"Yes, sir."

"Then we can cover the state laws next," says the cat.

"She might want to move south," says the southern cop, "you don't need to waste time on northern laws if she's going to come live in Anavel Sani. Elvira, I will pay you 1152 rings to go live in Anavel Sani."

"And the Hari state government can get you a job by tomorrow and give you a room for free tonight if you're staying," says the cat.

What.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"You have a thirteenth type of magic and now more than one faction in the empire wants you. Up to you which of us you let have you. If either," says the southern cop.

...

(She manages not shaking outwardly again.)

She is pretty sure she did make the mage thing clear. More than once and everything. And their translation seemed to be working fine.

"I'm sorry, would it not be up to - whoever is in charge of me?" That's really too close to questioning, but the regular recourse for confusion hadn't helped and this is rather important.

"Well, no, how better to buy your loyalty than by freeing you?" says the cat. "When you're clear on the laws of whichever state you're going to live in, at least."

Automatic terror and she really needs to be functional right now -

...alright. Maybe they - think managing her this way would be better for them for some reason, and it's not like there's fellow mages here for her to be a bad example for (earth mages, at least; she's still not sure how exactly they do things. Though she noted the '13th type' thing). If they don't have another collar for her maybe they think managing her normally will be too expensive or something. And have noticed she hasn't started magically jumping anyone so think it's worth the risk to have her just walking around.

Or they - want to set a trap if people do follow her, or something, and think it'll work better if people aren't obviously supervising her and need a setup for that.

If she'd somehow been teleported to a black market mage trafficker and they kept her, she could consider herself kidnapped. She can probably consider herself the same, here. And she's a field mage, 'go pretend to be a human' is in the job parameters. 

If she's kidnapped she's got the four day wait on being allowed to use magic for her new owners, but there's not a restriction on obedience. If they want her living - somewhere, then she does that.

"Might I know both laws, and more about the states? I do not know the differences." Translators usually manage amounts alright; how much is that many 'rings'?

"Of course," says the southerner. "Which first?"

1152 rings is about $230, if she's familiar with the US dollar.

She's familiar.

...The one they're in right now, since she is in fact in that one right now?

The cat reads her those. They're fairly minimal, too. There are some truth in advertising laws that actually have teeth. There are some laws about protecting the natural environment and remaining wild areas. There are state taxes, too, which will also be detailed in a separate document.

Is he mentioning penalties?

Nope, those aren't considered essential to know. She could ask?

She's not asking that, that sounds like she's thinking about breaking the laws. She will assume they range from 'torture' to 'tortured to death' at least for her, as is generally the case. She works on memorizing laws.

Fortunately due to field cover lessons she knows what taxes are.

Will she get the other laws after that, or some more info about the state?

If she doesn't ask anything about the state of Har, the southerner will read her the laws of Anavel Sani, which have a strong focus on public health - there are laws about alerting the proper authorities to any cases of certain contagious illnesses, there are laws for sex workers, that kind of thing.

...do they not have medical mages?

She takes notes and works on memorizing.

"Well, do you need to know anything else to decide?" asks the southerner.

She takes this as a 'hurry the fuck up'.

"Might I go to Anavel Sani?" Money is better than a job if it might be a magic job since she can't do that yet, apparently it has more humans and her field cover lessons were not about cats, and it sounds like they're having some weird medical problem and might find her useful. 

She braces in case the cat is angry or in case they're generally angry because of her trying to make decisions.

"Great! Do you think you can follow the laws there?" the southerner asks.

"I've been taught well to obey the law, ma'am." She's pretty sure the cop wants a yes. She thinks about field cover - humans may say they can follow the law, they can think that about themselves. It's still not exactly easy to get it out - she's not in field cover now. But, "yes, ma'am."

"Okay, give me your hands? Just so I can get those bracelets off."

She's still unclear on what the point of the bracelets was. She gives her hands.

And the southerner takes the bracelets off her. "You're free to go. If you come with me I'll take you on the next flight back to Anavel Sani."

"And if you change your mind we'd be glad to have you," says the cat.

...Lack of anger is unexpected but that is just seriously bizarre. 

"Thank you." She follows the southerner.

Then she can go on yet another flight. On the way the southerner asks her what kind of work she'd be interested in doing now that she's free.

She doesn't know what kinds of work exist here? She's only seen the one apartment hallway, the aircraft, and the government building.