"I mean, I can try. I don't mind trying. You're just... Coming at it from a really weird angle, being all grown up and not knowing morality. Maybe it'd help if you lived in Hyrule for a while, but that might not be a great idea."

"For one thing, how would I ever get back. It's odd to not know this and be all grown up? Would you have an easier time explaining if you pretended I was a child?"

"Oh, you might get back eventually. Or maybe not. Milliways gives you doors repeatedly, sometimes, apparently. But you can't tell on your first visit how much it likes you. Explain it like a little kid? Maybe! I more meant that you kind of have to live it, I think."

Valanda considers asking for stories from Link's childhood about Link coming to understand morality, but of course there's a problem with that plan.

"How often does Milliways like people and how often do you get doors if it does?"

"No clue. Some other folks I talked to think that most people who get it at all don't get it just once, though. You're trying, you know. I can tell. Or at least I think I can tell. You're trying to be moral but you don't really know how. Maybe you didn't even realize you were trying to be moral because you've never heard of it."

Oh, that's useful! Valanda has a good enough poker face not to look delighted.

"Am I? My plan for my life has always been to become a state governor and tax slaveholding heavily enough that people prefer to let their children go, is that moral?"

If it is, he can ask Link for help and Link might do it for morality instead of compensation.

"It's pretty moral. Especially given how it's... Normal, there. There are other moral things to do, and I'd guess morality really works best if everyone does it, if you convince people, so they feel it in their bones... There's no best morality, people have different priorities... But slavery is a big one, yes."

Valanda decides that in the future he should lead with this. He's from a world with slavery and he's trying to make it less common, that's better than leading with not happening to understand morality very well, it'll get moral people on his side faster.

"I don't know how to make people feel it in their bones. Until today I didn't know that caring if other people are hurt was any less idiosyncratic than wanting everyone to believe I'm a man. I never imagined an entire society of people who all care about it. I've never tried to convince anyone to care before and I don't know how and I'm not sure if every species can or how to deal with people who don't."

"Not everyone really cares, even with us. I'm not sure how to make them care either. 'Empathy' is what it's called when you think about what other people are feeling. Empathy's a good start..." Blink. If nobody in his world is nice... Must be lonely. "...Do you need a hug?"

"Yes, please."

Valanda gives very clingy hugs and is kind of bony.

Well, clearly he needed the hug. Link hugs back - not overly affectionate, but firm and strong. "Everyone needs a good hug once in a while. You said there's not many humans in your world, I guess you don't get them much."

"I really don't, last one was a caralendar three years ago." And not this nice and not really a good memory and maybe he should change the subject now. "Oh, hey, is fairness part of morality?"

"Years, huh? Yeah. It is." Link slowly starts to move to un-hug, but will stop if Valanda clings particularly much.

Valanda lets go with good grace. What a good hug. Maybe he'll get another one at some point.

"I could maybe work with that, lots of people care about fairness, a lot more than care about other people's, how did you put it, best flourishing?"

"Hah. That was me stealing the princess's phrasing. Yeah, fairness is important. You should only be punished for things you actually did. The law ought to be the same for nobles and commoners - and maybe slaves, if there are any." (Small sigh.) "It's bad if somebody else gets paid or gets credit for what someone did. You shouldn't treat someone different because of who they are. Ah, friends don't count for that, friends and family and such. More like... Shouldn't treat them differently because they're Gerudo and you think nobody can trust a Gerudo. That's unfair."

"Why is it unfair to treat people differently because of their species? If we didn't have different laws for, say, humans and essi, essi would spend sixteen extra years being treated as children and be dying of old age by the time anyone treated them as adults. Or else humans would be adults when they're too young to talk or walk. It seems like that would be bad for one species."

"Hmm. That's complicated. We don't have to treat them exactly the same - more like the laws and customs ought to be designed to not disadvantage any species too much? Laws about how to treat Rito who committed crimes and went to prison are different. They need more space, they don't need warmth as much. Laws about food and farming don't count for Gorons, they eat rocks. And Gorons have different mining laws."

"What's prison?" Valanda doesn't understand most of that but it's hard to turn "nothing makes sense" into a concrete question so he asks about a topic that's probably tangential instead.

"It's what the government does instead of execution or slavery for some crimes. You lock people up for a while as punishment, as deterrent, we try to make it so they learn their lesson and when released can go back to being good citizens. Not fun at all, expensive to the government, but fairer than being dead or a slave and more effective deterrent than fines. Plus there's the whole shame and renewal thing."

"We just keep increasing the amount of the fine for deterrence. Sometimes we use command magic to keep people from repeating their crimes. When we want criminals to learn a lesson, we tutor them, like if they keep trying to make other people leave public places for annoying them we help them understand how to find private housing where they don't have to be with people who annoy them. Or if they keep freeing slaves who don't know the law or are too brain-damaged to control themselves then we teach them how to kill people they're done with. Speaking of which, what does your society do about people like that? I'm guessing it's not killing them all, right? That would be immoral."

"Killing slaves is bad. As bad as killing free people. Maybe worse, they're pretty much helpless. Defenseless. I'm not the biggest fan of prison but I think it really is a much stronger deterrent than a ruinous fine. It's more visceral and immediate-feeling than money. A 500 rupee fine doesn't feel that much worse than a 200 rupee fine. But getting locked up in a dungeon? That feels scary and bad. Giving people lessons on what to do instead for stuff like that is a really great idea actually. As for damaged people, or for particularly brutal crimes... If they're unrepentant, repeat offenders, just can't learn or don't care? Execution is on the table. For brain-damaged people I think they try to find family to take care of them, or a situation that might work better for them if they can, though."

"Making family responsible would be very unpopular at home. Hylians like their children, right? You don't just have them and walk away? Not every species at home is like that and it would feel unfair to essi to be singled out and made to take care of someone just because they were related. It's hard enough to get them to spend a few months teaching their children the law and how to talk. I could fund some kind of state-run... something... for taking care of them but then I'd worry that whoever I hired would be the kind of person who would want to own helpless people and that seems worse than what we have now. This seems like a hard problem and I wouldn't be surprised if there are easier ways to make people happy that anyone who thinks about it for a while comes up with. Since no one in my world has thought about it for a while."

"It's a very hard problem. And lots of kings and queens of Hyrule have been slowly getting better at it for centuries, learning from their predecessors. You probably have to be slow about it. Fast sweeping changes to how the law works, uh, don't work. According to the princess."

"What I'm planning to do is buy up the highest level of sovereignty that's for sale, someplace where not many people are living now, and I'm planning to let people leave if they don't like my laws but I expect most of my people will be immigrants. I'm going to lure them with the promise that vacuum mages can use their power with only reasonable restrictions, because I have the ability to conjure matter now. I think that should be less of a problem than changing the laws in an existing state but I really wish your princess were here so I could ask her about... oh, you probably know what Hyrule's laws are, right?"

"Most of them. Lost my memory, remember? I keep remembering - facts, and how to do things, not so much specific experiences? Mostly stuff really close to losing to Ganon is what I lost. Vacuum mages? Oooh, do you know about balloons?"