, the government might get involved.

The reason for this is that if your slaves know you might just randomly come up and kill them, they end up with more incentive to stop listening to you and revolt, or something like that, and then the government will have to go deal with that.

(The other reason, she thinks, is that Alphas who like murdering for fun are very likely to end up causing trouble, and this way there's a legal means to cut them off earlier.)

"Right, you don't have command magic, I guess you have a harder time keeping your slaves under control. We have command magic so it matters less what slaves want. Well. Here you can buy someone just to kill them if you want."

They do not. And the Hari Empire doesn't have Alphas.

How does command magic work? She understands that you can stop people from doing things but not make them do things, but what are the details?

"You can't use it to stop someone from going limp and not doing anything. Command magic can't make someone move, that's force magic. You can use it to make someone go limp. You can use it to make just one muscle go limp. You can use it to make just one muscle go limp only some of the time under specific circumstances. You can prevent any action but some are tricky to specify precisely."

How is it directed? Spoken word? Intention? Does it always work by muscles that way? Does it only work on the body, or the mind too? Can you try to literal-genie at it?

"It only works on your body, not your mind. Command mages just think what they want but bracelets are enchanted differently."

It takes a while to translate that last concept but eventually they figure it out. "Yeah, that's how magic works, it doesn't know what you want, just what you tell it to do."

How are they enchanted?

Also, that reminds her, she was wondering what wearing a magic symbol as she saw people doing symbolizes.

"I'm not one of the kinds of mage that work on the bracelets.

"Wearing those symbols shows interest in doing the kind of low-skill work that anyone with that magic can do. Someone wearing the illusion symbol will make your hair another color, someone with the defense symbol will make your bag indestructible. It's not all working mages, it's... when you think 'I need to hire a defense mage, any defense mage' or 'I need to hire any heat mage' they want you to ask them. My magic research job was a job doing magic but it wasn't something a twelfth of the population would be equally qualified for. I'll probably start wearing a defense symbol soon if I don't find anything else to do."

Well, he bought some bracelets, and Iri is wearing some, how would he have interfaced with them? Are they usually the same, or are there different options?

Ah, that makes sense. That is a useful thing to have established.

How does being able to do magic work? If he makes something indestructible, is it indestructible against anything? Can someone make it destructible again?

"These I'd talk to, that's the most popular interface. There's others too. If I make something indestructible I can make it destructible later but I can't undo some other defense mage's wards. How indestructible it is depends on what you do."

If a mage makes something indestructible and dies, will it be like that forever?

"Yeah, sometimes that happens, it's dangerous. There's some indestructible mud buildings from hundreds of years ago that no one can retrofit with plumbing or anything."

...that sounds like it would be a problem, yes.

"How indestructible it is depends on what you do"?

"For instance, I can make it so something can't break or bend. That's what those mud buildings are like. But you wouldn't want me to do that to your clothes, if you want indestructible clothes you still want to fold them. I can make fireproof paper that you can tear. Things like that. Magic does what you ask, not what you want, I don't just get to ask it to make everything I want to protect immune to exactly the things I want it protected from if I can't specify what those things are."

Ah, understood. She was imagining 'how indestructible' as how much force it would withstand; is that not a factor?

"Nope! I could turn you into a statue and you'd stay that way forever, even if people hit you with hammers. Diamond hammers. That's why those indestructible buildings are such a problem."

Aspects of her innate psychology suggest this is an oblique threat/power show. She doesn't necessarily disagree, but it has been and continues to be the case that he can hurt her if he wants to regardless, so she does not consider this of high importance.

She was thinking more explosions than diamond hammers. Though maybe if they have force magic they can just test forces directly? (She is not sure how that works.) And ah, she was wondering if the indestructibility can be used on people.

"I'm not sure what you mean about testing forces directly. I think it's possible to make people immune to injury but I don't know how. If you just make someone indestructible the obvious way that turns them into a statue."

'How much force can something withstand before it breaks in a certain way' is a common engineering question in her world. Like 'how much weight can you hang from this rope before it snaps', or 'how much weight can you put on top of this block before it crumbles', or 'how hard can you hit something', and so on. She's not sure how force magic works, but if it was the case that a force mage could apply various amounts of force to something directly, they could do that rather than just hanging weights off it (or using machines to apply force, etc.)

...is someone turned into a statue still alive?

"I don't know about engineering. Someone turned into a statue is just paused, if the mage who did it wants to they can break the enchantment."

...that certainly has implications.

In general, how does being a mage and doing magic work, in terms of what you are able to do and what it's like and how you become able to do more?

"It's probably similar to your discerning sense. You have to intend exactly what you want and you become able to do more by understanding the world more."

Oh, that's really interesting.

Is intending effortfull? Do you have to do it for some amount of time? Do you get feedback about whether or not it is working?