"Is it possible he just misspoke or something?"

"I think if he'd just misspoke he'd've explained what he really meant when I explained why he was wrong."

"Huh. Well, I wasn't there so I haven't got a lot of material to guess with."

"My best guess is — he's from Lastwall, almost everyone is Good in Lastwall, if people there hardly ever try to hurt each other he might just not know how most people'd feel about it."

"Maybe he thinks that's how you tell what an undamaged soul's instinct is, by raising them somewhere Good."

"I don't think it makes me damaged, that if someone's trying to hurt me for no reason I want to stop them."

"Well, stopping them's not the same as hurting them."

"I know that. Sometimes the safest thing is to run." She doesn't like it, but it's not like it would help anything if a twelve-year-old girl tried to face down a grown man with a weapon.

"But I think — I guess I could be wrong about this, now that I think about it I'm not as sure of it as I was that the paladin was wrong — I think for most people, the first moment after someone starts hurting them, their soul is just going to be screaming for it to stop, no matter what that means, and whether or not to hurt them is later."

Maybe that wouldn't be true for her anymore? She's not sure. She'd obviously want to hurt anyone who was trying to attack her, if she could manage it, but in that first desperate moment she doesn't know if that's what her soul would reach for.

"Hmm. I think it's, you know, sort of interesting to think about what our souls would do first, but - that's not the same thing as what we actually choose to do, which is what really matters."

Nod. "I think probably it depends? I assume the paladin'd also say it depends, you'd have to be really stupid to think a little girl with no chance of fighting anyone off should do the same as someone who's already been trapped somewhere they couldn't run if they tried."

"If you want to call it 'stupid', I guess - I'm not sure everyone thinks as much about this as you!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean — if you just haven't thought about it I'm not saying that's stupid. I don't think you're stupid, or anything, I'm sure there's lots of things I've never thought about. I used to teach girls back home how to defend themselves, it's the sort of thing that was important to think about for that."

"Oh, that makes sense. You'd need to know something about what reflexes they have to train them on top of that."

Nod. "And one of the things I try to teach people is — if you've only got a couple moments to decide what to do, how do you pick what to do — I don't know if I'm any good at that part, mind you, it's the sort of thing that's different when it's for real."

"When I was putting on a play with a lot of child actors - my assistant Eloi was one of those - it occurred to me to be worried that they'd pick up the dangerous kind of fan, the kind I wound up with when I was in Baron Cua's Pet - it didn't run long, you probably haven't heard of it, it's about a baron who takes up with his eight-year-old ward - so I made them all practice saying, 'don't touch me, I'll scream,' and then also the screaming part. It took practice! It's hard for a lot of people, or at least children, to actually scream as loud as they can, on purpose!"

Blink blink. "Does that work around here, against the sort of person who'd go after an eight year old?"

"It would bring people running inside the theater. I wouldn't expect it to help much if someone caught them at school."

"It's really nice that everyone at the theater'd care enough to try and help."

"I like to think there was always some conscience hiding in all the puffery about protecting the investments."

She nods. "Maybe if I go back home after this I can try teaching people to scream, too."

"You have to warn everybody you're doing it. Though then it can be practice for them too, they can practice dropping what they're doing to come help!"

"Oh, that's a good idea."

"Do you suppose it's worth trying to work out whether the paladin meant something worthwhile or will it be fine if it just never gets resolved?"

"...I'm not sure. It might depend on whether or not Rights is going to ask him back to answer more questions about how they do things in Lastwall."

"Which they might do, it's probably a good place to look for examples. Them and Andoran."